ch he now holds. Suppose this were so; why should _he_ therefore
abuse New England? If he finds himself countenanced by acts of hers, how
is it that, while he relies on these acts, he covers, or seeks to cover,
their authors with reproach? But, Sir, if, in the course of forty years,
there have been undue effervescences of party in New England, has the
same thing happened nowhere else? Party animosity and party outrage, not
in New England, but elsewhere, denounced President Washington, not only
as a Federalist, but as a Tory, a British agent, a man who, in his high
office, sanctioned corruption. But does the honorable member suppose, if
I had a tender here who should put such an effusion of wickedness and
folly into my hand, that I would stand up and read it against the South?
Parties ran into great heats again in 1799 and 1800. What was said, Sir,
or rather what was not said, in those years, against John Adams, one of
the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, and its
admitted ablest defender on the floor of Congress? If the gentleman
wishes to increase his stores of party abuse and frothy violence, if he
has a determined proclivity to such pursuits, there are treasures of
that sort south of the Potomac, much to his taste, yet untouched. I
shall not touch them.

The parties which divided the country at the commencement of the late
war were violent. But then there was violence on both sides, and
violence in every State. Minorities and majorities were equally violent.
There was no more violence against the war in New England, than in other
States; nor any more appearance of violence, except that, owing to a
dense population, greater facility of assembling, and more presses,
there may have been more in quantity spoken and printed there than in
some other places. In the article of sermons, too, New England is
somewhat more abundant than South Carolina; and for that reason the
chance of finding here and there an exceptionable one may be greater. I
hope, too, there are more good ones. Opposition may have been more
formidable in New England, as it embraced a larger portion of the whole
population; but it was no more unrestrained in principle, or violent in
manner. The minorities dealt quite as harshly with their own State
governments as the majorities dealt with the administration here. There
were presses on both sides, popular meetings on both sides, ay, and
pulpits on both sides also. The gentleman's purveyor