storms that beat against its sides
than is this illustrious man by the howlings of the whole British pack,
set loose from the Essex kennel. When the gentleman to whom I have been
compelled to allude shall have mingled his dust with that of his abused
ancestors, when he shall have been consigned to oblivion, or, if he
lives at all, shall live only in the treasonable annals of a certain
junto, the name of Jefferson will be hailed with gratitude, his memory
honored and cherished as the second founder of the liberties of the
people, and the period of his administration will be looked back to as
one of the happiest and brightest epochs of American history; an oasis
in the midst of a sandy desert. But I beg the gentleman's pardon; he has
already secured to himself a more imperishable fame than I had supposed;
I think it was about four years that he submitted to the House of
Representatives an initiative proposition for the impeachment of Mr.
Jefferson. The house condescended to consider it. The gentleman debated
it with his usual temper, moderation, and urbanity. The house decided
upon it in the most solemn manner, and, although the gentleman had
somehow obtained a second, the final vote stood one for, and one hundred
and seventeen against, the proposition. * * *

But sir, I must speak of another subject, which I never think of but
with feelings of the deepest awe. The gentleman from Massachusetts, in
imitation of some of his predecessors of 1799, has entertained us with a
picture of cabinet plots, presidential plots, and all sorts of plots,
which have been engendered by the diseased state of the gentleman's
imagination. I wish, sir, that another plot, of a much more serious and
alarming character--a plot that aims at the dismemberment of our
Union--had only the same imaginary existence. But no man, who has paid
any attention to the tone of certain prints and to transactions in a
particular quarter of the Union, for several years past, can doubt the
existence of such a plot. It was far, very far from my intention to
charge the opposition with such a design. No, I believe them generally
incapable of it. But I cannot say as much for some who have been
unworthily associated with them in the quarter of the Union to which I
have referred. The gentleman cannot have forgotten his own sentiment,
uttered even on the floor of this house, "peaceably if we can, forcibly
if we must," nearly at the very time Henry's mission was undertaken.