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 gentleman's purveyors have
only catered for him among the productions of one side. I certainly
shall not supply the deficiency by furnishing him samples of the other.
I leave to him, and to them, the whole concern. It is enough for me to
say, that if, in any part of their grateful occupation, if, in all their
researches, they find any thing in the history of Massachusetts, or of
New England, or in the proceedings of any legislative or other public
body, disloyal to the Union, speaking slightingly of its value,
proposing to break it up, or recommending non-intercourse with
neighboring States, on account of difference in political opinion, then,
sir, I give them all up to the honorable gentleman's unrestrained
rebuke; expecting, however, that he will extend his buffetings in like
manner, to all similar proceedings, wherever else found. * * *

Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such as it is, into New England,
the honorable gentleman all along professes to be acting on the
defensive. He chooses to consider me as having assailed South Carolina,
and insists that he comes forth only as her champion, and in her
defence. Sir, I do not admit that I made any attack whatever on South
Carolina. Nothing like it. The honorable member, in his first speech,
expressed opinions, in regard to revenue and some other topics, which I
heard with both pain and surprise. I told the gentleman I was aware that
such sentiments were entertained out of the Government, but had not
expected to find them advanced in it; that I knew there were persons in
the South who speak of our Union with indifference or doubt, taking
pains to magnify its evils, and to say nothing of its benefits; that the
honorable member himself, I was sure, could never be one of these; and I
regretted the expression of such opinions as he had avowed, beca