of a century ago; Spain engages to pay twelve millions of
reals vellon for injuries of fifteen years' date; and Portugal, the last
in the list of former aggressors, admits her liability and only waits
the adjustment of details to close her account by adequate indemnity. So
far from war, insult, contempt, and spoliation from abroad, this
denounced administration has been the season of peace and good will and
the auspicious era of universal reparation. So far from suffering injury
at the hands of foreign powers, our merchants have received indemnities
for all former injuries. It has been the day of accounting, of
settlement, and of retribution. The total list of arrearages, extending
through four successive previous administrations, has been closed and
settled up. The wrongs done to commerce for thirty years back, and under
so many different Presidents, and indemnities withheld from all, have
been repaired and paid over under the beneficent and glorious
administration of President Jackson. But one single instance of outrage
has occurred, and that at the extremities of the world, and by a
piratical horde, amenable to no law but the law of force. The Malays of
Sumatra committed a robbery and massacre upon an American vessel.
Wretches! they did not then know that JACKSON was President of the
United States! and that no distance, no time, no idle ceremonial of
treating with robbers and assassins, was to hold back the arm of
justice. Commodore Downes went out. His cannon and his bayonets struck
the outlaws in their den. They paid in terror and in blood for the
outrage which was committed; and the great lesson was taught to these
distant pirates--to our antipodes themselves,--that not even the entire
diameter of this globe could protect them, and that the name of American
citizen, like that of Roman citizen in the great days of the Republic
and of the empire, was to be the inviolable passport of all that wore it
throughout the whole extent of the habitable world. * * *

From President Jackson, the country has first learned the true theory
and practical intent of the Constitution, in giving to the Executive a
qualified negative on the legislative power of Congress. Far from being
an odious, dangerous, or kingly prerogative, this power, as vested in
the President, is nothing but a qualified copy of the famous veto power
vested in the tribunes of the people among the Romans, and intended to
suspend the passage of a law until the peo