paper essay, or to furnish pretty topics of harangue from the
windows of that state house? I trust it is neither too presumptuous
nor too late to ask, Can you put the dearest interest of society at
risk without guilt, and without remorse?

It is vain to offer as an excuse, that public men are not to be
reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue from their
measures. This is very true, where they are unforeseen or
inevitable. Those I have depicted are not unforeseen; they are so
far from inevitable, we are going to bring them into being by our
vote. We choose the consequences, and become as justly answerable
for them as for the measure that we know will produce them.

By rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires--we bind the
victims. This day we undertake to render account to the widows and
orphans whom our decision will make, to the wretches that will be
roasted at the stake, to our country, and I do not deem it too
serious to say, to conscience and to God. We are answerable, and if
duty be anything more than a word of imposture, if conscience be not
a bugbear, we are preparing to make ourselves as wretched as our
country.

There is no mistake in this case; there can be none. Experience has
already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future
victims have already reached us. The western inhabitants are not a
silent and uncomplaining sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues
from the shade of their wilderness. It exclaims, that while one hand
is held up to reject this treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. It
summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great
effort to the imagination to conceive that events so near are
already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage
vengeance and the shrieks of torture. Already they seem to sigh in
the west wind--already they mingle with every echo from the
mountains.

It is not the part of prudence to be inattentive to the tendencies
of measures. Where there is any ground to fear that these will be
pernicious, wisdom and duty forbid that we should underrate them. If
we reject the treaty, will our peace be as safe as if we executed it
with good faith? I do honor to the intrepid spirit of those who say
it will. It was formerly understood to constitute the excellence of
a man's faith to believe without evidence and against it.

But as opinions on this article are changed, and we are called to
act for our country,