Page:Webster and Hayne's Celebrated Speeches.djvu/67

Rh instances of party excitement, of something more than usual strength and intensity. In all these conflicts there was, no doubt, much of violence on both and all sides. It would be impossible, if one had a fancy for such employment, to adjust the relative quantum of violence between these two contending parties. There was enough in each, as must always be expected in popular governments. With a great deal of proper and decorous discussion there was mingled a great deal, also, of declamation, virulence, crimination, and abuse.

In regard to any party, probably, at one of the leading epochs in the history of parties, enough may be found to make out another equally inflamed exhibition as that with which the honorable member has edified us. For myself, sir, I shall not rake among the rubbish of by-gone times to see what I can find, or whether I cannot find something by which I can fix a blot on the escutcheon of any state, any party, or any part of the country. General Washington’s administration was steadily and zealously maintained, as we all know, by New England. It was violently opposed elsewhere. We know in what quarter he had the most earnest, constant, and persevering support, in all his great and leading measures. We know where his private and personal character were held in the highest degree of attachment and veneration; and we know, too, where his measures were opposed, his services slighted, and his character vilified.

We know, or we might know, if we turn to the journals, who expressed respect, gratitude, and regret, when he retired from the chief magistracy; and who refused to express either respect, gratitude, or regret. I shall not open those journals. Publications more abusive or scurrilous never saw the light than were sent forth against Washington, and all his leading measures, from presses south of New England; but I shall not look them up. I employ no scavengers—no one is in attendance on me, tendering such means of retaliation; and if there were, with an ass’s load of them, with a bulk as huge as that which the gentleman himself has produced, I would not touch one of them. I see enough of the violence of our own times to be no way anxious to rescue from forgetfulness the extravagances of times past. Besides, what is all this to the present purpose? It has nothing to do with the public lands, in regard to which the attack was begun; and it has nothing to do with those sentiments and opinions, which I have thought tend to disunion, and all of which the honorable member seems to have adopted himself, and undertaken to defend. New England has, at times,—so argues the gentleman,—held opinions as dangerous as those which he now holds. Be it so. But why, therefore, does he 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 that, if I had a tender here, who should put such an effusion of wickedness and folly in 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