o suspect
the moral honesty--not of these men; but of those who have drawn them
into this singular situation.

After all this round of certifying and reasoning, the shoe still
continues to pinch, and the first Judge again appears before the public
to help the defect. Altho' he signed Thompson's statement in which he
is careful to make use of the language employed by it, and the epithet
_personal_ when he speaks of Mr. Cowen's language, yet when he
afterwards hears of a distinction between _personally_ and _absolutely_
he seems almost struck dumb with astonishment, and says he had never
heard of the distinction before. Now altho' the public will make all
rational allowance for the judge's want of distinction where Mr.
Thompson is concerned, yet I suspect they could hardly account for his
present lack of apprehension, unless he took that statement upon tick,
and signed without reading it.

Still despairing of any thing like a defence upon this ground, the
Citizen at length, p. 24, dismisses his whole train of statements,
certificates and letters, & undertakes very learnedly and elaborately
to refine upon the distinction; and insists that if a man expresses his
_personal wish to resign_, it is to all intents and purposes a
_resignation_, and that no other was ever heard of; as if it was
impossible to consult the opinions of others, and make a _general
resignation_ depend upon their consent. All that it seems necessary in
that case, is for the McBain meeting to resolve to accept what they
thus are pleased to call a resignation, and nominate another candidate.
And this it seems accords with the sense of all the world on the
subject, both federal and republican. Thus the world are at length
after a lapse of ages, furnished with an easy recipe for a
resignation--a sort of _panacea_ to correct all the sores of the body
politic and produce a "_speedy composure of the public mind" "Tereatis
Risum Amici_;" and call no one a political quack playing off his
whimsical nostrums upon the people, whose mental repose lies so near
his heart. If the meeting are told that they _shall be responsible if
they act on a declaration thus limited_, keep it out of view as much as
possible, or say as the citizen does, p. 40, that it was only something
_like that_ or _out of season_, or some such thing. If a committee of
_three_ are chosen to publish the proceedings and _two_ of them write a
_farrago of nonsense_ which puts the whole together by th