e intended on the one hand to be
controlled and on the other to be protected, and calculated by their
immediate and collateral effects, by their character and tendency, to
concentrate in the hands of a body not directly amenable to the people
a degree of influence and power dangerous to their liberties and fatal
to the Constitution of their choice.

The resolution of the Senate contains an imputation upon my private as
well as upon my public character, and as it must stand forever on their
journals, I can not close this substitute for that defense which I have
not been allowed to present in the ordinary form without remarking
that I have lived in vain if it be necessary to enter into a formal
vindication of my character and purposes from such an imputation. In
vain do I bear upon my person enduring memorials of that contest in
which American liberty was purchased; in vain have I since periled
property, fame, and life in defense of the rights and privileges so
dearly bought; in vain am I now, without a personal aspiration or the
hope of individual advantage, encountering responsibilities and dangers
from which by mere inactivity in relation to a single point I might have
been exempt, if any serious doubts can be entertained as to the purity
of my purposes and motives. If I had been ambitious, I should have
sought an alliance with that powerful institution which even now aspires
to no divided empire. If I had been venal, I should have sold myself to
its designs. Had I preferred personal comfort and official ease to the
performance of my arduous duty, I should have ceased to molest it. In
the history of conquerors and usurpers, never in the fire of youth nor
in the vigor of manhood could I find an attraction to lure me from the
path of duty, and now I shall scarcely find an inducement to commence
their career of ambition when gray hairs and a decaying frame, instead
of inviting to toil and battle, call me to the contemplation of other
worlds, where conquerors cease to be honored and usurpers expiate their
crimes. The only ambition I can feel is to acquit myself to Him to whom
I must soon render an account of my stewardship, to serve my fellow-men,
and live respected and honored in the history of my country. No;
the ambition which leads me on is an anxious desire and a fixed
determination to return to the people unimpaired the sacred trust they
have confided to my charge; to heal the wounds of the Constitution and
preserve