of any
change in the opinions of the person filling the chair of the Senate. If
such change has taken place, I regret it. I speak generally of the State
of South Carolina. Individuals we know there are who hold opinions
favorable to the power. An application for its exercise, in behalf of a
public work in South Carolina itself, is now pending, I believe, in the
other house, presented by members from that State.

I have thus, Sir, perhaps not without some tediousness of detail, shown,
if I am in error on the subject of internal improvement, how, and in
what company, I fell into that error. If I am wrong, it is apparent who
misled me.

I go to other remarks of the honorable member; and I have to complain of
an entire misapprehension of what I said on the subject of the national
debt, though I can hardly perceive how any one could misunderstand me.
What I said was, not that I wished to put off the payment of the debt,
but, on the contrary, that I had always voted for every measure for its
reduction, as uniformly as the gentleman himself. He seems to claim the
exclusive merit of a disposition to reduce the public charge. I do not
allow it to him. As a debt, I was, I am for paying it, because it is a
charge on our finances, and on the industry of the country. But I
observed, that I thought I perceived a morbid fervor on that subject, an
excessive anxiety to pay off the debt, not so much because it is a debt
simply, as because, while it lasts, it furnishes one objection to
disunion. It is, while it continues, a tie of common interest. I did not
impute such motives to the honorable member himself, but that there is
such a feeling in existence I have not a particle of doubt. The most I
said was, that, if one effect of the debt was to strengthen our Union,
that effect itself was not regretted by me, however much others might
regret it. The gentleman has not seen how to reply to this, otherwise
than by supposing me to have advanced the doctrine that a national debt
is a national blessing. Others, I must hope, will find much less
difficulty in understanding me. I distinctly and pointedly cautioned the
honorable member not to understand me as expressing an opinion favorable
to the continuance of the debt. I repeated this caution, and repeated it
more than once; but it was thrown away.

On yet another point, I was still more unaccountably misunderstood. The
gentleman had harangued against "consolidation." I told him, in reply,
th