irect avowal of the doctrines of 1798. The text of
the Protest and the text of the obnoxious act[1] of that year are nearly
identical.

But, Sir, if the people have a right to discuss the official conduct of
the executive, so have their representatives. We have been taught to
regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on the watch-tower
of liberty. Is he to be blind, though visible danger approaches? Is he
to be deaf, though sounds of peril fill the air? Is he to be dumb, while
a thousand duties impel him to raise the cry of alarm? Is he not,
rather, to catch the lowest whisper which breathes intention or purpose
of encroachment on the public liberties, and to give his voice breath
and utterance at the first appearance of danger? Is not his eye to
traverse the whole horizon with the keen and eager vision of an
unhooded hawk, detecting, through all disguises, every enemy advancing,
in any form, towards the citadel which he guards? Sir, this watchfulness
for public liberty; this duty of foreseeing danger and proclaiming it;
this promptitude and boldness in resisting attacks on the Constitution
from any quarter; this defence of established landmarks; this fearless
resistance of whatever would transcend or remove them,--all belong to
the representative character, are interwoven with its very nature. If
deprived of them, an active, intelligent, faithful agent of the people
will be converted into an unresisting and passive instrument of power. A
representative body, which gives up these rights and duties, gives
itself up. It is a representative body no longer. It has broken the tie
between itself and its constituents, and henceforth is fit only to be
regarded as an inert, self-sacrificed mass, from which all appropriate
principle of vitality has departed for ever.

I have thus endeavored to vindicate the right of the Senate to pass the
resolution of the 28th of March, notwithstanding the denial of that
right in the Protest.

But there are other sentiments and opinions expressed in the Protest, of
the very highest importance, and which demand nothing less than our
utmost attention.

The first object of a free people is the preservation of their liberty;
and liberty is only to be preserved by maintaining constitutional
restraints and just divisions of political power. Nothing is more
deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify
government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next s