gal argument is intended to be severely
satirized, while the advocate is tediously groping among ancient lore
having nothing to do with his case, the judge grows impatient, and at
last cries out to him to _come down to the flood_! I really wish, Sir,
that the writer of this Protest, since he was discussing matters of the
highest importance to us as Americans, and which arise out of our own
peculiar Constitution, had kept himself, not only on this side the
general deluge, but also on this side the Atlantic. I desire that the
broad waves of that wide sea should continue to roll between us and the
influence of those foreign principles and foreign precedents which he so
eagerly adopts.

In asserting power for an American President, I prefer that he should
attempt to maintain his assertions on American reasons. I know not, Sir,
who the writer was (I wish I did); but whoever he was, it is manifest
that he argues this part of his case, throughout, on the principles of
the constitution of England. It is true, that, in England, the king is
regarded as the original fountain of all honor and all office; and that
anciently, indeed, he possessed all political power of every kind. It is
true that this mass of authority, in the progress of that government,
has been diminished, restrained, and controlled, by charters, by
immunities, by grants, and by various modifications, which the friends
of liberty have, at different periods, been able to obtain or to impose.
All liberty, as we know, all popular privileges, as indeed the word
itself imports, were formerly considered as favors and concessions from
the monarch. But whenever and wherever civil freedom could get a
foothold, and could maintain itself, these favors were turned into
rights. Before and during the reigns of the princes of the Stuart
family, they were acknowledged only as favors or privileges graciously
allowed, although, even then, whenever opportunity offered, as in the
instance to which I alluded just now, they were contended for as rights;
and by the Revolution of 1688 they were acknowledged as the rights of
Englishmen, by the prince who then ascended the throne, and as the
condition on which he was allowed to sit upon it. But with us there
never was a time when we acknowledged original, unrestrained, sovereign
power over us. Our constitutions are not made to limit and restrain
pre-existing authority. They are the instruments by which the people
confer power on their own