judgment on the part of Congress? For
one, I am not prepared. The honorable member from Ohio, near me, has
said, that if the enemy had been on our shores he would not have agreed
to this vote. And I say, if the proposition were now before us, and the
guns of the enemy were pointed against the walls of the Capitol, I would
not agree to it.

The people of this country have an interest, a property, an inheritance,
in this INSTRUMENT, against the value of which forty capitols do not
weigh the twentieth part of one poor scruple. There can never be any
necessity for such proceedings, but a feigned and false necessity; a
mere idle and hollow pretence of necessity; least of all can it be said
that any such necessity actually existed on the 3d of March. There was
no enemy on our shores; there were no guns pointed against the Capitol;
we were in no war, nor was there a reasonable probability that we should
have war, unless we made it ourselves.

But whatever was the state of our foreign relations, is it not
preposterous to say, that it was necessary for Congress to adopt this
measure, and yet not necessary for the President to recommend it? Why
should we thus run in advance of all our own duties, and leave the
President completely shielded from his just responsibility? Why should
there be nothing but trust and confidence on our side, and nothing but
discretion and power on his?

Sir, if there be any philosophy in history, if human blood still runs in
human veins, if man still conforms to the identity of his nature, the
institutions which secure constitutional liberty can never stand long
against this excessive personal confidence, against this devotion to
men, in utter disregard both of principle and experience, which seem to
me to be strongly characteristic of our times. This vote came to us,
Sir, from the popular branch of the legislature; and that such a vote
should come from such a branch of the legislature was amongst the
circumstances which excited in me the greatest surprise and the deepest
concern. Certainly, Sir, certainly I was not, on that account, the more
inclined to concur. It was no argument with me, that others seemed to be
rushing, with such heedless, headlong trust, such impetuosity of
confidence, into the arms of executive power. I held back the more
strongly, and would hold back the longer. I see, or I think I see,--it
is either a true vision of the future, revealed by the history of the
past, or, if it be