t, is such an
accumulation of power in the hands of the executive according to the
spirit of our system? Is it either wise or safe? Has it any warrant in
the practice of former times? Or are gentlemen ready to establish the
practice, as an example for the benefit of those who are to come after
us?

But, Sir, if the power to make reprisals, and this money from the
treasury, had both been granted, is there not great reason to believe
that we should have been now actually at war? I think there is great
reason to believe this. It will be said, I know, that if we had armed
the President with this power of war, and supplied him with this grant
of money, France would have taken it for such a proof of spirit on our
part, that she would have paid the indemnity without further delay. This
is the old story, and the old plea. It is the excuse of every one who
desires more power than the Constitution or the laws give him, that if
he had more power he could do more good. Power is always claimed for the
good of the people; and dictators are always made, when made at all, for
the good of the people. For my part, Sir, I was content, and am content,
to show France that we are prepared to maintain our just rights against
her by the exertion of our power, when need be, according to the forms
of our own Constitution; that, if we make war, we will make it
constitutionally; and that we will trust all our interests, both in
peace and war, to what the intelligence and the strength of the country
may do for them, without breaking down or endangering the fabric of our
free institutions.

Mr. President, it is the misfortune of the Senate to have differed with
the executive on many great questions during the last four or five
years. I have regretted this state of things deeply, both on personal
and on public accounts; but it has been unavoidable. It is no pleasant
employment, it is no holiday business, to maintain opposition against
power and against majorities, and to contend for stern and sturdy
principle, against personal popularity, against a rushing and
overwhelming confidence, that, by wave upon wave and cataract after
cataract, seems to be bearing away and destroying whatsoever would
withstand it. How much longer we may be able to support this opposition
in any degree, or whether we can possibly hold out till the public
intelligence and the public patriotism shall be awakened to a due sense
of the public danger, it is not for me to foretel