id the honorable member relinquish these
early opinions and principles of his? When did he make known his
adhesion to the doctrines of the State-rights party? We have been
speaking of transactions in 1816 and 1817. What the gentleman's opinions
then were, we have seen. When did he announce himself a State-rights
man? I have already said, Sir, that nobody knew of his claiming that
character until after the commencement of 1825; and I have said so,
because I have before me an address of his to his neighbors at
Abbeville, in May of that year, in which he recounts, very properly, the
principal incidents in his career as a member of Congress, and as head
of a department; and in which he says that, as a member of Congress, he
had given his zealous efforts in favor of a restoration of specie
currency, of a due protection of those manufactures which had taken root
during the war, and, finally, of a system for connecting the various
parts of the country by a judicious system of internal improvement. He
adds, that it afterwards became his duty, as a member of the
administration, to aid in sustaining against the boldest assaults those
very measures which, as a member of Congress, he had contributed to
establish.

And now, Sir, since the honorable gentleman says he has differed with me
on constitutional questions, will he be pleased to say what
constitutional opinion I have ever avowed for which I have not his
express authority? Is it on the bank power? the tariff power? the power
of internal improvement? I have shown his votes, his speeches, and his
conduct, on all these subjects, up to the time when General Jackson
became a candidate for the Presidency. From that time, Sir, I know we
have differed; but if there was any difference before that time, I call
upon him to point it out, to declare what was the occasion, what the
question, and what the difference. And if before that period, Sir, by
any speech, any vote, any public proceeding, or by any mode of
announcement whatever, he gave the world to know that he belonged to the
State-rights party, I hope he will now be kind enough to produce it, or
to refer to it, or to tell us where we may look for it.

Sir, I will pursue this topic no farther. I would not have pursued it so
far, I would not have entered upon it at all, had it not been for the
astonishment I felt, mingled, I confess, with something of warmer
feeling, when the honorable gentleman declared that he had always
differe