the bread out of our children's mouths and give it
to strangers. I appeal to you, Sir, (turning to Captain Benjamin Rich,
who sat by him,) is not this true? (Mr. Rich at once replied, True!) Is
every measure of this sort, for the relief of such abuses, to be
rejected? Are we to suffer ourselves to remain inactive under every
grievance of this kind until these three years shall expire, and through
as many more as shall pass until Providence shall bless us with more
power of doing good than we have now?

Again, there are now in this State persons employed under government,
allowed to be pretty good Whigs, still holding their offices;
collectors, district attorneys, postmasters, marshals. What is to become
of them in this separation? Which side are they to fall? Are they to
resign? or is this resolution to be held up to government as an
invitation or a provocation to turn them out? Our distinguished
fellow-citizen, who, with so much credit to himself and to his country,
represents our government in England,[3]--is _he_ expected to come home,
on this separation, and yield his place to his predecessor,[4] or to
somebody else? And in regard to the individual who addresses you,--what
do his brother Whigs mean to do with him? Where do they mean to place
me? Generally, when a divorce takes place, the parties divide their
children. I am anxious to know where, in the case of this divorce, I
shall fall. This declaration announces a full and final separation
between the Whigs of Massachusetts and the President. If I choose to
remain in the President's councils, do these gentlemen mean to say that
I cease to be a Massachusetts Whig? I am quite ready to put that
question to the people of Massachusetts.

I would not treat this matter too lightly, nor yet too seriously. I know
very well that, when public bodies get together, resolutions can never
be considered with any degree of deliberation. They are passed as they
are presented. Who the honorable gentlemen were who drew this resolution
I do not know. I suspect that they had not much meaning in it, and that
they have not very clearly defined what little meaning they had. They
were angry; they were resentful; they had drawn up a string of charges
against the President,--a bill of indictment, as it were,--and, to close
the whole, they introduced this declaration about "a full and final
separation." I could not read this, of course, without perceiving that
it had an intentional or unint