ne of his employment is of a character
to abstract and alienate his mind entirely from the knowledge necessary
to good, and even to saving management.

If it were thought worth while to specify any particular services
rendered, I would refer to the specification of them made by the
legislature itself in their Farewell Address, on my retiring from
the Presidency, February, 1809. [This will be found in 2 Pleasant's
Collection, page 144.] There is one, however, not therein specified, the
most important in its consequences, of any transaction in any portion
of my life; to wit, the head I personally made against the federal
principles and proceedings, during the administration of Mr. Adams.
Their usurpations and violations of the constitution at that period, and
their majority in both Houses of Congress, were so great, so decided,
and so daring, that after combating their aggressions, inch by inch,
without being able in the least to check their career, the republican
leaders thought it would be best for them to give up their useless
efforts there, go home, get into their respective legislatures, embody
whatever of resistance they could be formed into, and if ineffectual, to
perish there as in the last ditch. All, therefore, retired, leaving
Mr. Gallatin alone in the House of Representatives, and myself in the
Senate, where I then presided as Vice-President. Remaining at our posts,
and bidding defiance to the brow-beatings and insults by which they
endeavored to drive us off also, we kept the mass of republicans in
phalanx together, until the legislatures could be brought up to the
charge; and nothing on earth is more certain, than that if myself
particularly, placed by my office of Vice-President at the head of the
republicans, had given way and withdrawn from my post, the republicans
throughout the Union would have given up in despair, and the cause
would have been lost for ever. By holding on, we obtained time for the
legislatures to come up with their weight; and those of Virginia
and Kentucky particularly, but more especially the former, by their
celebrated resolutions, saved the constitution, at its last gasp. No
person who was not a witness of the scenes of that gloomy period, can
form any idea of the afflicting persecutions and personal indignities we
had to brook. They saved our country however. The spirits of the people
were so much subdued and reduced to despair by the X. Y. Z. imposture,
and other stratagems and m