ed the other. "I can see how
it's going. Here, the first thing General Jackson did, when he came in,
he wanted to have the president elected for six years; and, by and by,
they will want him for ten; and now they want to cut up our orchards and
meadows, whether or no. That's just the way Bonaparte went on. What's
the use of states, if they are all to be cut up with canals, and
railroads, and tariffs? No, no, gentlemen; you may depend Old Virginny's
not going to let Congress carry on in her day."

"How can they help it?" asked Sandy.

"We haven't _fout_ and bled," rejoined the other, taking out of his
pocket a large piece of tobacco, and cutting off a quid, as he spoke in
a somewhat subdued tone,--"we haven't _fout_ and bled for our liberties
to have our posterity and their land circumcised after this rate, to
suit the figaries of Congress. So let them try it when they will."

"Mr. Ned Hazard, what do you call state rights?" demanded Sandy.

"It's a sort of a law," said the other speaker, taking the answer to
himself, "against cotton and wool."

* * * * *

From his "Life of William Wirt."

=_292._= WIRT'S STYLE OF ORATORY.

He became, in the maturity of his career, one of the most philosophic
and accomplished lawyers of his time. In earlier life, he was remarked
for a florid imagination, and a power of vivid declamation,--faculties
which are but too apt to seduce their possessor to waste his strength
in that flimsier eloquence, which more captivates the crowd without
the bar, than the Judge upon the bench, and whose fatal facility often
ensnares ambitious youth capable of better things, by its cheap applause
and temptation to that indolence which may be indulged without loss of
popularity. The public seem to have ascribed to Mr. Wirt some such,
reputation as this, when he first attracted notice. He came upon the
broader theater of his fame under this disadvantage. He was aware of
it himself, and labored with matchless perseverance to disabuse the
tribunals, with which he was familiar, of this disparaging opinion. How
he succeeded, his compeers at the bar have often testified. None amongst
them ever brought to the judgment-seat a more complete preparation for
trial--none ever more thoroughly argued a case through minute analysis
and nice discrimination of principles. In logical precision of mind,
clearness of statement, full investigation of complicated points, and
close compariso