to be asserted and preserved only by a vote in the negative. We
hear it said that this is a struggle for liberty, a manly resistance
against the design to nullify this assembly and to make it a cipher
in the government; that the President and Senate, the numerous
meetings in the cities, and the influence of the general alarm of
the country, are the agents and instruments of a scheme of coercion
and terror, to force the treaty down our throats, though we loathe
it, and in spite of the clearest convictions of duty and conscience.

It is necessary to pause here and inquire whether suggestions of
this kind be not unfair in their very texture and fabric, and
pernicious in all their influences. They oppose an obstacle in the
path of inquiry, not simply discouraging, but absolutely
insurmountable. They will not yield to argument; for as they were
not reasoned up, they cannot be reasoned down. They are higher than
a Chinese wall in truth's way, and built of materials that are
indestructible. While this remains, it is vain to argue; it is vain
to say to this mountain, Be thou cast into the sea. For, I ask of
the men of knowledge of the world whether they would not hold him
for a blockhead that should hope to prevail in an argument whose
scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected
proselyte? I ask, further, when such attempts have been made, have
they not failed of success? The indignant heart repels a conviction
that is believed to debase it.

The self-love of an individual is not warmer in its sense, nor more
constant in its action, than what is called in French, _l'esprit_
_du_ _corps_, or the self-love of an assembly; that jealous
affection which a body of men is always found to bear towards its
own prerogatives and power. I will not condemn this passion. Why
should we urge an unmeaning censure or yield to groundless fears
that truth and duty will be abandoned, because men in a public
assembly are still men, and feel that _esprit_ _du_ _corps_ which is
one of the laws of their nature? Still less should we despond or
complain, if we reflect that this very spirit is a guardian instinct
that watches over the life of this assembly. It cherishes the
principle of self-preservation, and without its existence, and its
existence with all the strength we see it possess, the privileges of
the representatives of the people, and mediately the liberties of
the people, would not be guarded, as they are, with a