at their hearts.

The honorable gentleman from Virginia wandered to the very confines
of the federal administration, in search of materials the most
inflammable and most capable of kindling the passions of his
party. ...

I did suppose, sir, that this business was at an end; and I did
imagine, that as gentlemen had accomplished their object, they would
have been satisfied. But as the subject is again renewed, we must be
allowed to justify our conduct. I know not what the gentleman calls
an expression of the public will. There were two candidates for the
office of President, who were presented to the House of
Representatives with equal suffrages. The constitution gave us the
right and made it our duty to elect that one of the two whom we
thought preferable. A public man is to notice the public will as
constitutionally expressed. The gentleman from Virginia, and many
others, may have had their preference; but that preference of the
public will not appear by its constitutional expression. Sir, I am
not certain that either of those candidates had a majority of the
country in his favor. Excluding the State of South Carolina, the
country was equally divided. We know that parties in that State were
nearly equally balanced, and the claims of both the candidates were
supported by no other scrutiny into the public will than our
official return of votes. Those votes are very imperfect evidence of
the true will of a majority of the nation. They resulted from
political intrigue and artificial arrangement.

When we look at the votes, we must suppose that every man in
Virginia voted the same way. These votes are received as a correct
expression of the public will. And yet we know that if the votes of
that State were apportioned according to the several voices of the
people, that at least seven out of twenty-one would have been
opposed to the successful candidate. It was the suppression of the
will of one-third of Virginia, which enables gentlemen now to say
that the present chief magistrate is the man of the people. I
consider that as the public will, which is expressed by
constitutional organs. To that will I bow and submit. The public
will, thus manifested, gave to the House of Representatives the
choice of the two men for President. Neither of them was the man
whom I wished to make President; but my election was confined by the
constitution to one of the two, and I gave my vote to the one whom I
thought was