hat the gentlemen alluded
to acted under the influence of improper motives. What then? Is a law
that has received the varied assent required by the Constitution and is
clothed with all the needful formalities thereby invalidated? Can you
impair its force by impeaching the motives of any member who voted for
it? GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.

From "Speech on the Judiciary."

* * * * *
Let us pause, sir, before we give an answer to this question. The fate
of us, the fate of millions now alive, the fate of millions yet unborn,
depend upon the answer. Let it be the result of calmness and
intrepidity; let it be dictated by the principles of loyalty and the
principles of liberty. Let it be such as never, in the worst events, to
give us reason to reproach ourselves, or others reason to reproach us,
for having done too much or too little. JAMES WILSON.

From "Vindication of the Colonies."

* * * * *

It is impossible to deny the facts, which were so glaring at the time.
It is a painful thing to me, sir, to be obliged to go back to these
unfortunate periods of the history of this war and of the conduct of
this country; but I am forced to the task by the use which has been made
of the atrocities of the French as an argument against negotiation. I
think I have said enough to prove that if the French have been guilty we
have not been innocent. Nothing but determined incredulity can make us
deaf and blind to our own acts, when we are so ready to yield an assent
to all the reproaches which are thrown out on the enemy, and upon which
reproaches we are gravely told to continue the war. CHARLES JAMES FOX.

From "On the Rejection of Bonaparte's Overtures."

* * * * *

Now I think the people ought not to be made to wait for the relief they
have a right to demand. They ought not to be made to suffer while we
argue one another out of the recorded and inveterate opinions of our
whole lives. I say, therefore, for myself, that, anxious to afford them
all the relief which they require, regretting that the state of opinion
around me puts it out of my power to afford that relief in the form I
might prefer. I accommodate myself to my position, and make haste to do
all that I can by the shortest way that I can. Consider how much better
it is to relieve them to some substantial extent by this means, at once,
than not to relieve at all, than not to initiate a s