In the institution of a prosecution for any offense against the most humble citizen—­and I claim for myself no greater rights than he enjoys—­the constitutions of the United States and of the several States require that he shall be informed in the very beginning of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, in order to enable him to prepare for his defense.  There are other principles which I might enumerate, not less sacred, presenting an impenetrable shield to protect every citizen falsely charged with a criminal offense.  These have been violated in the prosecution instituted by the House of Representatives against the executive branch of the Government.  Shall the President alone be deprived of the protection of these great principles which prevail in every land where a ray of liberty penetrates the gloom of despotism?  Shall the Executive alone be deprived of rights which all his fellow-citizens enjoy?  The whole proceeding against him justifies the fears of those wise and great men who, before the Constitution was adopted by the States, apprehended that the tendency of the Government was to the aggrandizement of the legislative at the expense of the executive and judicial departments.

I again declare emphatically that I make this protest for no reason personal to myself, and I do it with perfect respect for the House of Representatives, in which I had the honor of serving as a member for five successive terms.  I have lived long in this goodly land, and have enjoyed all the offices and honors which my country could bestow.  Amid all the political storms through which I have passed, the present is the first attempt which has ever been made, to my knowledge, to assail my personal or official integrity; and this as the time is approaching when I shall voluntarily retire from the service of my country.  I feel proudly conscious that there is no public act of my life which will not bear the strictest scrutiny.  I defy all investigation.  Nothing but the basest perjury can sully my good name.  I do not fear even this, because I cherish an humble confidence that the gracious Being who has hitherto defended and protected me against the shafts of falsehood and malice will not desert me now when I have become “old and gray headed.”  I can declare before God and my country that no human being (with an exception scarcely worthy of notice) has at any period of my life dared to approach me with a corrupt or dishonorable proposition, and until recent developments it had never entered into my imagination that any person, even in the storm of exasperated political excitement, would charge me in the most remote degree with having made such a proposition to any human being.  I may now, however, exclaim in the language of complaint employed by my first and greatest predecessor, that I have been abused “in such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero, to a notorious defaulter, or even to a common pickpocket.”