And what did we witness, Sir, when the administration actually commenced, in the full exercise of its authority?  One universal sweep, one undistinguishing blow, levelled against all who were not of the successful party.  No worth, public or private, no service, civil or military, was of power to resist the relentless greediness of proscription.  Soldiers of the late war, soldiers of the Revolutionary war, the very contemporaries of the independence of the country, all lost their situations.  No office was too high, and none too low; for office was the spoil, and “all the spoils,” it is said, “belong to the victors”!  If a man holding an office necessary for his daily support had presented himself covered with the scars of wounds received in every battle, from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, these would not have protected him against this reckless rapacity.  Nay, Sir, if Warren himself had been among the living, and had possessed any office under government, high or low, he would not have been suffered to hold it a single hour, unless he could show that he had strictly complied with the party statutes, and had put a well-marked party collar round his own neck.  Look, Sir, to the case of the late venerable Major Melville.  He was a personification of the spirit of 1776, one of the earliest to venture in the cause of liberty.  He was of the Tea Party; one of the very first to expose himself to British power.  And his whole life was consonant with this, its beginning.  Always ardent in the cause of liberty, always a zealous friend to his country, always acting with the party which he supposed cherished the genuine republican spirit most fervently, always estimable and respectable in private life, he seemed armed against this miserable petty tyranny of party as far as man could be.  But he felt its blow, and he fell.  He held an office in the custom-house, and had held it for a long course of years; and he was deprived of it, as if unworthy to serve the country which he loved, and for whose liberties, in the vigor of his early manhood, he had thrust himself into the very jaws of its enemies.  There was no mistake in the matter.  His character, his standing, his Revolutionary services, were all well known; but they were known to no purpose; they weighed not one feather against party pretensions.  It cost no pains to remove him; it cost no compunction to wring his aged heart with this retribution from his country for his services, his zeal, and his fidelity.  Sir, you will bear witness,[1] that, when his successor was nominated to the Senate, and the Senate were informed who had been removed to make way for that nomination, its members were struck with horror.  They had not conceived the administration to be capable of such a thing; and yet they said, What can we do?  The man is removed; we cannot recall him; we can only act upon the nomination before us.  Sir, you and I thought otherwise; and I rejoice that we did think otherwise.  We thought it our duty