all disguises, every enemy advancing, in any form, towards the citadel which he guards?  Sir, this watchfulness for public liberty; this duty of foreseeing danger and proclaiming it; this promptitude and boldness in resisting attacks on the Constitution from any quarter; this defence of established landmarks; this fearless resistance of whatever would transcend or remove them,—­all belong to the representative character, are interwoven with its very nature.  If deprived of them, an active, intelligent, faithful agent of the people will be converted into an unresisting and passive instrument of power.  A representative body, which gives up these rights and duties, gives itself up.  It is a representative body no longer.  It has broken the tie between itself and its constituents, and henceforth is fit only to be regarded as an inert, self-sacrificed mass, from which all appropriate principle of vitality has departed for ever.

I have thus endeavored to vindicate the right of the Senate to pass the resolution of the 28th of March, notwithstanding the denial of that right in the Protest.

But there are other sentiments and opinions expressed in the Protest, of the very highest importance, and which demand nothing less than our utmost attention.

The first object of a free people is the preservation of their liberty; and liberty is only to be preserved by maintaining constitutional restraints and just divisions of political power.  Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify government.  The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest, limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority, and give many positive and many qualified rights.  In other words, they must be subject to rule and regulation.  This is the very essence of free political institutions.  The spirit of liberty is, indeed, a bold and fearless spirit; but it is also a sharp-sighted spirit, it is a cautious, sagacious, discriminating, far-seeing intelligence; it is jealous of encroachment, jealous of power, jealous of man.  It demands checks; it seeks for guards; it insists on securities; it intrenches itself behind strong defences, and fortifies itself with all possible care against the assaults of ambition and passion.  It does not trust the amiable weaknesses of human nature, and therefore it will not permit power to overstep its prescribed limits, though benevolence, good intent, and patriotic purpose come along with it.  Neither does it satisfy itself with flashy and temporary resistance to illegal authority.  Far otherwise.  It seeks for duration and permanence.  It looks before and after; and, building on the experience of ages which are past, it labors diligently for the benefit of ages to come.  This is the nature of constitutional liberty; and this is our liberty, if we will rightly understand and preserve it.  Every free government is necessarily complicated,