of executive power.  To the sustaining of that power, the passage of this bill is of the utmost importance.  The administration will regard its success as being to them, what Cromwell said the battle of Worcester was to him, “a crowning mercy.”  Whether gentlemen, who have distinguished themselves so much by their extreme jealousy of this government, shall now find it consistent with their principles to give their aid in effecting this consummation, remains to be seen.

The next exposition of the honorable gentleman’s sentiments and opinions is in his letter of the 3d of November.

This letter, Sir, is a curiosity.  As a paper describing political operations, and exhibiting political opinions, it is without a parallel.  Its phrase is altogether military.  It reads like a despatch, or a bulletin from head-quarters.  It is full of attacks, assaults, and repulses.  It recounts movements and counter-movements; speaks of occupying one position, falling back upon another, and advancing to a third; it has positions to cover enemies, and positions to hold allies in check.  Meantime, the celerity of all these operations reminds one of the rapidity of the military actions of the king of Prussia, in the Seven Years’ war.  Yesterday, he was in the South, giving battle to the Austrian; to-day he is in Saxony, or Silesia.  Instantly he is found to have traversed the Electorate, and is facing the Russian and the Swede on his northern frontier.  If you look for his place on the map, before you find it he has quitted it.  He is always marching, flying, falling back, wheeling, attacking, defending, surprising; fighting everywhere, and fighting all the time.  In one particular, however, the campaigns described in this letter are conducted in a different manner from those of the great Frederick.  I think we nowhere read, in the narrative of Frederick’s achievements, of his taking a position to cover an enemy, or a position to hold an ally in check.  These refinements in the science of tactics and of war are of more recent discovery.

Mr. President, public men must certainly be allowed to change their opinions, and their associations, whenever they see fit.  No one doubts this.  Men may have grown wiser; they may have attained to better and more correct views of great public subjects.  It would be unfortunate, if there were any code which should oblige men, in public or private life, to adhere to opinions once entertained, in spite of experience and better knowledge, and against their own convictions of their erroneous character.  Nevertheless, Sir, it must be acknowledged, that what appears to be a sudden, as well as a great change, naturally produces a shock.  I confess that, for one, I was shocked when the honorable gentleman, at the last session, espoused this bill of the administration.  And when I first read this letter of November, and, in the short space of a column and a half, ran through such a succession of political movements, all terminating in placing the honorable member in the ranks of our opponents, and entitling him to take his seat, as he has done, among them, if not at their head, I confess I felt still greater surprise.  All this seemed a good deal too abrupt.  Sudden movements of the affections, whether personal or political, are a little out of nature.