nor in public life anywhere.  I was pursuing my profession, keeping company with judges and jurors, and plaintiffs and defendants.  If I had been in Congress, and had enjoyed the benefit of hearing the honorable gentleman’s speeches, for aught I can say, I might have concurred with him.  But I was not in public life.  I never had been, for a single hour; and was in no situation, therefore, to oppose or to support the declaration of war.  I am speaking to the fact, Sir; and if the gentleman has any fact, let us know it.  Well, Sir, I came into Congress during the war.  I found it waged, and raging.  And what did I do here to oppose it?  Look to the journals.  Let the honorable gentleman tax his memory.  Bring up any thing, if there be any thing to bring up, not showing error of opinion, but showing want of loyalty or fidelity to the country.  I did not agree to all that was proposed, nor did the honorable member.  I did not approve of every measure, nor did he.  The war had been preceded by the restrictive system and the embargo.  As a private individual, I certainly did not think well of these measures.  It appeared to me that the embargo annoyed ourselves as much as our enemies, while it destroyed the business and cramped the spirits of the people.  In this opinion I may have been right or wrong, but the gentleman was himself of the same opinion.  He told us the other day, as a proof of his independence of party on great questions, that he differed with his friends on the subject of the embargo.  He was decidedly and unalterably opposed to it.  It furnishes in his judgment, therefore, no imputation either on my patriotism, or on the soundness of my political opinions, that I was opposed to it also.  I mean opposed in opinion; for I was not in Congress, and had nothing to do with the act creating the embargo.  And as to opposition to measures for carrying on the war, after I came into Congress, I again say, let the gentleman specify; let him lay his finger on any thing calling for an answer, and he shall have an answer.

Mr. President, you were yourself in the House during a considerable part of this time.  The honorable gentleman may make a witness of you.  He may make a witness of anybody else.  He may be his own witness.  Give us but some fact, some charge, something capable in itself either of being proved or disproved.  Prove any thing, state any thing, not consistent with honorable and patriotic conduct, and I am ready to answer it.  Sir, I am glad this subject has been alluded to in a manner which justifies me in taking public notice of it; because I am well aware that, for ten years past, infinite pains has been taken to find something, in the range of these topics, which might create prejudice against me in the country.  The journals have all been pored over, and the reports ransacked, and scraps of paragraphs and half-sentences have been collected, fraudulently put together, and then made to flare out as if there had been some discovery.