This, Sir, was Timothy Pickering’s amendment to the gentleman’s bill.  And now, Sir, how did the honorable gentleman, who has always belonged to the State-rights party,—­how did he treat this amendment, or this substitute?  Which way do you think his State-rights doctrine led him?  Why, Sir, I will tell you.  He immediately rose, and moved to strike out the words “with the assent of the State”!  Here is the journal under my hand, Sir; and here is the gentleman’s motion.  And certainly, Sir, it will be admitted that this motion was not of a nature to intimate that he was wedded to State rights.  But the words were not struck out.  The motion did not prevail.  Mr. Pickering’s substitute was adopted, and the bill passed the House in that form.

In committee of the whole on this bill, Sir, the honorable member made a very able speech both on the policy of internal improvements and the power of Congress over the subject.  These points were fully argued by him.  He spoke of the importance of the system, the vast good it would produce, and its favorable effect on the union of the States.  “Let us, then,” said he, “bind the republic together with a perfect system of roads and canals.  Let us conquer space.  It is thus the most distant parts of the republic will be brought within a few days’ travel of the centre; it is thus that a citizen of the West will read the news of Boston still moist from the press.”

But on the power of Congress to make internal improvements, ay, Sir, on the power of Congress, hear him!  What were then his rules of construction and interpretation?  How did he at that time read and understand the Constitution?  Why, Sir, he said that “he was no advocate for refined arguments on the Constitution.  The instrument was not intended as a thesis for the logician to exercise his ingenuity on.  It ought to be construed with plain good-sense.”  This is all very just, I think, Sir; and he said much more in the same strain.  He quoted many instances of laws passed, as he contended, on similar principles, and then added, that “he introduced these instances to prove the uniform sense of Congress and of the country (for they had not been objected to) as to our powers; and surely,” said he, “they furnish better evidence of the true interpretation of the Constitution than the most refined and subtile arguments.”

Here you see, Mr. President, how little original I am.  You have heard me again and again contending in my place here for the stability of that which has been long settled; you have heard me, till I dare say you have been tired, insisting that the sense of Congress, so often expressed, and the sense of the country, so fully shown and so firmly established, ought to be regarded as having decided finally certain constitutional questions.  You see now, Sir, what authority I have for this mode of argument.  But while the scholar is learning, the teacher renounces.  Will he apply his old doctrine now—­I sincerely