It is necessary to pause here and inquire whether suggestions of this kind be not unfair in their very texture and fabric, and pernicious in all their influences.  They oppose an obstacle in the path of inquiry, not simply discouraging, but absolutely insurmountable.  They will not yield to argument; for as they were not reasoned up, they cannot be reasoned down.  They are higher than a Chinese wall in truth’s way, and built of materials that are indestructible.  While this remains, it is vain to argue; it is vain to say to this mountain, Be thou cast into the sea.  For, I ask of the men of knowledge of the world whether they would not hold him for a blockhead that should hope to prevail in an argument whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte?  I ask, further, when such attempts have been made, have they not failed of success?  The indignant heart repels a conviction that is believed to debase it.

The self-love of an individual is not warmer in its sense, nor more constant in its action, than what is called in French, l’esprit du corps, or the self-love of an assembly; that jealous affection which a body of men is always found to bear towards its own prerogatives and power.  I will not condemn this passion.  Why should we urge an unmeaning censure or yield to groundless fears that truth and duty will be abandoned, because men in a public assembly are still men, and feel that esprit du corps which is one of the laws of their nature?  Still less should we despond or complain, if we reflect that this very spirit is a guardian instinct that watches over the life of this assembly.  It cherishes the principle of self-preservation, and without its existence, and its existence with all the strength we see it possess, the privileges of the representatives of the people, and mediately the liberties of the people, would not be guarded, as they are, with a vigilance that never sleeps and an unrelaxed constancy and courage.  If the consequences, most unfairly attributed to the vote in the affirmative, were not chimerical, and worse, for they are deceptive, I should think it a reproach to be found even moderate in my zeal to assert the constitutional powers of this assembly; and whenever they shall be in real danger, the present occasion affords proof that there will be no want of advocates and champions.

Indeed, so prompt are these feelings, and, when once roused, so difficult to pacify, that if we could prove the alarm was groundless, the prejudice against the appropriations may remain on the mind, and it may even pass for an act of prudence and duty to negative a measure which was lately believed by ourselves, and may hereafter be misconceived by others, to encroach upon the powers of the House.  Principles that bear a remote affinity with usurpation on those powers will be rejected, not merely as errors, but as wrongs.  Our sensibilities will shrink from a post where it is possible they may be wounded, and be inflamed by the slightest suspicion of an assault.