the constitution; that we are less sensible of the spirit of our government, or less devoted to the wishes of our constituents?  Whatever impression it might be the intention of the gentleman to make, he does not believe that there exists in the country an anti-republican party.  He will not venture to assert such an opinion on the floor of this House.  That there may be a few individuals having a preference for monarchy is not improbable; but will the gentleman from Virginia, or any other gentleman, affirm in his place, that there is a party in the country who wish to establish monarchy?  Insinuations of this sort belong not to the legislature of the Union.  Their place is an election ground, or an alehouse.  Within these walls they are lost; abroad, they have had an effect, and I fear are still capable of abusing popular credulity.

We were next told of the parties which have existed, divided by the opposite views of promoting executive power and guarding the rights of the people.  The gentleman did not tell us in plain language, but he wished it to be understood, that he and his friends were the guardians of the people’s rights, and that we were the advocates of executive power.

I know that this is the distinction of party which some gentlemen have been anxious to establish; but it is not the ground on which we divide.  I am satisfied with the constitutional powers of the executive, and never wished nor attempted to increase them; and I do not believe, that gentlemen on the other side of the House ever had a serious apprehension of danger from an increase of executive authority.  No, sir, our views, as to the powers which do and ought to belong to the general and State governments, are the true sources of our divisions.  I co-operate with the party to which I am attached, because I believe their true object and end is an honest and efficient support of the general government, in the exercise of the legitimate powers of the constitution.

I pray to God I may be mistaken in the opinion I entertain as to the designs of gentlemen to whom I am opposed.  Those designs I believe hostile to the powers of this government.  State pride extinguishes a national sentiment.  Whatever power is taken from this government is given to the States.

The ruins of this government aggrandize the States.  There are States which are too proud to be controlled; whose sense of greatness and resource renders them indifferent to our protection, and induces a belief that if no general government existed, their influence would be more extensive, and their importance more conspicuous.  There are gentlemen who make no secret of an extreme point of depression, to which the government is to be sunk.  To that point we are rapidly progressing.  But I would beg gentlemen to remember that human affairs are not to be arrested in their course, at artificial points.  The impulse now given may be accelerated by causes at present