out of view.  And when those, who now design well, wish to stop, they may find their powers unable to resist the torrent.  It is not true, that we ever wished to give a dangerous strength to executive power.  While the government was in our hands, it was our duty to maintain its constitutional balance, by preserving the energies of each branch.  There never was an attempt to vary the relation of its powers.  The struggle was to maintain the constitutional powers of the executive.  The wild principles of French liberty were scattered through the country.  We had our Jacobins and disorganizes.  They saw no difference between a king and a president, and as the people of France had put down their King, they thought the people of America ought to put down their President.  They, who considered the constitution as securing all the principles of rational and practicable liberty, who were unwilling to embark upon the tempestuous sea of revolution in pursuit of visionary schemes, were denounced as monarchists.  A line was drawn between the government and the people, and the friends of the government were marked as the enemies of the people.  I hope, however, that the government and the people are now the same; and I pray to God, that what has been frequently remarked, may not, in this case, be discovered to be true that they, who have the name of the people the most often in their mouths, have their true interests the most seldom at their hearts.

The honorable gentleman from Virginia wandered to the very confines of the federal administration, in search of materials the most inflammable and most capable of kindling the passions of his party. ...

I did suppose, sir, that this business was at an end; and I did imagine, that as gentlemen had accomplished their object, they would have been satisfied.  But as the subject is again renewed, we must be allowed to justify our conduct.  I know not what the gentleman calls an expression of the public will.  There were two candidates for the office of President, who were presented to the House of Representatives with equal suffrages.  The constitution gave us the right and made it our duty to elect that one of the two whom we thought preferable.  A public man is to notice the public will as constitutionally expressed.  The gentleman from Virginia, and many others, may have had their preference; but that preference of the public will not appear by its constitutional expression.  Sir, I am not certain that either of those candidates had a majority of the country in his favor.  Excluding the State of South Carolina, the country was equally divided.  We know that parties in that State were nearly equally balanced, and the claims of both the candidates were supported by no other scrutiny into the public will than our official return of votes.  Those votes are very imperfect evidence of the true will of a majority of the nation.  They resulted from political intrigue and artificial arrangement.