their wilderness. It exclaims that, while one hand is held up to reject
this treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. It summons our imagination to
the scenes that will open. It is no great effort of the imagination to
conceive that events so near are already begun. I can fancy that I
listen to the yells of savage vengeance, and the shrieks of torture.
Already they seem to sigh in the west wind-already they mingle with
every echo from the mountains.

It is not the part of prudence to be inattentive to the tendencies of
measures. Where there is any ground to fear that these will prove
pernicious, wisdom and duty forbid that we should underrate them. If we
reject the treaty, will our peace be as safe as if we executed it with
good faith? I do honor to the intrepid spirits of those who say it will.
It was formerly understood to constitute the excellence of a man's faith
to believe without evidence and against it.

But, as opinions on this article are changed, and we are called to act
for our country, it becomes us to explore the dangers that will attend
its peace, and to avoid them if we can.

Is there any thing in the prospect of the interior state of the country
to encourage us to aggravate the dangers of a war? Would not the shock
of that evil produce another, and shake down the feeble and then
unbraced structure of our government? Is this a chimera? Is it going off
the ground of matter of fact to say, the rejection of the appropriation
proceeds upon the doctrine of a civil war of the departments? Two
branches have ratified a treaty, and we are going to set it aside. How
is this disorder in the machine to be rectified? While it exists its
movements must stop, and when we talk of a remedy, is that any other
than the formidable one of a revolutionary one of the people? And is