was assumed to be the sole motive to action; and to them the ultimate
verdict was expressly referred. The whole machinery of alarm and
pressure--every engine of political and moneyed power--was put in
motion, and worked for many months, to excite the people against the
President; and to stir up meetings, memorials, petitions, travelling
committees, and distress deputations against him; and each symptom
of popular
discontent was hailed as an evidence of public will, and quoted here
as proof that the people demanded the condemnation of the President.
Not only legislative assemblies, and memorials from large assemblies,
were then produced here as evidence of public opinion, but the
petitions of boys under age, the remonstrances of a few signers, and
the results of the most inconsiderable elections were ostentatiously
paraded and magnified, as the evidence of the sovereign will of our
constituents. Thus, sir, the public voice was everything, while that
voice, partially obtained through political and pecuniary machinations,
was adverse to the President. Then the popular will was the shrine at
which all worshipped. Now, when that will is regularly, soberly,
repeatedly, and almost universally expressed through the ballot-boxes,
at the various elections, and turns out to be in favor of the President,
certainly no one can disregard it, nor otherwise look at it than as the
solemn verdict of the competent and ultimate tribunal upon an issue
fairly made up, fully argued, and duly submitted for decision. As such
verdict, I receive it. As the deliberate verdict of the sovereign people,
I bow to it. I am content. I do not mean to reopen the case nor to
recommence the argument. I leave that work to others, if any others
choose to perform it. For myself, I am content; and, dispensing with
further argument, I shall call for judgment, and ask to have execution
done, upon that unhappy journal, which the verdict of millions of
freemen finds guilty of bearing on its face an untrue, illegal, and