and constitutionally; but govern it must, subject only to that terrible appeal. If ever one or several states, being a minority, can, by menacing a dissolution of the Union, succeed in forcing an abandonment of great measures deemed essential to the interests and prosperity of the whole, the Union from that moment is practically gone. It may linger on in form and name, but its vital spirit has fled forever.”
This seemed to exclude every thought of compromise.
The efforts of the free traders to discredit the “American system,” by resolutions, addresses, and pamphlets against the tariff, annoyed him greatly; and nothing seems to have stung him more than a calmly argumentative memorial from the pen of Albert Gallatin. Only the deepest irritation can explain the most ungenerous attack he made upon that venerable statesman in his great speech. This is the language he applied to him: —
“The gentleman to whom I am about to allude, although long a resident in this country, has no feelings, no attachments, no sympathies, no principles, in common with our people. Nearly fifty years ago Pennsylvania took him to her bosom, and warmed, and cherished, and honored him; and how does he manifest his gratitude? By aiming a vital blow at a system endeared to her by a thorough conviction that it is indispensable to her prosperity. He has filled, at home and abroad, some of the highest offices under this government, during thirty years, and he is still at heart an alien. The authority of his name has been invoked, and the labors of his pen, in the form of a memorial to Congress, have
