Excerpt from Speech of the Hon. John Randolph, of Virginia, on the Retrenchment Resolutions: Delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States, February 1, 1828

I have been replied to by various gentlemen (some of whom I have not the honor to know by person) on different sides of the House, in a manner which I do not doubt was perfectly satisfactory at least to the speakers themselves. I certainly do not wish to disturb their self complacency, de minimis non carat, whether of persons or of things. The gentleman from Ohio, [mn Vance] with that blunt plainness and candor which, I am told, belong to him, and which I admire in preportion as they are rare qualities in these days - I like him the better for his surly honestv - I hope he will take no ofl'ence at the term, for I can assure him that none is intended - charged me, in my absence, (so my friends have in formed me, ) with what I believe he would not hesitate to have charged to my face, and to which I have no objection, except to the authority on which he relied but I protest against any gen tleman's producing, as proof of what I have, at any time, said, a newspaper, or any thing purporting to be a Register of Debates, unless I endorse it, and more particularly remarks drawn from the debates of another body, which, in regard to me, are partien larly unfaithful. I shall show to the house, not such matter as the gentleman from Massachusetts stirred, to the injury of every moral sense, of every moral being. I shall refer to a matter of receht notoriety; that will test the correctness of these reports. In the debate on the motion of the gentleman from South Caro lina, [mr. Hamilton] respecting a picture of the battle of New Orleans, I did state, as distinctly as I could articulate, that I had seen a monument erected to the memory of Andre, the British Spy, in Westminster Abby that it was mutilated - the head of General Washington, and arm (i think) of Andre, having been broken off. The General's, most probably, by some Tory boy, from the neighboring school of Westminster, and that of Andre, probably, by some Whig boy, in retaliation. The name of Ham ilton did not escape my lips. I thought, indeed, of Hamilton, but it was of a living Hamilton - the gentleman from South Car olina. But, then, parliamentary usage does not permit us to speak of one another by name. Now, sir, I can shew you, on the same authority which was relied on by the gentleman from Ohio - though I acknowledge that the reports of that paper, so far at least as I am concerned, have generally been more accurate this year, than I have for a long time known them to be before that I am represented as saying that the monuments in Westmin ster Abbeyj were mutilated in the same manner as the tombs of Hamilton and Washington had been mutilated here. The word [and no ver escaped m y lips, on that occasion. Sir, this won.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.