 Their eloquence and public virtue command the respect of posterity; but the wretched history of their country denies them its sympathy.This, sir, is the judgement of the impartial English historian upon the means by which this great national crime was consummated, and it is the just encomium on the noble few whose patriotic efforts failed to prevent it.I read it, in anticipation, as the future history of the wrong now about to be perpetrated on the people of this country; and while it implies, on the one hand, in no doubtful terms, the well-merited praise of the small band who stand here tonight for the rights of the people, in opposition to this scheme, it pronounces, on the other, the just condemnation of those who trample on those rights, and who forget, in the pride of their brief authority, who it was that raised them to the positions they occupy, not that they might coerce, but carry out the will of the people, the only rightful source of political power.