The Litchfield County post., 1827-07-05
Ern Q. Naisnal Inlslligeaoer.

 that at some future day, h we could find the s;n,s we would give our readers a sketch of fine Speech of Mr. WEBSTER in reply to Mr. V1N BuKrN's bill ofindictnent against UN- cr,r SAM. he being leading Attorney for the urosecution against that most respectable gentleman, who gets no credit for his known good works, and is made to bear the burthen of many an immaginary crime, as in the cases embraced in the bill now supposed to have been preferred.
 We need not repeat the terms of the bill of indictment, which was so loosely framed that Mir. WEBSTER could have quashed it twenty times over, if he would have deigned to avail himself of it's hideous flaws. For example It recites that the great western road has been constructed, and manufactures been sustained, < to the great damage and lnJury of'' the states Of Ohio and Nea0- York, when 1t isnotorious that, instead of reading thus 1t should read '' to the great damage and injury of the Combination" So glaring bIunder as this could hardly have been expected in bill drawn up by the accomplished senator ot New-York, whom we confess we have very badly represented on this occasion. We nope to succeed better on the defensive side ot the question. We proceed to the task.
  of the prosecutor, promising. according to the custom in certain criminal courts, to prove any thing of very extraordinary na- ture- s
 MT. WEBSTER rose for the defendant In case ofthis magnitude, he said, in which his honoured client was to be convicted, for dO- ing those things which he had done often, and with the advice of those, too, whom he had always reckoned among his earliest and best friends, he hoped, before taking up the pre- else question, he might be indulged with one or two preliminary and introductory remarks The indictment he said, charged that his client had, with the implements aforesaid, in manner aforesaid, made and constructed a certain public road, viz. in Ohio aforesaid, &c.
 In the first place, MT. W. said, he hunbly hoped, that it would not, on this occasion, be urged against his client, that roads were mala in se-things, in their own nature, grlevous and oppressive. The learned prosecutor, he was sure, would admit that a good road, in and of itself, was good thing; although,per- haps, he did not himself always prefer to pursue his Ova course in the most beaten track. Charges, however, like the present, had sometimes, and from some quarters, been made against the client, in language ap- proriate to cases of malicious miSchiet, or even of still more aggravating offences. They had contained clauses " wickedly contriving and confederating," of" fraudulently and craftily designing to undermine the prosperity of the People," Ic. &c.-and some of them he believed, had run so high as to lay the charge " with malice aforethought." And in these cases the accusation had been so undis- tinguishing, that especially when certain oth- CT things well known, were taken into con- sideration, it left very strong impression that.a road, itself, was regarded as nuisance. This, he supposed, must be from the power ot association. Having connected the idea of rood roads with the other idea of unconstitu- tional assumption and political tyranny, both became equally obnoxious He reccollected to have been informed that some wit, cer- tainly with too little respect and reverence for the grave doctrines ofa particular school, had made picture ofa country citizen, ,strug- gling and fioundering along in one ofthose re- servoirs of mud and water, by an antiphrasis called roads somewhere between the Kappa hammock and the Potomac, (perhaps about Dumfres, } his wheels fairly up to the hub, wagon completely stalled, horses jaded and exhausted till they would not bring their shoulders to the collar, halfthe value of the cargo already consumed in expense of the transportation. and fifty miles of equally smooth, dry, and com tortable road before him. From the lips. nevertheless, of this good cti- izen, were seen to issue, upon little label.the wise and practical doctrines of the school, in which he had been taught" State Rights for eyer Down with the dangerous and abom- inable usurpations ofroads and canals Old Virginia never tires ID
 Supposing, then, that it might be granted to him, that good road was not, of itself, one of the greatest of human evils, MT. w. went on to say that he would suggest, in the second place, that something favorable, at least to the good intention of his client, and to the practical effect of what he had done & committed, was suggested by the venue (or place) where the enormity is said to have been committed. It was in Ohio OHIo What crowd of ideas the bare mention of that state, in connection with such subject as this. gives rise to Ono An indict- ment for inficting, on OHIO, the miseries and calamities of Internal Improvement He was not very old, he said, yet he remembered when that name indicated nothing but a vast river, flowing along in wild and savage gran deur, through an untrodden wilderness. What does it indicate now Behold Not less than the fourth, among these four and twenty states; pressing on, in fair and hon. orable competition with her two great neigh bors on the East and Northeast of her, and fairly outstrpping, both in the speed and power of her march, her ancient mother, ,who
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