The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1829-02-18

leaders of the party prevailing in Massa-
chusetts in the year 1903, whose objects |
assert was, ana had been, for several years,
dissolution of the Union, and the establish
ment of separate confederacy and
2. The whole evidence, on which that
charge is founded.
You observe that it is admitted, in the
statement of the charge, that it is not prove.
ablaln court of law, and your inference
is, that | am of course not in possession OF
any legal evidence, by which to maintain it.
Yet you call upon me to name the persons
affected by the charge; charge in your
estimate deeply stigmatsing upon those
persons and you permit yourselves to re-
mind me, that my sense of justice ard self
respect oblge me to disclose all tina: do
possess. My sense of justice to you, Gen.
tlemen, induces me to remark, that leave
your self-respect to the moral influence of
your own minds, without presuming to mea-
sure it by the dictation of mine.
Suppose, then, that in compliance with
your call, should name one, two, or three
persons, as intended TO be included in the
! charge. Suppose neither of those persons
to be one of you. You however avegiven
( them notice. that have no evidence against
them, by which the charge is proveable in
court of law-and you know that |, as
well as yourselves, am amenable to the laws
[ of the land. Does your seif-respect con-
vince you that the persons so named, IT
/ guilty, Sould furnish the evidence against
themselves, which they have been notified.
| that do not possess are you sure that
the correspondence, which would prove their
guilt, may not in the lapse of twenty five
years have teen committed to the flames !?
IN these days of failing and of treacherous
memories, may they not have forgotten that
any such correspondence ever existed !?
And have you any guarantee to offer, that
should not be called 10y a summons more I'M
I perative than yours, to produce IN the tenn
/ pie of justice the proof, which you say
have not or be branded for foul and ma
! lignant slanderer of spotless and prosecuted
/ virtue Is it not besides imaginable that
! persons may exist who though twenty five
years since driven in the desperation of dis
appointment, to the meditation and prepare
! ton of measures tending to the dissolution
of the Union, perceived afterwards the
error Of their ways, and would now gladly
wash out from their own memories their
participation in projects, upon which the
stamp of indelible reprobation has past? Is
it not possible that some of the conspirators
have been called to account before high
er than an earthly tribunal for all the good
and evil of their lives; and whose reputa-
tons might now suffer needlessly by the
disc osure of their names | put these
/ cases to you, Gentlemen, as possible, to show
you that neither my sense of justice nor my
self-respect does require of me to produce
| the evidence for which you CALL or to dis
close the names of persons, for whom you
/ have and can have no right to speak
These considerations appear indeed to
| me so forclble, that it is not without sur
prise, that | am compelled to believe they
! had escaped your observation. | cannot
believe of any of you which am sure never
! entered the hearts of some of you, that you
should have selected the present moment,
for the purpose of drawing me into con-
4 troversy not only with yourselves, but with
/ others, YOU know not whom-of daring me to
) the announcement of names, which 20 years
( since | declined committing to the ear of
I confidential friendship; and to the ploduc-
: ton of evidence which, though perfectly
satisfactory to my own mind, and perfectly
competent for the foundation of honest and
patriotic public conduct, was adequate in a
court of law neither to the conviction of the
guilty nor to the justification of the accuser
and so explicitly pronounced by myself.
You say that You have no design nor wish
to produce an effect on any political party
or question whatever,-nor to enter into a
vindicaton of the measures publicly adopt
ed and avowed by the persons, against
+ whom the above charge has been made
But can you believe that this subject could
be discussed between you and me, as yoa
propose, when calling upon me for state
ment, with the avowed intention of refuting
it, and not produce an effect on any political
II pr ty or question ? With regard to the
public measures of those times and the sue
ceeding, which you declare to have had
your sanction and appreciation. it needs nc
disclosure now, that a radical and irrecon-
cileable difference of opinion between most
of yourselves and me existed. And can you
/ suppose that in disclosing names and stat
ing facts, known perhaps only to myself,
could consent to separate them from those
public measures which you so cordially ap-
proved and which | so deeply lamented
Must your own defence against these
J charges for ever rest exclusively upon a
solemn protestation against the natural in
ference from the irresistible tendency oil
action to the secret intent of ihe actor
That statesman who believes in human
virtue should be slow to draw this inference
against such solemn asseverations, / readily
admit: but for the regulation ofthe eoDdue,
of human life, the rules Of evidence are
I widely different from those, which receive
or exclude testimony in court of law
Even there, you know, that violent pre-
sumption is equivalent, in cases affecting life
itself, to positive proof; and in a succession
of political measures through series Of
years, all tending to the same result, there
is an internal evidence, against which mere
n denial, however solemn, can scarcey-clar
the credence even of the charity, that be-
| lieveth all fhinna