Then the popular will was the shrine at
which all worshipped. Now, when that will is regularly, soberly,
repeatedly, and almost universally expressed through the ballot-boxes,
at the various elections, and turns out to be in favor of the President,
certainly no one can disregard it, nor otherwise look at it than as the
solemn verdict of the competent and ultimate tribunal upon an issue
fairly made up, fully argued, and duly submitted for decision. As such
verdict, I receive it. As the deliberate verdict of the sovereign people,
I bow to it. I am content. I do not mean to reopen the case nor to
recommence the argument. I leave that work to others, if any others
choose to perform it. For myself, I am content; and, dispensing with
further argument, I shall call for judgment, and ask to have execution
done, upon that unhappy journal, which the verdict of millions of
freemen finds guilty of bearing on its face an untrue, illegal, and
unconstitutional sentence of condemnation against the
approved President of the Republic.
But, while declining to reopen the argument of this question, and
refusing to tread over again the ground already traversed, there is
another and a different task to perform; one which the approaching
termination of President Jackson's administration makes peculiarly
proper at this time, and which it is my privilege, and perhaps my duty,
to execute, as being the suitable conclusion to the arduous contest in
which we have been so long engaged.
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