Under these circumstances, he
ceases to be a subject for the ebullition of the passions, and passes into
a character for the contemplation of history. Historically, then, shall
I view him; and limiting this view to his civil administration, I
demand, where is there a Chief Magistrate of whom so much evil has
been predicted, and from whom so much good has come? Never has
any man entered upon the Chief Magistracy of a country under such
appalling predictions of ruin and woe! never has any one been so
pursued with direful prognostications! never has any one been so beset
and impeded by a powerful combination of political and moneyed
confederates! never has any one in any country where the
administration of justice has risen above the knife or the bowstring,
been so lawlessly and shamelessly tried and condemned by rivals and
enemies, without hearing, without defence, without the forms of law
and justice! History has been ransacked to find examples of tyrants
sufficiently odious to illustrate him by comparison.
Language has been tortured to find epithets sufficiently strong to paint
him in description.
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