76 



menl? If so, then let the issue be joined at once. I am half in- 

 clined to believe it better to have the subject decided, even although 

 we be the victims of such gross injustice, than to keep Congres- 

 sional omnipotency in the premises, suspended over our devoted 

 heads, like the sword of Damocles, by a hair. Suspense is always 

 painful uncertainty always a check upon enterprise, and a barrier 

 to .improvement. The citizens of this much neglected and abused 

 District have a right to ask that you will respect the Constitution, 

 and confess, candidly and at once, that the matter has been ex- 

 pressly put by that instrument beyond the control and jurisdiction 

 of the Representatives of the people at the Capitol. My word for 

 it, if once it be established that no process, other than that pre- 

 scribed by the Constitution, can remove the seat of Government 

 from this District, a new impetus will be given to its progress and 

 prosperity a new era will dawn upon its fortunes. 



The remarks of*the editor of the National Intelligencer in 1814, 

 when the subject of a temporary removal of the seat of Government 

 was before Congress, apply with so much more force to any attempt 

 at a permanent one, that I feel myself called upon to appropriate 

 them in the present case. He says: "To circumscribe this ques- 

 ' tion by the narrow limits of this city, or of these Ten Miles Square, 



* to consider it only in relation to its injurious, if not ruinous, influ- 

 < ence on the people of this city and District, or even on the ad- 



* joining population of Maryland and Virginia, is to place it in the 

 1 most obscure and feeble light in which it can be viewed. The 

 1 interests of the Union are involved in it; it was a question as in- 



* teresting to the Province of Maine as to the State of Georgia. 

 1 The seat of Government was solemnly located with a view to its 



* central position, and to other circumstances intimately connected 

 4 with certain early acts of the Government which entered into the 

 ( compact or compromise in consequence of which the seat of Go- 

 f vernment was settled heie. To remove it now, would be almost 

 1 to deracinate the principle of several of the most important of the 

 1 first acts of the Government, and would have warranted their ab- 

 ( rogation, if a majority could be found so regardless of the honor 



* and good faith of the nation as to have sanctioned it." 



The remarks of Governeur Morris, whose authority in such mat- 

 ters must'be respected as of great weight, apply also so directly to 

 the subject I am treating, that I will make use of them for my pur- 



