Our small and badly equipped army, our depressed navy, exhausted treasury, heavy indebtedness, and general lack of the requisite means, were pleaded by those opposed to the rupture. But Mr. Clay, in the towering majesty and strength of an intellectual giant, took all the obstacles and objections which their combined force could bring forward, in his powerful grasp, and compressed them into a nut-shell, entirely divested of their intimidating power. Among those opposed to war was Mr. Randolph. ‘Mr. Randolph’s intellect was then in its vigor, and the effort which he made in opposition to the report of the committee was perhaps the greatest in his whole congressional life. The extensive resources of his mind, the stately march of his eloquent periods, the startling flashes of his indignation, and the sneering devil that lurked in his tone and look, rendered him an opponent at that day, whom it was by no means safe to encounter. Mr. Clay was the only man in the house, who could dash aside, with unerring certainty, the weapons of this Ishmael.’ On the sixth of December the house resolved itself into a committee of the whole, and took up the report. After a brief speech from Mr. Porter, elucidating and maintaining its positions and resolutions, it was adopted. It furnished ground of discussion in the house for several days, warmly and vigorously sustained by its friends, and violently opposed by its enemies. Among the latter, Mr. Randolph rendered himself the most conspicuous, both by his anti-republican and eccentric views, and the hostility evinced by him towards all who dissented from them, whom he visited with the most bitter personal invective. His fertile imagination conjured up a host of reasons, to deter us from embarking in the offensive war, which the report recommended. He threatened the advocates of it with the total loss of their political power, and magnified the might of England to an overwhelming extent; suggesting that it would be far more appropriate to approach her in a suppliant position, with downcast looks and folded arms, than to rush with shield and buckler and rashly dare her to the conflict. He seemed to sympathize with Great Britain, deprecating that censure heaped upon her as unjust, and advocated the policy of farther negotiations with her. His arguments, and those of his friends, were, however, unavailing, and when the debate ceased, the resolutions were separately adopted by large majorities.