Not to speak particularly of the charges of violating the Constitution, thrown upon the House of Representatives, by this Report; or of its “seditious members,” as it calls them; or of the “demoniac yells,” by which the remonstrance of the Ex-President Adams was silenced; it is more to our present purpose to call attention to the treatment rendered to the Senate, in this same document, for the resolutions passed in that body on this subject, in January, 1838:-- “Neither humanity, nor patriotism, will permit us to pass over this proceeding of the Senate, without setting it in what seems to us its true light. _We pronounce it a bootless usurpation--an act equally unconstitutional and impotent._ If these expressions should seem disrespectful towards the highest branch of the National Legislature, let it be remembered, that that officially august body can claim to be respected only while it respects the primary act of the people, by virtue of which it exists. _When it oversteps the limits of the Constitution_, for any object whatever, _its authority is forfeited_. But when it oversteps those limits for the attainment of an object which is in itself essentially absurd and impossible--when it essays to do by mere resolutions what it would be ridiculous to attempt by statutory enactment--_it must sink to the level of contempt_.... If we are correct in these views of the nature and force of our Federal Constitution, the Senate of the United States was employed from the 3d to the 13th of January, 1838, _in enacting a farce_ well adapted to turn legislation into mockery.” Not to speak of the _exceeding indecorum_ of this language, as coming from what ought to be a _reverend_, as it is doubtless a _religious_ as well as a political body, it is certainly going quite far enough for a power, whose lawful existence and action for any such purposes, hang suspended at best in a doubtful balance. It falls on the ear like the death sounding knell of revolutionary times. But we cannot consider it doubtful, in view of the facts and reasonings heretofore brought under review, whether this Society be a lawful one, or not. Our own convictions compel us to “pronounce it,” not simply “a bootless,” but _seditious_ “usurpation.”