Mr. President, perhaps the greatest inconvenience attending popular governments, consists in this: that whenever the union and energy of the people are most required to resist foreign aggressions, the pressure of these aggressions presents most temptations to distrusts and divisions. Was there ever a stronger illustration of the truth and correctness of this observation than the recent efforts made under the pressure of the embargo laws? The moment the privations, reluctantly but necessarily imposed by these laws, became to be felt, was the moment of signal to every political demagogue, who wished to find his way to office and to power, to excite the distrusts of the people, and then to separate them from the Government of their choice, by every exaggeration which ingenuity could devise, and every misrepresentation which falsehood could invent: nothing was omitted which it was conceived would have a tendency to effect this object. But, Mr. President, the people of the United States must learn the lesson now, and at all future times, of disrespecting the bold and disingenuous charges and insinuations of such aspiring demagogues. They must learn to respect and rally round their own Government, or they never can present a formidable front to a foreign aggressor. Sir, the people of the United States have already learnt this lesson. They have recently given an honorable and glorious example of their knowledge in this respect. They have, in their recent elections, demonstrated to the nation and to the world that they possess too much good sense to become the dupes of these delusive artifices, and too much patriotism to desert their Government when it stands most in need of their support and energy. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. HILLHOUSE) has made the most strict, and I had almost said, uncharitable scrutiny into the objects and effects of the embargo laws, in the delusive hope, I presume, of obtaining a triumph over his political adversaries. I propose to follow the gentleman, in a fair and candid comparison of information and opinions upon this subject; and I shall do so in the most perfect confidence, that whenever a thorough examination of the objects and effects of the embargo laws shall be made known, and the merits of the measure fully understood, that there is not a man in the United States who will not applaud and support the Administration for its adoption, who has the uncontaminated heart of an American throbbing within his bosom.