I rose to speak under impressions that I would have resisted if I could. Those who see me will believe that the reduced state of my health has unfitted me, almost equally for much exertion of body or mind. Unprepared for debate, by careful reflection in my retirement, or by long attention here, I thought the resolution I had taken to sit silent, was imposed by necesity, and would cost me no effort to maintain. With a mind thus vacant of ideas, and sinking, as I really am, under a sense of weakness, I imagined the very desire of speaking was extinguished by the persuasion that I had nothing to say. Yet, when I come to the moment of deciding the vote, I start back with dread from the edge of the pit into which we are plunging. In my view, even the minutes I have spent in expostulation have their value, because they protract the crisis, and the short period in which alone we may resolve to escape it. I have thus been led, by my feelings, to speak more at length than I intended. Yet I have, perhaps, as little personal interest in the event as any one here. There is, I believe, no member who will not think his chance to be a witness of the consequences greater than mine. If, however, the vote shall pass to reject, and a spirit should rise, as it will, with the public disorders, to make confusion worse confounded, even I, slender and almost broken as my hold upon life is, may outlive the government and constitution of my country. JOHN NICHOLAS ON THE PROPOSED REPEAL OF THE SEDITION LAW --HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEB. 25, 1799 MR. CHAIRMAN: The Select Committee had very truly stated that only the second and third sections of the act are complained of; that the part of the law which punishes seditious acts is acquiesced in, and that the part which goes to restrain what are called seditious writings is alone the object of the petitions. This part of the law is complained of as being unwarranted by the Constitution, and destructive of the first principles of republican government. It is always justifiable, in examining the principle of a law, to inquire what other laws can be passed with equal reason, and to impute to it all the mischiefs for which it may be used as a precedent. In this case, little inquiry is left for us to make, the arguments in favor of the law carrying us immediately and by inevitable consequence to absolute power over the press.