I am utterly inadequate to discharge the duty which has devolved upon me on this august day, the anniversary of the birthday of the Father of his country. I am utterly unable upon this occasion either to do my duty to the people or to express myself with that deep solemnity which I feel in rising to resist this untoward, this unholy, this unconstitutional proceeding. Indeed, I know not why the ghost of impeachment has appeared here in a new form. We have attempted to lay it hitherto, and we have successfully laid it upon the floor of this House. But a minority of the party on the other side, forcing its influence and its power upon a majority of a committee of this House, has at last succeeded in compelling its party to approach the House itself in a united, and therefore in a more solemn form, and to demand the impeachment of the President of the United States. Sir, we have long been in the midst of a revolution. Long, long has our country been agitated by the throes of that revolution. But we are now approaching the last and the final stage of that revolution in which, like many revolutions that have preceded it, a legislative power not representing the people attempts to depose the executive power, and thus to overthrow that constitutional branch of the Government. There is nothing new in all this. There is nothing new in what we are doing, for men of the present but repeat the history of the past. We are traversing over and over again the days of Cromwell and Charles I and Charles II, and we are traversing over and over again the scenes of the French revolution, baptized in blood in our introductory part, but I trust in God never again to be baptized by any revolutionary proceeding on the part of this House. I have not and never have been a defender of all the opinions of General Jackson, but those on the other side who pretend to hold him as authority and those on this side who have ever held him as authority will find that in uttering the opinions which I have I but reutter the opinions which he advanced in his veto of July 10, 1832, when he said: "The Congress, the Executive, and the court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes the oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others." The President of the United States has given his opinion upon the official tenure-of-office act and upon the Constitution of the United States by the appointment of Adjutant General Thomas as Secretary of War ad interim. and because of the exercise of that Constitutional right we are called upon here at once to pronounce him guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and to demand his deposition and degradation therefor. * * * * *