“I ask the intelligent and candid men of this House whether to prevent the farmers of Vermont from selling their pigs in Canada is calculated to increase or diminish our essential resources; whether the object which the President professed to have in view is counteracted by a traffic of this kind.... I could wish gentlemen would, instead of bolting at me in the fulness of their rage, endeavor to satisfy my poor understanding by cool reasoning that they are right; that they would show me how this measure will prepare us for war; how the weakening by distressing every part of the country is to increase its strength and its vigor.” Had Gardenier stopped there, his argument would have admitted no answer; but he had the defect of a Federalist temper, and could not control his tongue. “Sir, I cannot understand it. I am astonished,--indeed I am astonished and dismayed. I see effects, but I can trace them to no cause. Yes, sir, I do fear that there is an unseen hand which is guiding us to the most dreadful destinies,--unseen because it cannot endure the light. Darkness and mystery overshadow this House and this whole nation. We know nothing; we are permitted to know nothing; we sit here as mere automata; we legislate without knowing--nay, sir, without wishing to know--why or wherefore. We are told what we are to do, and the Council of Five Hundred do it. We move, but why or wherefore no man knows. We are put in motion, but how I for one cannot tell.” Gardenier was believed to be the author of a letter written during the secret session, December 19, and published in the “New York Evening Post,” which began the cry of French influence.[159] His speech of February 20, insulting to the House, disorderly and seditious, resting on innuendo but carrying the weight of a positive assertion, outraged every member of the majority. Even John Randolph had never gone so far as to charge his opponents with being the willing and conscious tools of a foreign despot. The House was greatly exasperated, and at the next session, Monday, February 22, three members--Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, George W. Campbell of Tennessee, and John Montgomery of Maryland--rose successively and declared that Gardenier’s expressions were a slander, which if not supported by proof made their author an object of contempt. Gardenier challenged Campbell, and March 2 a duel took place at Bladensburg. Gardenier was severely wounded, but escaped with life, while the bitterness of party feeling became more violent than before.