Not even in 1798 had factiousness been so violent as in the last month of President Jefferson’s power; in 1800 the country in comparison had been contented. Feb. 23, 1809, nearly three weeks after the disastrous overthrow of the embargo in Congress, the Connecticut legislature met in special session to “interpose” between the people and the national government. In a Report echoing the words of Governor Trumbull’s speech, the House instantly approved his refusal to aid in carrying out the “unconstitutional and despotic” Enforcement Act, and pledged itself to join the legislature of Massachusetts in the measures proposed “to give to the commercial States their fair and just consideration in the Union.”[382] The spirit in which Massachusetts meant to act was shown in a formal Address to the People issued by her Legislature March 1, bearing the official signatures of Harrison Gray Otis, President of the Senate, and Timothy Bigelow, Speaker of the House. “Protesting in the sight of God the sincerity of their attachment to the Union of the States, and their determination to cherish and preserve it at every hazard until it shall fail to secure to them those blessings which alone give value to any form of government,” the Massachusetts legislature laid before the people of the State certain Reports and measures adopted for the purpose of impeding the embargo laws, and apologized for having done no more, on the ground that more could not have been done “without authorizing a forcible resistance to Acts of Congress,--an ultimate resource so deeply to be deprecated that the cases which might justify it should not be trusted even to the imagination until they actually happen.” Less than forty years before, Massachusetts had used much the same language in regard to Acts of Parliament, and the world knew what then followed; but even in the bitterest controversies over Stamp Act or Port Bill, the General Court of Massachusetts had never insulted King George as they insulted President Jefferson. The Address at great length asserted that his Government was laboring under “an habitual and impolitic predilection for France;” and even in making this assertion it apologized for England in terms which echoed the words of Canning and Castlereagh:-- “Without pretending to compare and adjust the respective injuries sustained from the two nations, it cannot be disguised that in some instances our nation has received from Great Britain compensation; in others offers of atonement, and in all the language of conciliation and respect.” On the other hand, war with England must lead to alliance with France; and that a connection with France “must be forever fatal to the liberty and independence of the nation is obvious to all who are not blinded by partiality and passion.”