“This House,” replied Duvall of Kentucky, “has heard discord and rebellion encouraged and avowed from more than one quarter.” Indeed, from fully one fourth of its members the House heard little else. Under the shadow of the Hartford Convention the Federalist members talked with entire frankness. “This great fabric seems nodding and tottering to its fall,” said Z. R. Shipherd of New York, December 9;[388] “and Heaven only knows how long before the mighty ruin will take place.” J. O. Moseley of Connecticut “meant no improper menace” by predicting to the House, “if they were determined to prosecute the war by a recourse to such measures as are provided in the present bill, that they would have no occasion for future committees of investigation into the causes of the failure of their arms.”[389] The latest committee of investigation had recently made a long report on the capture of Washington, carefully abstaining from expressing opinions of its own, or imputing blame to any one, and Moseley’s remark involved a double sneer. None of these utterances were resented. Richard Stockton of New Jersey was allowed unanswered to denounce in measured terms the mild Militia Bill then under debate, from which the committee had already struck the term of two years’ service by substituting one year; and Stockton concluded his fine-drawn arguments by equally studied menace:[390]-- “This bill also attacks the right and sovereignty of the State governments. Congress is about to usurp their undoubted rights,--to take from them their militia. By this bill we proclaim that we will have their men, as many as we please, when and where and for as long a time as we see fit, and for any service we see proper. Do gentlemen of the majority seriously believe that the people and the State governments will submit to this claim? Do they believe that all the States of this Union will submit to this usurpation? Have you attended to the solemn and almost unanimous declaration of the legislature of Connecticut? Have you examined the cloud arising in the East? Do you perceive that it is black, alarming, portentous?”