our representatives as the Assembly, and had as good a right to our confidence. He had seen with regret the unlimited power over the purse and sword consigned to the general government; but ... he had been overruled, and it was now necessary to submit to the constitutional exercise of that power. 'If,' said he, 'I am asked what is to be done, when a people feel themselves intolerably oppressed, my answer is ready,--Overturn the government. But do not, I beseech you, carry matters to this length without provocation. Wait at least until some infringement is made upon your rights, and which cannot otherwise be redressed; for if ever you recur to another change, you may bid adieu forever to representative government. You can never exchange the present government but for a monarchy.... Let us preserve our strength for the French, the English, the Germans, or whoever else shall dare to invade our territory, and not exhaust it in civil commotions and intestine wars.' He concluded by declaring his design to exert himself in the endeavor to allay the heart-burnings and jealousies which had been fomented in the state legislature; and he fervently prayed, if he was deemed unworthy to effect it, that it might be reserved to some other and abler hand to extend this blessing over the community."[472] The outline thus given may be inaccurate in several particulars: it is known to be so in one. Respecting the alien and sedition acts, the orator expressed no opinion at all;[473] but accepting them as the law of the land, he counselled moderation, forbearance, and the use of constitutional means of redress. Than that whole effort, as has been said by a recent and a sagacious historian, "nothing in his life was nobler."[474]