On the day preceding this debate the Speaker Muhlenberg of the House of Representatives had accosted Maclay as “Your Highness of the Senate,” saying that Congressman Henry Wynkoop, of Pennsylvania, had been christened by them “His Highness of the Lower House.” As the question of titles was gone all over again, Maclay records that he determined to try what ridicule would do. He said: “Mr. President, if all men were of one stature, there would be neither high nor low. Highness, when applied to an individual, must naturally denote the excess of stature which he possesses over other men. An honorable member [Ellsworth] told us the other day of a certain king [Saul] who was a head and shoulders taller than anybody else. This, more especially when he was gloriously greased with a great horn of oil, must have rendered him _highly_ conspicuous. History, too, if I mistake not, will furnish us with an example where a great Thracian obtained the empire of the world from no other circumstance. But, if this antiquated principle is to be adopted, give us fair play. Let America be searched and it is most probable that the honor will be found to belong to some huge Patagonian. This is indeed putting one sadly over the head of another. True, but Nature has done it and men should see where she leads before they adopt her as a guide. “It may be said that this business is metaphorical and the high station of the President entitled him to it. Nothing can be true metaphorically which is not so naturally, and under this view of the proposed title it belongs with more propriety to the man in the moon than anybody else as his station (when we have the honor of seeing him) is certainly the most exalted of any we know of. Gentlemen may say this is fanciful. Would they wish to see the subject in the most serious point of view that it is possible to place it? Rome, after being benighted for ages in the darkest gloom of ecclesiastical and aristocratic tyranny, beheld a reformer [Rienzi] in the fourteenth century who, preaching from stocks and stones and the busts and fragments of ancient heroes, lighted up the lamp of liberty to meridium splendor. Intoxicated with success, he assumed a string of titles, none of which, in my recollection, was equally absurd with the one before you; in consequence of which and of his aping some other symbols of nobility and royalty, he fell and pulled down the whole republican structure along with him; marking particularly the subject of titles as one of the principal rocks on which he was shipwrecked. As to the latter part of the title, I would only observe that the power of war is the organ of protection. This is placed in Congress by the Constitution. Any attempt to divest them of it, even with George Washington, is treason against the United States or, at least, a violation of the Constitution.” XVI. SENATE FAVORS TITLES.