An aged man, who has for the last thirty years been detached from party politics, and who has now nothing whatever to hope or to fear from the world, has no merit in seeking only the truth and acting an independent part. But I know too well, and have felt too much the influence of party feeling, not to be fully aware that those men will be entitled to the highest praise, who, being really desirous of preserving peace, shall on this momentous occasion dare to act for themselves, notwithstanding the powerful sympathies of party. Yet no sacrifice of principles is required: men may remain firmly attached to those on which their party was founded and which they conscientiously adopted. There is no connexion between the principles or doctrines on which each party respectively was founded, and the question of war or peace with a foreign nation which is now agitated. The practice which has lately prevailed to convert every subject, from the most frivolous to the most important, into a pure party question, destroys altogether personal independence, and strikes at the very roots of our institutions. These usages of party, as they are called, make every man a slave, and transfer the legitimate authority of the majority of the nation to the majority of a party, and, consequently, to a minority of the sovereign people. If it were permitted to appeal to former times, I would say that, during the six years that I had the honor of a seat in Congress, there were but two of those party meetings, called for the purpose of deliberating upon the measures proper to be adopted. The first was after the House had asserted its abstract right to decide on the propriety of making appropriations necessary to carry a treaty into effect, whether such appropriations should be made with respect to the treaty with England of 1794. The other was in the year 1798, respecting the course proper to be pursued after the hostile and scandalous conduct of the French Directory. On both occasions we were divided; and on both the members of the minority of each meeting were left at full liberty to vote as they pleased, without being on that account proscribed or considered as having abandoned the principles of the party. This, too, took place at a time when, unfortunately, each party most erroneously suspected the other of an improper attachment to one or the other of the great belligerent foreign nations. I must say that I never knew a man belonging to the same party as myself, and I have no reason to believe that there was any in the opposite party, who would have sacrificed the interests of the country to those of any foreign power. I am confident that no such person is to be found now in our councils or amongst our citizens; nor am I apt to suspect personal views, or apprehensive of the effect these might produce. My only fear is that which I have expressed, the difficulty for honorable men to disenthral themselves from those