last year or of this year? Certainly, he is told, the latter. But why so? They are equal and contrary weights; they act in opposition upon the same subject, with the same lights and by the same authority. Why not wait for another to decide between them? Why should he not, especially in Virginia, play for the rubber—take his chance for the third heat? There may be another change in the fortune of parties—another _will of the State Legislature_, to which he may run counter by a hasty submission. Again—must this State agent, miscalled a Senator of the United States, take the vote of the Legislature to be the will of the people, without regard to the state of the vote? may he inquire how the vote was constituted, _how it was obtained_—by what influence, misrepresentation or mistake? Suppose he should find that his orders came from a majority of the members present, but not a majority of the house, and he should know that the absent members would have turned the vote—may he refuse his obedience to what is, legally speaking, the act and will of the Legislature? If he should obey or resign, and then, in a full house, his instructions are revoked, what is his situation? He has perhaps inflicted a serious wound upon the Constitution of his country, which he cannot heal. I will present one other difficulty which might distress the unlearned. A Senator may be presumed to know the members of his State Legislature—their general standing and character. He receives instructions passed by a majority of six or eight, on a vote of one or two hundred. He looks at the roll of yeas and nays. He finds in the majority a great proportion of men he knows to be of little knowledge, of strong passions and prejudices, with a servile adherence to party purposes; {535} men, even if honest, on whose judgment he would not place the least reliance in the most common business—whose opinion he would not regard in any concern of his own of the value of a dollar. On the other side, he finds the names of men long distinguished for their learning and experience, of unsuspected integrity, dispassionate in judgment, and pure in their patriotism and purposes;—men to whom all the country has looked for years, with confidence and veneration. In a word, he sees the name of _James Madison_ on the one hand, opposed by that of some violent, ignorant, interested demagogue on the other. Is he to shut his eyes and his understanding to such a state of things, and surrender his duty, his honor, and his conscience, to the dictation of ignorance, passion and prejudice, and turn a deaf ear to the voice of knowledge, virtue, and patriotism? Is he to decide a vital constitutional question by the will of such masters, who would not hold themselves bound by their vote? Mr. Tyler assures us that some of the voters for his last instructions were among those who but the year before gave him contrary orders on the same subject. Such an