these men making themselves exceptions to the maxim of the world, and finishing the revolution which they began--seen them found a new government and administer it in their day and generation, and until "gathered to their fathers," and all with the same wisdom, justice, moderation, and decorum, with which they began it: if he had lived to have seen all this, even his lofty genius might have recoiled from the task of doing them justice;--and, I may add, from the task of doing justice to the PEOPLE who sustained such men. Eulogy is not my task; but gratitude and veneration is the debt of my birth and inheritance, and of the benefits which I have enjoyed from their labors; and I have proposed to acknowledge this debt--to discharge it is impossible--in laboring to preserve their work during my day, and in now commending it, by the fruits it has borne, to the love and care of posterity. Another motive, hardly entitled to the dignity of being named, has its weight with me, and belongs to the rights of "self-defence." I have made a great many speeches, and have an apprehension that they may be published after I am gone--published in the gross, without due discrimination--and so preserve, or perpetuate, things said, both of men and of measures, which I no longer approve, and would wish to leave to oblivion. By making selections of suitable parts of these speeches, and weaving them into this work, I may hope to prevent a general publication--or to render it harmless if made. But I do not condemn all that I leave out. 2.--QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE WORK.