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Copyright © 2018 by Thomas Morris

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Morris, Thomas (Thomas Neil Gareth), author.

Title: The mystery of the exploding teeth : and other curiosities from the history of medicine / Thomas Morris.
Description: New York, New York : Dutton, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018022919| ISBN 9781524743680 (hardback) | ISBN 9781524743697 (ebook)
Subjects: | MESH: Folklore | History of Medicine | Anecdotes
Classification: LCC R733 | NLM WZ 308 | DDC 610—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018022919

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Version_1
For Jenny

✴
 CONTENTS

Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction

1. UNFORTUNATE PREDICAMENTS
A fork up the anus ✴ Swallowing knives is bad for you ✴ The golden padlock ✴ The boy who got
his wick stuck in a candlestick ✴ Shot by a toasting fork ✴ Mr. Dendy’s eggcup case ✴ Broken
glass and boiled cabbage ✴ Honking like a goose ✴ Penis in a bottle ✴ The colonic carpentry kit
✴ Suffocated by a fish

2. MYSTERIOUS ILLNESSES
A hideous thing happened in High Holborn ✴ The incredible sleeping woman ✴ The dreadful
mortification ✴ The human pincushion ✴ The man who fought a duel in his sleep ✴ The mystery
of the exploding teeth ✴ The woman who peed through her nose ✴ The boy who vomited his own
twin ✴ The case of the luminous patients ✴ The missing pen

3. DUBIOUS REMEDIES
Death of an earl ✴ The tobacco-smoke enema ✴ Saliva and crow’s vomit ✴ The pigeon’s-rump
cure ✴ Mercury cigarettes ✴ The tapeworm trap ✴ The port-wine enema ✴ The snake-dung
salesman

4. HORRIFYING OPERATIONS
The case of the drunken Dutchman’s guts ✴ If you can’t find a surgeon . . . ✴ The self-inflicted
lithotripsy ✴ A high pain threshold ✴ A window in his chest ✴ The sad case of Hoo Loo ✴ All at
sea ✴ An extraordinary surgical operation

5. REMARKABLE RECOVERIES
 The wandering musket ball ✴ The miller’s tale ✴ In one side and out the other ✴ A bayonet
through the head ✴ An interesting and remarkable accident ✴ The lucky Prussian ✴ A case for
Dr. Coffin ✴ The healing power of nature ✴ Severed, replaced, reunited ✴ Give that man a medal
✴ A bit of a headache

6. TALL TALES
Sleeping with the fishes ✴ Death of a 152-year-old ✴ The combustible countess ✴ He sliced his
penis in two ✴ Half man, half snake ✴ The human waxwork ✴ The slugs and the porcupine ✴
The amphibious infant ✴ The seventy-year-old mother-to-be

7. HIDDEN DANGERS
A surfeit of cucumbers ✴ The perils of being a writer ✴ Why children should never wear hats ✴
Killed by his false teeth ✴ Pegged out ✴ The cast-iron stove panic ✴ Brolly painful ✴ A flaming
nuisance ✴ Cycling will give you heart disease

Sources
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Author
 INTRODUCTION

A COUPLE OF YEARS ago I was sitting in a library, plowing through a

rather dull nineteenth-century article about heart disease, when I
spotted something more interesting on the previous page of the journal I
was perusing. Underneath the promising headline “Sudden Protrusion of the
whole of the Intestines into the Scrotum,” I found the following:

John Marsh, aged 50, a labourer, was brought into the hospital,
having just been run over by a cart laden with bricks. His scrotum, on
inspection, was found to be of most enormous size, extending two
thirds downwards between the thighs, and measuring in circumference
17 inches. Its colour of a jet black; and its texture, from over
distention, so exquisitely thin as to threaten immediate rupture from
the slightest manipulation.

Questions whirled through my mind. Why was his scrotum so enormous?

What on earth could a doctor do about such an injury in 1829? How long
did the unfortunate John Marsh survive? Horrified and fascinated in equal
measure, I could not stop reading. The answers proved to be just as
intriguing. When the cartwheels had passed over Mr. Marsh’s belly, they
had done so with such force that his intestines were squeezed through the
inguinal canal, a narrow passage between the abdominal cavity and the
scrotum. With his guts now competing with his nuts for scrotum space, as it
were, the physicians had a simple task: Get them back where they belonged.

On being placed in bed the viscera were returned to their natural

situation without much difficulty, merely by elevating the hips,
 depressing the shoulders, and applying moderate and careful pressure
with flannels moistened in hot poppy fomentation.

Hot-water bottles, laxatives, opium and leeches (applied to the scrotum)

completed the treatment. My assumption about Mr. Marsh’s survival
prospects turned out to be unduly pessimistic.

On the twelfth day from the occurrence of the injury the patient was
reported as quite convalescent, and able to sit up for some hours in
bed, the precaution of applying a truss having previously been taken.
At the end of the third week he was discharged cured.

Not quite cured, it turned out. A postscript adds:

He is compelled to wear his double truss both night and day, otherwise
the viscera descend immediately into the scrotum in very large
quantities.

I soon discovered that you can hardly flick through the pages of an old
medical journal without stumbling across a story that is compellingly
disgusting, hilarious or downright bizarre. In between long, dry
dissertations on London sanitation or the treatment of yellow fever are
scattered little anecdotal gems: tales of patients who glowed in the dark,
performed surgery on their own bodies or vomited living slugs. Some are
poignant or touching, a few are grim, but they all have more to offer than
just a good yarn. However embarrassing the ailment or odd the treatment,
every one of these cases says something about the beliefs and knowledge of
an earlier age. While superstition and folk traditions can be seen influencing
medics until surprisingly late, it is also clear that the practitioners of long
ago were sometimes capable of immense sophistication. I began to collect
these incredible tales from little-known corners of the medical literature:
stories of weird treatments, jaw-dropping surgery and miraculous recovery
from almost certain death.
The case histories in this book span three hundred years, from the early
seventeenth century to the turn of the twentieth. Medicine changed
dramatically during that period, undergoing a partial transformation from an
art into a science. Early modern clinicians were still heavily influenced by
the theories of ancient medicine, especially the writings of the Greek
physician Galen—even if the realization that his opinions were not, after
all, infallible had stimulated a new age of inquiry and innovation.
Nevertheless, many of their treatments were based on the Galenic idea that
health depends on the correct balance among four bodily fluids, or humors:
blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. If a surfeit of one humor was
suspected, equilibrium could be restored by evacuating the excess, using
bleeding or purgative medicines to do so. There was no anesthesia, so
operations were short, painful and brutal—and while physicians and
apothecaries had a vast range of drugs at their disposal, few were of much
use.
Three centuries later, the microscope had shown that most infectious
diseases were caused by organisms too small to be seen by the naked eye.
Doctors had learned to control infection and perform surgery on an
unconscious patient and could prescribe drugs that were effective against a
range of serious conditions including heart failure and epilepsy. But old
remedies still lingered: Bleeding was being recommended by some old-
fashioned physicians as late as 1894, and laxatives were prescribed with
wild abandon by Victorian doctors, who seldom failed to inquire about the
state of their patients’ bowels.
Many of the treatments offered in these stories may seem ludicrous, even
barbaric, from a modern perspective, but it is worth remembering that the
medics of the past were no less intelligent or assiduous than their modern
counterparts. One thing that these case histories demonstrate is the
admirably tenacious, even bloody-minded, determination of doctors to help
their patients, in an age when their art left much to be desired. Where there
were no effective remedies, they looked for new ones, and it was inevitable
that many dead ends would be explored before they found the way ahead.
The methods they used were consistent with their understanding of how the
human body worked, and it is not their fault that medical knowledge has
advanced considerably since then.
In 1851, James Young Simpson, the pioneer of chloroform anesthesia,
wrote an article about the strange remedies employed by ancient Roman
doctors. He cautioned that it was unwise to be too hard on the
“extravagance and oddity” of their methods, adding presciently:
 Perhaps, some century or two hence, our successors . . . will look back
upon our present massive and clumsy doses of vegetable powders,
bulky salts, nauseous decoctions, etc., with as much wonderment and
surprise as we now look back upon the preceding therapeutic means of
our ancestors.

The same could be said of twenty-first-century medicine, which is far from

a perfected science. That said, some old treatments were misguided to the
point of perversity, even by the standards of their time, and I have not
resisted the urge to dole out a little gentle mockery where I thought it
justified.
Most of these cases are extracted from the medical journals that started
to proliferate at the end of the eighteenth century as a means for doctors to
share their knowledge and experience; other source material includes
surgical textbooks and newspaper reports. While a few (in the Tall Tales
chapter) may be hoaxes, the vast majority are genuine case reports, written
by medics who give an honest account of what they did and saw. Some are
presented in their entirety; others have been edited to remove superfluous or
uninteresting details; but I have not added or embellished anything.
Finally, a disclaimer: I am not a doctor, and nothing within these pages
should be construed as medical advice. Readers who choose to treat their
ailments by administering port-wine enemas, ingesting snake excrement or
smoking cigarettes steeped in mercury do so at their own risk.
 1
UNFORTUNATE PREDICAMENTS

A REGULAR FEATURE OF any hospital emergency department is the patient

who turns up with an embarrassing and entirely self-inflicted
complaint. When questioned about the nature of their ailment and how it
came about, they may fall silent or offer a less than plausible explanation.
In 1953, a man was admitted to a hospital in Barnsley with severe
abdominal pain that he said had been plaguing him for almost a fortnight.
Surgeons discovered severe tearing in the wall of his rectum, evidently
inflicted just a few hours earlier, which they were able to repair. Asked how
he had sustained this injury, the patient claimed that he was standing too
near a firework “while in a stooping position,” and it had gone off
unexpectedly. Pressed for the truth, he admitted that he had become
frustrated in his personal life and had “decided to explode a firework up his
seat.” That’s one way of dealing with it, I suppose.
The medical literature is brimming with misguided individuals, the
forebears of this proctological pyrotechnician, who inserted strange objects
in places where they weren’t meant to go. One of the earliest stories
concerns a monk who tried to ease his colic by coaxing a bottle of perfume
inside his gut; another relates how a surgeon rescued the dignity of a farmer
who had somehow ended up with a goblet wedged inside his rectum. But
these are prosaic achievements compared with some of the bravura feats
recorded in the following pages. What is so impressive about many of these
tales of mishap is the sheer ingenuity that had gone into creating a highly
regrettable situation—often matched by the imaginative manner in which a
physician or surgeon went about treating the unfortunate patient.
Medicine has improved almost beyond recognition in the past few
centuries, but some things never change. The human capacity for mischief,
misadventure and downright idiocy is apparently a trait that progress cannot
eradicate.

A FORK UP THE ANUS

Modern medical journals aren’t exactly famous for their snappy headlines.
The professional terminology doesn’t help: It’s not easy to write a zinger of
a heading if the subject of your article has a name like bestrophinopathy,
idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura or necrotizing fasciitis.
But recent years have seen a fightback against such sterile jargon, with a
few researchers trying to grab their readers’ attention by means of literary
allusions, pop culture references and bad puns. One recent article in The
New England Journal of Medicine made a desperate pitch to George R. R.
Martin fans with the headline “Game of TOR: The Target of Rapamycin
Rules Four Kingdoms.” Another, about foreign bodies in the bladder, was
headed “From Urethra with Shove.”* And for sheer chutzpah, it’s difficult
to beat “Super-mesenteric-vein-expia-thrombosis, the Clinical Sequelae
Can Be Quite Atrocious”—the improbable title of an article about a serious
complication of appendicitis.
But my favorite medical headline of all was written almost three hundred
years ago. In 1724, the Philosophical Transactions, the journal of the Royal
Society, published a letter from Mr. Robert Payne, a surgeon from
Lowestoft in Suffolk. The title is unimprovable:

James Bishop, an apprentice to a ship-carpenter in Great Yarmouth,

about nineteen years of age, had violent pains in the lower part of the
abdomen for six or seven months. It did not appear to be any species
of the colic; he sometimes made bloody urine, which induced Mr P. to
 believe it might be a stone in the bladder. He was very little relieved by
physic; at length a hard tumour appeared in the left buttock, on or
near the glutaeus maximus, two or three inches from the verge of the
anus, a little sloping upwards. A short time after, he voided purulent
matter by the anus, every day for some time.

This is the old sense of the word tumor: not necessarily indicating abnormal
tissue growth, but a swelling of any description. This example was, as it
turned out, some sort of cyst, and eventually its surface broke. The surgeon
suspected it was an anal fistula—an anomalous channel between the end of
the bowel and the skin. But events soon proved him wrong:

Shortly after the prongs of a fork appeared through the orifice of the
sore, above half an inch beyond the skin. As soon as the prongs
appeared, his violent pains ceased; I divided the flesh between the
prongs, according to the best of my judgment; and after that made a
circular incision about the prongs and so with a strong pair of pincers
extracted it, not without great difficulty, handle and all entire. The end
of the handle was besmeared with the excrement, when drawn out.

Naturally. This was a surprisingly large item of cutlery:

It is six inches and a half long, a large pocket-fork; the handle is ivory,
but is dyed of a very dark brown colour; the iron part is very black and
smooth, but not rusty.

The young man was reluctant to explain how he had managed to get himself
in this predicament; at least, not until he was threatened with the withdrawal
of his allowance.

A relation of his, a Gentleman in this neighbourhood, who sent him to

be under my care, the Reverend Mr Gregory Clark, Rector of
Blundeston, on whom, in a great measure, his dependence is,
threatened never to look upon him more, unless he would give him an
account how it came; and he told him, that, being costive,* he put the
 fork up his fundament, thinking by that means to help himself, but
unfortunately it slipped up so far, that he could not recover it again.

Mr. Payne adds a postscript:

PS: He says he had no trouble or pain till a month, or more, after it

was put up.

A fact that does not alter the moral of this cautionary tale: If you’re
constipated, it’s better not to stick a fork up your fundament.

SWALLOWING KNIVES IS BAD FOR YOU

Compulsive swallowers have always featured heavily in medical literature.

There are numerous cases in nineteenth-century journals—but most of the
individuals concerned were obviously suffering from some kind of mental
illness. This, from the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions for 1823, is the
first I’ve come across in which the patient was swallowing knives for a
laugh.
 In the month of June 1799, John Cummings, an American sailor, about
twenty-three years of age, being with his ship on the coast of France,
and having gone on shore with some of his shipmates about two miles
from the town of Havre de Grace, he and his party directed their
course towards a tent which they saw in a field, with a crowd of people
round it. Being told that a play was acting there, they entered, and
found in the tent a mountebank, who was entertaining the audience by
pretending to swallow clasp-knives. Having returned on board, and
one of the party having related to the ship’s company the story of the
knives, Cummings, after drinking freely, boasted that he could swallow
knives as well as the Frenchman.

Not a particularly wise boast, and his comrades lost no time in challenging
him to prove it. Eager not to disappoint them, he put his penknife in his
mouth and swallowed it, washing it down with yet more booze.

The spectators, however, were not satisfied with one experiment, and
asked the operator “whether he could swallow more?”; his answer
was, “all the knives on board the ship”, upon which three knives were
immediately produced, which were swallowed in the same way as the
former; and “by this bold attempt of a drunken man”, (to use his own
expressions) “the company was well entertained for that night.”

Actions have consequences, as every sailor should know, and when foreign
objects are ingested, the “consequences” usually come within twelve hours.
And lo, it came to pass.*

The next morning he had a motion, which presented nothing

extraordinary; and in the afternoon he had another, with which he
passed one knife, which however was not the one that he had
swallowed the first. The next day he passed two knives at once, one of
which was the first, which he had missed the day before. The fourth
never came away, to his knowledge, and he never felt any
inconvenience from it.

So no problem, right?
 After this great performance, he thought no more of swallowing knives
for the space of six years. In the month of March 1805, being then at
Boston, in America, he was one day tempted, while drinking with a
party of sailors, to boast of his former exploits, adding that he was the
same man still, and ready to repeat his performance; upon which a
small knife was produced, which he instantly swallowed. In the course
of that evening he swallowed five more. The next morning crowds of
visitors came to see him; and in the course of that day he was induced
to swallow eight knives more, making in all fourteen.

It seems safe to assume at this point that Mr. Cummings was not—ahem—
the sharpest knife in the drawer.

This time, however, he paid dearly for his frolic; for he was seized the
next morning with constant vomiting and pain at his stomach, which
made it necessary to carry him to Charleston hospital, where, as he
expresses it, “betwixt that period and the 28th of the following month,
he was safely delivered of his cargo.”

No doubt this was a common naval euphemism of the time rather than an
original bon mot; but it made me laugh. Having “emptied the hold,”
Cummings boarded a vessel traveling to France. But on the return journey,
his ship was intercepted by HMS Isis, and he was press-ganged into service
with the Royal Navy.

One day while at Spithead, where the ship lay some time, having got
drunk and, as usual, renewed the topic of his former follies, he was
once more challenged to repeat the experiment, and again complied,
“disdaining,” as he says, “to be worse than his word.”

An honorable person may keep their word, but a sensible one does not
consume five knives, as the misguided American did that night. And he still
wasn’t finished; far from it.

On the next morning the ship’s company having expressed a great

desire to see him repeat the performance, he complied with his usual
 astonished to find, lodged in that ventricle, the stick which the boy had
used as the breach of the gun, the one end of it pressing against the
extreme part of the ventricle, near the apex of the heart, and forcing
itself between the columnae carneae and the internal surface of the
heart; the other end resting upon the auriculo-ventricular valve, and
tearing part of its delicate structure, and being itself encrusted with a
thick coagulum, as large as a walnut.

The stick had lodged in the right side of the heart, the side that propels
deoxygenated blood toward the lungs. The right auricle (known today as the
right atrium) is the chamber by which blood enters the heart, before passing
through the tricuspid (auriculo-ventricular) valve into the pumping chamber
of the right ventricle. The columnae carneae (from the Latin, literally
“meaty ridges”) are a series of muscular columns that project into the
ventricle. The stick had somehow become wedged underneath them, and a
large clot had formed around it—as one would expect when a foreign body
spends any length of time in the bloodstream.

We searched, in vain, for any wound, either in the heart itself, or in the
pericardium, by which the stick could have found its way into the
ventricle.

Highly significant. If the stick had simply pierced the wall of the heart, two
things are likely to have happened. First, the boy would almost certainly
have died within minutes: A wound big enough to admit such a large object
would have caused catastrophic bleeding. Second, in the unlikely event that
he had survived, it would have left a significant scar on the heart muscle.

This case strikes me as one of the most interesting on record. In the

first place, that this child should have survived such an accident as the
lodgement of a stick, three inches in length, in the right ventricle, and
have been afterwards equal to so much muscular exertion as he was,
appears wonderful, especially if we consider the mechanical difficulty
which the heart had thereby to encounter in carrying on the
circulation of the blood. In the next place, it appears somewhat
difficult to point out how the stick found its way into the right ventricle
Another random document with
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dangerous in their tendency. It belongs not to state legislatures to
decide on the constitutionality of the laws made by the general
government; this power being exclusively vested in judiciary courts
of the Union.
That his excellency the governor be requested to transmit a copy of
this resolution to the executive of Virginia, to be communicated to
the General Assembly of that state; and that the same be sent to the
Governor and Council for their concurrence.

Samuel C. Crafts, Clerk.

In Council, October 30, 1799.—Read and concurred in

unanimously.

Richard Whitney, Sec’y.

 Resolutions of 1798 and 1799.

(The original draught prepared by Thomas Jefferson.)

The following resolutions passed the House of Representatives of
Kentucky, Nov. 10, 1798. On the passage of the first resolution, one
dissentient; 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, two dissentients; 9th,
three dissentients.
1. Resolved, That the several states composing the United States of
America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to
their general government; but that by compact under the style and
title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments
thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes,
delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each
state to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-
government: and, that whensoever the general government assumes
undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no
force; that to this compact each state acceded as a state, and is an
integral party; that this government, created by this compact, was
not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers
delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not
the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but, that as in all other
cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party
has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the
mode and measure of redress.
2. Resolved, That the Constitution of the United States having
delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the
securities and current coin of the United States, piracies and felonies
committed on the high seas, and offences against the laws of nations,
and no other crimes whatever; and it being true, as a general
principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also
declared, “that the powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the
states respectively, or to the people,” therefore also the same act of
Congress, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and entitled “An act
in addition to the act entitled An act for the punishment of certain
crimes against the United States;” as also the act passed by them on
the 27th day of June, 1798, entitled “An act to punish frauds
committed on the Bank of the United States,” (and all other their acts
which assume to create, define, or punish crimes other than those
enumerated in the Constitution), are altogether void and of no force,
and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is
reserved, and of right appertains solely and exclusively to the
respective states, each within its own territory.
3. Resolved, That it is true, as a general principle, and is also
expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution,
that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the
states respectively, or to the people;” and that no power over the
freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by
it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right
remain, and were reserved to the states or to the people; that thus
was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right
of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may
be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far
those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be
tolerated rather than the use be destroyed; and thus also they
guarded against all abridgment by the United States, of the freedom
of religious principles and exercises, and retained to themselves the
right of protecting the same, as this, stated by a law passed on the
general demand of its citizens, had already protected them from all
human restraint or interference: and that, in addition to this general
principle and express declaration, another and more special
provision has been made by one of the amendments to the
Constitution, which expressly declares, that “Congress shall make no
laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,”
thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words,
the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press, insomuch that
whatever violates either, throws down the sanctuary which covers
the others; and that libels, falsehood, and defamation, equally with
heresy and false religion, are withheld from the cognisance of federal
tribunals. That therefore the act of the Congress of the United States,
passed on the 14th of July, 1798, entitled “An act in addition to the
act entitled An act for the punishment of certain crimes against the
United States,” which does abridge the freedom of the press, is not
law, but is altogether void and of no force.
4. Resolved, That alien friends are under the jurisdiction and
protection of the laws of the state wherein they are: that no power
over them has been delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to
the individual states distinct from their power over citizens; and it
being true, as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the
Constitution having also declared, that “the powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the states,
are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people,” the act of the
Congress of the United States, passed the 22d day of June, 1798,
entitled “An act concerning aliens,” which assumes power over alien
friends not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether
void and of no force.
5. Resolved, That in addition to the general principle as well as the
express declaration, that powers not delegated are reserved, another
and more special provision inferred in the Constitution, from
abundant caution has declared, “that the migration or importation of
such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to
admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year
1808.” That this commonwealth does admit the migration of alien
friends described as the subject of the said act concerning aliens; that
a provision against prohibiting their migration, is a provision against
all acts equivalent thereto, or it would be nugatory; that to remove
them when migrated is equivalent to a prohibition of their migration,
and is, therefore, contrary to the said provision of the Constitution,
and void.
6. Resolved, That the imprisonment of a person under the
protection of the laws of this commonwealth on his failure to obey
the simple order of the President to depart out of the United States,
as is undertaken by the said act, entitled, “An act concerning aliens,”
is contrary to the Constitution, one amendment in which has
provided, that “no person shall be deprived of liberty without due
process of law,” and, that another having provided, “that in all
criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a public
trial by an impartial jury, to be informed as to the nature and cause
of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to
have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to
have assistance of counsel for his defence,” the same act undertaking
to authorize the President to remove a person out of the United
States who is under the protection of the law, on his own suspicion,
without jury, without public trial, without confrontation of the
witnesses against him, without having witnesses in his favor, without
defence, without counsel, is contrary to these provisions also of the
Constitution, is therefore not law, but utterly void and of no force.
That transferring the power of judging any person who is under
the protection of the laws, from the courts to the President of the
United States, as is undertaken by the same act concerning aliens, is
against the article of the Constitution which provides, that “the
judicial power of the United States shall be vested in the courts, the
judges of which shall hold their office during good behavior,” and
that the said act is void for that reason also; and it is further to be
noted that this transfer of judiciary power is to that magistrate of the
general government who already possesses all the executive, and a
qualified negative in all the legislative powers.
7. Resolved, That the construction applied by the general
government (as is evident by sundry of their proceedings) to those
parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate to
Congress power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, excises; to
pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general
welfare of the United States, and to make all laws which shall be
necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested
by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or any
department thereof, goes to the destruction of all the limits
prescribed to their power by the Constitution: That words meant by
that instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of the limited
powers, ought not to be so construed as themselves to give unlimited
powers, nor a part so to be taken as to destroy the whole residue of
the instrument: That the proceedings of the general government
under color of those articles, will be a fit and necessary subject for
revisal and correction at a time of greater tranquillity, while those
specified in the preceding resolutions call for immediate redress.
 8. Resolved, That the preceding resolutions be transmitted to the
Senators and Representatives in Congress from this commonwealth,
who are enjoined to present the same to their respective Houses, and
to use their best endeavors to procure at the next session of Congress
a repeal of the aforesaid unconstitutional and obnoxious acts.
9. Resolved lastly, That the governor of this commonwealth be,
and is hereby authorized and requested to communicate the
preceding resolutions to the legislatures of the several states, to
assure them that this commonwealth considers union for special
national purposes, and particularly for those specified in their late
federal compact, to be friendly to the peace, happiness, and
prosperity of all the states—that, faithful to that compact, according
to the plain intent and meaning in which it was understood and
acceded to by the several parties, it is sincerely anxious for its
preservation; that it does also believe, that to take from the states all
the powers of self-government, and transfer them to a general and
consolidated government, without regard to the special delegations
and reservations solemnly agreed to in that compact, is not for the
peace, happiness, or prosperity of these states; and that, therefore,
this commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-states are,
to submit to undelegated and consequently unlimited powers in no
man, or body of men on earth: that if the acts before specified should
stand, these conclusions would flow from them; that the general
government may place any act they think proper on the list of crimes
and punish it themselves, whether enumerated or not enumerated by
the Constitution as cognisable by them; that they may transfer its
cognisance to the President or any other person, who may himself be
the accuser, counsel, judge, and jury, whose suspicions may be the
evidence, his order the sentence, his officer the executioner, and his
breast the sole record of the transaction; that a very numerous and
valuable description of the inhabitants of these states, being by this
precedent reduced as outlaws to the absolute dominion of one man
and the barriers of the Constitution thus swept from us all, no
rampart now remains against the passions and the power of a
majority of Congress, to protect from a like exportation or other
grievous punishment the minority of the same body, the legislatures,
judges, governors, and counsellors of the states, nor their other
peaceable inhabitants who may venture to reclaim the constitutional
rights and liberties of the states and people, or who, for other causes,
good or bad, may be obnoxious to the view or marked by the
suspicions of the President, or to be thought dangerous to his or their
elections or other interests, public or personal; that the friendless
alien has been selected as the safest subject of a first experiment; but
the citizen will soon follow, or rather has already followed; for,
already has a sedition act marked him as a prey: that these and
successive acts of the same character, unless arrested on the
threshold, may tend to drive these states into revolution and blood,
and will furnish new calumnies against republican governments, and
new pretexts for those who wish it to be believed, that man cannot be
governed but by a rod of iron; that it would be a dangerous delusion
were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the
safety of our rights; that confidence is everywhere the parent of
despotism; free government is found in jealousy and not in
confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited
constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with
power; that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to
which, and no farther, our confidence may go; and let the honest
advocate of confidence read the alien and sedition acts, and say if the
Constitution has not been wise in fixing limits to the government it
created, and whether we should be wise in destroying those limits?
Let him say what the government is, if it be not a tyranny, which the
men of our choice have conferred on the President, and the President
of our choice has assented to and accepted over the friendly
strangers, to whom the mild spirit of our country and its laws had
pledged hospitality and protection; that the men of our choice have
more respected the bare suspicions of the President than the solid
rights of innocence, the claims of justification, the sacred force of
truth, and the forms and substance of law and justice. In questions of
power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him
down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. That this
Commonwealth does therefore call on its co-states for an expression
of their sentiments on the acts concerning aliens, and for the
punishment of certain crimes hereinbefore specified, plainly
declaring whether these acts are or are not authorized by the federal
compact. And it doubts not that their sense will be so announced as
to prove their attachment to limited government, whether general or
particular, and that the rights and liberties of their co-states will be
exposed to no dangers by remaining embarked on a common bottom
with their own: but they will concur with this commonwealth in
considering the said acts as so palpably against the Constitution as to
amount to an undisguised declaration, that the compact is not meant
to be the measure of the powers of the general government, but that
it will proceed in the exercise over these states of all powers
whatsoever. That they will view this as seizing the rights of the states
and consolidating them in the hands of the general government, with
a power assumed to bind the states (not merely in cases made
federal) but in all cases whatsoever, by laws made, not with their
consent, but by others against their consent; that this would be to
surrender the form of government we have chosen, and live under
one deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our
authority; and that the co-states recurring to their natural rights in
cases not made federal, will concur in declaring these void and of no
force, and will each unite with this Commonwealth in requesting
their repeal at the next session of Congress.

Edmund Bullock, S. H. R.
John Campbell, S. P. T.

Passed the House of Representatives, Nov. 10, 1798.

Attest, Thos. Todd, C. H. R.

In Senate, Nov. 13, 1798.—Unanimously concurred in.

Attest, B. Thurston, C. S.

Approved, Nov. 19, 1798.

Jas. Garrard, Gov. of Ky.

By the Governor,

Harry Toulmin, Sec. of State.

House of Representatives, Thursday, Nov. 14, 1799.

The House, according to the standing order of the day, resolved

itself into a committee of the whole House, on the state of the
commonwealth, Mr. Desha in the chair; and after some time spent
therein, the speaker resumed the chair, and Mr. Desha reported that
the committee had taken under consideration sundry resolutions
passed by several state legislatures, on the subject of the alien and
sedition laws, and had come to a resolution thereupon, which he
delivered in at the clerk’s table, where it was read and unanimously
agreed to by the House, as follows:—
The representatives of the good people of this commonwealth, in
General Assembly convened, having maturely considered the
answers of sundry states in the Union, to their resolutions passed the
last session, respecting certain unconstitutional laws of Congress,
commonly called the alien and sedition laws, would be faithless,
indeed, to themselves and to those they represent, were they silently
to acquiesce in the principles and doctrines attempted to be
maintained in all those answers, that of Virginia only excepted. To
again enter the field of argument, and attempt more fully or forcibly
to expose the unconstitutionality of those obnoxious laws, would, it
is apprehended, be as unnecessary as unavailing. We cannot,
however, but lament that, in the discussion of those interesting
subjects by sundry of the legislatures of our sister states, unfounded
suggestions and uncandid insinuations, derogatory to the true
character and principles of this commonwealth, have been
substituted in place of fair reasoning and sound argument. Our
opinions of these alarming measures of the general government,
together with our reasons for those opinions, were detailed with
decency and with temper, and submitted to the discussion and
judgment of our fellow-citizens throughout the Union. Whether the
like decency and temper have been observed in the answers of most
of those states who have denied or attempted to obviate the great
truths contained in those resolutions, we have now only to submit to
a candid world. Faithful to the true principles of the Federal Union,
unconscious of any designs to disturb the harmony of that Union,
and anxious only to escape the fangs of despotism, the good people
of this commonwealth are regardless of censure or calumniation.
Lest, however, the silence of this commonwealth should be construed
into an acquiescence in the doctrines and principles advanced and
attempted to be maintained by the said answers, or lest those of our
fellow-citizens throughout the Union who so widely differ from us on
those important subjects, should be deluded by the expectation, that
we shall be deterred from what we conceive our duty, or shrink from
the principles contained in those resolutions—therefore,
Resolved, That this commonwealth considers the Federal Union,
upon the terms and for the purposes specified in the late compact, as
conducive to the liberty and happiness of the several states: That it
does now unequivocally declare its attachment to the Union, and to
that compact, agreeably to its obvious and real intention, and will be
among the last to seek its dissolution: That if those who administer
the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by
that compact, by a total disregard to the special delegations of power
therein contained, an annihilation of the state governments, and the
creation upon their ruins of a general consolidated government, will
be the inevitable consequence: That the principle and construction
contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general
government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers
delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism—since the discretion
of those who administer the government, and not the Constitution,
would be the measure of their powers: That the several states who
formed that instrument being sovereign and independent, have the
unquestionable right to judge of the infraction; and that a
nullification by those sovereignties of all unauthorized acts done
under color of that instrument is the rightful remedy: That this
commonwealth does, under the most deliberate reconsideration,
declare that the said alien and sedition laws are, in their opinion,
palpable violations of the said Constitution; and, however cheerfully
it may be disposed to surrender its opinion to a majority of its sister
states, in matters of ordinary or doubtful policy, yet, in momentous
regulations like the present, which so vitally wound the best rights of
the citizen, it would consider a silent acquiescence as highly criminal:
That although this commonwealth, as a party to the federal compact,
will bow to the laws of the Union, yet it does, at the same time,
declare that it will not now, or ever hereafter, cease to oppose in a
constitutional manner every attempt, at what quarter soever offered,
to violate that compact. And, finally, in order that no pretext or
arguments may be drawn from a supposed acquiescence on the part
of this commonwealth in the constitutionality of those laws, and be
thereby used as precedents for similar future violations of the federal
compact—this commonwealth does now enter against them its
solemn protest.
Extract, &c. Attest, T. Todd, C. H. R.
In Senate, Nov. 22, 1799—Read and concurred in.

Attest, B. Thurston, C. S.
Washington’s Farewell Address to the People
of the United States, Sept. 17, 1796.
Accepted as a Platform for the People of the Nation, regardless of
party.

Friends and Fellow-citizens:—

The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the

executive government of the United States being not far distant, and
the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in
designating the person who is to be clothed with that important
trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more
distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you
of the resolution I have formed to decline being considered among
the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made. I beg you, at
the same time, to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution
has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations
appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his
country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence,
in my situation, might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of
zeal for your future interests; no deficiency of grateful respect of your
past kindness; but am supported by a full conviction that the step is
compatible with both.
The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which
your suffrages have twice called me, have been a uniform sacrifice of
inclination to the opinion of duty, and to a deference for what
appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have
been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I
was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from
which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination
to do this, previous to the last election, had even led to the
preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection
on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign
nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my
confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea.
I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as
internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible
with the sentiment of duty or propriety; and am persuaded, whatever
partiality may be retained for my services, that, in the present
circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove my
determination to retire.
The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust
were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust,
I will only say, that I have with good intentions contributed towards
the organization and administration of the government the best
exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not
unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications,
experience, in my own eyes—perhaps still more in the eyes of others
—has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and every day
the increasing weight of years admonishes me, more and more, that
the abode of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.
Satisfied that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my
services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that,
while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene,
patriotism does not forbid it.
In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate
the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend
the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my
beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still
more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me;
and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my
inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in
usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our
country from these services, let it always be remembered to your
praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under
circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction,
were liable to mislead; amidst appearances sometimes dubious,
vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging; in situations in which, not
unfrequently, want of success has countenanced the spirit of
criticism,—the constancy of your support was the essential prop of
the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans, by which they were effected.
Profoundly penetrated by this new idea, I shall carry it with me to my
grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows, that Heaven may
continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that union and
brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution,
which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its
administration, in every department, may be stamped with wisdom
and virtue; that in fine, the happiness of the people of these states,
under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so careful a
preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to
them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and
the adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop; but a solicitude for your welfare,
which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger
natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to
offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your
frequent review, some sentiments, which are the result of much
reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me
all important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These
will be afforded to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in
them the disinterested warning of a parting friend, who can possibly
have no personal motive to bias his counsel; nor can I forget, as an
encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a
former and not dissimilar occasion.
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your
hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm
the attachment.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people, is also
now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of
your real independence—the support of your tranquillity at home,
your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very
liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that,
from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be
taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the
conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress
against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be
most constantly and actively, (though often covertly and insidiously)
directed,—it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate
the immense value of your national union to your collective and
individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and
immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourself to think and speak
of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity,
watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing
whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be
abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of
every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or
to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest.
Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a
right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which
belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just
pride of patriotism, more than appellations derived from local
discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same
religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have, in a
common cause, fought and triumphed together; the independence
and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels and joint
efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes. But these
considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your
sensibility, are generally outweighed by those which apply more
immediately to your interest; here every portion of our country finds
the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving
the union of the whole.
The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South,
protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds, in the
productions of the latter, great additional resources of maritime and
commercial enterprise, and precious materials of manufacturing
industry. The South, in the same intercourse benefiting by the agency
of the North, sees its agriculture grow, and its commerce expanded.
Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it
finds its particular navigation invigorated; and while it contributes,
in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the
national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime
strength to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in like
intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive
improvement of interior communication, by land and by water, will
more and more find, a valuable vent for the commodities which each
brings from abroad or manufactures at home. The West derives from
the East supplies requisite to its growth or comfort, and what is
perhaps of still greater consequence, it must, of necessity, owe the
secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions, to
the weight, influence, and the maritime strength of the Atlantic side
of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interests as
one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this
essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength,
or from an apostate and unnatural connexion with any foreign
power, must be intrinsically precarious.
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and
particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to
find, in the united mass of means and efforts, greater strength,
greater resource, proportionably greater security from external
danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations;
and what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an
exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so
frequently afflict neighboring countries, not tied together by the
same government; which their own rivalship alone would be
sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances,
attachments and intrigues, would stimulate and embitter. Hence,
likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military
establishments, which, under any form of government, are
inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly
hostile to republican liberty; in this sense it is that your union ought
to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of
one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.
These considerations speak a persuasive language to every
reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the
Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt,
whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let
experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation, in such a case,
were criminal. We are authorized to hope, that a proper organization
of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for the
respective sub-divisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment.
It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and
obvious motives to Union, affecting all parts of our country, while
experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there
will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who, in any
quarter, may endeavor to weaken its bands.
In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it
occurs as a matter of serious concern, that any ground should have
been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical
discriminations—Northern and Southern—Atlantic and Western:
whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a
real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of
party to acquire influence within particular districts, is to
misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot
shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings
which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render
alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by paternal
affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a
useful lesson on this head; they have seen in the negotiation by the
executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the
treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event
throughout the United States, decisive proof how unfounded were
the suspicions propagated among them, of a policy in the general
government, and in the Atlantic States, unfriendly to their interest in
regard to the Mississippi—that with Great Britain, and that with
Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire in respect
to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it
not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages
on the Union by which they were procured? Will they not henceforth
be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them
from their brethren, and connect them with aliens?
To the efficacy and permanency of your Union a government of the
whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict between the
parties, can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably
experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances, in all
time, have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have
improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a Constitution of
government, better calculated than your former for an intimate
union, and for the efficacious management of your common
concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice,
uninfluenced and unawed—adopted upon full investigation and
mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the
distribution of its powers—uniting security with energy, and
containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just
claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority,
compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties
enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our
political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their
Constitutions of government; but the Constitution which at any time
exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole
people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power
and right of the people to establish government, presupposes the
duty of every individual to obey the established government.
All obstruction to the execution of laws, all combinations and
associations under whatever plausible character, with the real design
to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and
action of the constituted authorities, are destructive to this
fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize
faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force, to put in the
place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a
small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and,
according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the
public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and
incongruous projects of fashion, rather than the organ of consistent
and wholesome plans, digested by common counsels and modified
by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description
may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course
of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning,
ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the
power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of
government; destroying, afterwards, the very engines which had
lifted them to unjust dominion.
Towards the preservation of your government, and the
permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that
you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its
acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit
of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One
method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution,
alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to
undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to
which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least
as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other
human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which
to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that
facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion
exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis
and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient
management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as
ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect
security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a
government, with powers properly distributed, and adjusted, its
surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the
government is too feeble to withstand the enterprise of faction, to
confine each member of the society within the limits described by the
laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the
rights of person and property.
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state
with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical
discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and
warn you, in the most solemn manner, against the baneful effects of
the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having
its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under
different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled,
or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest
rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened
by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissensions, which, in
different ages and countries, has perpetrated the most horrid
enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads, at length, to
a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries
which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and
repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later,
the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate
than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his
own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.
 Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which,
nevertheless, ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and
continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the
interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils, and enfeeble the
public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded
jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against
another; foments, occasionally, riot and insurrection. It opens the
door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated
access to the government itself, through the channels of party
passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to
the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties, in free countries, are useful
checks upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep
alive the spirit of liberty. This, within certain limits, is probably true;
and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with
indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of
the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit
not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there
will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And
there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force
of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be
quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into
a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking, in a free
country, should inspire caution in those intrusted with its
administration, to confine themselves within their respective
constitutional spheres, avoiding, in the exercise of the powers of one
department, to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment
tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and
thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A
just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which
predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the
truth of this position.
The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political
power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and
constituting each the guardian of the public weal, against invasions
by the others, has been evinced by experiments, ancient and modern;