It appeals to every prejudice which
may betray men into a mistaken view of their own interests, and to every
passion which may lead them to disobey the impulses of their
understanding. It urges all the specious topics of State rights and
national encroachment against that which a great majority of the States
have affirmed to be rightful, and in which all of them have acquiesced.
It sows, in an unsparing manner, the seeds of jealousy and ill-will
against that government of which its author is the official head. It
raises a cry, that liberty is in danger, at the very moment when it puts
forth claims to powers heretofore unknown and unheard of. It affects
alarm for the public freedom, when nothing endangers that freedom so
much as its own unparalleled pretences. This, even, is not all. It
manifestly seeks to inflame the poor against the rich; it wantonly
attacks whole classes of the people, for the purpose of turning against
them the prejudices and the resentments of other classes. It is a state
paper which finds no topic too exciting for its use, no passion too
inflammable for its address and its solicitation.
Such is this message. It remains now for the people of the United States
to choose between the principles here avowed and their government. These
cannot subsist together. The one or the other must be rejected. If the
sentiments of the message shall receive general approbation, the
Constitution will have perished even earlier than the moment which its
enemies originally allowed for the termination of its existence.
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