Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia: Begun and Held at the Capitol, in the City of Richmond, on Monday, the Seventh Day of December, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Five (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia: Begun and Held at the Capttol, in the City of Richmond, on Monday, the Seventh Day of December, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Five

It is in vain to turn away our eyes from the state of things that now exists. We have to meet it, in some form or other; and it belongs properly to you to decide as to the manner in which this shall be done. It is no time to temporize. Should any thing arrest the progress of the scheme devised, for the present, experience teaches that it will surely be revived hereafter, whenever any circumstance may arise promising to its authors a more favourable re sult; and in such a government as that of the United States, occasions will often present themselves, even if they are not made, when such projects may be agitated with some fancied or pretended prospect of success. It behooves you, therefore, to settle, at once, upon the course proper to be pursued in such a contingency; and to inform those whom you represent, either to prepare for the occasion as becomes men determined to peril all in defence of their known rights, or to hold their possessions at the mere courtesy of others who are unacquainted with their situation and indifferent to their interests. Feeling with the other citizens of this commonwealth, and honoured by the re. Sponsible situation conferred upon me, I must be excused for callin your attention to this great subject, in a manner more impressive than I should think myself at liberty to adopt un or ordinary circumstances.

In regard to the first question, no one can doubt, that under the wise provisions of the public law, intended as this is to perpetuate the peace and harmony of all states, whenever an association exists within the territory of any state, the object of which association is to disturb the repose of another, the state whose tranquillity is jeoparded by such means, may rightfully demand of the other, the prompt suppression of all such associations. Such demands, when sustained by proper roofs, are never refused by any state which wishes to remain a member of the family of civilized communities, or esires to maintain amicable relations with the state makin and sustaining the demand. There is no exception to this rule. To doubt it now, would be to replunge the civ' lzed world into that barbarism from which it has emerged, and to justify every nation in the impudent attempt to regulate the affairs of others, by its own notions; which, although sometimes concealed beneath the guise of pretended philanthropy, may always be traced to considerations much less pure. Hence, the universal doctrine and practice of modern states, is never to obtrude even their advice, unasked, as to the mere internal concerns of others, so long as these do no injury to their neighbours. And what states may not do themselves, can never be tolerated by them as the acts of their citizens or subjects, unless they mean to adopt such acts as their own.

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