If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.

As a nation of free men, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

I hope I am not over-wary; but, if I am not, there is even now something of ill-omen amongst us.

I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country, the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of the courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice.

This disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit it, it would be a violation of truth and an insult to our intelligence to deny.