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PAPERS OF MmABEAU BuoNAPARTE LAMAR
stitutions From their disgust at men, they are soon led to quarrel with their frame of Government, which they persume gives nourish- ment to the vices, real or supposed, of those who administer in it Mjs- taking malignity for sagacity, they are soon led to cast off all hope from a good administration of affairs, and conclude that all reforma- tion depends not on a change of men, but upon an alteration of the machinery. Then will be felt in all its energy the danger of encour- aging a spirit of litigation in persons of that immature, and imperfect state of knowledge which serves to render them susceptable of doubts but incapable of their solution 1'hen will he felt in all its aggrava- tion the pernicious consequence of destroying all docility in the minds of those who are not formed for finding their own way in the labyrinths of political theory, and are made to reject the clue and disdain the guide The quack lawyers who have ever formed a majority in o~r Congress may truly be called the black legs of the noble profession which they disgrace In truth that tribe of vulgar politicians are the lowest and most degraded of our species There is no profession, no trade so vile and mechanical, as government in their hands Virtue is not their habit _They are out of themselves in any course of cond11ct recommended by conscience and glory A large liberal and prospective view of the interests of the state passes with them for romance; the principles that. recommend it as the wanderings of a disordered imig- ination Selfishness, littleness in object and means, appears soundness and sobriety They live and fatten, as it were, on their own excre- ment; the very vices and immoralities themRelves have created. Let any competent" and .disinterested man, examine our land laws, and the legislative enactments on that single subject, and he would ce~inly come to the conclusion that the individual partners, had determined to swindle the firm out of the public domain, and take it on private speculation The land laws and the locations made under them (for want of system) to make a homely but just comparison might veq readily be compared to a nest of frog-egp-s-neither head, tail, begin- ning or end He that has not the ingenuity to trace that most disgust- in~ spawn ; in all its devious windings and crossings, need not under- take to investigate the equally disgusting one, which emanated from the brains of those empirics. It may truly be called the tangled hank of legislation Our last congress not having the fear of God, and thei, oaths of office, before their eyes; passed ll Jaw requiring suits to be instituted on a certain class of claims by the first of january next or they would be forfeited and considered as donated to the government The fact was well known to the Honble. Congress, and his Excellency who g1tve it his sanction, that the archives of the land office, had beeu abandoned and were bevond their controll and of course beyond the controll of the individual claimants - that the claims refered to were principally in the hands of innocent purchasers for valuable consider- ation - that these conditions were made subsequent to the purchase and of right ought not to impose the right of the innocent assignee Be that however, as it may it is not now my province to argue the · abstract question suffice it to say that most of those claims had been located, surveyed, and the field notes together with all the evidences of ownership deposited in the land offiC'e for patent and entirely beyond the controll of tho<ie compelled by the law to become plaintiffs And •
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