FELLOW-CITIZENS:--When the General Assembly, now about adjourning,
assembled in November last, from the bankrupt state of the public
treasury, the pecuniary embarrassments prevailing in every department of
society, the dilapidated state of the public works, and the impending
danger of the degradation of the State, you had a right to expect that
your representatives would lose no time in devising and adopting measures
to avert threatened calamities, alleviate the distresses of the people,
and allay the fearful apprehensions in regard to the future prosperity of
the State. It was not expected by you that the spirit of party would
take the lead in the councils of the State, and make every interest bend
to its demands. Nor was it expected that any party would assume to
itself the entire control of legislation, and convert the means and
offices of the State, and the substance of the people, into aliment for
party subsistence. Neither could it have been expected by you that party
spirit, however strong its desires and unreasonable its demands, would
have passed the sanctuary of the Constitution, and entered with its
unhallowed and hideous form into the formation of the judiciary system.
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