* * * * *
Now I think the people ought not to be made to wait for the relief they
have a right to demand. They ought not to be made to suffer while we
argue one another out of the recorded and inveterate opinions of our
whole lives. I say, therefore, for myself, that, anxious to afford them
all the relief which they require, regretting that the state of opinion
around me puts it out of my power to afford that relief in the form I
might prefer. I accommodate myself to my position, and make haste to do
all that I can by the shortest way that I can. Consider how much better
it is to relieve them to some substantial extent by this means, at once,
than not to relieve at all, than not to initiate a system or measure of
relief at all, and then go home at the end of this session of Congress,
weak and weary, and spend the autumn in trying to persuade them that it
was the fault of some of our own friends that nothing was done. How poor
a compensation for wrongs to the people will be the victories over our
friends! RUFUS CHOATE.