When you go to Washington now, you can feel a sense of fear in the air – the fear to do anything, or say anything, that might affect the polls, or give the other side an advantage, or offend a special interest.

And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I'm sorry it's the case, and I'll work hard to try to elevate it.

I am contradicted at this moment on politics, and the smile that comes to my face is not an act of my will, so much it comes naturally, from the satisfaction that I prove that I experience seeing one of my difficulties disappearing. Should I be executed, at least if I were going to be executed, I would not be executed as an insane man, it would be a great consolation for my mother, for my wife, for my children, for my brothers, for my relatives, even for my protectors, for my countrymen. I thank the gentlemen who were composing the Jury for having recommended me to the clemency of the Court. When I express the great hope that I have just expressed to you, I don't express it without ground, my hopes are reasonable, and since they are recommended, since the recommendation of the Jury to the Crown is for clemency.

I’m not sure. I’m not sure if you talk to the opposition, they would consider that to be an insult. They think they are doing a tremendous job.

Two objections had been raised against leaving the adjustment of the representation, from time to time, to the discretion of the Legislature. The first was, they would be unwilling to revise it at all. The second, that, by referring to wealth, they would be bound by a rule which, if willing, they would be unable to execute. The first objection distrusts their fidelity. But if their duty, their honor, and their oaths, will not bind them, let us not put into their hands our liberty, and all our other great interests; let us have no government at all. In the second place, if these ties will bind them we need not distrust the practicability of the rule. It was followed in part by the Committee in the apportionment of Representatives yesterday reported to the House. The best course that could be taken would be to leave the interests of the people to the representatives of the people. Mr. Madison was not a little surprised to hear this implicit confidence urged by a member who, on all occasions, had inculcated so strongly the political depravity of men, and the necessity of checking one vice and interest by opposing to them another vice and interest. If the representatives of the people would be bound by the ties he had mentioned, what need was there of a Senate? What of a revisionary power? But his reasoning was not only inconsistent with his former reasoning, but with itself. At the same time that he recommended this implicit confidence to the Southern States in the Northern majority, he was still more zealous in exhorting all to a jealousy of a western majority. To reconcile the gentleman with himself, it must be imagined that he determined the human character by the points of the compass. The truth was, that all men having power ought to be distrusted, to a certain degree. The case of Pennsylvania had been mentioned, where it was admitted that those who were possessed of the power in the original settlement never admitted the new settlements to a due share of it. England was a still more striking example.