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“The next day, a measure was brought before
Congress, the success of which was universally
allowed to be of vital importance to
the nation; but, as it was proposed and supported
by administration members, the party
in opposition felt themselves called upon to
oppose it with all their strength. I should
have told the reader, that the freemen of my
district were anti-administration almost to a
man, and that I was therefore of the opposition
party. I resolved to prove my independence
and patriotism, by voting for this measure,
which reason and common-sense told me
should be supported; and I did so.

“Horrible was the effect. My old

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associates, ridiculing what they called my unparalleled
apostacy, reviled me, as far as the Speaker
would permit, as a renegade from the party;
while the newspapers, (that is, on our side,)
which had hitherto treated me with uncommon
courtesy, now burst out into a frenzy of
rage and vituperation, some calling me Judas
Iscariot, others Benedict Arnold, and all agreeing
I was a monster of perfidy and baseness,
a traitor to my principles, the murderer
of my country. Some spoke of tar and
feathers, while others hinted there were daggers
in the hands of freemen to reward the
betrayer of their rights. Vials—or rather
demijohns—of wrath were poured on my
head, and tempests of scorn and vilification
were let loose about my ears. In a word, had
I descended into Pandemonium itself, which
many wise persons think lies no lower than a
few feet below the foundations of the Capitol,
I could not have found myself beset by a
more fire-fingered, venom-tongued, unrelenting
set of persecutors than a single act of
patriotism now brought against me. I was
not merely an apostate and assassin—I was a
fool and madman. The very papers which, a
month before, had lauded to the skies my extraordinary
genius, my incomparable

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eloquence, now discovered that I possessed not a
single talent—that I was a tiresome, bombastic,
contemptible speaker, with no merit beyond
the long wind and loquacity of an old
woman—in short, that I was a booby, and
the greatest one in Congress.

“It is true, what I lost on one side I
gained on the other. The administration
prints, which had been, at first, rather blind
to my merits, now burst into fervid panegyrics,
eulogizing my genius, my intrepidity,
my integrity, my patriotic union with the
friends of the nation; and the President's
chief cook, coming to me by night in his
best coat, offered me my choice betwixt a
land office in the West, an Indian agency, or
a ministry to Jerusalem.

“Who would think that my proud and patriotic
rejection of a share in the spoils of
office, offered by a grateful executive, should
have only exposed me, when known, as it
speedily was, to fresh attacks of indignation?
Honourable members were incensed that I
should presume to greater disinterestedness
than themselves—that I should profess a
code of morals superior to that which experience
and custom had shown to be most
convenient for a Congressman. They abused

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my `affected honesty,' for so they called it;
they laughed at my `romantic honour,' my
`political sentimentality;' while some, still
more uncharitable, heaped sarcasm on the
wisdom that had prevented my accepting `a
reward which, I knew, the superior branch of
Congress would not have sanctioned.'—Alas
for the man, who, in this enlightened age, in
this unsophisticated country, has the audacity
to play the patriot!

“My next effort had the good effect to
restore me to the favour of the party; but it
lost me the friendship of the chief cook. In
the honesty of my heart, and under the persuasion
that the measure I then proposed
would meet the approbation of all, I introduced
a bill providing for the dismission
from the public service of all office-holders
who meddled in elections, or played the
demagogue at political meetings or in newspapers.
For this the opposition pretty generally
voted; but it was treated with the greatest
contumely by the friends of power, and
strangled without ceremony. They charged
me indignantly with my desertion of their
party, though, heaven knows, I had never
joined it—with my fickleness of mind, my
natural perfidy of spirit, &c. &c.; and

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concluded by execrating the audacity of my attack
on the rights of citizens; whereas, on
the contrary, my sole intention, as I declare
on my conscience, was to defend the rights
of citizens. The papers on that side of the
question took up the cudgels, and, as it was
generally admitted they knew how to use
them, I received such a basting for my tergiversation,
wrong-headedness, black heartedness,
&c., as broke all the bones of my
spirit—though, happily, not my spirit itself.
The wrath on that side of the question extended
even to my friend, the chief cook,
who clapped into the governmental journal
an article written by his own hand, in which
it was insinuated I had taken a bribe from
the Emperor of the Turks, who was at that
time suspected to be in the country, buying
patriots at the highest prices; though what
his sublime highness wanted with them was
never discovered.

“My next act destroyed all the good
effect, as far as I was personally concerned,
wrought by the preceding; and, indeed, I was
from this moment a falling man, a sinking
patriot, a martyr to my principles and my
love of country. As Aristides fell, so fell I,
detested for my justness. Timoleon and the

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elder Brutus sacrificed the blood of their
own families to the interests of their countries;
and their countries voted them a brace
of unnatural murderers and numskulls, as, it
is probable, they were. My own fate was
somewhat similar; I sinned with the same
disinterestedness, and was rewarded with
equal gratitude.

“My sins—for so they were accounted,
though posterity I hope will judge otherwise—
I intend recording in as few words as
possible, that I may get the sooner to their
reward. I voted for a northern measure, and
thought it was patriotic to do so. But from
that moment my friends of the south considered
me a madman, and my constituents
began to take the alarm. This was committing
the seven deadly sins all at once, and
forgiveness was impossible. I then, in a harangue
which I made on the subject of patriotism,
to enlighten the honourable members,
who, I perceived, did not know what patriotism
was, succeeded in inflaming the rage of
both parties, by assuring them (which was
a thing I thought they all firmly believed,)
that America had never produced more than
one Washington, and that he was not born
in Virginia, but in America. I say, I

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offended both parties; for the friends of power, it
seems, insisted that their chief was a second
Washington; and my fellow Virginians considered,
and, indeed, pronounced it `impiety'
itself, to admit that George Washington was
any thing less than a Virginian.

“My next sin of patriotism was a declaration,
which I made only after deep reflection,
viz. that the right of nullifying the laws
enacted in that Congress existed in no individual
or body of individuals in the United
States, saving only in the Supreme Court
thereof; which opinion was immediately pronounced
`Blasphemy,' amid groans and shricks
of indignation.

“I then, being somewhat tired of the eternal
croaking honourable members made
against the aristocracy—that is, the foolish
ladies and gentlemen of the land—as being
the foes of democracy and liberty, ventured
to express a belief, founded on the house-burnings,
riots, lynchings, &c., at that time
somewhat prevalent in the democratic circle,
that liberty was in less danger from the aristocracy,
or foolish ladies and gentlemen as
aforesaid, than from the democracy itself;
which declaration was unanimously pronounced
`the most astonishing sample of

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Atheism to which that house had ever been
compelled to listen;' and indeed it produced
such a thrill of horror in the assembly that
one gentlemen fell into fits, and was carried
to his lodgings in an extremely dangerous
condition.

“My next—my last and greatest, sin grew
directly out of that declaration; for honourable
members starting up in fury, and bidding
me `know, that the democracy of my district,
the honest and confiding constituents whom
I had betrayed, would exact of me a severe
penalty for my misdeeds; that they had already
called a public meeting in the district
to express their indignation at the course I
had pursued, and would in a short time send
me instructions to change it, or resign my
seat in that house:—I say, these innuendoes
and menaces being sternly flung in my teeth,
I rose and called the house to witness, `that
I held myself to be a rational being, the servant
and factor of my constituents, sent to
that house to legislate for their benefit and
that of the nation; and not the tool of their
caprices, to pander away honesty, honour,
and common sense to their whims and passions—
and, in a word, that I utterly denied
their right to instruct me to any act opposed
to the dictates of my own reason.

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“`Treason and madness!' cried every soul
in the house, save one, whom the awfulness
of my heresy had shocked into an apoplexy,
and who was afterwards, when the house adjourned,
found sitting at his desk stone-dead;
`treason and madness! madness and treason!
treason and madness!' And so they went
on exclaiming against me, until the house adjourned.

“There was more meaning in these expressions
than I had at any time suspected. A
storm was brooding over me, of which I did
not dream, until that last patriotic confession
(for surely the resolution that gave it utterance
came not more from personal independence
than a love of country,) caused it suddenly
to burst in thunder over my head. As
I passed from the house, I was suddenly
seized upon by six strong men, (the members
of the house, with at least twenty Senators,
who were present, looking coolly on, and refusing
me help,) clapped into a carriage,
driven rapidly away, and in due course of
time, deposited—ay, by the faith of an honest
man and Congressman!—in the madhouse
in which you find me.

“Such was the reward of public virtue! I

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was, I believe, the first martyr to liberty ever
served in that way in America; but it has been,
I believe, ever since, a standing rule in Congress
to vote any member a madman who
betrays the slightest symptoms of patriotism.

“In this Asylum, and particularly in the
solitude of the dungeon to which I was first
consigned, I have had leisure to review my
Congressional career, and ponder on the truths
with which it has made me acquainted. I
perceive that the days for Timoleons and
Washingtons have gone by, and that the
world, however much it may stand in need of
their services, is determined to do without
them. The cruel reception my patriotism
had met from my brother legislators, I had
good reason to know, was sanctioned by the
people at large, who, in these days, actually
seem to entertain the most cordial hatred of
all public men who will not condescend to
cheat them. That my fellow labourers in the
legislature should array themselves against
me was not, perhaps, very surprising or inexplicable;
but it was a grievous wound to
my spirit to find the people for whom I laboured,
siding, as (if I am to judge from the
public prints) they all did against me. Before
I left my dungeon, I discovered, in a

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fragment of newspaper which was accidentally
left in the room, an account of my constituents
having burned me in effigy in various
places throughout the district; with some
remarks of the editor highly approbatory of
that just expression of popular indignation.
The people (I mean all the 'ocracies together,)
were therefore as unwilling to be served by,
as their delegates were to serve with patriots.
They required, not men of integrity and
talent—upright and experienced sages—to
watch over the interests of the nation; but
truckling parasites, the slaves of their sovereign
passions, the tools of their imperial
whims, to `play their hand,' (as the blacklegs
have it,) in the gambling contest of interest
against interest, section against section, party
against party, which they have chosen to
dignify with the title of legislation.

“I have now learned to understand the
meaning of the saying often droned into the
minds of youth, without being always appreciated—
that virtue is its own reward. Well,
indeed, should it be its own reward, since,
commonly, it has no other.”

With these words, and a heavy sigh, the
patriot finished his story.

“A very hard case,” said the editor,

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scratching his head. “It was a very foolish
thing of you to be so patriotic; but we can't
blame you: men do say very fine things of
patriotism—indeed we believe we have said
them ourself; so that it is not surprising a
young man should be sometimes misled.
However, we have been just as foolish, and,
like you, a martyr to principle. Patriotism—
as a sentiment, or poetic fiction, or historical
remembrance—is dear to the imaginations
of all men, and its praises are ever
on their lips; but if we consult the records of
nations, we shall find that patriots, in general,
have had but a scurvy time of it. It is the
same with other virtues, as I said before:
they are the apples of Sodom, that men admire
as long as they merely look at them,
but loathe and cast from them, the moment
they have tasted. Yes,” continued Mr.
Ticklum, turning again to me—“we also are
the victim of our virtue!”

With that, he wiped his eyes a second
time, and I, sympathizing in his grief, and
being curious to know what that virtue was,
which a journalist could practise consistently
with his editorial duties, and how it had
reduced him to his present condition, begged
he would do me the favour to relate his
history.