.MTA1Ng.NzEwNjg

by themselves at last signing a Treaty without authority. "Before they entered upon this business" says their tempter, the Reverend Mr Schermerhorn, "they knew they were running a dreadful risk; for it was death by their laws for any person to enter into [such] a Treaty with the United States -- a law which Ridge himself, in October 1829, had drawn up and was enacted while he was a member of the National Committee Council." -- And Ridge himself afterwards, as if trying by a delirious self deception to get rid of his remorse, exclaims, "A few make a treaty in the heart of the nation and live! -- Unless powerfully sustained by their people and upheld by justice and the usages of their country, they could not have stood one year; nay, one month." -- Here was the recollection of the early principles of his country and his family returning; attended by a most extraordinary seeming oblivion of his own derelictions of them; and scarcely over a year

Footnote John Ridge to New York Journal of Commerce, May 1, 1838.