Letter from John C. Bennett, 8 March 1842

Yours of the 7th Inst. has been received, and I proceed to reply, without undue emotion, or perturbation. You ask “When will these things cease to be, and the Constitution and the Laws again bear rule?” I reply—once that noble bird of Jove, our grand national emblem, soared aloft, bearing in her proud beak the words “Liberty and Law,” and that man that had the temerity to ruffle her feathers was made to feel the power of her talons; but a wily archer came, and with his venomed arrow dipped in Upas’ richest sap, shot the flowing label from the Eagle’s bill—it fell inverted, and the bird was sick, and is,—the label soon was trampled in the dust—the eagle bound and caged. The picture is now before you in bold relief. “What think you should be done?” The master spirits of the age must rise and break the cage, re [p. 724]