He
resumed his practice in Richmond, but was again drawn from it by a
message from Washington, who requested him to visit him at Mt. Vernon.
He did so, and the result was that he yielded to the solicitations of
his old chieftain, and consented to accept a seat in Congress. He was
elected to the Lower House of that body in 1799. During the canvass,
President Adams offered him a seat in the Supreme Court of the United
States, but he declined it.
His career in Congress was brief, but brilliant. The Federalist party
was hard pressed by the Republicans, and he promptly arrayed himself on
the side of the former, as the champion of the Administration of John
Adams. The excitement over the "Alien and Sedition Laws" was intense,
but he boldly and triumphantly defended the course of the
Administration. Mr. Binney says of him that, in the debates on the great
constitutional questions, "he was confessedly the first man in the
House. When he discussed them, he exhausted them; nothing more remained
to be said; and the impression of his argument effaced that of every one
else."
His great triumph was his speech in the Jonathan Robbins affair.
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