Sir, it is truly refreshing to hear Senators, who contested
every inch of ground in opposition to those measures, when they were
under discussion, who predicted all manner of evils and calamities from
their adoption, and who raised the cry of appeal, and even resistance,
to their execution, after they had become the laws of the land--I say it
is really refreshing to hear these same Senators now bear their united
testimony to the wisdom of those measures, and to the patriotic
motives which induced us to pass them in defiance of their threats and
resistance, and to their beneficial effects in restoring peace, harmony,
and fraternity to a distracted country. These are precious confessions
from the lips of those who stand pledged never to assent to the
propriety of those measures, and to make war upon them, so long as
they shall remain upon the statute-book. I well understand that these
confessions are now made, not with the view of yielding their assent to
the propriety of carrying those enactments into faithful execution, but
for the purpose of having a pretext for charging upon me, as the author
of this bill, the responsibility of an agitation which they are striving
to produce. They say that I, and not they, have revived the agitation.
What have I done to render me obnoxious to this charge? They say that I
wrote and introduced this Nebraska bill.
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