Is it his object to provoke some of us to kick
him as we would a dog in the street, that he may get sympathy upon the
just chastisement? What is the object of this denunciation against the
body of which we are members? A hundred times he has called the Nebraska
bill a "swindle," an act of crime, an act of infamy, and each time
went on to illustrate the complicity of each man who voted for it in
perpetrating the crime. He has brought it home as a personal charge to
those who passed the Nebraska bill, that they were guilty of a crime
which deserved the just indignation of heaven, and should make them
infamous among men.
Who are the Senators thus arraigned? He does me the honor to make me the
chief. It was my good luck to have such a position in this body as to
enable me to be the author of a great, wise measure, which the Senate
has approved, and the country will endorse. That measure was sustained
by about three fourths of all the members of the Senate. It was
sustained by a majority of the Democrats and a majority of the Whigs
in this body. It was sustained by a majority of Senators from the
slave-holding States, and a majority of Senators from the free States.
The Senator, by his charge of crime, then, stultifies three fourths
of the whole body, a majority of the North, nearly the whole South, a
majority of Whigs, and a majority of Democrats here.
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