To the Senator from Illinois I should willingly yield the privilege of the common scold,—the last word; but I will not yield to him, in any discussion with me, the last argument, or the last semblance of it. He has crowned the outrage of this debate by venturing to rise here and calumniate me. He has said that I came here, took an oath to support the Constitution, and yet determined not to support a particular clause in that Constitution. To that statement I give, to his face, the flattest denial. When it was made previously on this floor by the absent Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Butler], I then repelled it: you shall see how explicitly and completely. I read from the debate of the 28th of June, 1854, as published in the “Globe.” Here is what I answered to the Senator from South Carolina:—
“This Senator was disturbed, when, to his inquiry, personally, pointedly, and vehemently addressed to me, whether I would join in returning a fellow-man to Slavery, I exclaimed: ‘Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?’”
You will observe that the inquiry of the Senator was, whether I would join in returning my fellow-man to slavery? It was not, whether I would support any clause of the Constitution of the United States?—far from that. I then proceeded:—
“In fitful phrase, which seemed to come from unconscious excitement, so common with the Senator, he shot forth various cries about ‘dogs,’ and, among other things, asked if there was any ‘dog’ in the Constitution? The Senator did not seem to bear in mind, through the heady currents of that moment, that, by the false interpretation he fastens upon the Constitution,”—
and in which the Senator from Illinois now joins,—
“he has helped to nurture there a whole kennel of Carolina bloodhounds, trained, with savage jaw and insatiable scent, for the hunt of flying bondmen. No, Sir, I do not believe that there is any ‘kennel of bloodhounds,’ or even any ‘dog,’ in the Constitution.”
I said further:—
“Since I have been charged with openly declaring a purpose to violate the Constitution, and to break the oath which I have taken at that desk, I shall be pardoned for showing simply how a few plain words will put all this down.”
I next proceeded to cite the memorable veto by President Jackson, in 1832, of the Bank of the United States. It will be remembered that to his course at that critical time were opposed the authority of the Supreme Court and his oath to support the Constitution,—precisely as the Senator from Illinois now, with ignorance, or with want of logic greater than his ignorance, undertakes to revile me. Here is the triumphant reply of President Jackson:—