Mr. Staggers withdrew his previous remark. We were fighting this war to secure the Constitution and the pursuit of happiness to the misguided South, and he accepted his friend's apology.
Mr. Figgins (democrat, New Jersey) said that he could not but notice that everything all the Honorable gentlemen had said during this session was a fatal heresy, destructive of all Government, degrading to the species, and an insult to the common sense of his (Figgins') constituents. His constituents demanded that Congress should set the country at rights before Europe. It would appear that at the least imperious sign from Europe, the American knee grows—
Mr. Juggles (con., Border State) desired to inquire of the House whether the great struggle in which we are now engaged is for the benefit of the Caucasian race or the debased African? His friend, the puling idiot from New Jersey, had seen fit to remark that the American negroes—
Mr. Figgins denied that he had spoken at all of negroes. He was about to say, that at the slightest behest of Europe "the American knee grows flexible to bend."
Mr. Juggles wished it to be understood that he was satisfied with his Honorable friend's explanation. He would take something with the Honorable Gentleman immediately after adjournment.
Mr. Chunky (rep., New Hampshire) was anxious to inquire whether it was true, as stated in the daily papers, that General McDowell had been ordered to imprison all the Union men within his lines on suspicion of their being Secessionists, and place a guard over the property of the Secessionists, on suspicion of their being Union men? If so, he would warn the Administration that it was cherishing a viper which would sting it:
"The rose you deftly cull-ed, man,
May wound you with its thorn,
And—"
Mr. Waddles (Union, Border State) protested against the decency of a Constitutional body like Congress being insulted with the infamous and seditious abolition doggerel just quoted by his friend, the despicable incendiary from New Hampshire. We were waging this war solely to put down treason, and not to hear a rose, the fairest of flowers, mentioned in the same breath with the filthy colored man—