The Politician's Half-and-Half.
DEMAGOGUE and Demijohn.
CONDENSED CONGRESS.
SENATE.
OFTY Mr. SUMNER wished to know what Mr. CARPENTER meant by pursuing him. He was used to being blackguarded by the enemies of his country, but now he was hounded in the house of his friends. He had looked through the whole Congressional Library and failed to find a precedent for the course of the carping CARPENTER, except in the case of the classic chap who had warmed a viper which had turned again and rent him. He did not mean to say that Mr. CARPENTER was a viper, but he thought nobody but an Adder would put this and that together as Mr. CARPENTER had done.
Mr. CARPENTER said that the passion of his friend from Boston for maundering about himself amounted to a mild mania. All he had done was to suggest that SUMNER had upheld States Rights twenty years ago, and now pretended that he was never any such person.
Mr. SUMNER said that twenty years ago the States Rights boot was upon the other leg. ÆNEAS SILVIUS had well observed that it made a heap of difference whose ox was gored, and HORACE had pointed out the difference between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee. Unless his reading of the Cyclopedia had failed to inform him, he believed that there was a game known as "Heads I win, tails you lose." That was his little game. When Massachusetts States Rights were invoked to aid the colored man, States Rights were good. When Southern States Rights were invoked to crush the colored man, States Rights were bad. As for him, give him liberty or give him rats.
Mr. HARLAN wished to know why the Pacific Railway grant should be passed. No officer of that railway had been to see him about it. He did not believe in legislation of this kind. If a thing were worth having, it was certainly worth asking for. He had no objection to breaking old "ties," but he was averse to paying for new ones, unless he had some personal reason for it. He wished he were altogether in the same position as some of his colleagues, including these "bonds."