The rules of the Senate forbid personalities in debate, and it was the sworn duty of its Locofoco President, Mr. Bright, to have called Mr. Sumner to order for his abuse of Judge Butler. But as far back as thirty years ago, under the auspices of John C. Calhoun as presiding officer, a decision was made to the effect that the presiding officer of the Senate was neither bound nor had he the power to call Senators to order! That power, according to his decision, belonged wholly to the Senate itself——thus delivering over the minority of that body to "the tender mercies" of the majority! The object of Mr. Calhoun at the time was to play into the hands of a combination which had been formed to break down the Administration of John Quincy Adams, and to cripple Henry Clay. The instrument used was the sarcastic, irritating, and personal rhetoric of John Randolph, then a member of the Senate. To this end, Randolph was suffered to deliver in the Senate a long succession of tirades, disgraceful to the Senate, abusive of New England and of Henry Clay. Here is a specimen of Randolph's abuse, which led to a duel between him and Mr. Clay:
"This man, (mankind, I crave pardon,) this worm, (little animals, forgive the insult,) was raised to a higher life than he was born to, for he was raised to the society of blackguards. Some fortune—kind to him, cruel to us—has tossed him to the Secretaryship of State. Contempt has the property of descending, but stops far short of him. She would die before she would reach him: he dwells below her fall. I would hate him, if I did not despise him. It is not what he is, but where he is, that puts my thoughts into action. The alphabet which writes the name of Thersites, blackguard, squalidity, refuses her letters for him. That mind which thinks on what it cannot express, can scarcely think on him. An hyperbole for Meanness would be an ellipsis for Clay."
This was pleasing to Mr. Calhoun and the dominant party in the Senate, and his decision which tolerated it never was questioned by any authoritative precedent, until Millard Fillmore was elected Vice-President. With characteristic independence, he determined that a precedent so unreasonable and absurd should not be binding on him as the presiding officer of the Senate. He therefore, on assuming the duties of his office, delivered an address to the Senate, in which he informed that body that he considered it his sworn duty to preserve decorum, and would reverse the rule which had so long prevailed, that Senators were not to be called to order for words spoken in debate! The Senate ordered this address to be entered at large on their journals, as an evidence of their endorsement of its doctrines; and there it is now, recorded evidence of the patriotism, high sense of decorum, and senatorial dignity of that great and good man, Millard Fillmore.
STRENGTH OF PARTIES IN TENNESSEE.
OFFICIAL VOTES OF THE STATE.
The following tables exhibit the official vote of Tennessee for President in 1852, for Governor in 1853, and for Governor in 1855, as compared at the capital of the State, and will be valuable as a table for reference. In the last contest, when the Know Nothing issues were fully made, causing all the latent blackguardism in the Democratic ranks to be fully developed, it will be seen that Andrew Johnson received 67,499 votes, and Meredith P. Gentry 65,342, leaving Johnson a majority of 2,157, a falling off of 104 votes from his majority over Maj. Henry two years before that. It will also be perceived that the vote of the State at this last election is an increase of 8,260 over the vote two years previous. Of this increase, Col. Gentry gets 4,182, his vote exceeding Maj. Henry's by that much, while Johnson's increase upon his own vote two years previous was 4,078.
It is a moderate calculation to say that Johnson received at least two thousand foreign and illegal votes; while we are within bounds when we say that at least 5,000 old-line Whigs refused to vote for Col. Gentry—demonstrating beyond all doubt that a majority of the legal voters of the State were opposed to Johnson and his party.
In the contest now being waged, Fillmore and Donelson will carry the State by a majority ranging from three to five thousand votes, despite the low Billingsgate slang and vile blackguardism that may be heaped upon them and their supporters. And as this calculation is made in June, five months in advance of the election, we must ask those into whose hands this work shall fall without the limits of Tennessee, to bear it in mind, and when they get the returns in November, to give us credit for our sagacity or our want of sagacity!