it be expedient to adopt measures to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidly the surveys of the public lands."]

two days, by which the Senate has been now entertained by the gentleman from South Carolina. Every topic in the wide We have thus heard, sir, what the reso- range of our public affairs, whether past lution is, which is actually before us for or present-everything, general or local, consideration; and it will readily occur whether belonging to national politics or to every one that it is almost the only party politics-seems to have attracted subject about which something has not more or less of the honorable member's been said in the speech, running through attention, save only the resolution before

us. He has spoken of everything but the able member. Some passages, it is true, public lands. They have escaped his had occurred, since our acquaintance in notice. To that subject, in all his ex- this body, which I could have wished cursions, he has not paid even the cold respect of a passing glance.

might have been otherwise; but I had used philosophy, and forgotten them. When the honorable member rose, in his first speech, I paid him the respect of attentive listening; and when he sat down, though

When this debate, sir, was to be resumed, on Thursday morning, it so happened that it would have been convenient for me to be elsewhere. The honorable surprised, and I must say even astonished, member, however, did not incline to put at some of his opinions, nothing was off the discussion to another day. He had further from my intention than to coma shot, he said, to return, and he wished mence any personal warfare; and through to discharge it. That shot, sir, which it the whole of the few remarks I made in was kind thus to inform us was coming, answer, I avoided, studiously and carethat we might stand out of the way, or fully, everything which I thought possible prepare ourselves to fall before it, and to be construed into disrespect. And, sir, die with decency, has now been received. while there is thus nothing originating Under all advantages, and with expecta- here, which I wished at any time, or now tion awakened by the tone which pre- wish, to discharge, I must repeat, also, ceded it, it has been discharged, and has that nothing has been received here, which spent its force. It may become me to rankles or in any way gives me annoyance. say no more of its effect than that, if I will not accuse the honorable member of nobody is found, after all, either killed violating the rules of civilized war-I will or wounded by it, it is not the first time in the history of human affairs that the vigor and success of the war have not quite come up to the lofty and sounding phrase of the manifesto.

not say that he poisoned his arrows. But whether his shafts were, or were not, dipped in that which would have caused rankling if they had reached, there was not, as it happened, quite strength enough in the bow to bring them to their mark. If he wishes now to find those shafts, he must look for them elsewhere; they will not be found fixed and quivering in the object at which they are aimed.

The gentleman, sir, in declining to postpone the debate, told the Senate, with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, that there was something rankling here, which he wished to relieve. [Mr. Hayne rose and disclaimed having used the word The honorable member complained that "rankling."] It would not, Mr. President, I had slept on his speech. I must have be safe for the honorable member to ap- slept on it, or not slept at all. The moment peal to those around him, upon the ques- the honorable member sat down, his friend tion whether he did, in fact, make use of from Missouri rose, and, with much that word. But he may have been uncon- honeyed commendation of the speech, sugscious of it. At any rate, it is enough gested that the impressions which it had that he disclaims it. But still, with or without the use of that particular word, he had yet something here, he said, of which he wished to rid himself by an immediate reply. In this respect, sir, I have a great advantage over the honorable this excellent good-feeling? Must I not gentleman. There is nothing here, sir, have been absolutely malicious, if I could which gives me the slightest uneasiness; have thrust myself forward to destroy neither fear nor anger, nor that which is sensations thus pleasing? Was it not sometimes more troublesome than either- much better and kinder, both to sleep the consciousness of having been in the upon them myself, and to allow others, wrong. There is nothing either origi- also, the pleasure of sleeping upon them? nating here or now received here by the But if it be meant, by sleeping upon his gentleman's shot-nothing original, for speech, that I took time to prepare a I had not the slightest feeling of dis- reply to it, it is quite a mistake; owing respect or unkindness towards the honor to other engagements, I could not employ

produced were too charming and delightful to be disturbed by other sentiments or other sounds, and proposed that the Senate should adjourn. Would it have been quite amiable in me, sir, to interrupt

ficult for me to answer, whether I deemed the member from Missouri an overmatch for myself in debate here. It seems to me, sir, that is extraordinary language, and an extraordinary tone for the discussion of this body.

even the interval between the adjournment notice. It was put as a question for me of the Senate and its meeting the next to answer, and so put as if it were dif morning in attention to the subject of this debate. Nevertheless, sir, the mere matter of fact is undoubtedly true-I did sleep on the gentleman's speech, and slept soundly. And I slept equally well on his speech of yesterday, to which I am now replying. It is quite possible that, in this respect also, I possess some advantage over the honorable member, attributable, doubtless, to a cooler temperament on my part; for, in truth, I slept upon his speeches remarkably well. But the gentleman inquires why he was made the object of such a reply. Why was he singled out? If an attack had been made on the East, he, he assures us, did not begin it-it was the gentleman from Missouri. Sir, I answered the gentleman's speech because I happened to hear it; and because, also, I chose to give an answer to that speech, which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious impressions. I did not stop to inquire who was the original drawer of the bill. I found a responsible endorser before me, and it was my purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to his just responsibility without delay. But, sir, this interrogatory of the honorable member was only in troductory to another. He proceeded to ask me whether I had turned upon him in this debate from consciousness that I should find an overmatch if I ventured on a contest with his friend from Missouri. If, sir, the honorable member, ex gratia modestia, had chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay him a compliment, without intentional disparagement to others, it would have been quite according to the friendly courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my own feelings. I am not one of those, sir, who esteem any tribute of regard, whether light and occasional, or more serious and deliberate, which may be bestowed on others as so much unjustly withholden from themselves. But the tone and manner of the gentleman's question forbid me thus to interpret it. I am not at liberty to consider it as nothing more than a civility to his friend. It had an air of taunt and disparagement, a little of the loftiness of asserted superiority, which does not allow me to pass it over without

Matches and overmatches! Those terms are more applicable elsewhere than here, and fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman seems to forget where and what we are. This is a senate; a senate of equals; of men of individual honor and personal character, and of absolute independence. We know no masters; we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion, not an arena for the exhibition of champions. I offer myself, sir, as a match for no man; I throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, sir, since the honorable member has put the question in a manner that calls for an answer, I will give him an answer; and I tell him that, holding myself to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know nothing in the arm of his friend from Missouri, either alone or when aided by the arm of his friend from South Carolina, that need deter even me from espousing whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating whenever I may choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see fit to say on the floor of the Senate. Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation or compliment, I should dissent from nothing which the honorable member might say of his friend. Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my own. But when put to me as matter of taunt, I throw it back, and say to the gentleman that he could possibly say nothing less likely than such a comparison to wound my pride of personal character. The anger of its tone rescued the remark from intentional irony, which otherwise, probably, would have been its general acceptation. But, sir, if it be imagined that by this mutual quotation and commendation; if it be supposed that, by casting the charac ters of the drama, assigning to each his part--to one the attack, to another the cry of onset-or if it be thought that hy a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory any laurels are to be won here;

if it be imagined, especially, that any or all these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he is dealing with one of whose temper and character he has yet much to learn. Sir, I shall not allow myself, on this occasion-I hope on no occasion -to be betrayed into a loss of temper; but if provoked, as I trust I shall never allow myself to be, into crimination and recrimination, the honorable member may, perhaps, find that in that contest there will be blows to take as well as blows to give; that others can state comparisons as significant, at least, as his own; and that his impunity may, perhaps, demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of his resources.

less press. Incapable of further mischief, it lies in the sewer, lifeless and despised. It is not now, sir, in the power of the honorable member to give it dignity or decency, by attempting to elevate it, and to introduce it into the Senate. He cannot change it from what it is an object of general disgust and scorn. On the contrary, the contact, if he choose to touch it, is more likely to drag him down, down, to the place where it lies itself.

But, sir, the honorable member was not, for other reasons, entirely happy in his allusion to the story of Banquo's murder and Banquo's ghost. It was not, I think, the friends, but the enemies of the murdered Banquo at whose bidding his spirit would not down. The honorable gentleman is fresh in his reading of the English classics, and can put me right if I am wrong; but according to my poor recollection, it was at those who had begun with caresses, and ended with foul and treacherous murder, that the gory locks were shaken. The ghost of Banquo, like that of Hamlet, was an honest ghost.

But, sir, the coalition! The coalition! Ay, the murdered coalition!" The gentleman asks if I were led or frightened into this debate by the sceptre of the coalition. 'Was it the ghost of the murdered coalition," he exclaims, "which haunted the member from Massachusetts, It disturbed no innocent man. It knew and which, like the ghost of Banquo, where its appearance would strike terwould never down?" "The murdered ror, and who would cry out, "A ghost!" coalition!" Sir, this charge of a coali- It made itself visible in the right quartion, in reference to the late administra- ter, and compelled the guilty, and the tion, is not original with the honorable conscience smitten, and none others, to member. It did not spring up in the start, with, Senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument, or as an embellishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, from a very low origin, and a still lower present condition. It is one of the thousand calumnies with which the press teemed during an excited political canvass. It was a charge of which there was not only no proof or probability, but which was, in itself, wholly impossible to be true. No man of common information ever be lieved a syllable of it. Yet it was of that class of falsehoods which, by continued repetition through all the organs of detraction and abuse, are capable of mislead ing those who are already far misled, and of further fanning passion already kindling into flame. Doubtless it served its day, and, in a greater or less degree, the end designed by it. Having done that, it has sunk into the general mass of stale and loathed calumnies. It is the very east-off slough of a polluted and shame

"Prithee, see there! behold!-look! lo! If I stand here, I saw him!" Their eyeballs were seared-was it not so, sir?-who had thought to shield themselves by concealing their own hands, and laying the imputation of the crime on a low and hireling agency in wickedness; who had vainly attempted to stifle the workings of their own coward consciences by ejaculating, through white lips and chattering teeth, "Thou canst not say I did it!" I have misread the great poet if it was those who had in no way partaken in the deed of the death, who either found that they were, or feared that they should be, pushed from their stools by the ghost of the slain, or who cried out to a spectre created by their own fears, and their own remorse, Avaunt! and quit our sight!"

There is another particular, sir, in which the honorable member's quick perception of resemblances might, I should think, have

seen something in the story of Banquo, mak- I had supposed. Let me tell him, however, that a sneer from him at the mention of the name of Mr. Dane is in bad taste. It may well be a high mark of ambition, sir, either with the honorable gentleman or myself, to accomplish as much to make our names known to advantage, and remembered with gratitude, as Mr. Dane has accomplished.

ing it not altogether a subject of the most
pleasant contemplation. Those who mur-
dered Banquo, what did they win by it?
Substantial good? Permanent power? Or
disappointment, rather, and sore mortifi-
cation—dust and ashes-the common fate
of vaulting ambition overleaping itself?
Did not even-handed justice, ere long, com-
mend the poisoned chalice to their own
lips? Did they not soon find that for
another they had "filled their mind "?-
that their ambition, though apparently for
the moment successful, had but put a bar-
ren sceptre in their grasp? Ay, sir,-

"A barren sceptre in their gripe,
Thence to be wrenched by an unlineal hand,
No son of theirs succeeding."

Sir, I need pursue the allusion no further. I leave the honorable gentleman to run it out at his leisure, and to derive from it all the gratification it is calculated to administer. If he finds himself pleased with the associations, and prepared to be quite satisfied, though the parallel should be entirely completed, I had almost said I am satisfied also-but that I shall think of. Yes, sir, I will think of that.

But the truth is, sir, I

suspect that Mr. Dane lives a little too far north. He is of Massachusetts, and too near the north star to be reached by the honorable gentleman's telescope. If his sphere had happened to range south of Mason and Dixon's line, he might, probably, have come within the scope of his vision!

I spoke, sir, of the ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery in all future times northwest of the Ohio, as a measure of great wisdom and foresight, and one which had been attended with highly beneficial and permanent consequences. I supposed that on this point no two gentlemen in the Senate could entertain different opinions. But the simple expression of this sentiment has led the gentleman, not only into a labored defence of slavery in the abstract, and on principle, but also into a warm accusation against me, as having attacked the system of domestic slavery now existing in the Southern States. For all this there was not the slightest foundation in anything said or intimated by me. I did not utter a single word which any ingenuity could torture into an attack on the slavery of the South. I said only that it was highly wise and useful in legislating for the

In the course of my observations the other day, Mr. President, I paid a passing tribute of respect to a very worthy man, Mr. Dane, of Massachusetts. It so happened that he drew the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwestern Territory. A man of so much ability, and so little pretence; of so great a capacity to do good, and so unmixed a disposition to do it for its own sake; a Northwestern country, while it was yet a gentleman who acted an important part, forty years ago, in a measure the influence of which is still deeply felt in the very matter which was the subject of debate, might, I thought, receive from me a commendatory recognition.

But the honorable member was inclined to be facetious on the subject. He was rather disposed to make it a matter of ridicule that I had introduced into the debate the name of one Nathan Dane, of whom he assures us he had never heard before. Sir, if the honorable member had never before heard of Mr. Dane, I am sorry for it. It shows him less acquainted with the public men of the country than

wilderness, to prohibit the introduction of slaves; and added that I presumed, in the neighboring State of Kentucky, there was no reflecting and intelligent gentleman who would doubt that, if the same prohibition had been extended, at the same early period, over that commonwealth, her strength and population would at this day have been far greater than they are. If these opinions be thought doubtful, they are, nevertheless, I trust, neither extraordinary nor disrespectful. They attack nobody and menace nobody. And yet, sir, the gentleman's optics have discovered, even in the mere expression of this sentiment, what he calls the very spirit of the