Really, Mr. Speaker, I know not how to express the shame and disgust with which I am filled, when I hear language of this kind cast out upon this floor, and thrown in the faces of men, standing justly on no mean height in the confidence of their countrymen. Sir, I did, indeed, know that such vulgar aspersions were circulating among the lower passions of our nature. I knew that such vile substances were ever tempering between the paws of some printer's devil. I knew that foul exhalations like these daily rose in our cities, and crept along the ground, just as high as the spirits of lampblack and saline oil could elevate; falling, soon, by native baseness, into oblivion, in the jakes. I knew, too, that this species of party insinuation was a mighty engine, in this quarter of the country, on an election day, played off from the top of a stump, or the top of a hogshead, while the gin circulated, while barbecue was roasting; in those happy, fraternal associations and consociations, when those who speak, utter without responsibility, and those who listen, hear without scrutiny. But little did I think, that such odious shapes would dare to obtrude themselves, on this national floor, among honorable men;--the select representatives, the confidential agents of a wise, a thoughtful and a virtuous people. I want language to express my contempt and indignation at the sight. So far as respects the attempt which has been made to cast such aspersions on that part of the country which I have the honor to represent, I beg this honorable House to understand, that so long as they, who circulate such insinuations, deal only in generals and touch not particulars, they may gain among the ignorant and the stupid a vacant and a staring audience. But when once these suggestions are brought to bear upon those individuals who in New England have naturally the confidence of their countrymen, there is no power in these calumnies. The men who now lead the influences of that country, and in whose councils the people on the day when the tempest shall come will seek refuge, are men whose stake is in the soil, whose interests are identified with those of the mass of their brethren, whose private lives and public sacrifices present a never-failing antidote to the poison of malicious invectives. On such men, sir, party spirit may indeed cast its odious filth, but there is a polish in their virtues to which no such slime can adhere. They are owners of the soil; real yeomanry; many of them men who led in the councils of our country in the dark day which preceded the national independence; many of them men who, like my honorable friend from Connecticut on my left, (Mr. TALLMADGE,) stood foremost on the perilous edge of battle; making their breasts in the day of danger a bulwark for their country. True it is, Mr. Speaker, there is another and a much more numerous class, composed of such as through defect of age can claim no share in the