I hesitate very much to say another word; and yet I think the Senate will pardon me, if I make a brief reply to the charge, so absolutely unjust, of the Senator from California. He throws upon me the reproach of indifference to foreigners. Sir, I deny the imputation, and challenge comparison on this head with any Senator on this floor. Here I know that I am without blame. Sir, you do not forget that more than ten years ago there was a storm that passed over this country which had a name more familiar than polite: I mean Know-nothing-ism. It was everywhere, and enveloped my own State. At that time I had the honor of holding the position which I now hold. Did I yield to this storm, when it was carrying all before it? Sir, at that time I went down to Faneuil Hall, and in the presence of one of the largest audiences ever there assembled, and knowing well the prevailing sentiment, I made a speech vindicating the rights of emigrants to our country and promising them welcome. I have that speech here now, and I will read a few sentences from it. This was on the 2d of November, 1855,--nearly thirteen years ago. Pardon me for reading this record of other days; but I am justified by the attacks to which I have been exposed. If any foreign-born citizen is disposed to hearken to the Senator from California impeaching me, I ask him to bear in mind how I stood for his rights at another time, when there were fewer ready to stand for them than now. I read from this forgotten speech, as reported at that time. Mr. Sumner read the first two paragraphs on the thirteenth page of the pamphlet edition.[260] Such was my argument for the rights of the foreign-born among us. To all of them I offered such welcome as I could:-- “There are our broad lands, stretching towards the setting sun; let them come and take them. Ourselves children of the Pilgrims of a former generation, let us not turn from the Pilgrims of the present. Let the home founded by our emigrant fathers continue open in its many mansions to the emigrants of to-day.”[261]