Of all these measures which concern equal rights, the only one which I have been able to bring before the Senate is that under consideration; and I am now pressed to withdraw it so as to avoid a vote. Why, Sir, again and again in other years have I been pressed in the same way; again and again in other years have Senators spoken to me and of me as the Senator from New York was advised to speak to-day: but it has not been my habit to yield; nor have I been alone, Sir, in such determination. One of the most beautiful instances in parliamentary history, familiar, doubtless, to the Chamber, is that motion of Mr. Buxton in the House of Commons, in 1832, which determined Emancipation. The Ministry professed to be against Slavery; a large number of the House of Commons made the same profession; but they were against declaring it; and when Mr. Buxton gave notice of a motion in favor of immediate emancipation, Ministry, members of the House, and personal friends came to him entreating that he would not press his motion, especially that he would not divide the House. One of his family records in his Memoirs, which I have in my hands, says:-- “He was cruelly beset, and acutely alive to the pain of refusing them, and, as they said, of embarrassing all their measures, and giving their enemies a handle at this tottering moment.”[146] Then it is recorded of his friends in the House:-- “‘They hated,’ they said, ‘dividing against him when their hearts were all for him; it was merely a nominal difference; why should he split hairs? He was sure to be beaten; where was the use of bringing them all into difficulty, and making them vote against him?’ He told us that he thought he had a hundred applications of this kind in the course of the evening; in short, nearly every friend he had in the House came to him, and by all considerations of reason and friendship besought him to give way.”[147] On that occasion he wrote to the leader of the House of Commons, Lord Althorp, under date of May 22, 1832, as follows:-- “Allow me, moreover, to remind you, that, however insignificant in myself, I am the representative, on this question, of no mean body in this country, who would be, to an extent of which I believe you have no idea, disappointed and chagrined at the suspension of the question.”[148] Sir, in a humble way I may adopt this language. I, too, am the representative, on this question, of no mean body in this country, who I know would be disappointed and chagrined at the suspension of the question. The English Emancipationist refused to yield; he insisted, according to the language of Parliament, on dividing the House. He was left in a minority, but that vote determined Emancipation; and the Ministry and those personal friends who had advised against his course complimented him upon that firmness which had at last assured the victory.