This climax, so ridiculous to every Kentuckian with any state pride in his soul, was hailed wherever heard with shouts of laughter; and Rousseau once remarked that it was a curious fact that the laughter generally began with the returned rebel soldiers, who possess less pro-slavery prejudices than the rebels who stayed at home. Rousseau generally followed up this effective ridicule with what he called his "special argument against slavery." "We in Kentucky," he would say, "are in the habit of arguing the slavery question more from the economical than the moral stand-point;" and he would then go on to show how the institution had curtailed the prosperity of Kentucky and of the South. "But," he would add, "I wish to add a little argument of my own. I want to tell you why slavery will not pay. It is because we have a God in heaven, who has arranged the affairs of men in such a way that wrong and injustice won't pay, and don't pay. Has not the South lost more in the destruction of houses, and fences, and railroads, and crops, and other property, and expenditures for munitions of war, etc., in the last four years of a rebellion, carried on for the benefit of slavery, than it wrung out of the sweat of the slave in the forty years preceding? Add to this the half a million of her brave sons who died or were crippled in battle and in camp, half the entire arms-bearing population of the rebel states, and tell me if slavery was a paying institution to them? And do you think it can be restored now and not lead to a bloodier and fiercer war? And why is this? Simply because God in his wisdom has arranged the world so that in the long-run a system of wrong will not and can not pay." After four weeks active canvassing of the district Rousseau was returned to Congress by a heavy majority, although the opposition pro-slavery party employed a former United States officer to make the race in order to split the Union or amendment vote. The scheme failed. Rousseau's personal popularity, and his positive, determined, and patriotic stand, carried him successfully through, and he was shortly after nominated for the Senate, which position he will doubtless attain. In these crusades against neutrality and slavery Rousseau has established a character for firmness and persistence which have made him a most popular leader and the first man of his state; and he is already accepted as the true successor in principles, purposes, and patriotism of the late great leader in Kentucky, Henry Clay.