LOFTY Mr. SUMNER wished to know what Mr. CARPENTER meant by pursuing
him. He was used to being blackguarded by the enemies of his country,
but now he was hounded in the house of his friends. He had looked
through the whole Congressional Library and failed to find a precedent
for the course of the carping CARPENTER, except in the case of the
classic chap who had warmed a viper which had turned again and rent
him. He did not mean to say that Mr. CARPENTER was a viper, but he
thought nobody but an Adder would put this and that together as Mr.
CARPENTER had done.
Mr. CARPENTER said that the passion of his friend from Boston for
maundering about himself amounted to a mild mania. All he had done was
to suggest that SUMNER had upheld States Rights twenty years ago, and
now pretended that he was never any such person.
Mr. SUMNER said that twenty years ago the States Rights boot was upon
the other leg. ÆNEAS SILVIUS had well observed that it made a heap of
difference whose ox was gored, and HORACE had pointed out the
difference between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee. Unless his reading of
the Cyclopedia had failed to inform him, he believed that there was a
game known as "Heads I win, tails you lose." That was his little game.
When Massachusetts States Rights were invoked to aid the colored man,
States Rights were good. When Southern States Rights were invoked to
crush the colored man, States Rights were bad. As for him, give him
liberty or give him rats.
Mr. HARLAN wished to know why the Pacific Railway grant should be
passed. No officer of that railway had been to see him about it. He did
not believe in legislation of this kind. If a thing were worth having,
it was certainly worth asking for. He had no objection to breaking old
"ties," but he was averse to paying for new ones, unless he had some
personal reason for it. He wished he were altogether in the same
position as some of his colleagues, including these "bonds."
WILSON, and CASSERLY, and THURMAN, and THAYER said that HARLAN was of
no account, and that was the reason why he had not been "seen." As long
as a majority was prepared, it was wasting money to conciliate any body
else.
Mr. DRAKE said he had a better thing than the Pacific Railway. It was a
bill to provide that the Army and Navy of the United States might be
put on a war-footing on the application of any three colored persons.
This did not seem to be profitable, but it was. The profit in it was a
JOB, but much subtler than in the Pacific Railway. He hoped Senators
would see the illimitable vistas of patronage opened by the bill.
HOUSE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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