I answer, as before; the injustice consists in giving a false meaning to true “words” and “syllables,”--a meaning which both the subject-matter and context of my speech repudiate. I do not see that it is less unjustifiable to attach false meanings to words correctly quoted, than to forge quotations. Surely, the honorable senator is too good a lawyer to be ignorant of the maxim, “_qui hæret in litera_” &c.; and too good a theologian not to have read that “the letter killeth” if divorced from the spirit. When Beaumont and Fletcher were closeted together to devise the plan of one of their joint plays, in which a king was to be killed, they were severally overheard to say, “I will kill the king,” and “I will kill the king;” whereupon they were arrested, transported to London, and arraigned for conspiring the death of the reigning sovereign. Suppose them to have been convicted of treason and gibbeted; could not the perjured informer, with a charming and childlike simplicity, have used the exact language of Mr. BADGER, and said, I testified to the exact “_words_” and “_syllables_.” “In what consists the injustice?” But the honorable senator goes on to say, that he had no concern with my _speech_, but only with my _conclusion_. His language is, “I was not considering the course or validity of his reasoning, but the conclusion at which he arrived.” He then repeats the quotation, and adds, “To refer, therefore, to the speech in order to understand the import of this conclusion, is idle.” With all deference to the senator,--and mine is unfeignedly great,--I submit that this is false logic and worse ethics. As well may one declare the judgment of a court to be legal or illegal, merciful or tyrannous, without looking back to the allegations and proofs on which it is founded. As well may one affirm or deny the “Q. E. D.” of the geometer, without reference to the problem or demonstration to which it is subjoined. When a discussion exists respecting “_an extension of the bounds of slavery_,” (and these were my words,) and I say that I would prefer certain enumerated evils rather than the extension in controversy, it surely becomes all-important to know whether that extension is to embrace the whole earth and to extend through all time, or whether it is only the addition of one atom or granule to existing slave territory, or of one respiration, or one heart-beat of an existing slave, on territory now free. I affirm, then, that a knowledge of the premises _is_ indispensable to a judgment on the conclusion.