Stephens, ever a most accurate and trustworthy witness, says that of all speeches which he heard during his congressional course, which covered the years 1843-1859, this produced the greatest sensation in the house.[108] Its effect outside--that is, in the southern public--was widespread, deep, and permanent. The comparison with which it closed had been, I believe, used before; but what of that? It exactly voiced the revolutionary sentiment which, as his deliverances on the 13th of December before showed, was beginning to come into consciousness in his section. It gave new impetus to the circulation of the other speeches. The young men of Georgia, as I know, and perhaps those of other southern States, read them over and over, reciting with passionate emphasis the most stirring passages. Especially did they delight to declaim the peroration of the Hamilcar speech, as that of June 15, 1850, has always been called in Georgia. To the stump orators, the last mentioned and that of December 13 became examples which they emulated only to find in their despairing admiration that parallel was impossible. And even the retiring, quiet, and elderly people who care for nothing but their daily business caught the fire. Not long ago, one who is now old, who was entering middle age in 1850, and who has been a stanch union man all his life, told me that he could not keep from reading these speeches over and over, and whenever he read one of them, it made him for the time a disunionist. The part played by Toombs in the congressional session of 1849-50 seems to me one of the most wonderful exploits in all parliamentary annals. Since slavery is gone, and I can at last understand that it was all blessing to the African and all curse to us, my joy is inexpressible. But I must ever hold that its defence was one of the noblest efforts of the best of people. It will soon be understood by the whole world, and especially by our brothers of the north. They will acknowledge that neither Greek nor Scot nor Swiss were more manly or heroic than southerners, and the supporters of the Lost Cause will be crowned with such lustre and glory as magnify Hannibal succumbing to Rome, or Demosthenes unvailingly stirring up his country against Macedon. It will forever bring me ecstatic emotion to recall the many, many places where my fellows suffered or fell at my side without a murmur. Our victories at the opening of the brothers' war; then the drawn battles; then the defeats; and the round of sickening disasters at the end,--all these come thronging back, and I can never be other than proud of the prowess and endurance of our out-numbered armies, the energy and untamable spirit of our people, and the devotion of our blessed women to the weal of our soldiers. I often look back over the track of what I have called the aggressive defence of slavery. Though it was disguised under various names, such as the threat of disunion in