As I understood the main argument of the Senator, it was based upon the general postulate that the Democratic Convention of 1848 recognized a new doctrine, a doctrine which inhibited the General Government from interfering in any way, either for the protection of property or otherwise, with the local affairs of a Territory; he held the party responsible for all the opinions entertained by the candidate in 1848, because the party had nominated him, and he quoted the record to show what States, by voting for him, had committed themselves to the doctrine of the "Nicholson letter." He even quoted South Carolina, represented by that man who became famous for a single act, and, as South Carolinians said, without authority at home to sustain it. But this was cited as pledging the faith of South Carolina to the doctrine of the "Nicholson letter;" and, worse than all, the Senator did this, though he knew that the doctrine of the "Nicholson letter" was the subject of controversy for years subsequently; that, what was the true construction of that letter, entered into the canvass in the Southern States; that the construction which Mr. Cass himself placed upon it at a subsequent period was there denied; and the Senator might have remembered, if he had chosen to recollect so unimportant a thing, that I once had to explain to him, ten years ago, the fact that I repudiated the doctrine of that letter at the time it was published, and that the Democracy of Mississippi had well-nigh crucified me for the construction which I placed upon it; there were men mean enough to suspect that the construction I gave to the Nicholson letter was prompted by the confidence and affection I felt for General Taylor. At a subsequent period, however, Mr. Cass thoroughly reviewed it. He uttered, for him, very harsh language against all who had doubted the true construction of his letter, and he construed it just as I had done during the canvass of 1848. It remains only to add that I supported Mr. Cass, not because of the doctrine of the Nicholson letter, but in despite of it; because I believed a Democratic President, with a Democratic cabinet and Democratic counselors in the two houses of Congress, and he as honest a man as I believed Mr. Cass to be, would be a safer reliance than his opponent, who personally possessed my confidence as much as any man living, but who was of and must draw his advisers from a party, the tenets of which I believed to be opposed to the interests of the country as they were to all my political convictions.