The debate upon the President's veto was not very prolonged but was marked by excitement approaching to anger. Mr. Trumbull, who had charge of the bill, analyzed the President's argument with consummate ability and readily answered him on every point of Constitutional law which he had adduced. He did more than this. He pointed out with unflinching severity what he considered the demagogical features of the message. "The best answer," said Mr. Trumbull, "to the President's objection that the bill proposes to make citizens of Chinese and gypsies and his reference to the discrimination against foreigners, is to be found in a speech delivered in this body by the President himself, on the occasion of a message being sent to the Senate by Mr. Buchanan, then President of the United States, returning with his objections what was known as the Homestead Bill. On that occasion Senator Johnson of Tennessee said, 'This idea about poor foreigners somehow or other bewilders and haunts the imagination of a great many. I am constrained to say that I look upon this objection to the bill as a mere quibble on the part of the President, as being hard pressed for some excuse in withholding his approval of the measure. His allusion to foreigners in this connection looks to me more like the _ad captandum_ of the mere politician or demagogue, than a grave and sound reason to be offered by the President of the United States in a veto message on so important a measure as the Homestead Bill.'" In exposing the inconsistency between Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, and Andrew Johnson, Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Trumbull said that he would not use as harsh language as Mr. Johnson had used towards President Buchanan when he accused him of "quibbling and demagogery." Mr. Trumbull argued with great force that the citizen has a counter-claim upon the Government for the comprehensive claim which the Government has upon the citizen. "It cannot be that we have constituted a government," said Mr. Trumbull, "which is all-powerful to command the obedience of the citizen but has no power to afford him protection." "Tell it not, sir," said he, "to the father whose son was starved at Andersonville, or the widow whose husband was slain at Mission Ridge, or the little boy who leads his sightless father through the streets of your city, of the thousand other mangled heroes to be seen on every side of us to-day, that this Government, in defense of which the son and the husband fell, the father lost his sight and the others were maimed and crippled, had the right to call those persons to its defense, but now has no power to protect the survivors or their friends in any rights whatever in the States. Such, sir, is not the meaning of our Constitution: such is not the meaning of American citizenship. Allegiance and protection are reciprocal rights."