When the Kentucky Senator "with Treason in his heart, if not on his
lips," resumed his seat, the gray-haired soldier-Senator at once rose to
reply. "He began,"--said Charles Sumner, in alluding to the incident
--"simply and calmly; but as he proceeded, his fervid soul broke forth in
words of surpassing power. As on a former occasion he had presented the
well-ripened fruits of study, so now he spoke with the spontaneous
utterance of his own mature and exuberant eloquence--meeting the
polished Traitor at every point with weapons keener and brighter than
his own."
After demolishing Breckinridge's position touching the alleged
Unconstitutionality of the measure, and characterizing his other
utterances as "reproof, malediction, and prediction combined," the
Patriot from the Far-West turned with rising voice and flashing eye upon
the gloomy Kentuckian:
"I would ask him," said he, "what would you have us do now--a
Confederate Army within twenty miles of us, advancing, or threatening to
advance, to overwhelm your Government; to shake the pillars of the
Union, to bring it around your head, if you stay here, in ruins? Are we
to stop and talk about an uprising sentiment in the North against the
War? Are we to predict evil, and retire from what we predict? Is it
not the manly part to go on as we have begun, to raise money, and levy
Armies, to organize them, to prepare to advance; when we do advance, to
regulate that advance by all the laws and regulations that civilization
and humanity will allow in time of battle? Can we do anything more? To
talk to us about stopping, is idle; we will never stop.
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