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* * * * *
I confess to you, nevertheless, that some of the principles announced
by the honorable gentleman from New York, with an explicitness that
reflected the highest credit on his candor, did, when they were first
presented, startle me not a little. They were not perhaps entirely new.
Perhaps I had seen them before in some shadowy and doubtful shape,
"If shape it might be called, that shape had none,
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb?"
But in the honorable gentleman's speech they were shadowy and doubtful
no longer. He exhibited them in forms so boldly and accurately--with
contours so distinctly traced--with features so pronounced and
striking that I was unconscious for a moment that they might be old
acquaintances. I received them as a _novi hospites_ within these walls,
and gazed upon them with astonishment and alarm. I have recovered,
however, thank God, from this paroxysm of terror, although not from that
of astonishment.


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