The graceful usages
of this body may be abandoned, but the established privileges of
debate cannot be abridged. Parliamentary courtesy may be forgotten,
but parliamentary law must prevail. The subject is broadly before the
Senate. By the blessing of God it shall be discussed.
Sir, a severe lawgiver of early Greece vainly sought to secure
permanence for his imperfect institutions by providing that the citizen
who at any time attempted their repeal or alteration should appear in
the public assembly with a halter about his neck, ready to be drawn,
if his proposition failed. A tyrannical spirit among us, in unconscious
imitation of this antique and discarded barbarism, seeks to surround an
offensive institution with similar safeguard.
In the existing distemper of the public mind, and at this present
juncture, no man can enter upon the service which I now undertake,
with-out personal responsibility, such as can be sustained only by
that sense of duty which, under God, is always our best support.
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