Every
space large enough, in the chamber, lobby, and galleries, was filled
with a listener, and all were still and unmoving, however painful their
position, until the enunciation of the last word of that wonderful
oration. The speech occupied two hours and forty minutes, and the
peroration was thrilling. When exhausted, and closing, he lifted his
eyes to the national flag, floating above the Speaker's chair, and
said, in an almost exhausted voice, "If, Mr. Speaker, in obedience to
the necessities and corrupt behest of party, you are determined to
wrest from Mississippi her rights as a sister, and coequal in this
union of States, and turn from their seats her representatives
constitutionally chosen, and place in their stead the repudiated of her
people, strike from the flag which waves above you the star which
represents her there; but leave the stripes, apt emblem of your
iniquity and her degradation."
An adjournment was immediately moved; the painful excitement was
relieved, the spell was broken, and from every side, and from every
party, came men to congratulate him.
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