In the first place, I think the Protest a clear breach of privilege.  It is a reproof or rebuke of the Senate, in language hardly respectful, for the exercise of a power clearly belonging to it as a legislative body.  It entirely misrepresents the proceedings of the Senate.  I find this paragraph in it, among others of a similar tone and character:  “A majority of the Senate, whose interference with the preliminary question has, for the best of all reasons, been studiously excluded, anticipate the action of the House of Representatives, assume not only the function which belongs exclusively to that body, but convert themselves into accusers, witnesses, counsel, and judges, and prejudge the whole case; thus presenting the appalling spectacle, in a free state, of judges going through a labored preparation for an impartial hearing and decision, by a previous ex parte investigation and sentence against the supposed offender.”

Now, Sir, this paragraph, I am bound to say, is a total misrepresentation of the proceedings of the Senate.  A majority of the Senate have not anticipated the House of Representatives; they have not assumed the functions of that body; they have not converted themselves into accusers, witnesses, counsel, or judges; they have made no ex parte investigation; they have given no sentence.  This paragraph is an elaborate perversion of the whole design and the whole proceedings of the Senate.  A Protest, sent to us by the President, against votes which the Senate has an unquestionable right to pass, and containing, too, such a misrepresentation of these votes as this paragraph manifests, is a breach of privilege.

But there is another breach of privilege.  The President interferes between the members of the Senate and their constituents, and charges them with acting contrary to the will of those constituents.  He says it is his right and duty to look to the journals of the Senate to ascertain who voted for the resolution of the 28th of March, and then to show that individual Senators have, by their votes on that resolution, disobeyed the instructions or violated the known will of the legislatures who appointed them.  All this he claims as his right and his duty.  And where does he find any such right or any such duty?  What right has he to send a message to either house of Congress telling its members that they disobey the will of their constituents?  Has any English sovereign since Cromwell’s time dared to send such a message to Parliament?  Sir, if he can tell us that some of us disobey our constituents, he can tell us that all do so; and if we consent to receive this language from him, there is but one remaining step, and that is, that since we thus disobey the will of our constituents, he should disperse us and send us home.  In my opinion, the first step in this process is as distinct a breach of privilege as the last.  If Cromwell’s example shall be followed out, it will not be more clear then than it is now that the privileges of the