Here is a provision for extraordinary expense incurred in executing the laws of the United States.  Extraordinary expenses!  Sir, beneath these specious words lurks the very subject on which, by a solemn vote of this body, I was refused a hearing.  Here it is; no longer open to the charge of being an “abstraction,” but actually presented for practical legislation; not introduced by me, but by the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Hunter), on the recommendation of an important committee of the Senate; not brought forward weeks ago, when there was ample time for discussion, but only at this moment, without any reference to the late period of the session.  The amendment which I offer proposes to remove one chief occasion of these extraordinary expenses.  Beyond all controversy or cavil it is strictly in order.  And now, at last, among these final, crowded days of our duties here, but at this earliest opportunity, I am to be heard,—­not as a favor, but as a right.  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.  That personal responsibility I accept.  Before the Senate and the country let me be held accountable for this act and for every word which I utter.

With me, Sir, there is no alternative.  Painfully convinced of the unutterable wrong and woe of Slavery,—­profoundly believing, that, according to the true spirit of the Constitution and the sentiments of the Fathers, it can find no place under our National Government,—­that it is in every respect sectional, and in no respect national,—­that it is always and everywhere creature and dependent of the States, and never anywhere creature or dependent of the Nation,—­and that the Nation can never, by legislative or other act, impart to it any support, under the Constitution of the United States,—­with these convictions I could not allow this session to reach its close without making or seizing an opportunity to declare myself openly against the usurpation, injustice, and cruelty of the late intolerable enactment for the recovery