Rejoicing in my independence, and claiming nothing from party ties, I throw myself upon the candor and magnanimity of the Senate.  I ask your attention; I trust not to abuse it.  I may speak strongly, for I shall speak openly and from the strength of my convictions.  I may speak warmly, for I shall speak from the heart.  But in no event can I forget the amenities which belong to debate, and which especially become this body.  Slavery I must condemn with my whole soul; but here I need only borrow the language of slaveholders; nor would it accord with my habits or my sense of justice to exhibit them as the impersonation of the institution—­Jefferson calls it the “enormity”—­which they cherish.  Of them I do not speak; but without fear and without favor, as without impeachment of any person, I assail this wrong.  Again, Sir, I may err; but it will be with the Fathers.  I plant myself on the ancient ways of the Republic, with its grandest names, its surest landmarks, and all its original altar-fires about me.

And now, on the very threshold, I encounter the objection, that there is a final settlement, in principle and substance, of the question of slavery, and that all discussion of it is closed.  Both the old political parties, by formal resolutions, in recent conventions at Baltimore, have united in this declaration.  On a subject which for years has agitated the public mind, which yet palpitates in every heart and burns on every tongue, which in its immeasurable importance dwarfs all other subjects, which by its constant and gigantic presence throws a shadow across these halls, which at this very time calls for appropriations to meet extraordinary expenses it has caused, they impose the rule of silence.  According to them, Sir, we may speak of everything except that alone which is most present in all our minds.

To this combined effort I might fitly reply, that, with flagrant inconsistency, it challenges the very discussion it pretends to forbid.  Their very declaration, on the eve of an election, is, of course, submitted to the consideration and ratification of the people.  Debate, inquiry, discussion, are the necessary consequence.  Silence becomes impossible.  Slavery, which you profess to banish from public attention, openly by your invitation enters every political meeting and every political convention.  Nay, at this moment it stalks into this Senate, crying, like the daughters of the horseleech, “Give! give.”

But no unanimity of politicians can uphold the baseless assumption, that a law, or any conglomerate of laws, under the name of compromise, or howsoever called, is final.  Nothing can be plainer than this,—­that by no parliamentary device or knot can any legislature tie the hands of a succeeding legislature, so as to prevent the full exercise of its constitutional powers.  Each legislature, under a just sense of its responsibility, must judge for itself; and if it think proper, it may revise, or amend, or absolutely undo the work of any predecessor.  The laws of the Medes and Persians are said proverbially to have been unalterable; but they stand forth in history as a single example where the true principles of all law have been so irrationally defied.