This was contested before the House of Representatives in Congress assembled, and the contestants permitted to be heard on the floor of the House.  It was here, in the presence of the assembled wisdom of the nation, Prentiss was to sustain the reputation which had preceded him, and gloriously did he do it.  When he rose to commence his speech, all was silent, and every face expressed deep and excited expectation.  The unfortunate deformity of his leg was forgotten, in viewing the noble contour of his head and face.  Young, and for the first time in such a presence—­standing there the impersonation of the State of Mississippi, demanding justice for her at the hands of the nation—­he seemed conscious of the responsibility, and confident of his power to sustain this.  There was little preliminary in his remarks opening the matter.  He went at once, and as a strong man conscious of the right, to the core.  He demonstrated, beyond a doubt, his election, and proceeded in a strain of burning invective to expose the fraud of the returning officer, who had shamefully disregarded the popular voice, and shamelessly violated the law he was sworn to obey, in giving the certificate to his defeated competitors.  Never did the corruption of party receive so severe an exposition, or a more withering rebuke, than in this speech.

Very soon after he commenced, the Senate chamber was deserted, and the Vice-President and Secretary were left alone.  Webster, Benton, Calhoun, Clay, Wright, and Evans came in and ranged themselves near him.  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.  Webster was the first to stretch forth his hand, and with more animation than was his wont, said, in his deep, sonorous tones, “New England claims her own, and is proud of her son.”

The House, notwithstanding the demonstrative proof, and its enforcement by the powerful and unanswerable argument of Prentiss, sent the election back to the State, to be determined by a new election.  In this, Prentiss and Wood were triumphantly elected.  He was not again a candidate, retiring for the time from politics, and giving his undivided attention to his profession.