By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know I am a military hero?  Yes, sir; in the days of the Black Hawk war I fought, bled, and came away.  Speaking of General Cass’s career reminds me of my own.  I was not at Stiliman’s defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass was to Hull’s surrender; and, like him, I saw the place very soon afterward.  It is quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to break; but I bent a musket pretty badly on one occasion.  If Cass broke his sword, the idea is he broke it in desperation; I bent the musket by accident.  If General Cass went in advance of me in picking huckleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon the wild onions.  If he saw any live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did; but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes, and although I never fainted from the loss of blood, I can truly say I was often very hungry.  Mr. Speaker, if I should ever conclude to doff whatever our Democratic friends may suppose there is of black-cockade federalism about me, and therefore they shall take me up as their candidate for the Presidency, I protest they shall not make fun of me, as they have of General Cass, by attempting to write me into a military hero.

While I have General Cass in hand, I wish to say a word about his political principles.  As a specimen, I take the record of his progress in the Wilmot Proviso.  In the Washington Union of March 2, 1847, there is a report of a speech of General Cass, made the day before in the Senate, on the Wilmot Proviso, during the delivery of which Mr. Miller of New Jersey is reported to have interrupted him as follows, to wit: 

“Mr. Miller expressed his great surprise at the change in the sentiments of the Senator from Michigan, who had been regarded as the great champion of freedom in the Northwest, of which he was a distinguished ornament.  Last year the Senator from Michigan was understood to be decidedly in favor of the Wilmot Proviso; and as no reason had been stated for the change, he [Mr. Miller] could not refrain from the expression of his extreme surprise.”

To this General Cass is reported to have replied as follows, to wit: 

“Mr. Cass said that the course of the Senator from New Jersey was most extraordinary.  Last year he [Mr. Cass] should have voted for the proposition, had it come up.  But circumstances had altogether changed.  The honorable Senator then read several passages from the remarks, as given above, which he had committed to writing, in order to refute such a charge as that of the Senator from New Jersey.”

In the “remarks above reduced to writing” is one numbered four, as follows, to wit: 

“Fourth.  Legislation now would be wholly inoperative, because no territory hereafter to be acquired can be governed without an act of Congress providing for its government; and such an act, on its passage, would open the whole subject, and leave the Congress called on to pass it free to exercise its own discretion, entirely uncontrolled by any declaration found on the statute-book.”