In their
steadfast pertinacity, whether right or wrong, in their adamantine
logic, as unyielding as death, and calm, serious energy of action, and
in a part of their transcendental theories, they were alike; and alike,
too, in their tried honesty. The great Nullifier and the great Reformer
were both Titanic, in the vastness and comprehensiveness of their views,
in their unrelenting self-assertion, in their metaphysics, and in their
theories of government. If the dark Southron made open war upon his
country till it grew to be unsafe, the dark Northerner would tear the
Constitution of that country to tatters, and trample it under foot, as
he did upon one occasion, without remorse or compunction, because it was
held by others to give property in man, though for himself he denied
that it did so, or that it sanctioned slavery in any shape,--as he did,
I say, though I was not an eyewitness of the outrage, and have only the
report from others who were. If it was only a flourish, like that of
Edmund Burke, when he suddenly lugged out the dagger before the upturned
smiling eyes of his patient compeers, and Sheridan--or was it
Fox?--begged the gentleman to tell him where the _fork_ was to be had
which belonged to the knife, why, even that were not only unworthy of
the man, but so utterly unlike him, for he never indulged in rhetoric or
rhodomontade or claptrap, that one would be inclined to think he was
beside himself, or had been dining out, like Daniel Webster when he
proposed, in the Senate Chamber, to plant our starry banner on the
outermost verge, the Ultima Thule, of our disputed territory, heedless
of consequences.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30