sovereignty would be an empty title. "Congress may alter, but it
cannot supersede these regulations [of the States] till it supplies
others in their places, so as to leave the right of representation
perfect."[173]

The argument of the report was bold and ingenious, if not convincing.
The minority were ready to admit that the case had been cleverly
stated, although hardly a man doubted that political considerations
had weighed most heavily with the chairman of the committee. Douglas
resented the suggestion with such warmth, however, that it is
charitable to suppose he was not conscious of the bias under which he
had labored.

Upon one auditor, who to be sure was inexpressibly bored by the whole
discussion of the "everlasting general ticket elections," Douglas made
an unhappy impression. John Quincy Adams recorded in his diary,--that
diary which was becoming a sort of Rogues' Gallery: "He now raved out
his hour in abusive invectives upon the members who had pointed out
its slanders and upon the Whig party. His face was convulsed, his
gesticulation frantic, and he lashed himself into such a heat that if
his body had been made of combustible matter, it would have burnt out.
In the midst of his roaring, to save himself from choking, he stripped
off and cast away his cravat, and unbuttoned his waist-coat, and had
the air and aspect of a half-naked pugilist. And this man comes from a
judicial bench, and passes for an eloquent orator."[174]

No one will mistake this for an impartial description. Nearly every
Democrat who spoke upon this tedious question, according to Adams,
either "raved" or "foamed at the mouth." The old gentleman was too
wearied and disgusted with the affair to be a fair reporter. But as a