which determined me to take the other. I have not, in newspapers,
to derogate from his fair fame with the nation, printed the first
rude sketch of his bill with ungenerous and invidious comments. I
have not, in conversations industriously circulated about the town,
and talked on the benches of this House, attributed his conduct to
motives low and unworthy, and as groundless as they are injurious.
I do not affect to be frightened with this proposition, as if some
hideous spectre had started from hell, which was to be sent back
again by every form of exorcism, and every kind of incantation. I
invoke no Acheron to overwhelm him in the whirlpools of his muddy
gulf. I do not tell the respectable mover and seconder, by a
perversion of their sense and expressions, that their proposition
halts between the ridiculous and the dangerous. I am not one of
those who start up three at a time, and fall upon and strike at him
with so much eagerness, that our daggers hack one another in his
sides. My honourable friend has not brought down a spirited imp of
chivalry, to win the first achievement and blazon of arms on his
milk-white shield in a field listed against him, nor brought out the
generous offspring of lions, and said to them, "Not against that
side of the forest, beware of that--here is the prey where you are
to fasten your paws;" and seasoning his unpractised jaws with blood,
tell him, "This is the milk for which you are to thirst hereafter."
We furnish at his expense no holiday, nor suspend hell that a crafty
Ixion may have rest from his wheel; nor give the common adversary,
if he be a common adversary, reason to say, "I would have put in my
word to oppose, but the eagerness of your allies in your social war
was such that I could not break in upon you." I hope he sees and
feels, and that every member sees and feels along with him, the
difference between amicable dissent and civil discord.