gentleman from Georgia further says we have deserted all our principles,
and taken shelter under General Taylor's military coat-tail, and he seems
to think this is exceedingly degrading. Well, as his faith is, so be it
unto him. But can he remember no other military coat-tail under which a
certain other party have been sheltering for near a quarter of a century?
Has he no acquaintance with the ample military coat tail of General
Jackson? Does he not know that his own party have run the five last
Presidential races under that coat-tail, and that they are now running
the sixth under the same cover? Yes, sir, that coat-tail was used not
only for General Jackson himself, but has been clung to, with the grip of
death, by every Democratic candidate since. You have never ventured, and
dare not now venture, from under it. Your campaign papers have constantly
been "Old Hickories," with rude likenesses of the old general upon them;
hickory poles and hickory brooms your never-ending emblems; Mr. Polk
himself was "Young Hickory," or something so; and even now your campaign
paper here is proclaiming that Cass and Butler are of the true "Hickory
stripe." Now, sir, you dare not give it up. Like a horde of hungry ticks
you have stuck to the tail of the Hermitage Lion to the end of his life;
and you are still sticking to it, and drawing a loathsome sustenance from
it, after he is dead. A fellow once advertised that he had made a
discovery by which he could make a new man out of an old one, and have
enough of the stuff left to make a little yellow dog. Just such a
discovery has General Jackson's popularity been to you. You not only
twice made President of him out of it, but you have had enough of the
stuff left to make Presidents of several comparatively small men since;
and it is your chief reliance now to make still another.

Mr. Speaker, old horses and military coat-tails, or tails of any sort,
are not figures of speech such as I would be the first to introduce into
discussions here; but as the gentleman from Georgia has thought fit to