And here it will hardly be amiss to glance, for an instant, toward the
Senate Chamber; and especially at one characteristic incident. It was
the afternoon of August the 1st, 1861,--scarce ten days since the check
to the Union arms at Bull Run; and Breckinridge, of Kentucky, not yet
expelled from the United States Senate, was making in that Body his
great speech against the "Insurrection and Sedition Bill," and upon "the
sanctity of the Constitution."

Baker, of Oregon,--who, as Sumner afterward said: "with a zeal that
never tired, after recruiting men drawn by the attraction of his name,
in New York and Philadelphia and elsewhere, held his Brigade in camp,
near the Capitol, so that he passed easily from one to the other, and
thus alternated the duties of a Senator and a General," having reached
the Capitol, direct from his Brigade-camp, entered the Senate Chamber,
in his uniform, while Breckinridge was speaking.

When the Kentucky Senator "with Treason in his heart, if not on his
lips," resumed his seat, the gray-haired soldier-Senator at once rose to
reply. "He began,"--said Charles Sumner, in alluding to the incident
--"simply and calmly; but as he proceeded, his fervid soul broke forth in
words of surpassing power. As on a former occasion he had presented the
well-ripened fruits of study, so now he spoke with the spontaneous
utterance of his own mature and exuberant eloquence--meeting the
polished Traitor at every point with weapons keener and brighter than
his own."

After demolishing Breckinridge's position touching the alleged
Unconstitutionality of the measure, and characterizing his other
utterances as "reproof, malediction, and prediction combined," the
Patriot from the Far-West turned with rising voice and flashing eye upon