u/Awkward-Evidence-215

"Standing on this floor, the Senator [Stephen A. Douglas] issued his rescript requiring submission to the Usurped Power of Kansas; and this was accompanied by a manner—all his own—befitting the tyrannical threat. Very well. Let the Senator try. I tell him now that he cannot enforce any such submission. The Senator, with the Slave Power at his back, is strong; but he is not strong enough for this purpose. He is bold. He shrinks from nothing. Like Danton, he may cry, 'De l’audace! encore de l’audace! et toujours de l’audace!' but even his audacity cannot compass this work. The Senator copies the British officer who with boastful swagger said that with the end of his sword he would cram the 'stamps' down the throats of the American people; and he will meet a similar failure. He may convulse this country with civil feud. Like the ancient madman, he may set fire to this Temple of Constitutional Liberty, grander than Ephesian dome; but he cannot enforce obedience to that tyrannical Usurpation. The Senator dreams that he can subdue the North. He disclaims the open threat, but his conduct implies it. How little that Senator knows himself, or the strength of the cause which he persecutes! He is but mortal man; against him is immortal principle. With finite power he wrestles with the infinite, and he must fall. Against him are stronger battalions than any marshalled by mortal arm,—the inborn, ineradicable, invincible sentiments of the human heart; against him is Nature with all her subtle forces; against him is God. Let him try to subdue these."

"And now, Sir, who is he, so ignorant of the history of liberty, at home and abroad; who is he, yet dwelling in his contemplations among the principles and dogmas of the Middle Ages; who is he, from whose bosom all original infusion of American spirit has become so entirely evaporated and exhaled, that he shall put into the mouth of the President of the United States the doctrine that the defence of liberty naturally results to executive power, and is its peculiar duty? Who is he, that, generous and confiding towards power where it is most dangerous, and jealous only of those who can restrain it,—who is he, that, reversing the order of the state, and upheaving the base, would poise the pyramid of the political system upon its apex? Who is he, that, overlooking with contempt the guardianship of the representatives of the people, and with equal contempt the higher guardianship of the people themselves,—who is he that declares to us, through the President's lips, that the security for freedom rests in executive authority? Who is he that belies the blood and libels the fame of his own ancestors, by declaring that they, with solemnity of form, and force of manner, have invoked the executive power to come to the protection of liberty? Who is he that thus charges them with the insanity, or the recklessness, of putting the lamb beneath the lion's paw? No, Sir. No, Sir. Our security is in our watchfulness of executive power."

"But the part of this paper which is the most characteristic, that which lets us into the real nature and character of this movement, is the source from which the President derives the right to interfere with our proceedings. He does not even pretend to derive it from any power vested in him by the constitution, express or implied. He knew that such an attempt would be utterly hopeless, and, accordingly, instead of a question of right, he makes it a question of duty; and thus inverts the order of things, referring rights to duties, instead of duties to rights, and forgetting that rights always precede duties, which are in fact but the obligations they impose, and, of course, that they do not confer power. The opposite view—that on which he acts, and which would give to the President a right to assume whatever duty he might choose, and to convert such duties into powers, would, if admitted, render him as absolute as the Autocrat of all the Russias. Taking this erroneous view of his powers, he could be at little loss to justify his conduct; —to justify, did I say? He takes higher, far higher ground; he makes his interference a matter of obligation—of solemn obligation—of imperious necessity, the tyrant's plea. He tells us that it was due to his station—to public opinion—to proper self-respect—to the obligation imposed by his constitutional oath—his duty to see the laws faithfully executed—his responsibility as the head of the executive department—and to the American people as their immediate representative, to interpose his authority against the usurpations of the Senate. Infatuated man! blinded by ambition—intoxicated by flattery and vanity! Who, that is the least acquainted with the human heart; who, that is conversant with the pages of history, does not see, under all this, the workings of a dark, lawless, and insatiable ambition, which, if not arrested, must finally impel him to his own or his country's ruin?"

"A new philosophy has sprung up within a few years past called phrenology. There is, I believe, something in it, but not quite as much as its most ardent followers proclaim. According to its doctrines, the leading passion, propensity, and characteristics of every man are developed in his physical conformation, chiefly in the structure of his head. Gall and Spurzhiem, its founders, or most eminent propagators, being dead, I regret that neither of them can examine the head of our illustrious chief magistrate. But if it could be survived by Dr. Caldwell, of Transylvania University, I am persuaded that he would find the organ of destructiveness prominently developed."