Finally, the Judge invokes against me the memory of Clay and Webster,
They were great men, and men of great deeds. But where have I assailed
them? For what is it that their lifelong enemy shall now make profit by
assuming to defend them against me, their lifelong friend? I go against
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; did they ever go for it? They went
for the Compromise of 1850; did I ever go against them? They were greatly
devoted to the Union; to the small measure of my ability was I ever less
so? Clay and Webster were dead before this question arose; by what
authority shall our Senator say they would espouse his side of it if
alive? Mr. Clay was the leading spirit in making the Missouri Compromise;
is it very credible that if now alive he would take the lead in the
breaking of it? The truth is that some support from Whigs is now a
necessity with the Judge, and for this it is that the names of Clay and
Webster are invoked. His old friends have deserted him in such numbers as
to leave too few to live by. He came to his own, and his own received him
not; and lo! he turns unto the Gentiles.
A word now as to the Judge's desperate assumption that the compromises of
1850 had no connection with one another; that Illinois came into the
Union as a slave State, and some other similar ones.
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