lf-abasement. He would reject,
with scorn and contempt, as unworthy of his fame, your black scratches
and your baby lines in the fair records of his country. Black lines!
Black lines! Sir, I hope the Secretary of the Senate will preserve the
pen with which he may inscribe them, and present it to that Senator of
the majority whom he may select, as a proud trophy, to be transmitted
to his descendants. And hereafter, when we shall lose the forms of our
free institutions, all that now remain to us, some future American
monarch, in gratitude to those by whose means he has been enabled, upon
the ruins of civil liberty, to erect a throne, and to commemorate
especially this Expunging resolution, may institute a new order of
knighthood, and confer on it the appropriate name of "the Knights of
the Black Lines."

But why should I detain the Senate, or needlessly waste my breath in
fruitless exertions? The decree has gone forth. It is one of urgency,
too. The deed is to be done--that foul deed which, like the blood,
staining the hands of the guilty Macbeth, all ocean's waters will
never wash out. Proceed, then, to the noble work which lies before
you, and, like other skilful executioners, do it quickly. And when
you have perpetrated it, go home to the people, and tell them what
glorious honors you have achieved for our common country. Tell them
that you have extinguished one of the brightest and purest lights that
ever burned at the altar of civil liberty. Tell them that you have
silenced one of the noblest batteries that ever thundered in defence of
the Constitution, and bravely spiked the cannon. Tell them that,
henceforward, no matter what daring or outrageous act any president may
perform, you have forever hermetically sealed the mouth of the Senate.
Tell them that he may fearlessly assume what powers he pleases, snatch
from its lawful custody the public purse, command a military detachment
to enter the halls of the Capitol, overawe Congress, trample down the
Constitution, and raze every bulwark of freedom; but that the Senate
must stand mute, in silent submission, and not dare to raise its
opposing voice. Tell them that it must wait until a House of
Representatives, humbled and subdued like itself, and a majority of it
composed of the partisans of the President, shall prefer articles of
impeachment. Tell them, finally, that you have restored the glorious
doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance. And, i