indifference at the treachery of Senator Douglas," said a Richmond
paper. "He was a politician of considerable promise. Association with
Southern gentlemen had smoothed down the rugged vulgarities of his
early education, and he had come to be quite a decent and well-behaved
person."[657] To political denunciation was now to be added the sting
of mean and contemptible personalities.

Small wonder that even the vigorous health of "the Little Giant"
succumbed to these assaults. For a fortnight he was confined to his
bed, rising only by sheer force of will to make a final plea for
sanity, before his party took its suicidal plunge. He spoke on the 22d
of March under exceptional conditions. In the expectation that he
would speak in the forenoon, people thronged the galleries at an
early hour, and refused to give up their seats, even when it was
announced that the Senator from Illinois would not address the Senate
until seven o 'clock in the evening. When the hour came, crowds still
held possession of the galleries, so that not even standing room was
available. The door-keepers wrestled in vain with an impatient throng
without, until by motion of Senator Gwin, ladies were admitted to the
floor of the chamber. Even then, Douglas was obliged to pause several
times, for the confusion around the doors to subside.[658] He spoke
with manifest difficulty, but he was more defiant than ever. His
speech was at once a protest and a personal vindication. Denial of the
right of the administration to force the Lecompton constitution upon
the people of Kansas, went hand in hand with a defense of his own
Democracy. Sentences culled here and there suggest not unfairly the
stinging rebukes and defiant challenges that accentuated the none too
coherent course of his speech:

"I am told that this Lecompton constitution is a party test,
a party measure; that no man is a Democrat who does not
sanction it ... Sir, who made it a party test? Who made it a
party measure?... Who has interpolated this Lecompton
constitution into the party platform?... Oh! but we are told
it is an Administration measure. Because it is an
Administration measure, does it therefore follow that it is
a party measure?" ... "I do not recognize the right of the
President or his Cabinet ... to tell me my duty in the
Senate Chamber." "Am I to be told that I must obey the
Executive and betray my State, or else be branded as a