nd it
a vain and futile attempt. ["Order."] I am sure I am indebted to the
ignorance of my character on the part of those who are thus disgracing
themselves ["order, order"], if they suppose any such efforts as they
are now making will succeed in driving me from the position which I have
assumed. I stand upon the Constitution of my country, upon the liberty
of speech which you have treacherously violated, and upon the rights of
my constituents, and your fiendish yells may be well raised to drown an
argument which you tremble to hear. You claim and have exercised the
power to prevent all debate upon any and every subject, yet you have not
as yet shown your right to sit here at all. I will not presume that you
have any such right ["order, order"]. I will not suppose that the
American people have elected such agents to represent them. I therefore
demand that they shall comply with the Act of 1789 before I shall be
bound to submit to their authority." (Loud cries of "order.")

The Act to which Mr. Toombs referred recited that the oath must be
administered by the Speaker to all the members present, and to the
clerk, previous to entering on any other business. This he tried to
read, but cries of "order" drowned his voice.

Throwing aside his manual Mr. Toombs walked further out into the aisle
and assumed a yet more defiant position.

"You refuse," he said, "to hear either the Constitution or the law.
Perhaps you do well to listen to neither; they all speak a voice of
condemnation to your reckless proceedings. But if you will not hear them
the country will. Every freeman from the Atlantic to the Pacific shore
shall hear them, and every honest man shall consider them. You cannot
stifle the voice that shall reach their ears. The electric spark shall
proclaim to the freemen of this republic that an American Congress,
having conceived the purpose to violate the Constitution and the laws to
conceal their enormities, have disgraced the record of their proceedings
by placing upon it a resolution that their representatives shall not be
heard in their defense, and finding this illegal resolution inadequate
to secure so vile an end, have resorted to brutish yells and cries to
stifle the words of those they cannot intimidate."

The clerk continued to call the roll, and Mr. Toombs with splendid
audacity turned upon him. Pointing his finger at the _locum tenens_, he
cried with scorn: "I ask by what authority that man stands there and
c