of taunt, I throw it back, and say
to the gentleman, that he could possibly say nothing less likely than
such a comparison to wound my pride of personal character. The anger of
its tone rescued the remark from intentional irony, which otherwise,
probably, would have been its general acceptation. But, sir, if it be
imagined by this mutual quotation and commendation; if it be supposed
that, by casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each his
part, to one the attack, to another the cry of onset; or if it be
thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any
laurels are to be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that any, or
all of these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the
honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he
is dealing with one of whose temper and character he has yet much to
learn. Sir, I shall not allow myself, on this occasion, I hope on no
occasion, to be betrayed into any loss of temper; but if provoked, as I
trust I never shall be, into crimination and recrimination, the
honorable member may, perhaps, find that in that contest, there will be
blows to take as well as blows to give; that others can state
comparisons as significant, at least, as his own, and that his impunity
may possibly demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may
possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of his resources.

On yet another point, I was still more unaccountably misunderstood. The
gentlemen had harangued against "consolidation." I told him, in reply,
that there was one kind of consolidation to which I was attached, and
that was the consolidation of our Union; that this was precisely that
consolidation to which I feared others were not attached, and that such
consolidation was the very end of the Constitution, the leading object,
as they had informed us themselves, which its framers had kept in view.
I turned to their communication, and read their very words, "the
consolidation of the Union," and expressed my devotion to this sort of
consolidation. I said, in terms, that I wished not in the slightest
degree to augment the powers of this government; that my object was to
preserve, not to enlarge; and that by consolidating the Union I
understood no more than the strengthening of the Union, and perpetuating
it. Having been thus explicit, having thus read from the printed book
the precise words which I adopted, as expressing my own sentiments,