appearance, in defence or explanation of what he had said, he would be
the better able to judge--whether it would be proper for him to take
any notice--and if any, what--of the defence for which Mr. Thompson
had so frankly pledged himself. In the mean time, he would say to that
gentleman himself, that his attempts at brow-beating were lost upon
him.

* * * * *

MR. THOMPSON said he should commence with the end of his opponent's
speech, and notice what that gentleman had said in regard to the
charges brought by him against William Lloyd Garrison and Elizur
Wright. It appeared as if Mr. Breckinridge expected that, because in
his own country his character for veracity stood high, that therefore,
he was entitled, if he chose, to enter an assembly of twelve hundred
persons in Great Britain, and utter the gravest charges against
certain individuals 3,000 miles away, and when called upon as he had
been for proof, that he had nothing to do but turn round and say,
'Why, I am not bound to furnish proof; let the parties accused
demonstrate their innocence.' This was American justice with a
vengeance. This might be Kentucky law, or Lynch law, but could hardly
be called justice by any assembly of honest and impartial persons.
Such justice might suit the neighborhood of Vicksburg, but it would
not recommend itself to a Scotish audience. He (Mr. T.) would not
undertake at this time the task of justifying the men who had been
calumniated. He knew these gentlemen, and had no doubt when they heard
the charges preferred against them in this country, they would be able
and ready to clear themselves before the world. He would not say that
Mr. Breckinridge did not himself believe the allegations to be true,
but he would say that had that gentleman possessed a knowledge of the
true character of those he had spoken against--had he known them as he
(Mr. T.) knew them, he would have held them incapable of the dark
deeds alleged against them. With regard to Mr. B's remarks upon the
number of the slave population, the amount of the troops in the United
States, and the existence of slavery in the district of Columbia, he
must say that they were nothing but special pleadings; that the whole
was a complete specimen of what the lawyers termed pettifogging. He
(Mr. T.) was not prepared to hear a minister say that because only
1500 troops out of 6000 were found in the southern states, that,
therefore, the nation was not