g Perpendiculars at length ventured to
inquire.

"The language you have just heard, Mr. Speaker," I resumed, believing
that now was the favorable instant to follow up the matter, "is language
that must find an echo in every heart--it is language that can never
be used in vain in this venerable hall, language that carries with it
conviction and command."--I observed that the members were now fairly
gaping at each other with wonder.--"Sir, I am asked to name the author
from whom I have quoted these sententious and explicit words--Sir, what
you have just heard is to be found in the Article IV., Clause 6, of the
Great National Allegory--"

"Order--order--order!" shouted a hundred raven throats.

I stood aghast, even more amazed than the house itself had been only the
instant before.

"Order--order--order--order--order!" continued to be yelled, as if a
million of demons were screeching in the hall.

"The honorable member will please to recollect," said the bland and
ex-officio impartial speaker, who, by the way, was a Perpendicular,
elected by fraud, "that it is out of order to use personalities."

"Personalities! I do not understand, sir--"

"The instrument to which the honorable member has alluded, his own good
sense will tell him, was never written by itself--so far from this, the
very members of the convention by which it was drawn up, are at this
instant members of this house, and most of them supporters of the
resolution now before the house; and it will be deemed personal to throw
into their faces former official acts, in this unheard-of manner. I am
sorry it is my duty to say, that the honorable member is entirely out of
order."

"But, sir, the Sacred National--"

"Sacred, sir, beyond a doubt--but in a sense different from what you
imagine--much too sacred, sir, ever to be alluded to here. There are the
works of the commentators, the books of constructions, and specially the
writings of various foreign and perfectly disinterested statesmen--need
I name Ekrub in particular!--that are at the command of members; but
so long as I am honored with a seat in this chair, I shall peremptorily
decide against all personalities."

I was dumfounded. The idea that the authority itself would be refused
never crossed my mind, though I had anticipated a sharp struggle on
its construction. The constitution only required that no law should
be passed declaring black to be white, whereas the resolution merely
ordered that he