ollowing day Wise continued his speech, very
elaborately. When he closed, Mr. Adams, who had "determined not to
interrupt him till he had discharged his full cargo of filthy invective,"
rose to "make a preliminary point." He questioned the right of the
House to entertain Marshall's resolutions since the preamble assumed
him to be guilty of the crimes of subornation of perjury and (p. 284)
treason, and the resolutions themselves censured him as if he had been
found guilty; whereas in fact he had not been tried upon these charges
and of course had not been convicted. If he was to be brought to trial
upon them he asserted his right to have the proceedings conducted
before a jury of his peers, and that the House was not a tribunal
having this authority. But if he was to be tried for contempt, for
which alone he could lawfully be tried by the House, still there were
an hundred members sitting on its benches who were morally
disqualified to judge him, who could not give him an impartial trial,
because they were prejudiced and the question was one "on which their
personal, pecuniary, and most sordid interests were at stake." Such
considerations, he said, ought to prevent many gentlemen from voting,
as Mr. Wise had avowed that they would prevent him. Here Wise
interrupted to disavow that he was influenced by any such reasons, but
rather, he said, by the "personal loathing, dread, and contempt I feel
for the man." Mr. Adams, continuing after this pleasant interjection,
admitted that he was in the power of the majority, who might try him
against law and condemn him against right if they would.

[Footnote 12: Horace Everett, of Vermont.]

"If they say they will try me, they must try me. If they (p. 285)
say they will punish me, they must punish me. But if they say
that in peace and mercy they will spare me expulsion, I disdain
and cast away their mercy; and I ask them if they will come to
such a trial and expel me. I defy them. I have constituents to go
to who will have something to say if this House expels me. Nor
will it be long before the gentlemen will see me here again."

Such was the fierce temper and indomitable courage of this inflexible
old man! He flung contempt in the face of those who had him wholly in
their power, and in the same breath in which he acknowledged that
power he dared them to use it. He charged Wise with the guilt of
innocent blood, in con