_"Resolved,_ That Henry M. Spofford is not entitled to a
seat in the Senate of the United States."
The party majority in the Senate has changed since Mr. Kellogg
took the oath of office in pursuance of the above resolution.
Nothing else has changed. The facts which the Senate considered
and determined were in existence then, as now. It is sought,
by a mere superiority of numbers, for the first time, to thrust
a Senator from the seat which he holds by virtue of the express
and deliberate final judgment of the Senate.
The act which is demanded of this party majority would be,
in our judgment, a great public crime. It will be, if consummated,
one of the great political crimes in American history, to
be classed with the Rebellion, with the attempt to take possession
by fraud of the State Government of Maine, and with the overthrow
of State Governments in the South, of which it is the fitting
sequence. Political parties have too often been led by partisan
zeal into measures which a sober judgment might disapprove;
but they have ever respected the constitution of the Senate.
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