He hoped the rizolution would pass, with the entire unanimity so important a subject demanded." This speech produced a very strong sensation.

Up to this time, the principal orators of the house had been much in the practice of splitting hairs about some nice technicality in the Great Allegory; but Noah, with the simplicity of a truly great mind, had made a home thrust at the root of the whole matter; laying about him with the single-first, I made a few apposite remarks on the necessity of respecting the vital ordinances of the body politic, and asked the attention of my hearers while I read to them a particular clause, which it had struck me had some allusion to the very point now in consideration.

Having thus cleared the way, I had not the folly to defeat the objects of so much preparation, by an indiscreet precipitancy.

So far from it, previously to reading the extract from the constitution, I waited until the attention of every member present was attracted more forcibly by the dignity, deliberation, and gravity of my manner, than by the substance of what had yet been said.

In the midst of this deep silence and expectation I read aloud, in a voice that reached every cranny in the hall-- "The great council shall, in no case whatever, pass any law, or resolution, declaring white to be black." If I had been calm in the presentation of this authority, I was equally self-possessed in waiting for its effect.