Have I ever concealed from you my opinions on this subject?
Have I not on the contrary always avowed them?
Did I not here, on this very spot, when challenged once before by this same Carrington, take credit for an act less defensible than this?
Did I not tell you then that I had even violated the sanctity of a great popular election and reversed its result?
That was my sole act! In comparison with it, this is a trifle! Who is injured by a steamship company subscribing one or ten hundred thousand dollars to a campaign fund?
Whose rights are affected by it?
Perhaps its stock holders receive one dollar a share in dividends less than they otherwise would.

If they do not complain, who else can do so?
But in that election I deprived a million people of rights which belonged to them as absolutely as their houses! You could not say that I had done wrong.

Not a word of blame or criticism have you ever uttered to me on that account.

If there was an offence, you condoned it! You certainly led me to suppose that you saw none.

Why are you now so severe upon the smaller crime ?" This shot struck hard.