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Book, page 172 / 313 speech in his most attractive vein, calling attention to the needs of the army, disavowing on the part of the Whigs any responsibility for the war or its conduct, and adroitly claiming for them a full share of the credit for its prosecution. He began by thanking the House for its kindness in allowing him the floor, protesting at the same time that he had done nothing to deserve such courtesy. "I could wish," he said, "that it had been the fortune of the gallant Davis [Footnote: Jefferson Davis, who was with the army in Mexico.] to now stand where I do and to receive from gentlemen on all sides the congratulations so justly due to him, and to listen to the praises of his brave compeers. For myself, I have, unfortunately, been left far in the rear of the war, and if now I venture to say a word in behalf of those who have endured the severest hardships of the struggle, whether in the blood-stained streets of Monterey, or in a yet sterner form on the banks of the Rio Grande, I beg you to believe that while I feel this a most pleasant duty, it is in other respects a duty full of pain; for I stand here, after six months' service as a volunteer, having seen no actual warfare in the field;" Yet even this disadvantage he turned with great dexterity to his service. He reproached Congress for its apathy and inaction in not providing for the wants of the army by reinforcements and supplies; he flattered the troops in the field, and paid a touching tribute to those who had died of disease and exposure, without ever enjoying the sight of a battle-field, and, rising to lyric enthusiasm, he repeated a poem of his own, which he had written in camp to the memory of the dead of the Fourth Illinois. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote (3) relocated to chapter end.] He could not refrain from giving his own party all the credit which could be claimed for it, and it is not difficult to imagine how exasperating it must have been to the majority to hear so calm an assumption of superior patriotism on the part of the opposition as the following: "As a Whig I still occupy a place on this floor; nor do I think it worth while to reply to such a charge as that the Whigs are not friends of their country because many of them doubt the justice or expediency of the present war. Surely there was all the more evidence of the patriotism of the man who, doubting the expediency and even the entire justice of the war, nevertheless supported it, because it was the war of his country. In the one it might be mere enthusiasm and an impetuous temperament; in
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