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the statute books. The battle in the Senate now took on a spirit of extreme acrimony; scenes not witnessed since the days of Slavery, were of daily occurrence on the floors of both the House and the Senate. Threats of secession came openly from the North only to be met with the jeers and laughter of the silver and populist members. "We're in the saddle at last," exclaimed a Southern member, "and we intend to ride on to victory!"
The introduction of bills for the admission of New Mexico and Arizona, and for the division of Texas into two States to be called East Texas and West Texas, although each of these measures was strictly within the letter of the Constitution, fell among the members of the Republican opposition like a torch in a house of tinder. There was fire at once, and the blaze of party spirit leapt to such dangerous heights that the whole nation looked on in consternation. Was the Union about to go up in a great conflagration and leave behind it but the ashes and charred pedestals of its greatness?
"We are the people" wrote the President in lines of dignity and calmness. "We are the people and what we do, we do under the holy sanction of law, and there is no one so powerful or so bold as to dare to say we do not do well in lifting off the nation's shoulders the grievous and unlawful burdens which preceding Congresses have placed upon them."
And so the "Long Session" of the fifty-fifth Congress was entered upon, fated to last through summer heat and autumn chill, and until winter came again and the Constitution itself set limits to its lasting. And when that day came, and its speaker, amid a wild tumult of cheers, arose to declare it ended not by their will, but by the law of the land, he said:
