Those who heard Mr.
Douglas recollect that he indulged himself in a contemptuous expression
of pity for me. "Now he's got me," thought I. But when he went on to
say that five millions of the expenditure of 1838 were payments of the
French indemnities, which I knew to be untrue; that five millions had
been for the post-office, which I knew to be untrue; that ten millions
had been for the Maine boundary war, which I not only knew to be untrue,
but supremely ridiculous also; and when I saw that he was stupid enough
to hope that I would permit such groundless and audacious assertions to
go unexposed,--I readily consented that, on the score both of veracity
and sagacity, the audience should judge whether he or I were the more
deserving of the world's contempt.
Mr. Lamborn insists that the difference between the Van Buren party and
the Whigs is that, although the former sometimes err in practice, they
are always correct in principle, whereas the latter are wrong in
principle; and, better to impress this proposition, he uses a figurative
expression in these words: "The Democrats are vulnerable in the heel, but
they are sound in the head and the heart.
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