“Hate’s yell, or envy’s hiss, or folly’s bray”—­

what are they to a man who, in the face of events such as now confront us, is doing that which his conscience dictates to him do?  It has been more than one hundred years since a great judgment was delivered in Westminster Hall in England by one of the great judges of our English-speaking people.  Lord Mansfield, when delivering judgment in the case of the King against John Wilkes, was assailed by threats of popular violence of every description, and he has placed upon record how such threats should be met by any public man who sees before him the clear star of duty and trims his bark only that he may follow it through darkness and through light.  I will ask my friend from Missouri if he will do me the favor to read the extract to which I have alluded.

Mr. Cockrell read as follows:—­

But here, let me pause.

It is fit to take some notice of the various terrors hung out; the numerous crowds which have attended and now attend in and about the hall, out of all reach of hearing what passes in court, and the tumults which, in other places, have shamefully insulted all order and government.  Audacious addresses in print dictate to us from those they call the people, the judgment to be given now and afterward upon the conviction.  Reasons of policy are urged from danger to the kingdom by commotion and general confusion.

Give me leave to take the opportunity of this great and respectable audience to let the whole world know all such attempts are vain.

I pass over many anonymous letters I have received.  Those in print are public; and some of them have been brought judicially before the court.  Whoever the writers are, they take the wrong way.  I will do my duty, unawed.  What am I to fear?  That mendax infamia from the press, which daily coins false facts and false motives?  The lies of calumny carry no terror to me.  I trust that my temper of mind, and the color and conduct of my life, have given me a suit of armor against these arrows.  If, during this king’s reign, I have ever supported his government, and assisted his measures, I have done it without any other reward than the consciousness of doing what I thought right.  If I have ever opposed, I have done it upon the points themselves, without mixing in party or faction, and without any collateral views.  I honor the king, and respect the people; bat many things acquired by force of either, are, in my account, objects not worth ambition.  I wish popularity; but it is that popularity which follows, not that which is run after.  It is that popularity which, sooner or later, never fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble ends by noble means.  I will not do that which my conscience tells me is wrong upon this occasion to gain the huzzas of thousands, or the daily praise of all the papers which come from the press; I will not avoid doing what I think is right, though it should draw on me the whole artillery of libel, all that falsehood and malice can invent or the credulity of a deluded populace can swallow.  I can say, with a great magistrate, upon an occasion and under circumstances not unlike, “Ego hoc animo semper fui. ut invidiam virtute partam gloriam, non invidiam putarem.”