"When, a few days since, this honorable body voted unanimously for the Amendment of the United States Constitution abolishing human slavery, I not only thanked God from my heart of hearts, but I felt like going down on my knees to the gentlemen of the opposition for the wisdom they had exhibited in bowing to the logic of events by dropping that dead weight of slavery which had disrupted the Democratic party, with which I had been so long connected. And on this occasion I wish again to appeal to the wisdom and loyalty of my Democratic friends. I say Democratic "friends," for I am and ever was a thorough, out and out Democrat until he proved the contrary, as I conceived, in the Kansas question. My democracy goes for the greatest good to the greatest number, for equal and exact justice to all men, and for a submission to the will of the majority. If I thought I had one drop of blood in my veins which was not democratic, in the light of this definition, I would have it out, no matter at what trouble or sacrifice. It was the repudiation by the southern democracy of this great democratic doctrine of majority rule which opened the rebellion."