Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/18

 10 William D. Fenton. the sorrowing multitude that there was not one cheek less moistened than his own." On October 26, 1860, at the American Theater, in San Francisco, Senator Baker, en route from Oregon to Wash- ington City, there to take his seat as a Senator of the United States, delivered a remarkable political address. He began by saying: "I owe more thanks than my life can repay, and I wish all Oregon were here tonight. We are a quiet, earnest, pas- toral people, but by the banks of the Willamette there are many whose hearts would beat high as yours if they were here. I owe you much, but I owe more to Oregon." It will be remembered that John C. Fremont with his family was present, and that the address was delivered but a few days preceding the November election which was to result in the election of his friend Abraham Lincoln as Pres- ident. He spoke two and a half hours, and moved his aud- ience with the skill and ease of a master. His appeal was fervid, brilliant and powerful. On January 2, 1861, he made the first of his two remarka- ble and celebrated replies to Senator Benjamin. This is be- lieved by all of his critics to be his ablest effort in the Senate of the United States. Senator Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana, was perhaps at that time the greatest debater and orator of the South. He was a finished scholar, an able advocate, and a man of great personal magnetism. Benja- min had undertaken to establish the proposition that the states could rightfully secede from the Federal Union, and in the course of his argument emphasized the righteousness of the Southern cause. Replying to this. Baker said: "Right and duty are always majestic ideas. They march, an invisible guard, in the van of all true progress ; they ani- mate the loftiest spirit in the public assemblies; they nerve the arm of the warrior; they kindle the soul of the states- man, and the imagination of the poet; they sweeten every reward, they console every defeat." Baker therefore accepted the challenge that in the discus- sion of the question it was right and proper to argue the