In August, shortly after election day, the General Assembly began a session marred by special bitterness occasioned by an impending change in the partisan balance. The Democrats, aware that this session represented “the last apple they will have” because of the Whigs’ triumph in the national election, were “determined to extract every drop of juice while they have the chance.” Whig Senator William H. Fithian likened the Democrats to “the Indian who was badly wounded and knew that he must die [and therefore was] determined to do as much mischief before he did expire as he possibly could.” One Illinois Whig editor deplored the rampant partisanship of most lawmakers: “Elected at a time of high party excitement, and with an eye single to his blind devotion and subserviency to that party, … the Representative too frequently enters upon the discharge of his duties … governed and controlled only by the most sordid views, selfish motives, and basest passions, to which the asperity of party feeling can give birth.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
(echo:: @ ⌗)