midnight
It was in the worst of the bad days of Northern subserviency to slavery , which now seem almost phantasmagorical ; when , at the command of the Kentucky State Commissioners , the grovelling majority of the Ohio Legislature prostrated the State abjectly in the dust beneath its feet , it was demanded that no man of African blood should be permitted to remain in the State unless some responsible white man should become bail for his good conduct , and that he should never become a public charge . The bill was about to be put on its final passage in the Senate , by a majority made up of men so revoltingly servile , that even such infamy failed to preserve their names . `` Tin Pan '' had decreed that a vote should be taken before adjournment for the night , and the debate ran into the deep hours . Gregg Powers , a tall , dark-haired , black-eyed , black-browed young senator , from Akron , had just pronounced a fervent , indignant , sarcastic and bitter phillipic against it , when , after midnight , Wade arose , with angry brow and flashing eye . Argument and logic were out of place ; appeals to honor could not be comprehended by men shameless by nature , abject by instinct , and infamous by habit , and who cared nothing for the fame of their common State . Wade , at white heat , turned on them a mingled torrent of sarcasm , scorn , contempt , irony , scoffing , and derision , hot , seething , hissing , blistering , and consuming . He then turned to the haughty and insolent Commissioners of slavery , who were present , that the abasement of the State might lack no mark or brand , and with an air haughtier and prouder than their own , defied them .