[1] Saulsbury was the Delaware Attorney General from 1850 until 1855, and was elected to the United States Senate in 1858, defeating incumbent U.S.

Opposing the war in general and the suspension of habeas corpus specifically, Saulsbury attempted to prevent a vote sustaining that controversial executive order.

Apparently intoxicated, Saulsbury verbally attacked the President on the Senate floor in what John Hay described as "language fit only for a drunken fishwife".

Senator Saulsbury called Lincoln "an imbecile" and stated that the President was "the weakest man ever placed in a high office".

When Vice President Hannibal Hamlin called Saulsbury to order, the Senator refused to take his seat.