WASHINGTON — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. accused Senate Republicans on Thursday of abandoning their duties and damaging their country by leaving a Supreme Court seat vacant, forcefully rejecting Republicans’ use of one of his speeches to justify their blockade.

“It’s a plain abdication of the Senate’s solemn constitutional duty,” he said, after weeks of hearing his decades-old remarks used against the Obama administration’s push to confirm Judge Merrick B. Garland for the court. “It’s an abdication, quite frankly, that has never occurred in our history.”

Seeking to dispel the notion that they are taking unprecedented action in refusing to consider a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, Senate Republicans have cited the “Biden rule,” drawn from a speech he gave in 1992 in which he urged the president not to name a nominee in an election year.

His brow furrowed and voice rising, Mr. Biden emphasized on Thursday that as the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he oversaw the nominations of eight Supreme Court nominees, including Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who was approved in 1988, the final year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Each of them was received for meetings, had confirmation hearings and got a vote, he said.