WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden 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 own 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, Biden emphasized Thursday that in his capacity 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.

“Every nominee, including Justice Kennedy — in an election year — got an up-or-down vote by the Senate,’’ Biden said. “Not much of the time. Not most of the time. Every single time.’’

Biden dismissed Republicans’ claim that they were following a “Biden rule’’ as “ridiculous.’’ He said Republicans had been “quoting selectively’’ from his speech, which he said primarily criticized the fact that Justice Clarence Thomas had been nominated without consultation with the Senate.

“I made it absolutely clear that I would go forward with the confirmation process as chairman, even a few months before the presidential elections, if the nominee were chosen with the advice and not just the consent of the Senate, as the Constitution requires,’’ he said.

The vice president, who served in the Senate for 36 years, still has many friends on both sides of the aisle, his grinning, backslapping persona standing in contrast to Obama’s more strained relations with lawmakers.

But on Thursday, speaking at Georgetown University Law Center, not far from the Capitol, Biden shook his finger and raised his voice to broadcast frustration.

His language, however, veered toward hyperbole. Biden said Senate Republicans were creating a “genuine constitutional crisis’’ that threatened the nation’s standing in the eyes of the world. It also risked fragmenting the country, he said.

“If those conflicts are allowed to stand, we end up with a patchwork Constitution inconsistent with equal justice and the rule of law,’’ he said. “Federal laws — laws that apply to the whole country — will be constitutional in some parts of the country but unconstitutional in others.’’

He called out two of his former colleagues, senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in particular, laughing off their assertions that the Supreme Court could function temporarily with only eight justices.

Don Stewart, McConnell’s spokesman, dismissed the vice president’s speech as “an attempt to clean up’’ his past statements on the Supreme Court.

Conservative groups criticized the speech as disingenuous, saying Biden was trying to rewrite history.

“Vice President Biden is the absolute last person who should be lecturing Republicans about the Supreme Court,’’ Brian Rogers, the executive director of America Rising Squared, a conservative research group, said in a statement. “After all, the GOP is following the ‘Biden rule’ he outlined in 1992, when he said the Senate should not consider Supreme Court nominations made during presidential election years.’’

Biden was unrestrained as he discussed the implications of the standoff. He said it hampered the nation’s still-recovering economy.

“Even worse, a patchwork Constitution will deepen the gulf between the haves and have-nots,’’ he said. “Under a system of laws ‘national’ in name only, the rich and powerful will manipulate geographical differences and game the system.’’

Calling Congress “broken,’’ Biden urged the Senate to vote on Garland’s nomination.

“Dysfunction and partisanship are bad enough on Capitol Hill,’’ he said. “But we can’t let the Senate spread this dysfunction to the Supreme Court of the United States.’’