Part 23

“Sir, I have no disposition to assail South Carolina. God knows that I would peril my life in defence of any State of this Union, if assailed by a foreign foe. I have voted, and I will continue to vote, while I have a seat on this floor, as cheerfully for appropriations, or for anything that can benefit South Carolina, or any other State of this Union, as for my own Commonwealth of Massachusetts. South Carolina is a part of my country. Slaveholders are not the tenth part of her population. There is somebody else there besides slaveholders. I am opposed to its system of Slavery, to its aristocratic inequalities, and I shall continue to be opposed to them; but it is a sovereign State of this Union, a part of my country, and I have no disposition to do injustice to it.

“The Senator assails Mr. Sumner for referring to the effects of Slavery upon South Carolina in the Revolutionary era. What Mr. Sumner said in regard to the imbecility of South Carolina, produced by Slavery, in the Revolution, is true, and more than true,--yes, Sir, true, and more than true. I can demonstrate its truth by the words and correspondence of General Greene, by the words and correspondence of Governor Matthews, General Barnwell, General Marion, Judge Johnson, Dr. Ramsay, the historian, Mr. Gadsden, Mr. Burk, Mr. Huger, and her Representatives, who came to Congress and asked the nation to relieve her from her portion of the common burdens, because it was necessary for her men to stay at home to keep her negro slaves in subjection. These sons of South Carolina have given to the world the indisputable evidence that Slavery impaired the power of that State in the War of Independence.

“The Senator told us that South Carolina, which furnished one fifteenth as many men as Massachusetts in the Revolution, ‘shed hogsheads of blood where Massachusetts shed gallons.’ That is one of the extravagances of the Senator,--one of his loose expressions, absurd and ridiculous to others,--one of that class of expressions which justify Mr. Sumner in saying that ‘he cannot ope his mouth, but out there flies a blunder.’ This is one of those characteristics of the Senator which naturally arrested the attention of a speaker like Mr. Sumner, accustomed to think accurately, to speak accurately, to write accurately, and to be accurate in all his statements. I say that such expressions as those in which the Senator from South Carolina has indulged in reference to this matter are of the class in which he too often indulges, and which brought from my colleague that remark at which he takes so much offence.--But enough of this.

“Sir, the Senator from South Carolina has undertaken to assure the Senate and the country to-day that he is not the aggressor. Here and now I tell him that Mr. Sumner was not the aggressor,--that the Senator from South Carolina was the aggressor. I will prove this declaration to be true beyond all question. Mr. Sumner is not a man who desires to be aggressive towards any one. He came into the Senate ‘a representative man.’ His opinions were known to the country. He came here knowing that there were but few in this body who could sympathize with him. He was reserved and cautious. For eight months here he made no speeches upon any question that could excite the animadversion even of the sensitive Senator from South Carolina. He made a brief speech in favor of the system of granting lands for constructing railways in the new States, which the people of those States justly applauded; and I will undertake to say that he stated the whole question briefly, fully, and powerfully. He also made a brief speech welcoming Kossuth to the United States. But, beyond the presentation of a petition, he took no steps to press his earnest convictions upon the Senate; nor did he say anything which could by possibility disturb the most excitable Senator.

“On the 28th day of July, 1852, after being in this body eight months, Mr. Sumner introduced a proposition to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act. Mr. Sumner and his constituents believed that act to be not only a violation of the Constitution of the United States, and a violation of all the safeguards of the Common Law which have been garnered up for centuries to protect the rights of the people, but at war with Christianity, humanity, and human nature,--an enactment that is bringing upon this Republic the indignant scorn of the Christian and civilized world. With these convictions, he proposed to repeal that act, as he had a right to propose. He had made no speech. He rose and asked the Senate to give him the privilege of making a speech. ‘Strike, but hear,’ said he, using a quotation. I do not know that he gave the authority for it. Perhaps the Senator from South Carolina will criticise it as a plagiarism, as he has criticised another application of a classical passage. Mr. Sumner asked the privilege of addressing the Senate. The Senator from South Carolina, who now tells us that he had been his friend, an old and veteran Senator here, instead of feeling that Mr. Sumner was a member standing almost alone, with only the Senator from New York [Mr. SEWARD], the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. HALE], and Governor Chase, of Ohio, in sympathy with him, objected to his being heard. He asked Mr. Sumner, tauntingly, if he wished to make an ‘oratorical display’? and talked about ‘playing the orator’ and ‘the part of a parliamentary rhetorician.’ These words, in their scope and in their character, were calculated to wound the sensibilities of a new member, and perhaps bring upon him what is often brought on a member who maintains here the great doctrines of Liberty and Christianity,--the sneer and the laugh under which men sometimes shrink.

“Thus was Mr. Sumner, _before he had ever uttered a word on the subject of Slavery here_, arraigned by the Senator from South Carolina, not for what he ever had said, but for what he intended to say; and the Senator announced that he must oppose his speaking, because he would attack South Carolina. Mr. Sumner quietly said that he had no such purpose; but the Senator did not wish to allow him to ‘make the Senate the vehicle of communication for his speech throughout the United States, to wash deeper and deeper the channel through which flow the angry waters of agitation.’

“Now I charge here on the floor of the Senate, and before the country, that the Senator from South Carolina was the aggressor,--that he arraigned, in language which no man can defend, my colleague, before he ever uttered a word on this subject on the floor of the Senate, and in the face of his express disclaimer that he had no purpose of alluding to South Carolina. This was the beginning; other instances follow.

“Mr. Sumner made, in February, 1854, a speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill; and I want to call the attention of the Senate to the manner in which he opened that speech. No man will pretend, that, up to that day, he had ever uttered a word here to which any, the most captious, could take objection. He commenced this magnificent speech, which any man within sound of my voice would have been proud to have uttered, by saying:--

“‘I would not forget those amenities which belong to this place, and are so well calculated to temper the antagonism of debate; nor can I cease to remember, and to feel, that, amidst all diversities of opinion, we are the representatives of thirty-one sister republics, knit together by indissoluble ties, and constituting that Plural Unit which we all embrace by the endearing name of country.’

“Thus, on that occasion, by those words of kindness, did he commence his speech; and he continued it to the end in that spirit. The effort then made might be open to opposition by argument; but there is no word there to wound the sensibilities of any Senator, or to justify any personal bitterness. And yet this speech, so cautious and guarded, and absolutely without any allusion to the Senator from South Carolina or his State, brought down upon him the denunciations and assaults of the Senator, who now complains that his own example has been in some measure followed. I intend to hold that Senator to-day to the record. Yes, Sir, I have his words, and I intend to hold him responsible for them. I am accustomed to deal with facts, as that Senator will discover before I close.

“A few days after this speech was delivered, the Senator from South Carolina addressed the Senate,--then, as now, in a long speech, running through two days. You will find his speech in the _Congressional Globe_, Appendix, Vol. XXIX. pp. 232-240. Sir, you must read that speech, read it all through, look at it carefully, consider its words and its phrases, to understand the tone he evinced towards Mr. Sumner, and towards Massachusetts, and the Northern men who stood with him. I need not say that there were bitter words, taunting words, in the speech. I was not here to listen to it; but we all know--and I say it without meaning to give offence--that the Senator from South Carolina is often more offensive in the manner which he exhibits, and he throws more of contempt and more of ridicule in that manner than he can put in his words,--and he is not entirely destitute of the ability of using words in that connection.

“On page 232 we have the insinuation that Mr. Sumner is a ‘plunging agitator,’--that is the phrase, ‘plunging agitator.’ That is a plunging expression. I think it is one of those loose expressions that brought down on the Senator the censure of my colleague the other day. Then we have another insinuation,--that he is a ‘rhetorical advocate’; and then these words: ‘He has not, in my judgment, spoken with the wisdom, the judgment, and the responsibilities of a statesman.’ Now, Sir, I doubt the propriety of applying to members of this body such phrases as these, ‘plunging agitator,’ ‘rhetorical advocate,’ and then to say he has not shown ‘the wisdom, the judgment, and the responsibilities of a statesman.’

“On page 234 he says of Mr. Sumner: ‘It seems to me, that, if he wished to write poetry, he would get a negro to sit for him.’ That is his expression, and the report says it was followed by ‘laughter,’--whether laughter at Mr. Sumner, or at the refined wit of the Senator from South Carolina, I cannot say, not having been present.

“On page 236 he again alludes to a remark by Mr. Sumner, saying (to quote his own words), ‘which I think even _common prudence or common delicacy_ would have suggested to him that he ought not to have made.’

“On the same page, again alluding to Mr. Sumner, he says: ‘Our Revolutionary fathers thought nothing of these _sickly distinctions_ which gentlemen use now to make the South odious.’

“Again, on the same page, alluding to other remarks of Mr. Sumner, he says: ‘They may furnish materials for what I understand is a very popular novel,--_Uncle Tom’s Cabin_. I have no doubt they may do this; but I put it to the gentleman, _are his remarks true?_’ ‘Are his remarks true?’ was the question, full of insolence and of accusation, put to Mr. Sumner in the face of the Senate.

And again he says: ‘They dealt some hard licks, _but they are not true as historical facts_.’

“So you will perceive Mr. Sumner was not the first man to raise this question of truth and veracity on the floor of the Senate.

“On the same page the Senator from South Carolina made a misstatement of a fact, which was promptly corrected by Mr. Sumner, and by General Shields, then a member of the Senate.

“On page 237 there are insinuations made of ‘pseudo-philanthropy,’ and also insinuations of ‘_mere_ eloquence,--professions of philanthropy,--a philanthropy of adoption more than affection.’ Yes, Sir, according to the Senator from South Carolina, the Senator from Massachusetts, and those who think with him, have ‘adopted’ their philanthropy; it is not the ‘philanthropy of affection, but of adoption,’--‘a philanthropy that professes much and does nothing, with a long advertisement and short performance.’ These are expressive words, and the Senator from South Carolina should remember that these words, uttered with the peculiar forms which he affects, are anything but calculated to be complimentary to my colleague or any other Senator.

“On the same page, allusions, which, from the context, are in the nature of insinuations, are made against Mr. Sumner and his associates, as to ‘those who stand aloof and hold up an ideal standard of morality, emblazoned by imagination and sustained in ignorance, or _perhaps more often planted by criminal ambition and heartless hypocrisy_.’ ‘Criminal ambition and heartless hypocrisy’ are the terms used by the Senator from South Carolina, in application to Senators on this floor, and to a large portion of the country, which concurs with them!

“On page 239 he tauntingly speaks of a ‘machine,’ in reference to the people who hold Mr. Sumner’s opinions, ‘oiled by Northern fanaticism.’ I do not know what kind of a machine that is,--a machine ‘oiled by Northern fanaticism.’ The Senator who uses these phrases towards members of this body, and towards a section of the Union, is a Senator who tries to make us believe that he is a man who comprehends the whole country and all its interests, and who has nothing in him of the spirit of a sectional agitator! He takes great offence because my colleague holds him up as one of the chieftains of sectional agitation. I think my colleague is right,--that the Senator from South Carolina _is_ one of the chieftains of a _sectionalism_ at war with the fundamental ideas that underlie our democratic institutions, and at war with the repose and harmony of the country.

“On page 234 he again talks about ‘sickly sentimentality,’ and he charges that this ‘sickly sentimentality’ now governs the councils of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Yes, Sir, the Senator from South Carolina makes five distinct assaults upon Massachusetts. Massachusetts councils governed by sickly sentimentality! Sir, Massachusetts stands to-day where she stood when the little squad assembled, on the 19th of April, 1775, to fire the first gun of the Revolution. The sentiments that brought those humble men to the little green at Lexington, and to the bridge at Concord, which carried them up the slope of Bunker Hill, and which drove forth the British troops from Boston, never again to press the soil of Massachusetts,--that sentiment still governs the councils of Massachusetts, and rules in the hearts of her people. The feeling which governed the men of that glorious epoch of our history is the feeling of the men of Massachusetts of to-day.

“Those sentiments of liberty and patriotism have penetrated the hearts of the whole population of that Commonwealth. Sir, in that State, every man, no matter what blood runs in his veins, or what may be the color of his skin, stands up before the law the peer of the proudest that treads her soil. This is the sentiment of the people of Massachusetts. In equality before the law they find their strength. They know this to be right, if Christianity is true,--and they will maintain it in the future, as they have in the past; and the civilized world, the coming generations, those who are hereafter to give law to the universe, will pronounce that in this contest Massachusetts is right, inflexibly right, and South Carolina, and the Senator from South Carolina, wrong. The latter are maintaining the odious relics of a barbarous age and civilization,--not the civilization of the New Testament,--not the civilization that is now blessing and adorning the best portions of the world.

“On page 234 he says: ‘At the time of the passage of the law in Massachusetts abolishing Slavery, pretty near all the grown negroes disappeared somewhere; and, as the historian expresses it, the little negroes were left there, without father or mother, and with hardly a God,--were sent about as puppies, to be taken by those who would feed them.’

“Now, Sir, the Constitution of Massachusetts was framed and went into operation in 1780. The Supreme Court decided, that, by the provisions of that Constitution, slaves could not be held as bondmen in the Commonwealth. Slavery was abolished by judicial decision,--abolished at once, without limitation, without time to send men out of the State. It may be that some mean Yankee in Massachusetts--and God never made a meaner man than a mean Yankee [_laughter_]--may have hurried his slave out of that Commonwealth, and sold him into bondage. But Massachusetts, by one stroke of the pen of the Supreme Court, abolished Slavery forever in that State, and the slaves became freemen. They and their descendants are there to-day, as intelligent as the average people of the United States, many of them being men that grace and adorn the State, which, by just and equal laws, protects them in the enjoyment of all their rights,--men whom I am proud here to call my constituents, and some of whom I recognize as my friends.

“On page 236 he introduced statistics into his speech, in regard to pauperism, insanity, and drunkenness, in disparagement of Massachusetts. This introduction called up Mr. Everett to respond for his State; and if gentlemen are anxious to know what he said, they have but to turn to the debates of that day, and read the words of a man always to be comprehended, whatever his opinions may be.

“On page 240 it will be found that the Senator from South Carolina asserts that Massachusetts has been an ‘anti-nigger State.’ This is the classic phrase of the Senator from South Carolina. He said that Massachusetts was an ‘anti-nigger State,’ and that, ‘when she had to deal with these classes of persons practically, her philanthropy became very much attenuated.’ Attenuated philanthropy! These are the words of the Senator who never makes assaults, who is never the aggressor! They were in reply to a speech which made no personal assault upon the Senator or upon his State. These remarks were made in regard to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

“And again, still anxious to make his lunge at Massachusetts, on page 240 he repeats the accusation that Massachusetts ‘treated her little slaves as puppies.’

“To all these _personal_ allusions of the Senator Mr. Sumner made no reply. He did reply for his State, and replied fully, as the occasion required, and in a manner contrasting by its moderation and its decency with that of the Senator from South Carolina. I have references to other passages in that speech by the Senator from South Carolina, but I shall not weary the Senate by quoting them. They are of the same nature and character. In this same speech, however, not content with assailing Mr. Sumner, he went on to attack the honorable Senator from New York [Mr. SEWARD], and he compared him to ‘the condor, that soars in the frozen regions of ethereal purity, yet lives on garbage and putrefaction.’ This is the language of an honorable Senator, who prides himself upon his elegant diction, and whose friends plume themselves upon the exceeding care with which he turns his phrases in debate.

“For some time I have been giving elegant extracts from a single speech of the Senator from South Carolina. I come here to another. On the 14th of March, 1854, he assailed the three thousand clergymen of New England who had sent their remonstrance here against the passage of the Nebraska Bill. He declared ‘they deserved the grave censure of the Senate.’ Sir, I have great respect for the Senate of the United States, and I have respect for these three thousand clergymen. I suppose they care more for their own opinions, and the approbation of their own consciences, than even for the grave censure of this Senate.

“He then went on to make use of one of those loose expressions for which Mr. Sumner censured him the other day so severely. He employed this language: ‘I venture to say that they [the clergymen] never saw the memorial they sent’: thus directly charging the religious teachers of our country with palming on the Senate a spurious document.

“To this attack of the Senator from South Carolina, and others, on the clergy of New England, a portion of Mr. Sumner’s reply may be given, as an illustration of the parliamentary character and perfect temper of his discourse.

“‘There are men in this Senate justly eminent for eloquence, learning, and ability, but there is no man here competent, except in his own conceit, to sit in judgment on the clergy of New England. Honorable Senators who have been so swift with criticism and sarcasm might profit by their example. _Perhaps the Senator from South Carolina_ [Mr. BUTLER], _who is not insensible to scholarship, might learn from them something of its graces_. Perhaps the Senator from Virginia [Mr. MASON], who finds no sanction under the Constitution for any remonstrance from clergymen, might learn from them something of the privileges of an American citizen. Perhaps the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS], who precipitated this odious measure upon the country, might learn from them something of political wisdom.’

“But this history of personalities is not complete. One of the greatest outbreaks is yet to come.

“On the 22d June, 1854, my predecessor, Mr. Rockwell, presented a memorial, signed by three thousand citizens of Boston, asking for the immediate repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act. That memorial was severely attacked, and Mr. Sumner rose to vindicate it. He was followed by the Senator from South Carolina, who made a succession of assaults and insinuations.

“Among other things, he characterized Mr. Sumner’s speech as ‘a species of rhetoric which is intended to feed the fires of _fanaticism_ which he has helped to kindle in his own State,--a species of rhetoric which is not becoming the gravity of this body.’

“And again, on the same page, the Senator says: ‘When gentlemen rise and _flagrantly misrepresent_ history, as that gentleman has done, by a Fourth-of-July oration, by vapid rhetoric, by a species of rhetoric which, I am sorry to say, ought not to come from a scholar, a rhetoric with more fine color than real strength, I become impatient under it.’

“Here, it will be observed, is a direct charge that Mr. Sumner had _flagrantly misrepresented_ history, that his speech was ‘vapid rhetoric’ and ‘a Fourth-of-July oration.’ The Senator displays great sensibility because Mr. Sumner charges him, in guarded phrase, with a ‘deviation from truth, with so much of passion as to save him from the suspicion of intentional aberration.’ And yet, with unblushing assurance, he openly charges Mr. Sumner with _flagrant misrepresentation_, without any of that apology of passion which Mr. Sumner conceded to him. Nor is this the first or the last time in which the Senator did this.

“Again, on the same page, he insinuates that Mr. Sumner was ‘a rhetorician playing a part.’ This is a favorite idea of the polite Senator. And yet again, on page 1517, first column, he breaks forth in insinuations against Mr. Sumner, as follows: ‘I do not want any of these flaming speeches here, calculated to excite merely, to feed a flame without seeing where it shall extend. No, Sir: do not let us involve the country in a contest to be decided by mobs infuriated by _the flaming speeches of servile orators_.’

“Then follows a passage which can be appreciated only by giving it at length.