Part 14

Massachusetts, anxious to obtain for her people that protection which was denied, and especially to save them from the dread penalty of being sold into Slavery, appointed a citizen of South Carolina as her agent for this purpose, and in her behalf to bring suits in the Circuit Court of the United States to try the constitutionality of this pretension. Owing to the sensitiveness of the people in that State, the agent declined to render this simple service. Massachusetts next selected one of her own sons, a venerable citizen, who had already served with honor in the other House of Congress, and was of admitted eminence as a lawyer, the Hon. Samuel Hoar, of Concord, to visit Charleston, and there do what the agent first appointed shrank from doing. This excellent gentleman, beloved by all who knew him, gentle in manners as he was firm in character, with a countenance that was in itself a letter of recommendation, arrived at Charleston, accompanied only by his daughter. Straightway all South Carolina was convulsed. According to a story in Boswell’s Johnson, all the inhabitants at St. Kilda, a remote island of the Hebrides, on the approach of a stranger, “catch cold”[100]; but in South Carolina it is fever that they catch. The Governor at the time, who was none other than one of her present Senators [Mr. HAMMOND], made his arrival the subject of special message to the Legislature, which I have before me; the Legislature all caught the fever, and swiftly adopted resolutions calling upon his Excellency the Governor “to expel from our territory the said agent, after due notice to depart,” and promising to “sustain the Executive authority in any measures it may adopt for the purpose aforesaid.”

Meanwhile the fever raged in Charleston. The agent of Massachusetts was first accosted in the streets by a person unknown to him, who, flourishing a bludgeon in his hand,--the bludgeon always shows itself where Slavery is in question,--cried out: “You had better be travelling, and the sooner the better for you, I can tell you; if you stay here until to-morrow morning, you will feel something you will not like, I’m thinking.” Next came threats of attack during the following night on the hotel where he was lodged; then a request from the landlord that he should quit, in order to preserve the hotel from the impending danger of an infuriate mob; then a committee of Slave-Masters, who politely proposed to conduct him to the boat. Thus arrested in his simple errand of good-will, this venerable public servant, whose appearance alone, like that of the “grave and pious man” mentioned by Virgil, would have softened any mob not inspired by Slavery, yielded to the ejectment proposed, precisely as the prisoner yields to the officers of the law, and left Charleston, while a person in the crowd was heard to declare that he “had offered himself as a leader of a tar-and-feather gang, to have been called into the service of the city on the occasion.” Nor is this all. The Legislature a second time caught the fever, and, yielding to its influence, passed a statute, forbidding, under severe penalties, any person within the State from accepting a commission to befriend these colored mariners, and, under penalties severer still, extending even to unlimited imprisonment, prohibiting any person, “on his own behalf, or under color or in virtue of any commission or authority from any State or public authority of any State in this Union, or of any foreign power,” to come into South Carolina for this purpose; and then, to complete its work, by still another statute took away the writ of _Habeas Corpus_ from all such mariners.[101]

Such is a simple narrative, founded on authentic documents. I do not adduce it for present criticism, but simply to enroll it in all its stages--beginning with the earliest pretension of South Carolina, continuing in violence, and ending in yet other pretensions--among the special instances where the Barbarism of Slavery stands confessed even in official conduct. And yet this transaction, which may well give to South Carolina the character of a shore “where shipwrecked mariners dread to land,” was openly vindicated in all its details, from beginning to end, by both the Senators from that State, while one of them [Mr. HAMMOND], in the same breath, bore testimony from personal knowledge to the character of the public agent thus maltreated, saying, “He was a pleasant, kind old gentleman, well informed, and I had a sort of friendship for him during the short time that I sat near him in Congress.”[102]

Thus, Sir, whether we look at individuals or at the community where Slavery exists, at lawless outbreaks or at official conduct, Slave-Masters are always the same. Enough, you will say, has been told. Yes, enough to expose Slavery, but not enough for Truth. The most instructive and most grievous part still remains. It is the exhibition of Slave-Masters in Congressional history. Of course, the representative reflects the character as well as the political opinions of the constituents whose will it is his boast to obey. It follows that the passions and habits of Slave-Masters are naturally represented in Congress,--chastened to a certain extent, perhaps, by the requirements of Parliamentary Law, but breaking out in fearful examples. And here, again, facts speak as nothing else can.

In proceeding with this duty, to which, as you will perceive, I am impelled by the positive requirements of this debate, I crave indulgence of the Senate, while, avoiding all allusions to private life or private character, and touching simply what is of record, and already “enrolled in the Capitol,” I present a few only of many instances, which, especially during these latter days, since Slavery became paramount, have taken their place in our national history. Clarendon has mildly pictured successive Congresses, when, recounting what preceded the Civil War in England, he says: “It is not to be denied that there were in all those Parliaments … several passages and distempered speeches of particular persons, not fit for the dignity and honor of those places.”[103] But Congress, under the rule of Slavery, has been worse than any Parliament.

Here is an instance. On the 13th of February, 1837, R. M. Whitney was arraigned before the House of Representatives for contempt, in refusing to attend, when required, before a committee investigating the administration of the Executive office. His excuse was, that “he could not attend without exposing himself thereby to outrage and violence” in the committee-room; and on examination at the bar of the House, Mr. Fairfield, a member of the Committee, afterward a member of this body, and Governor of Maine, testified to the actual facts. It appeared that Mr. Peyton, a Slave-Master from Tennessee, and a member of the Committee, regarding a certain answer in writing by Mr. Whitney to an interrogatory propounded by him as offensive, broke out in these words: “Mr. Chairman, I wish you to inform this witness that he is not to insult me in his answers; if he does, God damn him, I will take his life upon the spot!” Mr. Wise, another Slave-Master, from Virginia, Chairman of the Committee, and latterly Governor of Virginia, then intervened, saying, “Yes, this damned insolence is insufferable.” The witness, thereupon rising, claimed the protection of the Committee; on which Mr. Peyton exclaimed: “God damn you, you shan’t speak; you shan’t say a word while you are in this room; if you do, I will put you to death!” Soon after, Mr. Peyton, observing that the witness was looking at him, cried out: “Damn him, his eyes are on me; God damn him, he is looking at me; he shan’t do it; damn him, he shan’t look at me!” These things, and much more, disclosed by Mr. Fairfield, in reply to interrogatories in the House, were confirmed by other witnesses; and Mr. Wise himself, in a speech, made the admission that he was armed with deadly weapons, saying: “I watched the motion of that right arm [of the witness], the elbow of which could be seen by me; and had it moved one inch, he had died on the spot. That was my determination.”

All this will be found in the thirteenth volume of the “Congressional Debates,” with the evidence in detail, and the discussion thereupon.

Here is another instance, of similar character, which did not occur in a committee-room, but during debate in the Senate Chamber. While the Compromise Measures were under discussion, on the 17th of April, 1850, Mr. Foote, a Slave-Master from Mississippi, in the course of remarks, commenced personal allusion to Mr. Benton. This was aggravated by the circumstance that only a few days previously he had made this distinguished gentleman the mark for most bitter and vindictive personalities. Mr. Benton rose at once from his seat, and, with angry countenance, but without weapon of any kind in his hand, or, as appeared afterward before the Committee, on his person, advanced in the direction of Mr. Foote, when the latter, gliding backward, drew from his pocket a five-chambered revolver, full-loaded, which he cocked. Meanwhile Mr. Benton, at the suggestion of friends, was already returning to his seat, when he perceived the pistol. Excited greatly by this deadly menace, he exclaimed: “I am not armed. I have no pistols. I disdain to carry arms. Stand out of the way, and let the assassin fire.” Mr. Foote remained standing in the position he had taken, with pistol in hand, cocked. “Soon after,” says the Report of the Committee appointed to investigate this occurrence, “both Senators resumed their seats, and order was restored.”

This will be found at length in the twenty-first volume of the “Congressional Globe.”[104]

I cite yet another instance from the same authentic record. Mr. Arnold, of Tennessee, had proclaimed himself as “belonging to the Peace party,” when Mr. Dawson, of Louisiana, coming to his seat, called him “a damned coward,” “a damned blackguard,” and then said, that, if Mr. Arnold did not behave better, “he would cut his throat from ear to ear.”[105]

The Duel, which at home in the Slave States is “twin” with the “street fight,” is also “twin” with these instances. It is constantly adopted or attempted by Slave-Masters in Congress. But I shall not enter upon this catalogue. I content myself with showing the openness with which it has been menaced in debate, and without any call to order.

Mr. Foote, the same Slave-Master already mentioned, in debate in the Senate, the 26th of March, 1850, thus sought to provoke Mr. Benton. I take his words from the “Congressional Globe,” Vol. XXI. p. 603.

“There are incidents in his [Mr. Benton’s] history, of somewhat recent occurrence, which might well relieve any man of honor from the obligation to recognize him as a fitting antagonist; yet is it, notwithstanding, true, that, if the Senator from Missouri will deign to acknowledge himself _responsible to the laws of honor_, he shall have a very early opportunity of proving his prowess in contest with one over whom I hold perfect control; or, if he feels in the least degree aggrieved at anything which has fallen from me, now or formerly, he shall, on demanding it, _have full redress accorded him_, according to the said laws of honor. I do not denounce him as a coward; such language is unfitted for this audience; but, if he wishes to patch up his reputation for courage, now greatly on the wane, he will certainly _have an opportunity of doing so, whenever he makes known his desire in the premises_. At present he is shielded by his age, _his open disavowal of the obligatory force of the laws of honor_, and his Senatorial privileges.”

With such bitter taunts and reiterated provocations to the Duel was Mr. Benton pursued; but there was no call to order, nor any action of the Senate on this outrage.

I give another instance. In debate in the Senate on the 27th February, 1852, Mr. Clemens, a Slave-Master of Alabama, thus directly attacked Mr. Rhett for undertaking to settle their differences by argument in the Senate rather than by the Duel. “No man,” said he, “with the feeling of a man in his bosom, would have sought redress here. He would have looked for it _elsewhere_. He now comes here, not to ask redress in the only way he should have sought it.”[106] There was no call to order.

Here is still another. In the debate on the Bill for the Improvement of Rivers and Harbors, 29th July, 1854, the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. BENJAMIN], who is still a member of this body, ardent for Slavery, while professing to avoid personal altercation in the Senate, especially “with a gentleman who professes the principles of non-resistance, as he understood the Senator from New York does,” proceeded most earnestly to repel an imagined imputation on him by Mr. Seward, and wound up by saying, “If it came from another quarter, _it would not be upon this floor that I should answer it_.”[107]

During the present session, the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS], who speaks so often for Slavery, in a colloquy on this floor with the Senator from Vermont [Mr. COLLAMER], maintained the Duel as a mode of settling personal differences, and vindicating what is called personal honor,--as if personal honor did not depend absolutely upon what a man does, and not on what is done to him. After certain refinements on the imagined relations between an insult and the obligation to answer for it, the Senator declared, in reply to the Senator from Vermont, that, in case of insult, taking another out and shooting him might be “satisfaction.”[108]

I do not dwell on this instance, nor on any of these instances, except to make a single comment. These declarations have all been made in open Senate, without any check from the Chair. Of course, they are clear violations of the first principles of Parliamentary Law, and tend directly to provoke a violation of the law of the land. Here, in the District of Columbia, all duels are prohibited by solemn Act of Congress.[109] In case of death, the surviving parties are declared guilty of felony, to be punished by hard labor in the penitentiary; and even where nothing has occurred beyond the challenge, all the parties to it, whether givers, receivers, or bearers, are declared guilty of high crime and misdemeanor, also to be punished by hard labor in the penitentiary. Of course, every menace of duel in Congress sets this law at defiance. And yet Senators, who thus openly disregard a law sanctioned by the Constitution and commended by morality, presume to complain on this floor because other Senators disregard the Fugitive Slave Bill, a statute which, according to the profound convictions of large numbers, is as unconstitutional as it is offensive to the moral sense. Let Senators, whose watchword is “the enforcement of laws,” begin by enforcing the statute which declares the Duel to be felony. At least, let the statute cease to be a dead letter in this Chamber, where the watchword is so often heard. But this is too much to expect while Slavery prevails here; for the Duel is part of that System of Violence which has its origin in Slavery.

It is when aroused by the Slave Question in Congress that Slave-Masters have most truly shown themselves; and here again I shall speak only of what has already passed into history. Slavery is a perpetual fever-and-ague, under which Congress has shaken with alternate heats and chills. Even in that earliest debate, in the first Congress after the Constitution, on the memorial of Dr. Franklin, simply calling upon Congress to “step to the verge of its power to discourage every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men,”[110] the Slave-Masters became angry, indulged in sneers at “the men in the gallery” being Quakers and Abolitionists, and, according to the faithful historian, Hildreth,[111] poured out “torrents of abuse,” while one of them began the charge so often since directed against all Antislavery men, by declaring his astonishment that Dr. Franklin had “given countenance” to “an application which called upon Congress, in explicit terms, to break a solemn compact to which he had himself been a party,” when it was obvious that Dr. Franklin had done no such thing. The great man was soon summoned away by death, but not until he had fastened upon this debate an undying condemnation, by portraying, with matchless pen, a scene in the Divan at Algiers, where a Corsair Slave-Dealer, insisting upon the enslavement of White Christians, is made to repeat the Congressional speech of an American Slave-Master.[112]

These displays of Violence naturally increase with the intensity of the discussion. Impelled to be severe, but with little appreciation of debate in its finer forms, they cannot be severe except by violating the rules of debate,--not knowing that there is a serener power than any found in personalities, and that all severity transcending the rules of debate becomes disgusting as the utterance of a Yahoo, and harms him only who degrades himself to be its mouthpiece. Of course, on such occasions, amidst all seeming triumphs, the cause of Slavery loses, and Truth gains. If men cannot afford to be decent, they ought to suspect the justice of their cause, or at least the motives with which they sustain it; but our Slave-Masters, not seeing the indecency of their conduct, know not their losses. There is waste as well as economy of character; but the latter is found only in the cultivation of those principles which make Slavery impossible.

Against John Quincy Adams this violence was first directed in full force. To a character spotless as snow, and to universal attainments as a scholar, this illustrious citizen added experience in all the eminent posts of the Republic, which he had filled with an ability and integrity now admitted even by enemies, and which impartial history can never forget. Having been President of the United States, he entered the House of Representatives at the period when the Slave Question, in its revival, first began to occupy public attention. In all the completeness of his nature, he became the representative of Human Freedom. The first struggle occurred on the Right of Petition, which Slave-Masters, with characteristic tyranny, sought to suppress. This was resisted by the venerable patriot, and what he did was always done with his whole heart. Then was poured upon him abuse “as from a cart,” according to a famous phrase of Demosthenes. Slave-Masters, “foaming out their shame,” became conspicuous, not less for the avowal of sentiments at which Civilization blushed than for an effrontery of manner where the accidental legislator was lost in the natural overseer, and the lash of the plantation resounded in the voice.

In an address to his constituents, September 17, 1842, Mr. Adams thus frankly describes the treatment he experienced:--

“I never can take part in any debate upon an important subject, be it only upon a mere abstraction, but a pack opens upon me of personal invective in return. Language has no word of reproach and railing that is not hurled at me.”

And in the same speech he shows us Slave-Masters:--

“Where the South cannot effect her object by browbeating, she wheedles.”

On another occasion, he announced, with accustomed power:--

“Insult, bullying, and threat characterize the Slaveholders in Congress; talk, timidity, and submission, the Representatives from the Free States.”

Nor were the Slave-Masters content with violence of words, or with ejaculation of personalities by which debate became a perpetual syringe of liquid foulness, and every one seemed to vie with Squirt the apothecary, according to the verse admired by Pope,--

“Such zeal he had for that vile utensil.”[113]

True to the instincts of Slavery, they threatened personal indignity of every kind, and even assassination. And here South Carolina naturally took the lead.

The “Charleston Mercury,” which always speaks the true voice of Slavery, said in 1837:--

“Public opinion in the South would now, we are sure, justify an immediate resort to force by the Southern delegation, _even on the floor of Congress_, were they forthwith to seize and drag from the Hall any man who dared to insult them, as that eccentric old showman, John Quincy Adams, has dared to do.”

And at a public dinner at Walterborough, in South Carolina, on the 4th of July, 1842, the following toast, afterwards preserved by Mr. Adams in one of his speeches, was drunk with unbounded applause:--

“May we never want a Democrat to trip up the heels of a Federalist, or a hangman to prepare a halter for John Quincy Adams! [_Nine cheers._]”

A Slave-Master from South Carolina, Mr. Waddy Thompson, in debate in the House of Representatives, threatened the venerable patriot with the “penitentiary”; and another Slave-Master, Mr. Marshall, of Kentucky, insisted that he should be “_silenced_.” Ominous word! full of incentive to the bludgeon-bearers of Slavery. But the great representative of Freedom stood firm. Meanwhile Slavery assumed more and more the port of Giant Maul in “Pilgrim’s Progress,” who continued with his club breaking skulls, until he was slain by Mr. Great-Heart, soon to join the congenial pilgrims, Mr. Honest, Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, and Mr. Standfast.

Next to John Quincy Adams, no person in Congress has been more conspicuous for long-continued and patriotic services against Slavery than Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio; nor have any such services received in higher degree that homage found in the personal and most vindictive assaults of Slave-Masters. For more than twenty years he sat in the House of Representatives, bearing his testimony austerely, and never shrinking, though exposed to the grossest brutality. In a recent address at New York he has recounted some of these instances.

On his presentation of resolutions affirming that Slavery was a local institution and could not exist outside of the Slave States, and applying this principle to the case of the “Creole,” the House caught the South Carolina fever. A proposition of censure was introduced by Slave-Masters, and under the previous question pressed to a vote, without giving him a moment for explanation or reply. This glaring outrage upon freedom of debate was redressed by the constituency of Mr. Giddings, who without delay returned him to his seat. From that time the rage of the Slave-Masters against him was constant. Here is his own brief account.

“I will not speak of the time when Dawson, of Louisiana, drew a bowie-knife for my assassination. I was afterward speaking with regard to a certain transaction in which negroes were concerned in Georgia, when Mr. Black, of Georgia, raising his bludgeon, and standing in front of my seat, said to me, ‘If you repeat that language again, I will knock you down.’ It was a solemn moment for me. I had never been knocked down, and, having some curiosity upon that subject, I repeated the language. Then Mr. Dawson, of Louisiana, the same who had drawn the bowie-knife, placed his hand in his pocket and said, with an oath which I will not repeat, that he would shoot me, at the same time cocking the pistol, so that all around me could hear it click.”