III.
From this ample survey, where one obstruction after another has been removed, I now pass, in the third place, to the consideration of the remedies proposed, ending with the True Remedy.
The Remedy should be coextensive with the original Wrong; and since, by the passage of the Nebraska Bill, not only Kansas, but also Nebraska, Minnesota, Washington, and even Oregon, are opened to Slavery, the original Prohibition should be restored to its full activity throughout these various Territories. By such happy restoration, made in good faith, the whole country would be replaced in the condition it enjoyed before the introduction of that dishonest measure. Here is the Alpha and the Omega of our aim in this immediate controversy. But no such extensive measure is now in question. The Crime against Kansas is special, and all else is absorbed in the special remedies for it. Of these I shall now speak.
As the Apologies were fourfold, so are the proposed Remedies fourfold; and they range themselves in natural order, under designations which so truly disclose their character as even to supersede argument. First, we have the Remedy of Tyranny; next, the Remedy of Folly; next, the Remedy of Injustice and Civil War; and, fourthly, the Remedy of Justice and Peace. There are the four caskets; and you are to determine which shall be opened by Senatorial votes.
There is the Remedy of Tyranny, which, like its complement, the Apology of Tyranny,—though espoused on this floor, especially by the Senator from Illinois,—proceeds from the President, and is embodied in a special message. It proposes enforced obedience to the existing laws of Kansas, “whether Federal or local,” when, in fact, Kansas has no “local” laws, except those imposed by the Usurpation from Missouri, and it calls for additional appropriations to complete this work of tyranny.
I shall not follow the President in his elaborate endeavor to prejudge the contested election now pending in the House of Representatives; for this whole matter belongs to the privileges of that body, and neither the President nor the Senate has a right to intermeddle therewith. I do not touch it. But now, while dismissing it, I should not pardon myself, if I failed to add, that any person who founds his claim to a seat in Congress on the pretended votes of hirelings from another State, with no home on the soil of Kansas, plays the part of Anacharsis Clootz, who, at the bar of the French Convention, undertook to represent nations that knew him not, or, if they knew him, scorned him, with this difference, that in our American case the excessive farce of the transaction cannot cover its tragedy. But all this I put aside, to deal only with what is legitimately before the Senate.
I expose simply the tyranny which upholds the existing Usurpation, and asks for additional appropriations. Let it be judged by example from which in this country there can be no appeal. Here is the speech of George the Third, made from his throne to Parliament, in response to the complaints of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which, though smarting under laws passed by usurped power, had yet avoided all armed opposition, while Lexington and Bunker Hill still slumbered in rural solitude, unconscious of the historic kindred they were soon to claim. Instead of Massachusetts Bay, in the royal speech, substitute Kansas, and the message of the President will be found fresh on the lips of the British King. Listen now to the words, which, in opening Parliament, 30th November, 1774, his Majesty, according to the official report, was pleased to speak.
“My Lords and Gentlemen:—
“It gives me much concern, that I am obliged, at the opening of this Parliament, to inform you that a most daring spirit of resistance and disobedience to the law still unhappily prevails in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, and has in divers parts of it broke forth in fresh violences of a very criminal nature. These proceedings have been countenanced and encouraged in other of my Colonies, and unwarrantable attempts have been made to obstruct the commerce of this kingdom by unlawful combinations. I have taken such measures and given such orders as I judged most proper and effectual for carrying into execution the laws which were passed in the last session of the late Parliament, for the protection and security of the commerce of my subjects, and for the restoring and preserving peace, order, and good government in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay.”[95]
The King complained of a “daring spirit of resistance and disobedience to the law”: so also does the President. The King adds, that it has “broke forth in fresh violences of a very criminal nature”: so also does the President. The King declares that these proceedings have been “countenanced and encouraged in other of my Colonies”: even so the President declares that Kansas has found sympathy in “remote States.” The King inveighs against “unwarrantable attempts” and “unlawful combinations”: even so inveighs the President. The King proclaims that he has taken the necessary steps “for carrying into execution the laws,” passed in defiance of the constitutional rights of the Colonies: even so the President proclaims that he shall “exert the whole power of the Federal Executive” to support the Usurpation in Kansas. The parallel is complete. The Message, if not copied from the Speech of the King, has been fashioned on the same original block, and must be dismissed to the same limbo. I dismiss its tyrannical assumptions in favor of the Usurpation. I dismiss also its petition for additional appropriations, in the affected desire to maintain order in Kansas. It is not money or troops that you need there, but simply the good-will of the President. That is all, absolutely. Let his complicity with the Crime cease, and peace will be restored. For myself, I will not consent to wad the national artillery with fresh appropriation bills, when its murderous hail is to be directed against the constitutional rights of my fellow-citizens.
Next comes the Remedy of Folly, which, indeed, is also a Remedy of Tyranny; but its Folly is so surpassing as to eclipse even its Tyranny. It does not proceed from the President. With this proposition he is not in any way chargeable. It comes from the Senator from South Carolina, who, at the close of a long speech, offered it as his single contribution to the adjustment of this question, and who thus far stands alone in its support. It might, therefore, fitly bear his name; but that which I now give to it is a more suggestive synonym.
This proposition, nakedly expressed, is, that the people of Kansas should be deprived of their arms. That I may not do the least injustice to the Senator, I quote his precise words.
“The President of the United States is under the highest and most solemn obligations to interpose; and if I were to indicate the manner in which he should interpose in Kansas, I would point out the old Common Law process. I would serve a warrant on Sharp’s rifles; and if Sharp’s rifles did not answer the summons, and come into court on a day certain, or if they resisted the sheriff, I would summon the posse comitatus, and I would have Colonel Sumner’s regiment to be part of that posse comitatus.”[96]
Really, Sir, has it come to this? The rifle has ever been the companion of the pioneer, and, under God, his tutelary protector against the red man and the beast of the forest. Never was this efficient weapon more needed in just self-defence than now in Kansas; and at least one article in our National Constitution must be blotted out before the complete right to it can be in any way impeached. And yet such is the madness of the hour, that, in defiance of the solemn guaranty in the Amendments to the Constitution, that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” the people of Kansas are arraigned for keeping and bearing arms, and the Senator from South Carolina has the face to say openly on this floor that they should be disarmed,—of course that the fanatics of Slavery, his allies and constituents, may meet no impediment. Sir, the Senator is venerable with years; he is reputed also to have worn at home, in the State he represents, judicial honors; and he is placed here at the head of an important Committee occupied particularly with questions of law; but neither his years, nor his position, past or present, can give respectability to the demand he makes, or save him from indignant condemnation, when, to compass the wretched purposes of a wretched cause, he thus proposes to trample on one of the plainest provisions of Constitutional Liberty.
Next comes the Remedy of Injustice and Civil War,—organized by Acts of Congress. This proposition, which is also an offshoot of the original Remedy of Tyranny, proceeds from the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], with the sanction of the Committee on Territories, and is embodied in the bill now pressed to a vote.
By this bill it is proposed as follows:—
“That, whenever it shall appear, by a census to be taken under the direction of the Governor, by the authority of the Legislature, that there shall be 93,420 inhabitants (that being the number required by the present ratio of representation for a member of Congress) within the limits hereafter described as the Territory of Kansas, the Legislature of said Territory shall be, and is hereby, authorized to provide by law for the election of delegates by the people of said Territory, to assemble in Convention and form a Constitution and State Government, preparatory to their admission into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatsoever, by the name of the State of Kansas.”[97]
Now, Sir, consider these words carefully, and you will see, that, however plausible and velvet-pawed they may seem, yet in reality they are most unjust and cruel. While affecting to initiate honest proceedings for the formation of a State, they furnish to this Territory no redress for the Crime under which it suffers; nay, they recognize the very Usurpation in which the Crime ends, and proceed to endow it with new prerogatives. It is by authority of the Legislature that the census is to be taken, which is the first step in the work. It is also by authority of the Legislature that a Convention is to be called for the formation of a Constitution, which is the second step. But the Legislature is not obliged to take either of these steps. To its absolute wilfulness is it left to act or not to act in the premises. And since, in the ordinary course of business, there can be no action of the Legislature till January of the next year, all these steps, which are preliminary in character, are postponed till after that distant day,—thus keeping this great question open, to distract and irritate the country. Clearly this is not what is required. The country desires peace at once, and is determined to have it. But this objection is slight by the side of the glaring tyranny, that, in recognizing the Legislature, and conferring upon it these new powers, the bill recognizes the existing Usurpation, not only as the authentic government of the Territory for the time being, but also as possessing a creative power to reproduce itself in the new State. Pass this bill, and you enlist Congress in the conspiracy, not only to keep the people of Kansas in their present subjugation throughout their Territorial existence, but also to protract this subjugation into their existence as a State, while you legalize and perpetuate the very force by which Slavery is already planted there.
I know that there is another deceptive clause which seems to throw certain safeguards around the election of delegates to the Convention, when that Convention shall be ordered by the Legislature; but out of this very clause do I draw judgment against the Usurpation which the bill recognizes. It provides that the tests, coupled with the electoral franchise, shall not prevail in the election of delegates, and thus impliedly condemns them. But if they are not to prevail on this occasion, why are they permitted at the election of the Legislature? If they are unjust in the one case, they are unjust in the other. If annulled at the election of delegates, they should be annulled at the election of the Legislature; whereas the bill of the Senator leaves all these offensive tests in full activity at the election of the very Legislature out of which this whole proceeding is to come, and it leaves the polls at both elections in the control of the officers appointed by the Usurpation. Consider well the facts. By existing statute establishing the Fugitive Slave Bill as a shibboleth, a large portion of honest citizens are excluded from voting for the Legislature, while, by another statute, all who present themselves with a fee of one dollar, whether from Missouri or not, and who can pronounce this shibboleth, are entitled to vote. And it is a Legislature thus chosen, under the auspices of officers appointed by the Usurpation, that you now propose to invest with parental powers to rear the Territory into a State. You recognize and confirm the Usurpation which you ought to annul without delay. You put the infant State, now preparing to take a place in our sisterhood, to suckle the wolf which you ought at once to kill. The marvellous story of Baron Munchausen is verified. The wolf which thrust itself into the harness of the horse it had devoured, and then whirled the sledge according to mere brutal bent, is recognized by this bill, and kept in its usurped place, when the safety of all requires that it should be shot.
In characterizing this bill as the Remedy of Injustice and Civil War, I give it a plain, self-evident title. It is a continuation of the Crime against Kansas, and as such deserves the same condemnation. It can be defended only by those who defend the Crime. Sir, you cannot expect that the people of Kansas will submit to the Usurpation which this bill sets up and bids them bow before, as the Austrian tyrant set up the ducal hat in the Swiss market-place. If you madly persevere, Kansas will not be without her William Tell, who will refuse at all hazards to recognize the tyrannical edict; and this will be the beginning of civil war.
Next, and lastly, comes the Remedy of Justice and Peace, proposed by the Senator from New York [Mr. Seward], and embodied in his bill for the immediate admission of Kansas as a State of this Union, now pending as a substitute for the bill of the Senator from Illinois. This is sustained by the prayer of the people of the Territory, setting forth a Constitution formed by spontaneous movement, in which all there had opportunity to participate, without distinction of party. Rarely is any proposition presented so simple in character, so entirely practicable, so absolutely within your power, and promising at once such beneficent results. In its adoption, the Crime against Kansas will be all happily absolved, the Usurpation it established peacefully suppressed, and order permanently secured. By a joyful metamorphosis this fair Territory may be saved from outrage.
“Oh, help,” she cries, “in this extremest need,
If you who hear are Deities indeed!
Gape, Earth, and make for this dread foe a tomb
Or change my form, whence all my sorrows come![98]
In offering this proposition, the Senator from New York has entitled himself to the gratitude of the country. Throughout a life of unsurpassed industry and of eminent ability, he has done much for Freedom, which the world will not let die; but than this he has done nothing more opportune, and he has uttered no words more effective than the speech, so masterly and ingenious, by which he vindicated it.
Kansas now presents herself for admission with a Constitution republican in form. And, independently of the great necessity of the case, three considerations of fact concur in commending her. First, she thus testifies her willingness to relieve the National Government of the considerable pecuniary responsibility to which it is now exposed on account of the pretended Territorial Government. Secondly, by her recent conduct, particularly in repelling the invasion on the Wakarusa, she has evinced an ability to defend her government. And, thirdly, by the pecuniary credit she now enjoys, she shows undoubted ability to support it. What can stand in her way?
The power of Congress to admit Kansas at once is explicit. It is found in a single clause of the Constitution, which, taken by itself, without any qualification applicable to the present case, and without doubtful words, requires no commentary. Here it is.
“New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned, as well as of the Congress.”
New States MAY be admitted. Out of that little word may comes the power, broadly and fully, without any limitation founded on population or preliminary forms, provided the State is not within the jurisdiction of another State, nor formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States. Kansas is not within the legal jurisdiction of another State, although the laws of Missouri are tyrannically extended over her; nor is Kansas formed by the junction of two or more States; and therefore Kansas may be admitted by Congress into the Union, without regard to population or preliminary forms. You cannot deny the power, without obliterating this clause. The Senator from New York was right in rejecting all appeal to precedents as entirely irrelevant; for the power invoked is clear and express in the Constitution, which is above all precedent. But since precedent is enlisted, let us look at precedent.
It is objected that the population of Kansas is not sufficient for a State; and this objection is sustained by under-reckoning the numbers there, and exaggerating the numbers required by precedent. In the absence of any recent census, it is impossible to do more than approximate to the actual population; but, from careful inquiry of the best sources, I am led to place it now at 50,000, though I observe that a prudent authority, the “Boston Daily Advertiser,” puts it as high as 60,000; and while I speak, this remarkable population, fed by fresh emigration, is outstripping even these calculations. Nor can there be doubt, that, before the assent of Congress can be perfected in the ordinary course of legislation, this population will swell to the large number of 93,420, required in the bill of the Senator from Illinois. But, in making this number the condition of the admission of Kansas, you set up an extraordinary standard. There is nothing out of which it can be derived, from the beginning to the end of the precedents. Going back to the days of the Continental Congress, you find that in 1784 it was declared that 20,000 free inhabitants in a Territory might “establish a permanent Constitution and Government for themselves”;[99] and though this number was afterwards, in the Ordinance of 1787 for the Northwestern Territory, raised to 60,000, yet the power was left in Congress, and subsequently exercised in more than one instance, to constitute a State with a smaller number. Out of all the new States, only Maine, Wisconsin, and Texas contained, at the time of admission into the Union, so large a population as is required in Kansas,—while no less than fifteen new States have been admitted with a smaller population, as will appear by the following list, which is the result of research, showing the number of “free inhabitants” in these States at the date of the proceedings which ended in their admission.
| Vermont | 85,399 |
| Kentucky | 61,247 |
| Tennessee | 66,650 |
| Ohio | 45,028 |
| Louisiana | 41,896 |
| Indiana | 63,897 |
| Mississippi | 25,938 |
| Illinois | 40,156 |
| Alabama | 48,871 |
| Missouri | 56,364 |
| Arkansas | 42,635 |
| Michigan | 87,273 |
| Florida | 32,500 |
| Iowa | 78,819 |
| California | 92,597 |
But this is not all. At the adoption of the National Constitution there were three of the old Thirteen whose respective populations did not reach the amount now required of Kansas: these were Delaware, with only 50,209 free inhabitants; Rhode Island, with only 68,158 free inhabitants; and Georgia, with only 53,284 free inhabitants. And even while I speak, there are at least three States, with Senators on this floor, which, according to the last census, do not contain the population now required of Kansas: I refer to California, with only 92,597 free inhabitants; Delaware, with only 89,242 free inhabitants; and Florida, with only 48,135 free inhabitants. So much for precedents of population.
In sustaining this objection, it is not uncommon to abandon the strict rule of numerical precedent, and to allege that the population required in a new State has always been, in point of fact, above the existing ratio of representation for a member of the House of Representatives. But this is not true; for no less than three States, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Florida, being all Slave States, were admitted with a free population below this ratio. So much, again, for precedents. But even if this coincidence were complete, it would be impossible to press it into binding precedent. The rule seems reasonable, and in ordinary cases would not be questioned; but it cannot be drawn or implied from the Constitution. Besides, this ratio is in itself a sliding scale. At first it was 30,000, increased in 1793 to 33,000, and thus continued till 1813, when it was put at 35,000. In 1823 it was 40,000; in 1833 it was 47,700; in 1843 it was 70,680; and now it is 93,420. If any ratio is to be made the foundation of binding rule, it should be that which prevailed at the adoption of the Constitution,—or at least that which prevailed when Kansas, as part of Louisiana, was acquired from France, under solemn stipulation that it should “be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution.” But this whole objection is met by the memorial of the people of Florida, which, if good for that State, is also good for Kansas. Here is a passage.
“But the people of Florida respectfully insist that their right to be admitted into the Federal Union as a State is not dependent upon the fact of their having a population equal to such ratio. Their right to admission, it is conceived, is guarantied by the express pledge in the sixth article of the treaty [with Spain] before quoted; and if any rule as to the number of population is to govern, it should be that in existence at the time of the cession, which was thirty-five thousand.[100] They submit, however, that any ratio of representation, dependent on legislative action, based solely on convenience and expediency, shifting and vacillating as the opinion of a majority of Congress may make it, now greater than at a previous apportionment, but which a future Congress may prescribe to be less, cannot be one of the constitutional ‘PRINCIPLES’ referred to in the treaty, consistency with which, by its terms, is required. It is, in truth, but a mere regulation, not founded on principle. No specific number of population is required by any recognized principle as necessary in the establishment of a free Government.… It is in no wise ‘inconsistent with the principles of the Federal Constitution’ that the population of a State should be less than the ratio of Congressional representation. The very case is provided for in the Constitution. With such deficient population, she would be entitled to one Representative. If any event should cause a decrease of the population of one of the States even to a number below the minimum ratio of representation prescribed by the Constitution, she would still remain a member of the Confederacy, and be entitled to such Representative. It is respectfully urged, that a rule or principle which would not justify the expulsion of a State with a deficient population, on the ground of inconsistency with the Constitution, should not exclude or prohibit admission.”[101]
Thus, Sir, do the people of Florida plead for the people of Kansas.
Distrusting the objection from inadequacy of population, it is said that the proceedings for the formation of a new State are fatally defective in form. It is not asserted that a previous enabling Act of Congress is indispensable; for there are notorious precedents the other way: among which are Kentucky, in 1791; Tennessee, in 1796; Maine, in 1820; and Arkansas and Michigan, in 1836. But it is urged that in no instance has a State been admitted whose Constitution was formed without such enabling Act, or without authority of the Territorial Legislature. This is not true; for California came into the Union with a Constitution formed not only without any previous enabling Act, but also without any sanction from a Territorial Legislature. The proceedings which ended in this Constitution were initiated by the military Governor there, acting under the exigency of the hour. This instance may not be identical in all respects with that of Kansas; but it displaces completely one of the assumptions which Kansas now encounters, and it completely shows the disposition to relax all rule, under the exigency of the occasion, in order to do substantial justice.
There is a memorable instance, which contains in itself every element of irregularity which you denounce in the proceedings of Kansas. Michigan, now cherished with such pride as a sister State, achieved admission into the Union in persistent defiance of all rule. Do you ask for precedents? Here is a precedent for the largest latitude, which you who profess deference to precedent cannot disown. Mark now the stages of this case. The first proceedings of Michigan were without any previous enabling Act of Congress; and she presented herself at your door with a Constitution thus formed, and with Senators chosen under that Constitution, precisely as Kansas does. This was in December, 1835, while Andrew Jackson was President. The leaders of the Democracy at that time scouted all objection for alleged defects of form, employing language strictly applicable to Kansas. There is nothing new under the sun; and the very objection of the President, that the application of Kansas proceeds from “persons acting against authorities duly constituted by Act of Congress,”[102] was hurled against the application of Michigan, in debate on this floor. This was the language of Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana:—
“But the people of Michigan, in presenting their Senate and House of Representatives as the legislative power existing there, showed that they had trampled upon and violated the laws of the United States establishing a Territorial Government in Michigan. These laws were, or ought to be, in full force there; but, by the character and position assumed, they had set up a Government antagonist to that of the United States.”[103]
To this impeachment Mr. Benton replied in these effective words:—
“Conventions were original acts of the people. They depended upon inherent and inalienable rights. The people of any State may at any time meet in Convention, without a law of their Legislature, and without any provision, or against any provision, in their Constitution, and may alter or abolish the whole frame of Government as they please. The sovereign power to govern themselves was in the majority, and they could not be divested of it.”[104]
Mr. Buchanan vied with Mr. Benton in vindicating the new State.
“The precedent in the case of Tennessee … has completely silenced all opposition in regard to the necessity of a previous Act of Congress to enable the people of Michigan to form a State Constitution. It now seems to be conceded that our subsequent approbation is equivalent to our previous action. This can no longer be doubted. We have the unquestionable power of waiving any irregularities in the mode of framing the Constitution, had any such existed.”[105]
“He did hope that by this bill all objections would be removed,—and that this State, so ready to rush into our arms, would not be repulsed, because of the absence of some formalities which perhaps were very proper, but certainly not indispensable.”[106]
After an animated contest in the Senate, the bill for the admission of Michigan, on her assent to certain conditions, was passed, by 23 yeas to 8 nays. You find weight, as well as numbers, on the side of the new State. Among the yeas were Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri, James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, Silas Wright, of New York, and William R. King, of Alabama.[107] Subsequently, on motion of Mr. Buchanan, the gentlemen sent as Senators and Representative by the new State received the regular compensation for attendance throughout the very session in which their seats had been so acrimoniously contested.[108]
In the House of Representatives the application was equally successful. The Committee on the Judiciary, in an elaborate report, reviewed the objections, and, among other things, said:—
“That the people of Michigan have without due authority formed a State Government; but, nevertheless, that Congress has power to waive any objection which might on that account be entertained to the ratification of the Constitution which they have adopted, and to admit their Senators and Representatives to take their seats in the Congress of the United States.”[109]
The House sustained this view by a vote of 153 yeas to 45 nays. In this large majority, by which the title of Michigan was then recognized, will be found the name of Franklin Pierce, at that time a Representative from New Hampshire.
But the case was not ended. The fiercest trial and the greatest irregularity remained. The Act providing for the admission of the new State contained a modification of its boundaries, and proceeded to require, as a fundamental condition, that these should “receive the assent of a Convention of delegates elected by the people of the said State, for the sole purpose of giving the assent herein required.”[110] Such a Convention, duly elected under call from the Legislature, met in pursuance of law, and, after consideration, declined to come into the Union on the condition proposed. The action of this Convention was not universally satisfactory; and in order to effect admission into the Union, another Convention was called, professedly by the people in their sovereign capacity, without authority from State or Territorial Legislature,—nay, Sir, borrowing the language of the present President, “against authorities duly constituted by Act of Congress,” at least as much as the recent Convention in Kansas. The irregularity of this Convention was increased by the circumstance that two of the oldest counties of the State, comprising a population of some 25,000 souls, refused to take part in it, even to the extent of not opening the polls for the election of delegates, claiming that it was held without warrant of law, and in defiance of the legal Convention. This popular Convention, though wanting popular support coextensive with the State, yet proceeded, by formal act, to give the assent of the people of Michigan to the fundamental condition proposed by Congress.
The proceedings of the two Conventions were transmitted to President Jackson, who, by message, 27th December, 1836, laid them both before Congress, indicating very clearly his desire to ascertain the will of the people, without regard to form. The origin of the popular Convention he thus describes:—
“This latter Convention was not held or elected by virtue of any Act of the Territorial or State Legislature. It originated from the People themselves, and was chosen by them in pursuance of resolutions adopted in primary assemblies held in the respective counties.”[111]
And the President then declares, that, had these proceedings come to him during the recess of Congress, he should have felt it his duty, on being satisfied that they emanated from a Convention of delegates elected in point of fact by the People of the State, to issue his proclamation for the admission of the State.
The Committee on the Judiciary in the Senate, of which Felix Grundy was Chairman, after inquiry, recognized the competency of the popular Convention, as “elected by the People of the State of Michigan,” and reported a bill, responsive to their acceptance of the proposed condition, for the admission of the State without further terms.[112] Then, Sir, appeared the very objections now directed against Kansas. It was complained, that the movement for immediate admission was the work of “a minority,” and that “a great majority of the State feel otherwise.”[113] And a leading Senator, of great ability and integrity, Mr. Ewing, of Ohio, broke forth in catechism which would do for the present hour. He exclaimed:—
“What evidence had the Senate of the organization of the Convention? of the organization of the popular assemblies who appointed their delegates to that Convention? None on earth. Who they were that met and voted we had no information. Who gave the notice? And for what did the People receive that notice? To meet and elect? What evidence was there that the Convention acted according to law? Were the delegates sworn? And if so, they were extrajudicial oaths, and not binding upon them.… Were the votes counted? In fact, it was not a proceeding under the forms of law, for they were totally disregarded.”[114]
And the same able Senator, on another occasion, after exposing the imperfect evidence with regard to the action of the Convention, existing only in letters and in an article from a Detroit newspaper, again exclaimed:—
“This, Sir, is the evidence to support an organic law of a new State about to enter the Union,—yes, of an organic law, the very highest act a community of men can perform: letters referring to other letters, and a scrap of a newspaper!”[115]
It was Mr. Calhoun, however, who pressed the opposition with the most persevering intensity. In his sight, the admission of Michigan, under the circumstances, “would be the most monstrous proceeding under our Constitution, that can be conceived, the most repugnant to its principles and dangerous in its consequences.”[116] “There is not,” he exclaimed, “one particle of official evidence before us. We have nothing but the private letters of individuals, who do not know even the numbers that voted on either occasion. They know nothing of the qualifications of voters, nor how their votes were received, nor by whom counted.”[117] And he proceeded to characterize the popular Convention as “not only a party caucus, for party purpose, but a criminal meeting,—a meeting to subvert the authority of the State, and to assume its sovereignty,”—adding, that “the actors in that meeting might be indicted, tried, and punished.”[118] And he expressed astonishment that “a self-created meeting, convened for a criminal object, had dared to present to this Government an act of theirs, and to expect that we are to receive this irregular and criminal act, as a fulfilment of the condition which we had prescribed for the admission of the State.”[119] No stronger words are employed against Kansas.
The single question on which all the proceedings then hinged, and which is as pertinent in the case of Kansas as in the case of Michigan, was thus put by Mr. Morris, of Ohio: “Will Congress recognize as valid, constitutional, and obligatory, without the color of a law of Michigan to sustain it, an act done by the People of that State in their primary assemblies, and acknowledge that act as obligatory on the constituted authorities and Legislature of the State?”[120] This question, thus distinctly presented, was answered in debate by able Senators, among whom were Mr. Benton and Mr. King. There was one person, who has since enjoyed much public confidence, and left many memorials of an industrious career in the Senate and in diplomatic life, James Buchanan, who rendered himself conspicuous by the ability and ardor with which, against all assault, he upheld the cause of the popular Convention, which was so strongly denounced, and the entire conformity of its proceedings with the genius of American Institutions. His speeches on that occasion contain an unanswerable argument at all points, mutato nomine, for the immediate admission of Kansas under her present Constitution; nor is there anything by which he is now distinguished that will redound so truly to his fame, if he only continues true to them. The question was emphatically answered in the Senate by the final vote on the passage of the bill, where we find 25 yeas to only 10 nays. In the House of Representatives, after debate, the question was answered in the same way, by a vote, on ordering the bill to a third reading, of 140 yeas to 57 nays; and among the yeas is again the name of Franklin Pierce, a Representative from New Hampshire.
Thus, in that day, by triumphant votes, did the cause of Kansas prevail in the name of Michigan. A popular Convention, called absolutely without authority, and containing delegates from a portion only of the population,—called, too, in opposition to constituted authorities, and in derogation of another Convention assembled under forms of law,—stigmatized as a caucus and a criminal meeting, whose authors were liable to indictment, trial, and punishment,—was, after ample debate, recognized by Congress as valid; and Michigan now holds her place in the Union, and her Senators sit on this floor, by virtue of that act. Sir, if Michigan is legitimate, Kansas cannot be illegitimate. You bastardize Michigan, when you refuse to recognize Kansas.
But this is not all. The precedent is still more clinching. Thus far I have followed exclusively the public documents laid before Congress, and illustrated by the debates of that body; but well-authenticated facts, not of record here, make the case stronger still. It is sometimes said that the proceedings in Kansas are defective because they originated in a party. This is not true; but even if it were true, yet would they find support in the example of Michigan, where all the proceedings, stretching through successive years, began and ended in party. The proposed State Government was pressed by the Democrats as a party test; and all who did not embark in it were denounced. Of the Legislative Council which called the first Constitutional Convention in 1835, all were Democrats; and in the Convention itself, composed of eighty-seven members, only seven were Whigs. The Convention of 1836 which gave the final assent originated in a Democratic Convention, on the 29th of October, in the County of Wayne, composed of one hundred and twenty-four delegates, all Democrats, who proceeded to resolve:—
“That the delegates of the Democratic party of Wayne, solemnly impressed with the spreading evils and dangers which a refusal to go into the Union has brought upon the people of Michigan, earnestly recommend meetings to be immediately convened by their fellow-citizens in every county of the State, with a view to the expression of their sentiments in favor of the election and call of another Convention, in time to secure our admission into the Union before the first of January next.”
Shortly afterwards, a committee of five, appointed by this Convention, all leading Democrats, issued a circular, “under the authority of the delegates of the County of Wayne,” recommending that the voters throughout Michigan should meet and elect delegates to a Convention to give the necessary assent to the Act of Congress. In pursuance of this call, the Convention met; and as it originated in an exclusively party recommendation, so it was of an exclusively party character. And it was the action of this Convention that was submitted to Congress, and, after discussion in both bodies, on solemn votes, approved.
The precedent of Michigan has another feature, which is entitled to gravest attention, especially at this moment, when citizens exerting themselves to establish a State Government in Kansas are openly arrested on the charge of treason, and we are startled by tidings of maddest efforts to press this procedure of preposterous Tyranny. No such madness prevailed under Andrew Jackson,—although, during the long pendency of the Michigan proceedings, for more than fourteen months, the Territorial Government was entirely ousted, and the State Government organized in all its departments. One hundred and thirty-seven different legislative acts and resolutions were passed, providing for elections, imposing taxes, erecting corporations, and organizing courts of justice, including a Supreme Court and a Court of Chancery. All process was issued in the name of the People of the State of Michigan. And yet no attempt was made to question the legal validity of these proceedings, whether legislative or judicial. Least of all did any menial Governor, “dressed in a little brief authority,” play the fantastic tricks now witnessed in Kansas; nor did any person wearing the robes of justice shock high Heaven with the mockery of injustice now enacted by emissaries of the President in that Territory. No, Sir: nothing of this kind then occurred. Andrew Jackson was President.
Again I say, do you require a precedent? I give it. But I will not stake this cause on any precedent. I plant it firmly on the fundamental principle of American Institutions, as embodied in the Declaration of Independence, by which government is recognized as deriving its just powers only from the consent of the governed, who may alter or abolish it, when it becomes destructive of their rights. In the debate on the Nebraska Bill, at the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery, the Declaration of Independence was denounced as “a self-evident lie.” It is only by similar effrontery that the fundamental principle which sustains the proceedings in Kansas can be assailed. Nay, more: you must disown the Declaration of Independence, and adopt the Circular of the Holy Alliance, which declares that “useful or necessary changes in legislation and in the administration of states ought to emanate only from the free will and the deliberate and enlightened impulse of those whom God, has rendered responsible for power.”[121] Face to face I put the principle of the Declaration of Independence and the principle of the Holy Alliance, and bid them grapple. “The one places the remedy in the hands which feel the disorder; the other places the remedy in those hands which cause the disorder”; and when I thus truthfully characterize them, I but adopt a sententious phrase from the Debates in the Virginia Convention on the adoption of the National Constitution.[122] And now these two principles, embodied in the rival propositions of the Senator from New York and the Senator from Illinois, must grapple on this floor.
Statesmen and judges, publicists and authors, with names of authority in American history, espouse and vindicate the American principle. Hand in hand they now stand around Kansas, and feel this new State lean on them for support. I content myself with adducing two only, both from slaveholding Virginia, in days when Human Rights were not without support in that State. Listen to the language of St. George Tucker, the distinguished commentator upon Blackstone, uttered from the bench in a judicial opinion.
“The power of convening the legal Assemblies, or the ordinary constitutional Legislature, resided solely in the Executive. They could neither be chosen without writs issued by its authority, nor assemble, when chosen, but under the same authority. The Conventions, on the contrary, were chosen and assembled either in pursuance of recommendations from Congress or from their own bodies, or by the discretion and common consent of the people. They were held even whilst a legal Assembly existed.… The Convention, then, was not the ordinary Legislature of Virginia. It was the body of the people, impelled to assemble from a sense of common danger, consulting for the common good, and acting in all things for the common safety.”[123]
Listen also to the language of James Madison:—
“That, in all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance; that a rigid adherence in such cases to the former would render nominal and nugatory the transcendent and precious right of the people to ‘abolish or alter their governments as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.’ … Nor could it have been forgotten that no little ill-timed scruples, no zeal for adhering to ordinary forms, were anywhere seen, except in those who wished to indulge, under these masks, their secret enmity to the substance contended for.”[124]
Proceedings thus sustained I am unwilling to call revolutionary, although this term has the sanction of the Senator from New York. They are founded on unquestionable American right, declared with Independence, confirmed by the blood of the Fathers, and expounded by patriots, which cannot be impeached without impairing the liberties of all. On this head the language of Mr. Buchanan, in reply to Mr. Calhoun, is explicit.
“Does the gentleman [Mr. Calhoun] contend, then, that, if, in one of the States of this Union, the Government be so organized as utterly to destroy the right of equal representation, there is no mode of obtaining redress, but by an Act of the Legislature authorizing a Convention, or by open rebellion? Must the people step at once from oppression to open war? Must it be either absolute submission or absolute revolution? Is there no middle course? I cannot agree with the Senator. I say that the whole history of our Government establishes the principle that the people are sovereign, and that a majority of them can alter or change their fundamental laws at pleasure. I deny that this is either rebellion or revolution. It is an essential and a recognized principle in all our forms of government.”[125]
Surely, Sir, if ever there was occasion for the exercise of this right, the time had come in Kansas. The people there were subjugated by a horde of foreign invaders, and brought under a tyrannical code of revolting barbarity, while among them property and life were exposed to shameless assaults which flaunted at noonday, and to reptile abuses which crawled in the darkness of night. Self-defence is the first law of Nature; and unless this law is temporarily silenced, as all other law is silenced there, you cannot condemn the proceedings in Kansas. Here, Sir, is unquestionable authority, in itself an overwhelming law, which belongs to all countries and times,—which is the same in Kansas as at Athens and Rome,—which is now, and will be hereafter, as it was in other days,—in presence of which Acts of Congress and Constitutions are powerless as the voice of man against the thunder which rolls through the sky,—which declares itself coëval with life,—whose very breath is life itself; and now, in the last resort, do I place all these proceedings under this supreme safeguard, which you will assail in vain. Any opposition must be founded on absolute perversion of facts, or perversion of fundamental principles, which no speeches can uphold, though surpassing in numbers the myriad piles sunk in the mud to sustain the Dutch Stadthouse at Amsterdam.
Thus, on every ground of precedent, whether as regards population or forms of proceeding,—also, on the vital principle of American Institutions,—and, lastly, on the supreme law of self-defence, do I now invoke the power of Congress to admit Kansas at once and without hesitation into the Union. “New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union”: such are the words of the Constitution. If you hesitate for want of precedent, then do I appeal to the great principle of American Institutions. If, forgetting the origin of the Republic, you turn away from this principle, then, in the name of human nature, trampled down and oppressed, but aroused to just self-defence, do I plead for the exercise of this power. Do not hearken, I pray you, to the propositions of Tyranny and Folly; do not be ensnared by that other proposition of the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], where is the horrid root of Injustice and Civil War; but apply gladly, and at once, the True Remedy, where are Justice and Peace.
Mr. President, an immense space has been traversed, and I stand now at the goal. The argument in its various parts is here closed. The Crime against Kansas has been displayed in its origin and extent, beginning with the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery, next cropping out in conspiracy on the borders of Missouri, then hardening into continuity of outrage through organized invasion and miscellaneous assaults where all security was destroyed, and ending at last in the perfect subjugation of a generous people to an unprecedented Usurpation. Turning aghast from the Crime, which, like murder, confesses itself “with most miraculous organ,” we have looked with mingled shame and indignation upon the four Apologies, whether of Tyranny, Imbecility, Absurdity, or Infamy, in which it is wrapped, marking especially false testimony, congenial with the original Crime, against the Emigrant Aid Company. Then were noted, in succession, the four Remedies, whether of Tyranny, Folly, Injustice and Civil War, or of Justice and Peace, which last bids Kansas, in conformity with past precedents and under exigencies of the hour, for redemption from Usurpation, to take her place as a State of the Union; and this is the True Remedy. If in this argument I have not unworthily vindicated Truth, then have I spoken according to my desires,—if imperfectly, then only according to my powers. But there are other things, not belonging to the argument, which still press for utterance.
Sir, the people of Kansas, bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, with the education of freemen and the rights of American citizens, now stand at your door. Will you send them away, or bid them enter? Will you push them back to renew their struggle with a deadly foe, or will you preserve them in security and peace? Will you cast them again into the den of Tyranny, or will you help their despairing efforts to escape? These questions I put with no common solicitude, for I feel that on their just determination depend all the most precious interests of the Republic; and I perceive too clearly the prejudices in the way, and the accumulating bitterness against this distant people, now claiming a simple birthright, while I am bowed with mortification, as I recognize the President of the United States, who should have been a staff to the weak and a shield to the innocent, at the head of this strange oppression.
At every stage the similitude between the wrongs of Kansas and those other wrongs against which our fathers rose becomes more apparent. Read the Declaration of Independence, and there is hardly an accusation against the British Monarch which may not now be hurled with increased force against the American President. The parallel has fearful particularity. Our fathers complained, that the King had “sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance,”—that he had “combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation,”—that he had “abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us,”—that he had “excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless savages,”—that “our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.” And this arraignment was aptly followed by the damning words, that “a Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” And surely the President who does all these things cannot be less unfit than a Prince. At every stage the responsibility is brought directly to him. His offence is of commission and omission. He has done that which he ought not to have done, and has left undone that which he ought to have done. By his activity the Prohibition of Slavery was overturned. By his failure to act the honest emigrants in Kansas are left a prey to wrong of all kinds. His activity and inactivity are alike fatal. And now he stands forth the most conspicuous enemy of that unhappy Territory.
As the tyranny of the British King is all renewed in the President, so are renewed on this floor the old indignities which embittered and fomented the troubles of our fathers. The early petition of the American Congress to Parliament, long before any suggestion of Independence, was opposed—like the petitions of Kansas—because that body “was assembled without any requisition on the part of the Supreme Power.” Another petition from New York, presented by Edmund Burke, was flatly rejected, as claiming rights derogatory to Parliament. And still another petition from Massachusetts Bay was dismissed as “vexatious and scandalous,” while the patriot philosopher who bore it was exposed to peculiar contumely. Throughout the debates our fathers were made the butt of sorry jest and supercilious assumption. And now these scenes, with these precise objections, are renewed in the American Senate.
With regret I come again upon the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Butler], who, omnipresent in this debate,[126] overflows with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansas has applied for admission as a State, and, with incoherent phrase, discharges the loose expectoration of his speech, now upon her representative, and then upon her people. There was no extravagance of the ancient Parliamentary debate which he did not repeat; nor was there any possible deviation from truth which he did not make,—with so much of passion, I gladly add, as to save him from the suspicion of intentional aberration. But the Senator touches nothing which he does not disfigure—with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He shows an incapacity of accuracy, whether in stating the Constitution or in stating the law, whether in details of statistics or diversions of scholarship. He cannot ope his mouth, but out there flies a blunder. Surely he ought to be familiar with the life of Franklin; and yet he referred to this household character, while acting as agent of our fathers in England, as above suspicion: and this was done that he might give point to a false contrast with the agent of Kansas,[127]—not knowing, that, however the two may differ in genius and fame, they are absolutely alike in this experience: that Franklin, when intrusted with the petition of Massachusetts Bay, was assaulted by a foul-mouthed speaker where he could not be heard in defence, and denounced as “thief,” even as the agent of Kansas is assaulted on this floor, and denounced as “forger.” And let not the vanity of the Senator be inspired by parallel with the British statesmen of that day; for it is only in hostility to Freedom that any parallel can be found.
But it is against the people of Kansas that the sensibilities of the Senator are particularly aroused. Coming, as he announces, “from a State,”—ay, Sir, from South Carolina,—he turns with lordly disgust from this newly formed community, which he will not recognize even as “a member of the body politic.”[128] Pray, Sir, by what title does he indulge in this egotism? Has he read the history of the “State” which he represents? He cannot, surely, forget its shameful imbecility from Slavery, confessed throughout the Revolution, followed by its more shameful assumptions for Slavery since. He cannot forget its wretched persistence in the slave-trade, as the very apple of its eye, and the condition of its participation in the Union. He cannot forget its Constitution, which is republican only in name, confirming power in the hands of the few, and founding the qualifications of its legislators on “a settled freehold estate of five hundred acres of land and ten negroes.”[129] And yet the Senator to whom this “State” has in part committed the guardianship of its good name, instead of moving with backward-treading steps to cover its nakedness, rushes forward, in the very ecstasy of madness, to expose it, by provoking comparison with Kansas. South Carolina is old; Kansas is young. South Carolina counts by centuries, where Kansas counts by years. But a beneficent example may be born in a day; and I venture to declare, that against the two centuries of the older “State” may be set already the two years of trial, evolving corresponding virtue, in the younger community. In the one is the long wail of Slavery; in the other, the hymn of Freedom. And if we glance at special achievement, it will be difficult to find anything in the history of South Carolina which presents so much of heroic spirit in an heroic cause as shines in that repulse of the Missouri invaders by the beleaguered town of Lawrence, where even the women gave their effective efforts to Freedom. The matrons of Rome who poured their jewels into the treasury for the public defence, the wives of Prussia who with delicate fingers clothed their defenders against French invasion, the mothers of our own Revolution who sent forth their sons covered over with prayers and blessings to combat for Human Rights, did nothing of self-sacrifice truer than did these women on this occasion. Were the whole history of South Carolina blotted out of existence, from its very beginning down to the day of the last election of the Senator to his present seat on this floor, civilization might lose—I do not say how little, but surely less than it has already gained by the example of Kansas, in that valiant struggle against oppression, and in the development of a new science of emigration. Already in Lawrence alone are newspapers and schools, including a High School,—and throughout this infant Territory there is more of educated talent, in proportion to its inhabitants, than in his vaunted “State.” Ah, Sir, I tell the Senator, that Kansas, welcomed as a Free State, “a ministering angel shall be” to the Republic, when South Carolina, in the cloak of darkness which she hugs, “lies howling.”[130]
The Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] naturally joins the Senator from South Carolina, and gives to this warfare the superior intensity of his nature. He thinks that the National Government has not completely proved its power, as it has never hanged a traitor,—but, if occasion requires, he hopes there will be no hesitation; and this threat is directed at Kansas, and even at the friends of Kansas throughout the country. Again occurs a parallel with the struggles of our fathers; and I borrow the language of Patrick Henry, when, to the cry from the Senator of “Treason! treason!” I reply, “If this be treason, make the most of it.” Sir, it is easy to call names; but I beg to tell the Senator, that, if the word “traitor” is in any way applicable to those who reject a tyrannical Usurpation, whether in Kansas or elsewhere, then must some new word, of deeper color, be invented to designate those mad spirits who would endanger and degrade the Republic, while they betray all the cherished sentiments of the Fathers and the spirit of the Constitution, that Slavery may have new spread. Let the Senator proceed. Not the first time in history will a scaffold become the pedestal of honor. Out of death comes life, and the “traitor” whom he blindly executes will live immortal in the cause.
“For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands;
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
To glean up the scattered ashes into History’s golden urn.”[131]
Among these hostile Senators is yet another, with all the prejudices of the Senator from South Carolina, but without his generous impulses, who, from his character before the country, and the rancor of his opposition, deserves to be named: I mean the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason], who, as author of the Fugitive Slave Bill, has associated himself with a special act of inhumanity and tyranny. Of him I shall say little, for he has said little in this debate, though within that little was compressed the bitterness of a life absorbed in support of Slavery. He holds the commission of Virginia; but he does not represent that early Virginia, so dear to our hearts, which gave to us the pen of Jefferson, by which the equality of men was declared, and the sword of Washington, by which Independence was secured: he represents that other Virginia, from which Washington and Jefferson avert their faces, where human beings are bred as cattle for the shambles, and a dungeon rewards the pious matron who teaches little children to relieve their bondage by reading the Book of Life.[132] It is proper that such a Senator, representing such a State, should rail against Free Kansas.
Such as these are natural enemies of Kansas, and I introduce them with reluctance, simply that the country may understand the character of the hostility to be overcome. Arrayed with them are all who unite, under any pretext or apology, in propagandism of Human Slavery. To such, indeed, time-honored safeguards of popular rights can be a name and nothing more. What are trial by jury, Habeas Corpus, ballot-box, right of petition, liberty in Kansas, your liberty, Sir, or mine, to one who lends himself, not merely to the support at home, but to propagandism abroad, of that preposterous wrong which denies even the right of a man to himself? Such a cause can be maintained only by the practical subversion of all rights. It is, therefore, merely according to reason that its partisans should uphold the Usurpation in Kansas.
To overthrow this Usurpation is now the special, importunate duty of Congress, admitting of no hesitation or postponement. To this end must it ascend from the cabals of candidates, the machinations of party, and the low level of vulgar strife. Especially must it turn from that Slave Oligarchy now controlling the Republic, and refuse to be its tool. Let its power be stretched forth into this distant Territory, not to bind, but to release,—not for oppression of the weak, but for subversion of the tyrannical,—not for prop and maintenance of revolting Usurpation, but for confirmation of Liberty.
“These are imperial arts, and worthy thee!”[133]
Let it now take stand between the living and dead, and cause this plague to be stayed. All this it can do; and if the interests of Slavery were not hostile, all this it would do at once, in reverent regard for justice, law, and order, driving far away all alarms of war; nor would it dare to brave the shame and punishment of this “Great Refusal.”[134] But the Slave Power dares anything; and it can be conquered only by the united masses of the People. From Congress to the People I appeal.
Already Public Opinion gathers unwonted forces to scourge the aggressors. In the press, in daily conversation, wherever two or three are gathered together, there the indignant utterance finds vent. And trade, by unerring indications, attests the growing energy. Public credit in Missouri droops. The six per cents of that State, which at par should be 102, have sunk to 84,—thus at once completing the evidence of Crime, and attesting its punishment. Business is now turning from the Assassins and Thugs that infest the Missouri River, to seek some safer avenue. And this, though not unimportant in itself, is typical of greater change. The political credit of the men who uphold the Usurpation droops even more than the stocks; and the People are turning from all those through whom the Assassins and Thugs derive their disgraceful immunity.
It was said of old, “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor’s Landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen.”[135] “Cursed,” it is said, “in the city and in the field; cursed in basket and store; cursed when thou comest in, and cursed when thou goest out.”[136] These are terrible imprecations; but if ever any Landmark were sacred, it was that by which an immense territory was guarded forever against Slavery; and if ever such imprecations could justly descend upon any one, they must descend now upon all who, not content with the removal of this sacred Landmark, have since, with criminal complicity, fostered the incursions of the great Wrong against which it was intended to guard. But I utter no imprecations. These are not my words; nor is it my part to add to or subtract from them. But, thanks be to God! they find response in the hearts of an aroused People, making them turn from every man, whether President or Senator or Representative, engaged in this Crime,—especially from those who, cradled in free institutions, are without the apology of education or social prejudice,—until upon all such those other words of the Prophet shall be fulfilled: “I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people.”[137] Turning thus from the authors of this Crime, the People will unite once more with the Fathers of the Republic in just condemnation of Slavery, determined especially that it shall find no home in the National territories, while the Slave Power, in which the Crime had its beginning, and by which it is now sustained, will be swept into the charnel-house of defunct Tyrannies.
In this contest Kansas bravely stands forth, the stripling leader, clad in the panoply of American Institutions. Calmly meeting and adopting a frame of government, her people with intuitive promptitude perform the duties of freemen; and when I consider the difficulties by which she is beset, I find dignity in her attitude. Offering herself for admission into the Union as a Free State, she presents a single issue for the people to decide. And since the Slave Power now stakes on this issue all its ill-gotten supremacy, the People, while vindicating Kansas, will at the same time overthrow this Tyranny. Thus the contest which she begins involves Liberty not only for herself, but for the whole country. God be praised that Kansas does not bend ignobly beneath the yoke! Far away on the prairies, she is now battling for the Liberty of all, against the President, who misrepresents all. Everywhere among those not insensible to Right, the generous struggle meets a generous response. From innumerable throbbing hearts go forth the very words of encouragement which in the sorrowful days of our fathers were sent by Virginia, speaking by the pen of Richard Henry Lee, to Massachusetts, in the person of her popular tribune, Samuel Adams:—
“Chantilly, Va., June 23, 1774.
“I hope the good people of Boston will not lose their spirits, under their present heavy oppression, for they will certainly be supported by the other Colonies; and the cause for which they suffer is so glorious, and so deeply interesting to the present and future generations, that all America will owe, in a great measure, their political salvation to the present virtue of Massachusetts Bay.”[138]
In all this sympathy there is strength. But in the cause itself there is angelic power. Unseen of men, the great spirits of History combat by the side of the people of Kansas, breathing divine courage. Above all towers the majestic form of Washington, once more, as on the bloody field, bidding them remember those rights of Human Nature for which the War of Independence was waged. Such a cause, thus sustained, is invincible.
The contest, which, beginning in Kansas, reaches us will be transferred soon from Congress to that broader stage, where every citizen is not only spectator, but actor; and to their judgment I confidently turn. To the People, about to exercise the electoral franchise, in choosing a Chief Magistrate of the Republic, I appeal, to vindicate the electoral franchise in Kansas. Let the ballot-box of the Union, with multitudinous might, protect the ballot-box in that Territory. Let the voters everywhere, while rejoicing in their own rights, help guard the equal rights of distant fellow-citizens, that the shrines of popular institutions, now desecrated, may be sanctified anew,—that the ballot-box, now plundered, may be restored,—and that the cry, “I am an American citizen,” shall no longer be impotent against outrage. In just regard for free labor, which you would blast by deadly contact with slave labor,—in Christian sympathy with the slave, whom you would task and sell,—in stern condemnation of the Crime consummated on that beautiful soil,—in rescue of fellow-citizens, now subjugated to Tyrannical Usurpation,—in dutiful respect for the early Fathers, whose aspirations are ignobly thwarted,—in the name of the Constitution outraged, of the Laws trampled down, of Justice banished, of Humanity degraded, of Peace destroyed, of Freedom crushed to earth,—and in the name of the Heavenly Father, whose service is perfect Freedom, I make this last appeal.
Mr. Sumner spoke for two days. As soon as he took his seat, the storm which had been preparing broke forth. Mr. Cass was the first to speak. He began by saying that he had “listened with equal regret and surprise” to the speech of Mr. Sumner, which he characterized as “the most un-American and unpatriotic that ever grated on the ears of the members of this high body.” Mr. Douglas followed in a tirade of personality, in which he renewed the old assault of two years before, charging Mr. Sumner with defying the Constitution, when he exclaimed with regard to the rendition of a fugitive slave, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?”[139] The speech of Mr. Sumner was characterized in the most offensive terms. “He seems to get up a speech as in Yankee-land they get up a bed-quilt.” Then again: “Is it his object to provoke some of us to kick him as we would a dog in the street, that he may get sympathy upon the just chastisement?” Then again: “We have had another dish of the classics served up,—classic allusions, each one only distinguished for its lasciviousness and obscenity,—each one drawn from those portions of the classics which all decent professors in respectable colleges cause to be suppressed, as unfit for decent young men to read. Sir, I cannot repeat the words. I should be condemned as unworthy of entering decent society, if I repeated those obscene, vulgar terms which have been used at least a hundred times in that speech.” Then, further, he said that “the Senator from Massachusetts had his speech written, printed, committed to memory, practised every night before the glass, with a negro boy to hold the candle and watch the gestures, and annoying the boarders in the adjoining rooms until they were forced to quit the house.” All this was uttered with the sympathy of the slave-masters about him.
Mr. Mason followed with a bitterness which seemed a prolongation of the debate two years before. The tone of his speech appears in these words:—
“The necessities of our political position bring us into relations and associations upon this floor, which, in obedience to a common government, we are forced to admit. They bring us into relations and associations which beyond the walls of this Chamber we are enabled to avoid,—associations here whose presence elsewhere is dishonor, and the touch of whose hand would be a disgrace.…
“I have said that the necessity of political position alone brings me into relations with men upon this floor who elsewhere I cannot acknowledge as possessing manhood in any form. I am constrained to hear here depravity, vice in its most odious form uncoiled in this presence, exhibiting its loathsome deformities in accusation and vilification against the quarter of the country from which I come; and I must listen to it because it is a necessity of my position, under a common government, to recognize as an equal politically one whom to see elsewhere is to shun and despise.”
This debate, which was much in harmony with that of June, 1854, showed a state of feeling bordering on violence. The language of Mr. Douglas seemed to invite it, especially when he asked, “Is it his object to provoke some of us to kick him as we would a dog in the street, that he may get sympathy upon the just chastisement?” It came soon.
Mr. Sumner followed in unpremeditated remarks, replying to the only point of argument, and giving expression to the indignant sentiments inspired by the attack. These are preserved here as belonging to the history of this occasion.
MR. PRESIDENT,—Three Senators have spoken: one venerable in years, with whom I have had associations of personal regard longer than with anybody now within the sound of my voice,—the Senator from Michigan [Mr. Cass]; another, the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas]; and a third, the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason].
The Senator from Michigan knows well that nothing I say can have anything but kindness for him. He has declared on this floor to-day that he listened with regret to my speech. I have never avowed on this floor how often, with heart brimming full of friendship for him, I have listened with regret to what has fallen from his lips. I have never said that he stood here to utter sentiments which seemed beyond all question disloyal to the character of the Fathers and to the true spirit of the Constitution; but this, with his permission, and in all kindness, I do now say to him.
The Senator proceeded very briefly and in a cursory manner to criticise my statement of the Michigan case. Sir, my statement was founded on the actual documents. No word was mine: it was all from Jackson, from Grundy, from Buchanan, from Benton, from the Democratic leaders of that day. When the Senator criticised me, his shaft did not touch me, but fell upon them. And here I leave the Senator from Michigan.
To the Senator from Illinois I should willingly yield the privilege of the common scold,—the last word; but I will not yield to him, in any discussion with me, the last argument, or the last semblance of it. He has crowned the outrage of this debate by venturing to rise here and calumniate me. He has said that I came here, took an oath to support the Constitution, and yet determined not to support a particular clause in that Constitution. To that statement I give, to his face, the flattest denial. When it was made previously on this floor by the absent Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Butler], I then repelled it: you shall see how explicitly and completely. I read from the debate of the 28th of June, 1854, as published in the “Globe.” Here is what I answered to the Senator from South Carolina:—
“This Senator was disturbed, when, to his inquiry, personally, pointedly, and vehemently addressed to me, whether I would join in returning a fellow-man to Slavery, I exclaimed: ‘Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?’”
You will observe that the inquiry of the Senator was, whether I would join in returning my fellow-man to slavery? It was not, whether I would support any clause of the Constitution of the United States?—far from that. I then proceeded:—
“In fitful phrase, which seemed to come from unconscious excitement, so common with the Senator, he shot forth various cries about ‘dogs,’ and, among other things, asked if there was any ‘dog’ in the Constitution? The Senator did not seem to bear in mind, through the heady currents of that moment, that, by the false interpretation he fastens upon the Constitution,”—
and in which the Senator from Illinois now joins,—
“he has helped to nurture there a whole kennel of Carolina bloodhounds, trained, with savage jaw and insatiable scent, for the hunt of flying bondmen. No, Sir, I do not believe that there is any ‘kennel of bloodhounds,’ or even any ‘dog,’ in the Constitution.”
I said further:—
“Since I have been charged with openly declaring a purpose to violate the Constitution, and to break the oath which I have taken at that desk, I shall be pardoned for showing simply how a few plain words will put all this down.”
I next proceeded to cite the memorable veto by President Jackson, in 1832, of the Bank of the United States. It will be remembered that to his course at that critical time were opposed the authority of the Supreme Court and his oath to support the Constitution,—precisely as the Senator from Illinois now, with ignorance, or with want of logic greater than his ignorance, undertakes to revile me. Here is the triumphant reply of President Jackson:—
“If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole ground of this Act, it ought not to control the coördinate authorities of this Government. The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must, each for itself, be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer, who takes an oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President, to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for passage or approval, as it is of the Supreme Judges, when it may be brought before them for judicial decision.… The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive, when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve.”
After this passage from General Jackson I proceeded as follows:—
“In swearing to support the Constitution at your desk, Mr. President, I did not swear to support it as you understand it,—oh, no, Sir!—or as the Senator from Virginia understands it,—by no means!—or as the Senator from South Carolina understands it, with a kennel of bloodhounds, or at least a ‘dog’ in it, ‘pawing to get free his hinder parts,’ in pursuit of a slave. No such thing. Sir, I swore to support the Constitution as I understand it,—nor more, nor less.”
Then explaining at some length my understanding of the clause, I concluded on this point in these words:—
“I desire to say, that, as I understand the Constitution, this clause does not impose upon me, as Senator or citizen, any obligation to take part, directly or indirectly, in the surrender of a fugitive slave.”
Yet, in the face of all this, which occurred in open debate on the floor of the Senate, which is here in the records of the country, and has been extensively circulated, quoted, discussed, criticised, the Senator from Illinois, in the swiftness of his audacity, presumes to assail me. Perhaps I had better leave that Senator without a word more; but this is not the first, or the second, or the third, or the fourth time that he has launched against me his personalities. Sir, if this be agreeable to him, I make no complaint,—though, for the sake of truth and the amenities of debate, I could wish that he had directed his assaults upon my arguments; but since he has presumed to touch me, he will not complain, if I administer to him a word of advice.
Sir, this is the Senate of the United States, an important body under the Constitution, with great powers. Its members are justly supposed, from years, to be above the intemperance of youth, and from character to be above the gusts of vulgarity. They are supposed to have something of wisdom and something of that candor which is the handmaid of wisdom. Let the Senator bear these things in mind, and remember hereafter that the bowie-knife and bludgeon are not proper emblems of senatorial debate. Let him remember that the swagger of Bob Acres and the ferocity of the Malay cannot add dignity to this body. The Senator infused into his speech the venom sweltering for months,—ay, for years; and he has alleged matters entirely without foundation, in order to heap upon me some personal obloquy. I will not descend to things which dropped so naturally from his tongue. I only brand them to his face as false. I say also to that Senator, and I wish him to bear it in mind, that no person with the upright form of man can be allowed—— [Hesitation.]
Mr. Douglas. Say it.
Mr. Sumner. I will say it,—no person with the upright form of man can be allowed, without violation of all decency, to switch out from his tongue the perpetual stench of offensive personality. Sir, that is not a proper weapon of debate, at least on this floor. The noisome, squat, and nameless animal to which I now refer is not the proper model for an American Senator. Will the Senator from Illinois take notice?
Mr. Douglas. I will,—and therefore will not imitate you, Sir.
Mr. Sumner. I did not hear the Senator.
Mr. Douglas. I said, if that be the case, I would certainly never imitate you in that capacity,—recognizing the force of the illustration.
Mr. Sumner. Mr. President, again the Senator switches his tongue, and again he fills the Senate with its offensive odor. But I drop the Senator.
There was still another, the Senator from Virginia, who is now also in my eye. That Senator said nothing of argument, and therefore there is nothing of that to be answered. I simply say to him that hard words are not argument, frowns are not reasons, nor do scowls belong to the proper arsenal of parliamentary debate. The Senator has not forgotten that on a former occasion I did something to exhibit the plantation manners which he displays. I will not do any more now.
APPENDIX.
On the second day after the Speech an event occurred which aroused the country, and was characterized at the time by an eminent English statesman, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, as “the beginning of civil war.” Mr. Sumner was sitting at his desk in the Senate Chamber shortly after the adjournment of the Senate, when he was attacked by the Hon. Preston S. Brooks, a Representative of South Carolina, and by a succession of blows on the head with a bludgeon rendered senseless. As confederates with Mr. Brooks were Hon. Lawrence M. Keitt, a Representative of South Carolina, and Hon. Henry A. Edmundson, a Representative of Virginia, who stood at some distance, evidently to sustain the assault. Mr. Sumner sunk upon the floor of the Senate Chamber. After some time he was carried to an adjoining room, where his wounds were dressed, and he was then taken to his lodgings.
The newspapers of the time attest the profound and wide-spread excitement. The titles of the articles are suggestive. “The Attempt to murder Mr. Sumner,”—“Ruffianism National,”—“Blood in the Senate,”—“Outrageous Assault on Senator Sumner,”—“Brutal and Cowardly Assault upon Charles Sumner,”—“Ruffianism in Washington,”—“A Crisis at Hand,”—“The Outrage on Mr. Sumner,”—“Atrocious Outrage,”—“Disgraceful Assault upon a Senator,”—“Another Outrage upon Massachusetts,”—“A Border Ruffian in the Senate,”—“The Last Argument of Slavery,”—“Barbarism at the Capitol,”—“Shame! Shame!” Such were the general voices. The article in the National Intelligencer at Washington was entitled “Painful Occurrence.”
This incident is inseparable from the speech on the Crime against Kansas, although some have supposed that the earlier speech, of June 28, 1854, in Reply to Assailants,[140] contributed essentially to the feeling which broke forth on this occasion. The documents, resolutions, speeches, and articles which it prompted would occupy volumes. An attempt will be made to present an abstract under the following heads.
- The Assault.
- Adoption of the Assault by Eminent Slave-Masters, and by the South generally.
- Previous Personalities and Aggressions.
- Voice of the North.
- Injuries and continued Disability of Mr. Sumner.
I.
THE ASSAULT.
On Friday, May 23, the day after the assault, Hon. Henry Wilson, colleague of Mr. Sumner, rising in his seat immediately after the reading of the Journal, made the following remarks.
“Mr. President,—The seat of my colleague is vacant to-day. That seat is vacant to-day for the first time during five years of public service. Yesterday, after a touching tribute of respect to the memory of a deceased member of the House of Representatives, the Senate adjourned. My colleague remained in his seat, busily engaged in his public duties. While thus engaged, with pen in hand, and in a position which rendered him utterly incapable of protecting or defending himself, Mr. Preston S. Brooks, a member of the House of Representatives, approached his desk unobserved, and abruptly addressed him. Before he had time to utter a single word in reply, he received a stunning blow upon the head from a cane in the hands of Mr. Brooks, which made him blind and almost unconscious. Endeavoring, however, to protect himself, in rising from his chair his desk was overthrown; and while in that condition, he was beaten upon the head by repeated blows, until he sunk upon the floor of the Senate, exhausted, unconscious, and covered with his own blood. He was taken from this Chamber to the anteroom, his wounds were dressed, and then by friends he was carried to his home and placed upon his bed. He is unable to be with us to-day to perform the duties that belong to him as a member of this body.
“Sir, to assail a member of the Senate out of this Chamber, ‘for words spoken in debate,’ is a grave offence, not only against the rights of the Senator, but the constitutional privileges of this House; but, Sir, to come into this Chamber, and assault a member in his seat until he falls exhausted and senseless on this floor, is an offence requiring the prompt and decisive action of the Senate.
“Senators, I have called your attention to this transaction. I submit no motion. I leave it to older Senators, whose character, whose position in this body and before the country, eminently fit them for the task of devising measures to redress the wrongs of a member of this body, and to vindicate the honor and dignity of the Senate.”
Mr. Seward followed with a resolution.
“Resolved, That a Committee of five members be appointed by the President to inquire into the circumstances attending the assault committed on the person of the Hon. Charles Sumner, a member of the Senate, in the Senate Chamber yesterday; and that the said Committee be instructed to report a statement of the facts, together with their opinion thereon to the Senate.”
On motion of Mr. Mason, of Virginia, the resolution was amended, so that the Committee should be elected by the Senate. It was then adopted. Mr. Pearce, of Maryland, Mr. Allen, of Rhode Island, Mr. Dodge, of Wisconsin, Mr. Geyer, of Missouri, and Mr. Cass, of Michigan, were elected. Mr. Seward, who introduced the resolution, and Mr. Wilson, who announced the assault, were excluded.
On the 28th of May Mr. Pearce made a report from the Select Committee, which, after a brief statement of facts, says, that “the Senate, for a breach of its privileges, cannot arrest a member of the House of Representatives, and, a fortiori, cannot try and punish him”; that “that authority devolves solely upon the House of which he is a member”; and that “the Senate cannot proceed further than to make complaint to the House of Representatives of the assault committed by one of its members.” It was ordered that “a copy of this report, and the affidavits accompanying the same, be transmitted to the House of Representatives.”
Nothing further was done in the Senate on this matter.
In the House of Representatives, on the day after the assault, Hon. Lewis D. Campbell, of Ohio, moved a Select Committee of five “to investigate the subject, and to report the facts, with such resolutions in reference thereto as in their judgments may be proper and necessary for the vindication of the character of the House.” The resolution was adopted, and the following Committee was appointed by the Speaker: Lewis D. Campbell, of Ohio, John Allison, of Pennsylvania, Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Alfred B. Greenwood, of Arkansas, and Francis E. Spinner, of New York. Alexander C. M. Pennington, of New Jersey, was substituted for Mr. Allison. To this Committee were referred the proceedings of the Senate.
In the testimony taken and reported by the Committee will be found an authentic account of the assault. The Committee visited Mr. Sumner at his house.
“Hon. Charles Sumner, being sworn, testified.
“Question (by Mr. Campbell). What do you know of the facts connected with the assault alleged to have been made upon you in the Senate Chamber by Hon. Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, on Thursday, May 22, 1856?
“Answer. I attended the Senate as usual on Thursday, the 22d of May. After some formal business, a message was received from the House of Representatives, announcing the death of a member of that body from Missouri. This was followed by a brief tribute to the deceased from Mr. Geyer, of Missouri, when, according to usage, and out of respect to the deceased, the Senate adjourned.
“Instead of leaving the Chamber with the rest on the adjournment, I continued in my seat, occupied with my pen. While thus intent, in order to be in season for the mail, which was soon to close, I was approached by several persons who desired to speak with me; but I answered them promptly and briefly, excusing myself, for the reason that I was much engaged. When the last of these left me, I drew my arm-chair close to my desk, and, with my legs under the desk, continued writing. My attention at this time was so entirely withdrawn from all other objects, that, though there must have been many persons on the floor of the Senate, I saw nobody.
“While thus intent, with my head bent over my writing, I was addressed by a person who had approached the front of my desk so entirely unobserved that I was not aware of his presence until I heard my name pronounced. As I looked up, with pen in hand, I saw a tall man, whose countenance was not familiar, standing directly over me, and at the same moment caught these words: ‘I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine——’ While these words were still passing from his lips, he commenced a succession of blows with a heavy cane on my bare head, by the first of which I was stunned so as to lose sight. I no longer saw my assailant, nor any person or object in the room. What I did afterwards was done almost unconsciously, acting under the instinct of self-defence. With head already bent down, I rose from my seat, wrenching up my desk, which was screwed to the floor, and then pressed forward, while my assailant continued his blows. I have no other consciousness until I found myself ten feet forward, in front of my desk, lying on the floor of the Senate, with my bleeding head supported on the knee of a gentleman, whom I soon recognized, by voice and countenance, as Mr. Morgan, of New York. Other persons there were about me offering me friendly assistance; but I did not recognize any of them. Others there were at a distance, looking on and offering no assistance, of whom I recognized only Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, and I thought also my assailant, standing between them.
“I was helped from the floor and conducted into the lobby of the Senate, where I was placed upon a sofa. Of those who helped me to this place I have no recollection. As I entered the lobby, I recognized Mr. Slidell, of Louisiana, who retreated; but I recognized no one else until some time later, as I supposed, when I felt a friendly grasp of the hand, which seemed to come from Mr. Campbell, of Ohio. I have a vague impression that Mr. Bright, President of the Senate, spoke to me while I was lying on the floor of the Senate or in the lobby.
“I make this statement in answer to the interrogatory of the Committee, and offer it as presenting completely all my recollections of the assault and of the attending circumstances, whether immediately before or immediately after. I desire to add, that, besides the words which I have given as uttered by my assailant, I have an indistinct recollection of the words, ‘old man’; but these are so enveloped in the mist which ensued from the first blow, that I am not sure whether they were uttered or not.
“Ques. (by Mr. Greenwood). How long do you suppose it was after the adjournment of the Senate before this occurrence took place?
“Ans. I am very much at a loss to say whether it was half an hour or fifteen minutes: I should say ranging from fifteen minutes to half an hour, more or less; perhaps not more than fifteen minutes. I have already testified that I was so much absorbed with what I was doing at my desk, that I took very little note of anything, not even of time.
“Ques. (by Mr. Cobb). Was the first blow you received from Mr. Brooks before he had finished the sentence?
“Ans. I have no recollection beyond what I have stated.
“Ques. My question was, whether a blow was struck before Mr. Brooks finished the remark to you which you have just quoted?
“Ans. The blow came down with the close of the sentence.
“Ques. Then the sentence was closed before the blow was struck?
“Ans. It seemed to me that the blow came in the middle of an unfinished sentence. In the statement I have made I used the language, ‘While these words were still passing from his lips, he commenced a succession of blows.’ I heard distinctly the words I have given; I heard the words ‘a relative of mine,’ and then it seemed to me there was a break, and I have left it as an unfinished sentence, the sequel of which I did not hear on account of the blows.
“Ques. (by Mr. Campbell). Did you, at any time between the delivery of your speech referred to and the time when you were attacked, receive any intimation, in writing or otherwise, that Mr. Brooks intended to attack you?
“Ans. Never, directly or indirectly; nor had I the most remote suspicion of any attack, nor was I in any way prepared for an attack. I had no arms or means of defence of any kind. I was, in fact, entirely defenceless at the time, except so far as my natural strength went. In other words, I had no arms either about my person or in my desk. Nor did I ever wear arms in my life. I have always lived in a civilized community, where wearing arms has not been considered necessary. When I had finished my speech on Tuesday,[141] I think it was, my colleague came to me and said, ‘I am going home with you to-day; several of us are going home with you.’ Said I, ‘None of that, Wilson.’ And instead of waiting for him, or allowing him to accompany me home, I shot off just as I should any other day. While on my way from the Capitol, I overtook Mr. Seward, with whom I had engaged to dine. We walked together as far as the omnibuses. He then proposed that we should take an omnibus, which I declined, stating that I must go to the printing-office to look over proofs. I therefore walked alone, overtaking one or two persons on the way. I have referred to this remark of my colleague in answer to your question, whether I had in any way been put on my guard?
“Ques. (by Mr. Cobb). What do you attribute the remark of your colleague to? In other words, was it founded upon an apprehension growing out of what you had said in your speech?
“Ans. I understand that it was. He has told me since that a member of the House had put him on his guard, but he did not mention it to me at the time. I suspected no danger, and therefore I treated what he said to me as trifling.
“Ques. (by Mr. Pennington). Have you ever defied or invited violence?
“Ans. Never, at any time.
“Ques. State what was the condition of your clothing after this violence, when you were taken from the Chamber.
“Ans. I was in such a condition at the time that I was unaware of the blood on my clothes. I know little about it until after I reached my room, when I took my clothes off. The shirt, around the neck and collar, was soaked with blood. The waistcoat had many marks of blood upon it; also the trousers. The broadcloth coat was covered with blood on the shoulders so thickly that the blood had soaked through the cloth, even through the padding, and appeared on the inside; there was also a great deal of blood on the back of the coat and its sides.
“Ques. Were you aware of the intention of Mr. Brooks to strike or inflict a blow before the blow was felt?
“Ans. I had not the remotest suspicion of it until I felt the blow on my head.
“Ques. (by Mr. Campbell). Do you know how often you were struck?
“Ans. I have not the most remote idea.
“Ques. How many wounds have you upon your head?
“Ans. I have two principal wounds upon my head, and several bruises on my hands and arms. The doctor will describe them more particularly than I am able to.
“Ques. (by Mr. Cobb). You stated, that, when Mr. Brooks approached you, he remarked that he had read your speech, and it was a libel upon his State and upon his relative. I will ask you, if you had, prior to that assault, in any speech, made any personal allusions to Mr. Brooks’s relative, Mr. Butler, or to the State of South Carolina, to which Mr. Brooks applied this remark?
“Ans. At the time my assailant addressed me I did not know who he was, least of all did I suppose him to be a relative of Mr. Butler. In a speech recently made in the Senate I have alluded to the State of South Carolina, and to Mr. Butler; but I have never said anything which was not in just response to his speeches, according to parliamentary usage, nor anything which can be called a libel upon South Carolina or Mr. Butler.”
Hon. Henry Wilson, the colleague of Mr. Sumner, first heard of the assault as he was passing down the street, and hastened back. As to threats of violence before the assault, he testified:—
“I know of none, of my own knowledge. Mr. Bingham, of the House of Representatives, said to me just about the time the Senate adjourned: ‘You had better go down with Mr. Sumner; I think there will be an assault upon him.’ Said I, ‘Do you think so?’ He said, ‘I have heard remarks made from which I think an assault will be made.’ I afterwards said to Mr. Sumner that I would like to talk with him, and I spoke to Mr. Burlingame and to Mr. Colfax to walk down with us. While I was standing talking to Mr. Burlingame, Mr. Sumner went to Mr. Sutton’s[142] desk, and then went out of the side door. I waited, supposing he would come back and go down with us. But he did not come, and we left the Capitol, but waited some time near the porter’s lodge, until we heard he had gone home. That is all I know, and it is merely hearsay. I gave myself little trouble about it. I went up to his room afterwards, but did not find him at home. Mr. Sumner paid no attention to what I said. I merely said I wanted to walk down with him,—that I wanted to talk with him.”
Hon. John A. Bingham, of Ohio, being sworn, testified.
“Ques. Had you any reason to apprehend that an assault would be made on Mr. Sumner after the delivery of that speech?
“Ans. I can only say that I had no reason to apprehend danger to Mr. Sumner, except what I inferred from the language of Senators at the time he closed his speech. What they said then led me to believe that an attempt to assail him was intended, or was intended to be encouraged.
“Ques. Were the threats of Senators, of which you speak, uttered in debate or outside?
“Ans. They were uttered in debate. I do not recollect hearing anything of the kind except what was uttered in debate, coupled with the manner of Senators. These are all the reasons I had for apprehending an assault.
“Ques. (by Mr. Cobb). Did you communicate to Mr. Wilson your apprehensions in reference to Mr. Sumner?
“Ans. I did, before the Senate adjourned, communicate with Mr. Wilson. I said to Mr. Wilson that it was my opinion an assault was intended upon Mr. Sumner, and that he had better see to it that no assault was made.”
James W. Simonton, Esq., reporter of the New York Times, being sworn, testified.
“I was standing in the Senate Chamber near Mr. Clayton’s seat, conversing with Mr. Morgan and Mr. Murray of the House, when I heard a blow. I exclaimed, ‘What is that?’ and immediately started. One step brought me in view of the parties. My attention was directed at once to Mr. Sumner, with a view to notice his condition. I saw that he was just in the act of springing forward. As he came upon his feet, I noticed him spin around, and then stagger backwards and sideways until he fell. Mr. Brooks was striking him with his cane, which then seemed to be broken off one third its length. I rushed up as rapidly as possible, with other gentlemen, and, as I reached him, or near him, Mr. Keitt rushed in, running around Mr. Sumner and Mr. Brooks with his cane raised, crying, ‘Let them alone! let them alone!’ threatening myself and others who had rushed in to interfere. Mr. Brooks continued to strike until he was seized by Mr. Murray, and until Mr. Sumner, who had lodged partly against the desk, had fallen to the floor. He did not fall directly, but, after lodging for an instant upon, then slipped off from his desk, and fell upon the floor. I do not know of anything further.
“Ques. How often did Mr. Brooks strike?
“Ans. With great rapidity: at least a dozen, and I should think twenty blows. Mr. Sumner, at the first moment when I looked at him, seemed to me to be unconscious.
“Ques. (by Mr. Pennington). Do you know of any concert between Mr. Brooks and any other person, a member of Congress, to attack Mr. Sumner?
“Ans. I do not know anything of my own knowledge. I noticed several persons who were there. I saw Mr. Keitt there. I have a distinct recollection of seeing several parties, perhaps not distinct enough to mention them. I saw several Senators present immediately afterwards, but whether they were there at the time of the occurrence I could not say. My attention was directed especially to Mr. Sumner, and to Mr. Keitt, who seemed to be acting in concert with Mr. Brooks.
“Ques. State, if you can, what Mr. Keitt said or did from first to last.
“Ans. I saw him as I was approaching the parties. I noticed him run in from the centre aisle, and raise his cane. He used the words I have spoken; or rather, my impression is that the precise expression was, ‘Let them alone, God damn you!’”
This is only a portion of the evidence.
The Committee, after taking evidence, made a report, signed by Mr. Campbell, Mr. Spinner, and Mr. Pennington, which, after setting forth the facts, concludes with the following resolutions.
“Resolved, That Preston S. Brooks be, and he is forthwith, expelled from this House as a Representative from the State of South Carolina.
“Resolved, That this House hereby declare its disapprobation of the said act of Henry A. Edmundson and Lawrence M. Keitt in regard to the said assault.”
A minority report, signed by Mr. Cobb and Mr. Greenwood, concluded with the following resolution.
“Resolved, That this House has no jurisdiction over the assault alleged to have been committed by the Hon. Preston S. Brooks, a member of this House from the State of South Carolina, upon the Hon. Charles Sumner, a Senator from the State of Massachusetts, and therefore deem it improper to express any opinion on the subject.”
In the House, the substitute moved by Mr. Cobb was lost,—yeas 66, nays 145. The resolution of expulsion was lost,—yeas 121, nays 95,—the two thirds required for expulsion not voting in favor thereof. The other resolution, declaring disapprobation of the act of Henry A. Edmundson and Lawrence M. Keitt, was divided, and the censure of Keitt was voted,—yeas 106, nays 96; that of Edmundson was lost,—yeas 60, nays 136. A long preamble, setting forth the facts, was adopted,—yeas 104, nays 83.[143]
Immediately after the vote upon the resolution of expulsion, Mr. Brooks, with some difficulty, obtained leave to address the House. Mr. Giddings objected, but, at the request of friends, withdrew his objection, contrary to his own judgment. In the course of a speech vindicating his conduct, Mr. Brooks took credit to himself for not beginning a revolution.
“Sir, I cannot, on my own account, assume the responsibility, in the face of the American people, of commencing a line of conduct which in my heart of hearts I believe would result in subverting the foundations of this Government and in drenching this Hall in blood. No act of mine, and on my personal account, shall inaugurate revolution; but when you, Mr. Speaker, return to your own home, and hear the people of the great North—and they are a great people—speak of me as a bad man, you will do me the justice to say that a blow struck by me at this time would be followed by revolution,—and this I know. [Applause and hisses in the gallery.]”
Afterwards he seemed to take credit for using the instrument he did.
“I went to work very deliberately, as I am charged,—and this is admitted,—and speculated somewhat as to whether I should employ a horsewhip or a cowhide; but, knowing that the Senator was my superior in strength, it occurred to me that he might wrest it from my hand, and then—for I never attempt anything I do not perform—I might have been compelled to do that which I would have regretted the balance of my natural life.”
At these words, according to the papers of the day, there was a voice from the House:—
“He would have killed him!”
The speech concluded:—
“And now, Mr. Speaker, I announce to you, and to this House, that I am no longer a member of the Thirty-Fourth Congress.”
On which the Globe remarks:—
“Mr. Brooks then walked out of the House of Representatives.”[144]
In fact, his resignation was already in the hands of the Governor of South Carolina, to take effect on his announcing his resignation to the House. In this way he avoided any other censure, after the failure of the resolution of expulsion.
Returning to South Carolina, Mr. Brooks presented himself again to his constituents, and was triumphantly reëlected. On the 1st of August, 1856, his commission was presented to the House, when, according to the Globe, he “came forward and the Speaker administered to him the oath to support the Constitution of the United States.”
While proceedings were pending in the House, Mr. Brooks was indicted by the Grand Jury of the District of Columbia. The following letters of Mr. Sumner, written at Silver Spring, near Washington, where he was the guest of F. P. Blair, Esq., show his indisposition to take part in the proceedings.
“Silver Spring, June 30, 1856.
“Dear Sir,—I find myself unable to attend Court to-day. Since the summons of the Marshal, I have suffered a relapse, by which I am enfeebled, and also admonished against exertion. Being out of town, I have not had an opportunity of consulting my attending physician; but a skilful medical friend, who has visited me here, earnestly insists that I cannot attend Court for some time without peril to my health.
“I have the honor to be, dear Sir,
“Your faithful servant,
“Charles Sumner.
“P. Barton Key, Esq., Attorney of the United States.”
“Silver Spring, July 1, 1856.
“Dear Sir,—I have your letter of 30th June, in which you ask my consent with regard to the course you shall take in the conduct of a criminal proceeding now pending in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Columbia. I am surprised at this communication. In giving my testimony before the Grand Jury, I stated that I appeared at the summons of the law, and that I wished it distinctly understood that the proceeding was instituted without any suggestion on my part, and that I had nothing to do, directly or indirectly, with its conduct. Nothing has occurred to change my relation to the proceeding. Its whole conduct belongs to the Attorney of the United States.
“I am, dear Sir,
“Your faithful servant,
“Charles Sumner.
“P. Barton Key, Esq., Attorney of the United States.”
When the trial came on, Mr. Sumner had left for Philadelphia. Mr. Brooks was sentenced to pay a fine of three hundred dollars.
William Y. Leader, of Philadelphia, who testified before the magistrate, drew up the following account of the assault, which is now published for the first time.
“I arrived in Washington City on the morning of the 22d of May, 1856. It was my first visit to Washington. After attending to some business, I visited the Capitol. It was about twelve o’clock, and both Houses of Congress were in session. I went to the Hall of the House of Representatives first. I remained until the House adjourned, which was in a short time, as no business was transacted further than the passage of some resolutions in relation to, and several addresses on, the death of Hon. John G. Miller, of Missouri. I next went to the gallery of the Senate Chamber. Hon. Mr. Geyer, of Missouri, was delivering a eulogy on the death of Mr. Miller, after which a series of resolutions on the same subject were passed, when the Senate adjourned. I then went into the Senate Chamber, for the purpose of delivering a letter to Hon. J. J. Crittenden, but, finding him engaged talking to the Hon. L. S. Foster, of Connecticut, I walked up and down the Chamber, waiting until he would be disengaged. While doing so, a gentleman mentioned the name of Mr. Sumner. I had never seen Mr. Sumner, but, having read several of his speeches, I was anxious to see him, and, looking in the direction from which the voice came, I observed Dr. Madeira, of Philadelphia, introducing to Mr. Sumner one of the then editors of the Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Transcript. Mr. Sumner then shook the person by the hand and begged him to excuse him, as he was writing on time, that he might get a number of documents, which he was franking, ready for the mail, and told the gentleman he would be pleased to see him at his residence at any time he might call. The gentleman left him, and I walked to the seat of Senator Seward, which was vacant, and which is next but one from Senator Sumner’s, in the same row. Senator Sumner was writing at his seat. On his table was a large pile of documents, and he was writing very rapidly, with his head very close to the desk. While he was thus engaged, I observed a gentleman come in the door and walk to the seat of Mr. Sumner. He came up in a quiet, easy manner, and spoke, saying, ‘Mr. Sumner.’ Mr. Sumner did not rise, but merely turned up his head, as if to see who was speaking to him, when the gentleman continued, saying, ‘I have read your speech twice, and have come to the conclusion that it is an insult to my native State, and my gray-haired relative, Judge Butler,’—and before he had finished the sentence, he struck Mr. Sumner a blow on the top of his head, which was uncovered, which must have stunned him. He struck him two or three times after, when Mr. Sumner raised himself in his chair, not, as has been said, to defend himself, but with his head bent down, as if trying to extricate himself from his chair and desk. While in this position he received several more blows, when he fell against his desk, which upset, and he fell to the floor. While lying here, he was struck until the cane broke into pieces. Mr. Sumner uttered no word, and no one attempted to interfere, though a number of persons gathered around, crying, ‘Don’t interfere!‘ ‘Go it, Brooks!’ ‘Give the damned Abolitionists hell!’ &c. Mr. Crittenden was the first man to seize the perpetrator of the outrage, and take him off his victim. Several of his friends led him off, while Mr. Sumner lay on the floor until Mr. Morgan and Mr. Simonton and one or two others came in and took him into an adjoining room. I was the only person who saw the whole of the transaction, and, being so close to Mr. Sumner, I heard and saw all that was said and done. I afterwards had Mr. Brooks arrested for the offence, and on the trial of the case gave my testimony as I have here related it, and which is substantially correct. I had never known Mr. Sumner, and, as we belonged to different political parties, I had no prejudice in his favor. From beginning to end it was one of the most cold-blooded, high-handed outrages ever committed, and had Mr. Sumner not been a very large and powerfully built man, it must have resulted in his death. No ordinary man could possibly have withstood so many blows upon his bare head.”
General James Watson Webb, afterwards Minister to Brazil, and at the time editor of the New York Courier and Enquirer, made the following report to his paper.
“Those who witnessed the assault say, that, in receiving the blows, given in quick succession and with terrible force, Mr. Sumner attempted to rise from his seat, to which he was in a measure pinioned by his legs being under the desk,—the legs of which, like all the desks of the Senate Chamber, have plates of iron fastened to them, and these plates are firmly secured to the floor. His first attempt to rise was a failure, and he fell back into his chair, and the blows of his assailant continued to fall mercilessly upon his uncovered head. His second attempt ripped up the iron fastenings of his desk, and he precipitated himself forward, but, being blinded and stunned, wide of the direction in which Mr. Brooks stood. Prostrated on the floor, and covered with blood as I never saw man covered before, the assault continued, until Mr. Murray and Mr. Morgan, both members of the House of Representatives from New York, had time to come from the extreme southeast angle of the Senate Chamber, and who, forcing their way through the crowd of Senators, and others, in the midst of whom Mr. Sumner was lying senseless and being beaten, they seized the assailant and rescued the body of Sumner.”
On the morning of January 28, 1857, the country was startled by the telegraphic news that Mr. Brooks had died suddenly on the evening before, in great pain, at his hotel in Washington. The terms of this despatch belong to this note.
“The Hon. Preston S. Brooks died this evening at Brown’s Hotel. He had been in bed for a day or two, suffering from the effects of a severe cold. He was telling his friends that he had passed the crisis of his illness, and felt considerably improved in health, when he was seized with violent croup, and died in about ten minutes afterwards. He expired in intense pain. The event, so sudden, has caused much surprise and sympathy throughout the city.
“Dr. Boyle, who was called to dress the wounds of Mr. Sumner, was his physician. Considerable excitement was produced by this visitation of Providence. His personal friends seem smitten, while the mass of those who crowd the hotels come to the general conclusion that the wrath of man is avenged in the justice of God. There are numerous knots of people in each of the hotels, talking about the death of Brooks. He died a horrid death, and suffered intensely. He endeavored to tear his own throat open to get breath.”
Later advices revealed that Mr. Keitt, with others, was by his bedside. His death was announced to the House of Representatives, January 29th, when his funeral took place in the House.
Senator Butler died at home, in South Carolina, May 25, 1857. Mr. Keitt, after an active and vindictive part in the Rebellion, died in battle in Virginia, in June, 1864.
II.
ADOPTION OF THE ASSAULT BY EMINENT SLAVE-MASTERS, AND BY THE SOUTH GENERALLY.
More significant even than the assault was the evidence, which soon accumulated, showing its adoption at the South. Had it been disapproved there, it would have stood as the act of an individual. Had it been received even in silence, without formal disapprobation, there would have been at least a question with regard to the sentiment there, and charity would have supplied the most extenuating interpretation. But the spirit of Slavery was too strong, making haste to speak out by its representatives of every degree. It began at once.
On the publication of Mr. Sumner’s testimony, there were some explanations in the Senate.[145] Hon. John Slidell, of Louisiana, described himself as in conversation with several gentlemen, in the anteroom of the Senate, when he first heard of the assault.
“We had been there some minutes,—I think we were alone in the antechamber,—when a person (if I recollect aright, it was Mr. Jones, a messenger of the Senate) rushed in, apparently in great trepidation, and said that somebody was beating Mr. Sumner. We heard this remark without any particular emotion; for my own part, I confess I felt none.”
He then describes meeting Mr. Sumner in the doorway of the reception-room, “leaning on two persons whom I did not recognize. His face was covered with blood.” He adds:—
“I am not particularly fond of scenes of any sort. I have no associations or relations of any kind with Mr. Sumner; I have not spoken to him for two years.”
Hon. Robert Toombs, of Georgia, said:—
“As for rendering Mr. Sumner any assistance, I did not do it. As to what was said, some gentleman present condemned it in Mr. Brooks. I stated to him, or to some of my own friends, probably, that I approved it. That is my opinion.”
Hon. Benjamin P. Wade, of Ohio, followed.
“If the principle now announced here is to prevail, let us come armed for the combat; and although you are four to one, I am here to meet you. God knows a man can die in no better cause than in vindicating the rights of debate on this floor; and I have only to ask, that, if the principle is to be approved by the majority, and to become part and parcel of the law of Congress, it may be distinctly understood.”
Hon. Henry Wilson followed, saying:—
“Mr. Sumner was stricken down on this floor by a brutal, murderous, and cowardly assault.”
At this point he was interrupted by Hon. A. P. Butler, of South Carolina, according to the unamended report of the newspapers, by the exclamation from his seat,—
“You are a liar!”
In the Globe it is said:—
“Mr. Butler, in his seat, impulsively uttered words which Senators around advised him were not parliamentary, and he subsequently, at the instance of Senators, requested that the words might be withdrawn.”
Hon. Lafayette S. Foster, of Connecticut, followed.
“As I understood the honorable Senator from Georgia to remark that he approved of striking forcibly down in this Chamber a member of the Senate, I think it incumbent on me, recently a member of this body, and not having participated in its debates, to say a word.”
Mr. Foster then proceeded to vindicate liberty of speech.
Shortly afterwards, in another speech, Senator Butler said of Mr. Sumner:—
“Though his friends have invested him with the dress of Achilles and offered him his armor, he has shown that he is only able to fight with the weapons of Thersites, and deserved what that brawler received from the hands of the gallant Ulysses.”[146]
The declaration of Mr. Wilson, that the attack upon Mr. Sumner was “a brutal, murderous, and cowardly assault,” incensed the friends of Mr. Brooks, and many threats of personal violence were made. General Lane, of Oregon, afterward Democratic candidate for Vice-President, called upon Mr. Wilson, and placed a challenge from Mr. Brooks in his hands. Mr. Wilson promptly placed in General Lane’s hands, contrary to the urgent advice of Mr. Giddings and other friends, who thought his reply might bring on a personal conflict, an answer to his hostile note, in which he said:—
“I characterized, on the floor of the Senate, the assault upon my colleague as ‘brutal, murderous, and cowardly.’ I thought so then: I think so now: I have no qualification whatever to make in regard to those words. I have never entertained, in the Senate or elsewhere, the idea of personal responsibility, in the sense of the duellist. I have always regarded duelling as the lingering relic of a barbarous civilization, which the law of the country has branded as crime. While, therefore, I religiously believe in the right of self-defence in its broadest sense, the law of my country and the matured convictions of my whole life alike forbid me to meet you for the purpose indicated in your letter.”
The Hon. James M. Mason, a Senator from Virginia, already odious as author of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and afterwards so conspicuous in the Rebellion, thus declared his approbation of the assault:—
“Selma, Frederick County, Va.,
29th September, 1856.
“Gentlemen,—I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 13th instant, inviting me, on behalf of the constituents of Colonel Preston S. Brooks, to a dinner to be given to him by them, on the 3d of October next, in ‘testimony of their complete indorsement of his Congressional course.’
“It has been my good fortune to have enjoyed the acquaintance of your able and justly honored Representative, on terms both of social and political intercourse, from his entrance into the House of Representatives, and I know of none whose public career I hold more worthy the full and cordial approbation of his constituents than his.
“He has shown himself alike able and prompt to sustain the rights and the interests of his constituents in debate and by vote, or to vindicate in a different mode, and under circumstances of painful duty, the honor of his friend. I would gladly, therefore, unite with you, were it in my power, in the testimonial proposed by his generous constituents, but regret that the distance which separates us, and my engagements at home, must forbid it.
…
“But, in reverse of all this, should a dominant sectional vote be directed to bring into power those pledged in advance to break down the barriers interposed by the compact of federation for the security of one section against the other, then, in my calmest judgment, but one course remains for the South,—immediate, absolute, and eternal separation.
…
“Again regretting, Gentlemen, that I cannot be with you,
“I am, with great respect,
“J. M. Mason.”
The Hon. Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, and afterwards President of the Rebel States, thus declared his approbation:—
“Washington, Monday, September 22, 1856.
“Gentlemen,—I have the honor to acknowledge your polite and very gratifying invitation to a public dinner, to be given by the people of the Fourth Congressional District to their Representative, Hon. P. S. Brooks.
“It would give me much pleasure, on any occasion, to meet you, fellow-citizens of the Fourth District of South Carolina; and the gratification would be materially heightened by the opportunity to witness their approbation of a Representative whom I hold in such high regard and esteem. Circumstances will not permit me, however, to be with you, as invited, and I have only to express to you my sympathy with the feeling which prompts the sons of Carolina to welcome the return of a brother who has been the subject of vilification, misrepresentation, and persecution, because he resented a libellous assault upon the reputation of their mother.
“With many thanks to you and those whom you represent for your kind remembrance of me,
“I am very truly your friend and fellow-citizen,
“Jefferson Davis.
“Arthur Simpkins, James Gillam, and others.”
Here may properly be introduced the language of Mr. Savage, of Tennessee, in the House of Representatives, in his eulogy of Mr. Brooks.
“To die nobly is life’s chief concern. History records but one Thermopylæ: there ought to have been another, and that one for Preston S. Brooks. Brutus stabbed Cæsar in the Capitol, and, whatever we may now think of the wisdom and justice of the deed, the world has ever since approved and applauded it. So shall the scene in the Senate Chamber carry the name of the deceased to all future generations, long to be remembered after all here are forgotten, and until these proud walls crumble into ruins.”[147]
These uttered words were modified in the Globe.[148]
In these adhesions it will not fail to be observed that Toombs, Slidell, Mason, and Davis, afterwards chiefs in the Rebellion, made themselves conspicuous by their positive and unequivocal language.
Mr. Buchanan, the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, deserves to be added to this list. At the Commencement of Franklin and Marshall College, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, July 23, 1856, one of the students, W. W. Davis, of Sterling, Illinois, made an address on “The Decline of Political Integrity,” where he described modern politicians as “so truckling in their character and destitute of moral courage and political integrity, that men are found who applaud the attack of Canine Brooks upon the noble Sumner for defending Freedom.” The scene that ensued, and the remarks of Mr. Buchanan, who was present on the stage, were given by a correspondent of the New York Tribune.
“During the delivery of this sentence, the whole house was still as death, and at its close it was heartily applauded. Mr. Davis finished his oration and retired from the front of the stage amid thunders of applause and showers of bouquets from his lady friends. For him it was truly a triumph. But on retiring to his seat, next to that of Mr. Buchanan, did he receive congratulation of the Sage of Wheatland? No, no. Mr. Buchanan said to him, loud enough that the whole class could hear: ‘My young friend, you look upon the dark side of the picture. Mr. Sumner’s speech was the most vulgar tirade of abuse ever delivered in a deliberative body.’ To which the young orator replied, that he ‘hoped Mr. Buchanan did not approve of the attacks upon Mr. Sumner by Brooks and others.’ To which Mr. Buchanan rejoined, that ‘Mr. Brooks was inconsiderate, but that Senator Butler was a very mild man.’ Mr. Davis expressed his regret at the moderation of Mr. Buchanan’s views, and dropped the conversation. After the close of the exercises, the friends of Mr. Davis related what I have written. Mr. Davis himself said, he ‘did not think for a moment that he was not in conversation with James Buchanan,’ but now learns that it was the Representative of the Cincinnati Platform he was addressed by.”
With such words of approbation from eminent leaders of the South, it was natural that other organs of opinion there should be stronger in their language. The people by formal acts, and the press by a succession of articles, signalized their adhesion.
The following extract from a letter of a young gentleman, said to be of “high respectability,” at Charleston, South Carolina, was communicated for publication.
“I suppose you have heard of the lambasting Mr. Brooks gave Mr. Sumner. Well, the Charlestonians have subscribed ten cents each and bought a splendid cane, with the words ‘Hit him again’ engraved on the head; and if Mr. Sumner troubles South Carolina or Mr. Brooks again, he will get something engraved on his head which will be very apt to make him a grave subject.”
At a meeting at Martin’s Depot, South Carolina, the following resolution was adopted.
“Resolved, If Northern fanatics will persist in meddling with our private institutions, we deem it expedient that Southern members should reply to them by the use of gutta-percha.”
At a meeting in Clinton, South Carolina, the following resolutions were adopted by acclamation.
“Resolved, That we, as a portion of the constituents of the Hon. Preston S. Brooks, do heartily agree with him in chastising, coolly and deliberately, the vile and lawless Sumner, of Massachusetts.
“Resolved, That, for the high respect and full appreciation of Colonel Brooks’s conduct, we present him a cane from the soil of his own Congressional district, with this inscription: ‘Use knock-down arguments’: feeling that none other can be effectual on a perverted mind and degenerate race.”
The Columbia South Carolinian, of May 28, spoke thus:—
“We learn that some of the gentlemen of Charleston have provided a suitable present, in the shape of a cane, to be given to Mr. Brooks, to show their appreciation of his late act of ‘hiding’ the Abolition Senator Sumner. It is to bear the inscription, ‘Hit him again.’ Meetings of approval and sanction will be held not only in Mr. Brooks’s district, but throughout the State at large, and a general and hearty response of approval will reëcho the words ‘Well done,’ from Washington to the Rio Grande.”
The Richmond Enquirer, of May 30, reports a response from the University of Virginia.
“Another Cane for Mr. Brooks.—We understand that a very large meeting of the students of the University of Virginia was held on Tuesday evening, to take into consideration the recent attack of the Hon. Preston S. Brooks on Charles Sumner, in the United States Senate Chamber. Several very eloquent speeches were delivered, all of which fully approved the course of Mr. Brooks, and the resolution was passed to purchase for Mr. Brooks a splendid cane. The cane is to have a heavy gold head, which will be suitably inscribed, and also bear upon it a device of the human head, badly cracked and broken. The chivalry of the South, it seems, has been thoroughly aroused.”
The Richmond Examiner, of May 30, testifies thus:—
“The chastisement of Sumner, in spite of the blustering nonsense of the regiments of Yankee Bob Acres, who have been talking about ‘avenging his wrongs,’ will be attended with good results. The precedent of Brooks vs. Sumner will become a respected authority at Washington. It will be a ‘leading case,’ as it clearly defines the distinction between the liberty of speech as guarantied to the respectable American Senator and that scandalous abuse of it by such men as Charles Sumner.
…
“Far from blaming Mr. Brooks, we are disposed to regard him as a conservative gentleman seeking to restore to the Senate that dignity and respectability of which the Abolition Senators are fast stripping it. His example should be followed by every Southern gentleman whose feelings are outraged by unprincipled Abolitionists.”
The Richmond Enquirer thus spoke, June 9th:—
“It is idle to think of union or peace or truce with Sumner or Sumner’s friends. Catiline was purity itself, compared to the Massachusetts Senator, and his friends are no better than he. They are all (we mean the leading and conspicuous ones) avowed and active traitors.… Sumner and Sumner’s friends must be punished and silenced. Government which cannot suppress such crimes as theirs has failed of its purpose. Either such wretches must be hung or put in the penitentiary, or the South should prepare at once to quit the Union. We would not jeopard the religion and morality of the South to save a Union that had failed for every useful purpose. Let us tell the North at once, If you cannot suppress the treasonable action, and silence the foul, licentious, and infidel propagandism of such men as Stephen Pearl Andrews, Wendell Phillips, Beecher, Garrison, Sumner, and their negro and female associates, let us part in peace.
…
“Your sympathy for Sumner has shaken our confidence in your capacity for self-government more than all your past history, full of evil portents as that has been. He had just avowed his complicity in designs far more diabolical than those of Catiline or Cethegus,—nay, transcending in iniquity all that the genius of a Milton has attributed to his fallen angels. We are not surprised that he should be hailed as hero and saint, for his proposed war on everything sacred and divine, by that Pandemonium where the blasphemous Garrison, and Parker, and Andrews, with their runaway negroes and masculine women, congregate.”
The Richmond Enquirer again spoke, June 12th:
“In the main, the press of the South applaud the conduct of Mr. Brooks, without condition or limitation. Our approbation, at least, is entire and unreserved. We consider the act good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequence. The vulgar Abolitionists in the Senate are getting above themselves. They have been humored until they forget their position. They have grown saucy, and dare to be impudent to gentlemen! Now, they are a low, mean, scurvy set, with some little book-learning, but as utterly devoid of spirit or honor as a pack of curs. Intrenched behind ‘privilege,’ they fancy they can slander the South and insult its representatives with impunity. The truth is, they have been suffered to run too long without collars. They must be lashed into submission. Sumner, in particular, ought to have nine-and-thirty early every morning. He is a great strapping fellow, and could stand the cowhide beautifully. Brooks frightened him, and at the first blow of the cane he bellowed like a bull-calf. There is the blackguard Wilson, an ignorant Natick cobbler, swaggering in excess of muscle, and absolutely dying for a beating. Will not somebody take him in hand? Hale is another huge, red-faced, sweating scoundrel, whom some gentleman should kick and cuff until he abates something of his impudent talk. These men are perpetually abusing the people and representatives of the South, for tyrants, robbers, ruffians, adulterers, and what not. Shall we stand it?
…
“Mr. Brooks has initiated this salutary discipline, and he deserves applause for the bold, judicious manner in which he chastised the scamp Sumner. It was a proper act, done at the proper time, and in the proper place.”
In a Democratic procession at Washington, one of the party banners had this inscription:—
“SUMNER AND KANSAS: LET THEM BLEED.”
Texts like these might be multiplied; but here are more than enough to exhibit the brutal spirit of Slavery, and the extent of its sympathy with the assault. This head may be properly closed by the words of the Charleston Standard on the death of Mr. Brooks.
“Within the last year his name has transcended the limits of tongues and nations. What will be the verdict of posterity upon him will depend upon the question of power between the North and South. If the North shall triumph, if the South shall be gradually ground under, if Slavery shall be smuggled out of sight, and decent people shall be ashamed to own it, he will be condemned and execrated; but if the South shall stand firm in her integrity, if Slavery shall not fall before its antagonist, but shall stand, as it is capable of standing, the great central institution of the land for all other interests to climb upon, and shall give law to opinion, as it shall give regulation to Liberty, then his memory will be loved and venerated; he will be recognized as one of the first who struck for the vindication of the South; and as, like those who seized the tea in Boston Harbor, he had no other warrant of authority than that afforded by his own brave heart, he will only the more certainly be placed among the heroes and patriots of his country.”
Here is a plain and most interesting recognition of the assault as belonging to the glories of Slavery, while the author is one of its heroes.
III.
PREVIOUS PERSONALITIES AND AGGRESSIONS.
There is a proper interest in knowing the personal provocation under which Mr. Sumner spoke. Something of this will be seen in the early onslaught upon him by the combined forces of Slavery, to which he replied promptly.[149] The Globe shows constantly the tone which was adopted by the representatives of Slavery towards all who presumed in any way to question its rights. Here Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, was always prominent; and when the question of the admission of Kansas as a Free State occurred, he was especially aroused.
His previous personalities and aggressions were set forth by Hon. Henry Wilson, in a speech made in the Senate, June 13, 1856, in direct reply to him, after he had spent two days in criticising Mr. Sumner and defending his assailant. On this occasion Senator Butler was particularly indignant because Mr. Sumner had personified Slavery as a “harlot,” saying, “What in the name of justice and decency could have ever led that man to use such language?”[150] In the course of his speech the Senator described his former patronage of Mr. Sumner, saying, “I did not hesitate to keep up what my friends complained of, an intercourse with him, which was calculated to give him a currency far beyond what he might have had, if I had not indulged in that species of intercourse. My friends here and everywhere know it.”[151] Mr. Wilson’s reply is important in this history.
SPEECH OF HON. HENRY WILSON.
“Mr. President,—I feel constrained, by a sense of duty to my State, by personal relations to my colleague and friend, to trespass for a few moments upon the time and attention of the Senate.
“You have listened, Mr. President, the Senate has listened, these thronged seats and these crowded galleries have listened, to the extraordinary speech of the honorable Senator from South Carolina, which has now run through two days. I must say, Sir, that I have listened to that speech with painful and sad emotions. A Senator of a sovereign State more than twenty days ago was stricken down senseless on the floor for words spoken in debate. For more than three weeks he has been confined to his room upon a bed of weakness and of pain. The moral sentiment of the country has been outraged, grossly outraged, by this wanton assault, in the person of a Senator, on the freedom of debate. The intelligence of this transaction has flown over the land, and is now flying abroad over the civilized world; and wherever Christianity has a foothold, or civilization a resting-place, that act will meet the stern condemnation of mankind.
“Intelligence comes to us, Mr. President, that a civil war is raging beyond the Mississippi; intelligence also comes to us that upon the shores of the Pacific Lynch Law is again organized; and the telegraph brings us news of assaults and murders around the ballot-boxes of New Orleans, growing out of differences of opinion and of interests. Can we be surprised, Sir, that these scenes, which are disgracing the character of our country and our age, are rife, when a venerable Senator—one of the oldest members of the Senate, and chairman of its Judiciary Committee—occupies four hours of the important time of the Senate in vindication of and apology for an assault unparalleled in the history of the country? If lawless violence here, in this Chamber, upon the person of a Senator, can find vindication, if this outrage upon the freedom of debate finds apology from a veteran Senator, why may not violent counsels elsewhere go unrebuked?
“The Senator from South Carolina commenced his discursive speech by an allusion to the present condition of my colleague which I cannot say exhibited good taste. I know it, personally, to be grossly unjust, because I know that for more than twenty days—three weeks—Mr. Sumner has been compelled to lie upon a bed of pain, from the effects of blows received by him here in the Senate Chamber.
“The Senator from South Carolina, I am aware, referred to the evidence of a medical person, who was accidentally employed in the early stages of the case, but who has not seen Mr. Sumner lately. I have in my hands the testimony of his present medical adviser, a distinguished physician of this city, who has been selected for his known talents and character, and who understands his present condition. The Secretary will please to read his letter, which I now send to the desk.”
The Secretary read as follows.
“C Street, June 12, 1856.
“Dear Sir,—In answer to your inquiries, I have to state that I have been in attendance on the Hon. Charles Sumner, as his physician, on account of the injuries received by him in the Senate Chamber, from the 29th of May to the present time,—part of this time in consultation with Dr. Perry, of Boston, and Dr. Miller, of Washington.
“I have visited him at least once every day. During all this time Mr. Sumner has been confined to his room, and the greater part of the day confined to his bed.
“Neither at the present moment, nor at any time since Mr. Sumner’s case came under my charge, has he been in a condition to resume his duties in the Senate.
“My present advice to him is to go into the country, where he can enjoy fresh air; and I think it will not be prudent for him to enter upon his public duties for some time to come.
“Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
“H. Lindsly.”
“Hon. Henry Wilson.”
Mr. Wilson. “Mr. President, this is the testimony of Dr. Lindsly, known by the members of the Senate, and others around me, to be an eminent physician of Washington. I will say, that Mr. Sumner, and Mr. Sumner’s friends, when he was first assailed, underestimated altogether the force of the assault. He is a man of great physical power, in full vigor and maturity, and in the glow of health. For a day or two after that assault he believed, and his friends believed, that he would soon throw off its effects; but time disclosed the extent and force of his injuries, while he was doomed to hours of restless, sleepless pain. Dr. Perry, of Boston, a gentleman of great professional eminence, accidentally in Washington, expressed the strongest solicitude concerning his case. To his skill and advice I believe my colleague and his friends are under the deepest obligations. His testimony before the Committee is the testimony of one who knows what he affirms.—But I pass from this topic.
“The Senator from South Carolina, through this debate, has taken occasion to apply to Mr. Sumner, to his speech, to all that concerns him, all the epithets——
[Mr. Butler. I used criticism, but not epithets.]
Mr. Wilson. “Well, Sir, I accept the Senator’s word, and I say ‘criticism.’ But I say, in his criticism, he used every word that I can conceive a fertile imagination could invent, or a malignant passion suggest. He has taken his full revenge here on the floor of the Senate, here in debate, for the remarks made by my colleague. I do not take any exception to this mode. This is the way in which the speech of my colleague should have been met,—not by blows, not by an assault.
“The Senator tells us that this is not, in his opinion, an assault upon the constitutional rights of a member of the Senate. He tells us that a member cannot be permitted to print and send abroad over the world, with impunity, his opinions,—but that he is liable to have them questioned in a judicial tribunal. Well, Sir, if this be so,—he is a lawyer, I am not,—I accept his view, and I ask, Why not have tested Mr. Sumner’s speech in a judicial tribunal, and let that tribunal have settled the question whether Mr. Sumner uttered a libel or not? Why was it necessary, why did the ‘chivalry’ of South Carolina require, that for words uttered on this floor, under the solemn guaranties of Constitutional Law, a Senator should be met here by violence? Why appeal from the floor of the Senate, from a judicial tribunal, to the bludgeon? I put the question to the Senator,—to the ‘chivalry’ of South Carolina,—ay, to ‘the gallant set’ (to use the Senator’s own words) of ‘Ninety-Six,’—Why was it necessary to substitute the bludgeon for the judicial tribunal?
“Sir, the Senator from South Carolina—and in what I say to him to-day I have no disposition to say anything unkind or unjust, and if I utter any such word, I will withdraw it at once—told us, that, when my colleague came here, he came holding fanatical ideas, but that he met him, offered him his hand, and treated him with courtesy, supposing, as in other cases which had happened under his eye, that acquaintance with Southern gentlemen might cure him of his fanaticism. He gravely told us that his courtesy and attentions introduced Mr. Sumner where he could not otherwise have gone. The Senator will allow me to say that this is not the first time during this session we have heard this kind of talk about ‘social influence,’ and the necessity of association with gentlemen from the South, in order to have intercourse with the refined and cultivated society of Washington. Sir, Mr. Sumner was reared in a section of country where men know how to be gentlemen. He was trained in the society of gentlemen, in as good society as could be found in that section of the country. He went abroad. In England and on the Continent he was received everywhere, as he had a right to be received, into the best social circles, into literary associations, and into that refined and polished society which adorns and graces the present age in Western Europe. I do not know where any gentleman could desire to go that Mr. Sumner could not go, without the assistance of the Senator from South Carolina, or any other person on this floor. Sir, we have heard quite enough of this. It is a piny-wood doctrine, a plantation idea. Gentlemen reared in refined and cultivated society are not accustomed to this language, and never indulge in its use towards others.
“The Senator from South Carolina commenced his speech by proclaiming what he intended to do, and he closed it by asserting what he had done. Well, Sir, I listened to his speech with some degree of attention, and I must say that the accomplishment did not come quite up to what was promised, and that without his assurance the Senate and the country would never have supposed that his achievements amounted to what he assured us they did in this debate.
“The Senator complained of Mr. Sumner for quoting the Constitution of South Carolina; and he asserted over and over again, and he winds up his speech by the declaration, that the quotation made is not in the Constitution. After making that declaration, he read the Constitution, and read the identical quotation. Mr. Sumner asserted what is in the Constitution; but there is an addition to it which he did not quote. The Senator might have complained because he did not quote it; but the portion not quoted carries out only the letter and the spirit of the portion quoted. To be a member of the House of Representatives of South Carolina, it is necessary to own a certain number of acres of land and ten slaves, or seven hundred and fifty dollars of real estate, free of debt. The Senator declared with great emphasis—and I saw nods, Democratic nods, all around the Senate—that ‘a man who was not worth that amount of money was not fit to be a Representative.’ That may be good Democratic doctrine,—it comes from a Democratic Senator of the Democratic State of South Carolina, and received Democratic nods and Democratic smiles,—but it is not in harmony with the Democratic ideas of the American people.
“The charge made by Mr. Sumner was, that South Carolina was nominally republican, but in reality had aristocratic features in her Constitution. Well, Sir, is not this charge true? To be a member of the House of Representatives of South Carolina, the candidate must own ten men,—yes, Sir, ten men,—five hundred acres of land, or have seven hundred and fifty dollars of real estate, free of debt; and to be a member of the Senate double is required. This Legislature, having these personal qualifications, placing them in the rank of a privileged few, are elected upon a representative basis as unequal as the rotten-borough system of England in its most rotten days. That is not all. This Legislature elects the Governor of South Carolina and the Presidential Electors. The people have the privilege of voting for men with these qualifications, upon this basis, and they select their Governor for them, and choose the Presidential Electors for them. The privileged few govern; the many have the privilege of being governed by them.
“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.
“‘I have said I am perfectly willing, so far as I am concerned, to let the memorial be referred; but I wish to ask the honorable Senator from Massachusetts who presented it [Mr. Rockwell] a question, and I believe, from the impression which he made on me to-day, that he will answer it. If we repeal the Fugitive Slave Law, will the honorable Senator tell me that Massachusetts will execute the provision of the Constitution without any law of Congress? Suppose we should take away all laws, and devolve upon the different States the duties that properly belong to them, I would ask that Senator, whether, under the prevalence of public opinion there, Massachusetts would execute that provision as one of the constitutional members of this Union? Would they send fugitives back to us, after trial by jury, or any other mode? Will this honorable Senator [Mr. Sumner] tell me that he will do it?
“‘Mr. Sumner. Does the honorable Senator ask me if I would personally join in sending a fellow-man into bondage? “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?”
“‘Mr. Butler. These are the prettiest speeches that I ever heard. [Laughter.] He has them turned down in a book by him, I believe, and he has them so elegantly fixed that I cannot reply to them. [Laughter.] They are too delicate for my use. [Renewed laughter.] They are beautiful things, made in a factory of rhetoric, somewhat of a peculiar shape, but, I must be permitted to say, not of a definite texture. Now what does he mean by talking about his not being a dog? [Continued laughter.] What has that to do with the Constitution, or the constitutional obligations of a State? [Laughter.] Well, Sir, it was a beautiful sentiment, no doubt, as he thought, and perhaps he imagined he expressed it with Demosthenian abruptness and eloquence. [Laughter.] I asked him whether he would execute the Constitution of the United States, without any Fugitive Slave Law, and he answered me, is he a dog——
“‘Mr. Sumner. The Senator asked me if I would help to reduce a fellow-man to bondage. I answered him.
“‘Mr. Butler. Then you would not obey the Constitution. Sir [turning to Mr. Sumner], standing here before this tribunal, where you swore to support it, you rise and tell me that you regard it the office of a dog to enforce it. You stand in my presence, as a coëqual Senator, and tell me that it is a dog’s office to execute the Constitution of the United States?
“‘Mr. Pratt. Which he has sworn to support.
“‘Mr. Sumner. I recognize no such obligation.
“‘Mr. Butler. I know you do not. But nobody cares about your recognitions as an individual; but as a Senator, and a constitutional representative, you stand differently related to this body. But enough of this.’
“This attack upon Mr. Sumner is without a parallel in the records of the Senate. But the Senator from South Carolina was not alone in this outrage. He was assisted, I regret to say, by other Senators,—particularly by the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason], by the then Senator from Indiana [Mr. Pettit]; but I do not quote their words, for I am now dealing with the Senator from South Carolina.
“To all these Mr. Sumner replied fully and triumphantly, in a speech which, though justly severe throughout, was perfectly parliamentary, and which was referred to at that time, and has been often mentioned since, as a specimen of the greatest severity, united with perfect taste and propriety.
“The above imputation which had been heaped upon him, with regard to the Constitution, was completely encountered, and his position vindicated by the authority of Andrew Jackson, and the still earlier authority of Thomas Jefferson. On this point no attempt has ever been made to answer him.
“In the course of this speech, alluding to the Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Sumner used words which I now adopt, not only for myself on this occasion, but also as an illustration of his course in this controversy.
“‘It is he, then, who is the offender. For myself, Sir, I understand the sensibilities of Senators from “slaveholding communities,” and would not wound them by a superfluous word. Of Slavery I speak strongly, as I must; but thus far, even at the expense of my argument, I have avoided the contrasts, founded on details of figures and facts, which are so obvious, between the Free States and “slaveholding communities”; especially have I shunned all allusion to South Carolina. But the venerable Senator, to whose discretion that State has entrusted its interests here, will not allow me to be still. God forbid that I should do injustice to South Carolina!’
“But the Senator from South Carolina was not to be silenced or appeased. He still returned to those personalities which flow so naturally and unconsciously from his lips. The early, bitter, personal assaults were repeated. He charged Mr. Sumner’s speech with being ‘unfair in statement.’ This is one of the delicate accusations of the Senator. The next is bolder. He charged Mr. Sumner as ‘guilty of historical perversion.’ Pray, with what face, after this, can he complain of my colleague? But he seems determined still to press this imputation in the most offensive form, for he next charges my colleague with ‘historical falsehood, which the gentleman has committed in the fallacy of his sectional vision.’ It would be difficult to accumulate into one phrase more offensive suggestions; and yet the Senator now complains that he has had administered to him what he has so often employed himself.
“All these are understood to have been accompanied by a manner more offensive than the words.
“In these extracts you will see something of the Senator’s insolence, in contrast with the quiet manner of Mr. Sumner, who, while defending his position, was perfectly parliamentary.
“Other passages from the speech of the Senator might be quoted; but the patience of the Senate is wellnigh exhausted by this long exhibition of personalities; therefore I will content myself with only one more. Here it is.
“‘I know, Sir, he said the other day that all he said was the effusion of an impulsive heart. But it was the effusion of his drawer. Talk to me about the effusions of the heart! What kind of effusions are those which escape from tables, from papers played like cards sorted for the purpose? They are weapons prepared by contribution, and discharged in this body with a view of gratifying the feelings of resentment and malice,—with a view of wounding the pride of the State which I represent, and through her to stab the reputation of the other Southern States. But, Sir, we are above the dangers of open combat, and cannot be hurt by the assaults even of attempted assassination.’
“‘We cannot be hurt by attempted assassination,’ exclaims the Senator from South Carolina!
“‘Attempted assassination’?
“It ill becomes the Senator from South Carolina to use these words in connection with Massachusetts or the North. The arms of Massachusetts are Freedom, Justice, Truth. Strong in these, she is not driven to the necessity of resorting to ‘attempted assassination,’ either in or out of the Senate.
“But the whole story is not yet told. I wish to refer to another assault made by the Senator, which I witnessed myself a few days after I took a seat in this body. On the 23d of February, 1855, on one of the last days of the last session, to the bill introduced by the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Toucey] Mr. Sumner moved an amendment providing for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act. He made some remarks in support of that proposition. The Senator from South Carolina followed him, saying, ‘I would ask him one question, which he, perhaps, will not answer honestly.’ Mr. Sumner said, ‘I will answer any question.’ The Senator went on to ask questions, and received his answers; and then he said, speaking of Mr. Sumner, ‘I know he is not a tactician, and I shall not take advantage of the infirmity of a man who does not know half his time exactly what he is about.’ This is indeed extraordinary language for the Senator from South Carolina to apply to the Senator from Massachusetts. I witnessed that scene. I then deemed the language insulting: the manner was more so. I hold in my hands the remarks of the Louisville Journal, a Southern press, upon this scene. I shall not read them to the Senate, for I do not wish to present anything which the Senator may even deem offensive. I will say, however, that his language and his deportment to my colleague on that occasion were aggressive and overbearing in the extreme. And this is the Senator who never makes assaults! But not content with assaulting Mr. Sumner, he winds up his speech by a taunt at ‘Boston philanthropy.’ Surely, no person ever scattered assault more freely.
“I have almost done. But something has occurred this session which illustrates the Senator’s manner. Not content with making his own speeches, he interrupted the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Geyer], and desired him to insert in his speech an assault on Massachusetts. Here are his words.
“‘I wish my friend would incorporate into his speech an old law of Massachusetts which I have found. I would remind my friend of an old league between the four New England States, made while they were colonies, expressly repudiating trial by jury for the reclamation of fugitive slaves. They called them “slaves,” too, or rather “fugitive servants”; and they say they shall be delivered up on the certificate of one magistrate.’
“Here is another instance of the Senator’s looseness of assertion, even on law, upon the knowledge of which he has plumed himself in this debate. Sir, there were no slaves in Massachusetts at that day. The law alluded to was passed in 1643. It was not until 1646, three years afterward, that the first slaves were imported into Massachusetts from the coast of Africa, and these very slaves were sent back to their native land at public expense. The following is a verbatim copy of the remarkable statute by which these Africans were returned to Guinea, at the expense of the Commonwealth.
“‘The General Court, conceiving themselves bound by the first opportunity to bear witness against the heinous and crying sin of man-stealing, as also to prescribe such timely redress for what is past, and such a law for the future, at may sufficiently deter all others belonging to us to have to do in such vile and most odious courses, justly abhorred of all good and just men, do order that the negro interpreter, with others unlawfully taken, be, by the first opportunity, at the charge of the country for present, sent to his native country of Guinea, and a letter with him, of the indignation of the Court thereabouts, and justice hereof.’
“In the face of this Act of 1646, the learned Senator from South Carolina wished his friend from Missouri to incorporate into his speech a false accusation against Massachusetts and the New England colonies. And he went so far as to assert that this old law contained an allusion to ‘slaves,’ when the word ‘slaves’ was not mentioned, and ‘servants’ only was employed.
“Sir, I might here refer to the assault made by the Senator from South Carolina on the Senator from Iowa [Mr. Harlan], in which he taunted that Senator with being a clergyman, and modestly told him, in the face of the country, that ‘he understood Latin as well as that Senator understood English.’
[Mr. Butler. I never taunted any gentleman with being a clergyman; and the Senator from Iowa will not say so. I said that I had respect for his vocation; but when he attempted to correct my speech, I put him right.]
Mr. Wilson. “Whether it was a taunt or not, the Senator disclaims its being so, and I accept the disclaimer; but I apprehend it was not intended as a compliment to the Senator from Iowa, or that it was received as such by that Senator, particularly when taken in connection with the other taunting assumption of the Senator from South Carolina, that he ‘understood Latin as well as that Senator understood English.’
“Thus has Mr. Sumner been by the Senator from South Carolina systematically assailed in this body, from the 28th of July, 1852, up to the present time,—a period of nearly four years. He has applied to my colleague every expression calculated to wound the sensibilities of an honorable man, and to draw down upon him sneers, obloquy, and hatred, in and out of the Senate. In my place here, I now pronounce these continued assaults upon my colleague unparalleled in the history of the Senate.
“I come now to speak for one moment of the late speech of my colleague, which is the alleged cause of the recent assault upon him, and which the Senator from South Carolina has condemned so abundantly. That speech—a thorough and fearless exposition of what Mr. Sumner entitled ‘The Crime against Kansas’—from beginning to end is marked by entire plainness. Things are called by their right names. The usurpation in Kansas is exposed, and also the apologies for it, successively. No words were spared which seemed necessary to the exhibition. In arraigning the Crime, it was natural to speak of those who sustained it. Accordingly, the Administration is constantly held up to condemnation. Various Senators who have vindicated this Crime are at once answered and condemned. Among these are the Senator from South Carolina, the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason], and the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Geyer]. The Senator from South Carolina now complains of Mr. Sumner’s speech. Surely, it is difficult to see on what ground that Senator can make any such complaint. The speech was, indeed, severe,—severe as truth,—but in all respects parliamentary. It is true that it handles the Senator from South Carolina freely; but that Senator had spoken repeatedly in the course of the Kansas debate, once at length and elaborately, and at other times more briefly, and foisting himself into the speeches of other Senators, and identifying himself completely with the Crime which my colleague felt it his duty to arraign. It was natural, therefore, that his course in the debate, and his position, should be particularly considered. And in this work Mr. Sumner had no reason to hold back, when he thought of the constant and systematic and ruthless attacks which, utterly without cause, he had received from that Senator. The only objection which the Senator from South Carolina can reasonably make to Mr. Sumner is, that he struck a strong blow.
“The Senator complains that the speech was printed before it was delivered. Here, again, is his accustomed inaccuracy. It is true that it was in the printer’s hands, and was mainly in type; but it received additions and revisions after its delivery, and was not put to press till then. Away with this petty objection! The Senator says that twenty thousand copies have gone to England. Here, again, is his accustomed inaccuracy. If they have gone, it is without Mr. Sumner’s agency. But the Senator foresees the truth. Sir, that speech will go to England; it will go to the Continent of Europe; it has gone over the country, and has been read by the American people as no speech ever delivered in this body was read before. That speech will go down to coming ages. Whatever men may say of its sentiments,—and coming ages will indorse its sentiments,—it will be placed among the ablest parliamentary efforts of our own age or of any age.
“The Senator from South Carolina tells us that the speech is to be condemned, and he quotes the venerable and distinguished Senator from Michigan [Mr. Cass]. I do not know what Mr. Sumner could stand. The Senator says he could not stand the censure of the Senator from Michigan. I could; and I believe there are a great many in this country whose powers of endurance are as great as my own. I have great respect for that venerable Senator; but the opinions of no Senator here are potential in the country. This is a Senate of equals. The judgment of the country is to be made up on the records formed here. The opinions of the Senator from Michigan, and of other Senators here, are to go into the record, and will receive the verdict of the people. By that I am willing to stand.
“The Senator from South Carolina tells us that the speech is to be condemned. It has gone out to the country. It has been printed by the million. It has been scattered broadcast amongst seventeen millions of Northern freemen who can read and write. The Senator condemns it; South Carolina condemns it: but South Carolina is only a part of this Confederacy, and but a part of the Christian and civilized world. South Carolina makes rice and cotton, but South Carolina contributes little to make up the judgment of the Christian and civilized world. I value her rice and cotton more than I do her opinions on questions of scholarship and eloquence, of patriotism or of liberty.
“Mr. President, I have no desire to assail the Senator from South Carolina, or any other Senator in this body; but I wish to say now that we have had quite enough of this asserted superiority, social and political. We were told, some time ago, by the Senator from Alabama [Mr. Clay], that those of us who entertained certain sentiments fawned upon him and other Southern men, if they permitted us to associate with them. This is strange language to be used in this body. I never fawned upon that Senator. I never sought his acquaintance,—and I do not know that I should feel myself honored, if I had it. I treat him as an equal here,—I wish always to treat him respectfully; but when he tells me or my friends that we fawn upon him or his associates, I say to him that I have never sought, and never shall seek, any other acquaintance than what official intercourse requires with a man who declared, on the floor of the Senate, that he would do what Henry Clay once said ‘no gentleman could do,’—hunt a fugitive slave.
“The Senator from Virginia, not now in his seat [Mr. Mason], when Mr. Sumner closed his speech, saw fit to tell the Senate that his hands would be soiled by contact with ours. The Senator is not here: I wish he were. I have simply to say that I know nothing in that Senator, moral, intellectual, or physical, which entitles him to use such language towards members of the Senate, or any portion of God’s creation. I know nothing in the State from which he comes, rich as it is in the history of the past, that entitles him to speak in such a manner. I am not here to assail Virginia. God knows I have not a feeling in my heart against her, or against her public men; but I do say it is time that these arrogant assumptions ceased here. This is no place for assumed social superiority, as though certain Senators held the keys of cultivated and refined society. Sir, they do not hold the keys, and they shall not hold over me the plantation whip.
“I wish always to speak kindly towards every man in this body. Since I came here, I have never asked an introduction to a Southern member of the Senate,—not because I have any feelings against them, for God knows I have not; but I knew that they believed I held opinions hostile to their interests, and I supposed they would not desire my society. I have never wished to obtrude myself on their society, so that certain Senators could do with me, as they have boasted they did with others,—refuse to receive their advances, or refuse to recognize them on the floor of the Senate. Sir, there is not a Coolie in the Guano Islands of Peru who does not think the Celestial Empire the whole Universe. There are a great many men who have swung the whip over the plantation, who think they not only rule the plantation, but make up the judgment of the world, and hold the keys not only to political power, as they have done in this country, but to social life.
“The Senator from South Carolina assails the resolutions of my State, with his accustomed looseness, as springing from ignorance, passion, prejudice, excitement. Sir, the testimony before the House Committee sustains all that is contained in those resolutions. Massachusetts has spoken her opinions; and although the Senator has quoted the Boston Courier to-day,—and I would not rob him of any consolation he can derive from that source,—I know Massachusetts, and I can tell him, that, of the twelve hundred thousand people of Massachusetts, you cannot find in the State one thousand, Administration office-holders included, who do not look with loathing and execration upon the outrage on the person of their Senator and the honor of their State. The sentiment of Massachusetts, of New England, of the North, approaches unanimity. Massachusetts has spoken her opinions. The Senator is welcome to assail them, if he chooses; but they are on the record. They are made up by the verdict of her people, and they understand the question, and from their verdict there is no appeal.
“Mr. President, I have spoken freely; I shall continue always to speak freely. I seek no controversy with any man; but I shall express my sentiments frankly, and the more frankly because on this floor my colleague has been smitten down for words spoken in debate, and because there are those who, unmindful of the Constitution of their country, claim the right thus to question us.”
IV.
VOICE OF THE NORTH.
Under this head must be put the speech of Hon. Anson Burlingame, afterwards so justly distinguished as the Minister of China, made in the House of Representatives, June 21, 1856. Here is an extract.
“But, Mr. Chairman, all these assaults upon the State of Massachusetts sink into insignificance, compared with the one I am about to mention. On the 19th of May it was announced that Mr. Sumner would address the Senate upon the Kansas question. The floor of the Senate, the galleries, and avenues leading thereto were thronged with an expectant audience; and many of us left our places in this House to hear the Massachusetts orator. To say that we were delighted with the speech we heard would but faintly express the deep emotions of our hearts awakened by it. I need not speak of the classic purity of its language, nor of the nobility of its sentiments. It was heard by many; it has been read by millions. There has been no such speech made in the Senate since the days when those Titans of American eloquence, the Websters and the Haynes, contended with each other for mastery.
“It was severe, because it was launched against tyranny. It was severe as Chatham was severe, when he defended the feeble colonies against the giant oppression of the mother country. It was made in the face of a hostile Senate. It continued through the greater portion of two days; and yet, during that time, the speaker was not once called to order. This fact is conclusive as to the personal and parliamentary decorum of the speech. He had provocation enough. His State had been called ‘hypocritical.’ He himself had been called ‘a puppy,’ ‘a fool,’ ‘a fanatic,’ and ‘a dishonest man.’ Yet he was parliamentary from the beginning to the end of his speech. No man knew better than he did the proprieties of the place, for he had always observed them. No man knew better than he did parliamentary law, because he had made it the study of his life. No man saw more clearly than he did the flaming sword of the Constitution turning every way, guarding all the avenues of the Senate. But he was not thinking of these things; he was not thinking then of the privileges of the Senate, nor of the guaranties of the Constitution. He was there to denounce tyranny and crime; and he did it. He was there to speak for the rights of an empire; and he did it bravely and grandly.
“So much for the occasion of the speech. A word, and I shall be pardoned, about the speaker himself. He is my friend; for many and many a year I have looked to him for guidance and light, and I never looked in vain. He never had a personal enemy in his life; his character is as pure as the snow that falls on his native hills; his heart overflows with kindness for every being having the upright form of man; he is a ripe scholar, a chivalric gentleman, and a warm-hearted, true friend. He sat at the feet of Channing, and drank in the sentiments of that noble soul. He bathed in the learning and undying love of the great jurist, Story; and the hand of Jackson, with its honors and its offices, sought him early in life, but he shrank from them with instinctive modesty. Sir, he is the pride of Massachusetts. His mother Commonwealth found him adorning the highest walks of literature and law, and she bade him go and grace somewhat the rough character of political life. The people of Massachusetts—the old, and the young, and the middle-aged—now pay their full homage to the beauty of his public and private character. Such is Charles Sumner.
“On the 22d day of May, when the Senate and the House had clothed themselves in mourning for a brother fallen in the battle of life in the distant State of Missouri, the Senator from Massachusetts sat in the silence of the Senate Chamber, engaged in the employments appertaining to his office, when a member from this House, who had taken an oath to sustain the Constitution, stole into the Senate, that place which had hitherto been held sacred against violence, and smote him as Cain smote his brother.
[Mr. Keitt (in his seat). That is false.
Mr. Burlingame. I will not bandy epithets with the gentleman. I am responsible for my own language. Doubtless he is responsible for his.
Mr. Keitt. I am.
Mr. Burlingame. I shall stand by mine.]
“One blow was enough; but it did not satiate the wrath of that spirit which had pursued him through two days. Again and again, quicker and faster, fell the leaden blows, until he was torn away from his victim, when the Senator from Massachusetts fell in the arms of his friends, and his blood ran down on the Senate floor. Sir, the act was brief, and my comments on it shall be brief also. I denounce it in the name of the Constitution it violated. I denounce it in the name of the sovereignty of Massachusetts, which was stricken down by the blow. I denounce it in the name of civilization, which it outraged. I denounce it in the name of humanity. I denounce it in the name of that fair play which bullies and prize-fighters respect. What! strike a man when he is pinioned,—when he cannot respond to a blow? Call you that chivalry? In what code of honor did you get your authority for that? I do not believe that member has a friend so dear who must not, in his heart of hearts, condemn the act. Even the member himself, if he has left a spark of that chivalry and gallantry attributed to him, must loathe and scorn the act. God knows, I do not wish to speak unkindly or in a spirit of revenge; but I owe it to my manhood, and the noble State I in part represent, to express my deep abhorrence of the act.
“But, much as I reprobate the act, much more do I reprobate the conduct of those who were by and saw the outrage perpetrated. Sir, especially do I notice the conduct of that Senator, recently from the free platform of Massachusetts, with the odor of her hospitality on him, who stood there, not only silent and quiet, while it was going on, but, when it was over, approved the act. And worse,—when he had time to cool, when he had slept on it, he went into the Senate Chamber of the United States, and shocked the sensibilities of the world by approving it. Another Senator did not take part because he feared his motives might be questioned, exhibiting as extraordinary a delicacy as that individual who refused to rescue a drowning mortal because he had not been introduced to him. [Laughter.] Another was not on good terms; and yet, if rumor be true, that Senator has declared that himself and family are more indebted to Mr. Sumner than to any other man; yet, when he saw him borne bleeding by, he turned and went on the other side. O magnanimous Slidell! O prudent Douglas! O audacious Toombs!”
This speech drew from Mr. Brooks a challenge, which was promptly accepted by Mr. Burlingame, who insisted upon these terms: “Weapons, rifles; distance, twenty paces; place, District of Columbia; time of meeting, the next morning.” Hon. L. D. Campbell, who acted as Mr. Burlingame’s friend, substituted the Clifton House, Canada, for the District of Columbia. The friends of Mr. Brooks, assuming that the excitement growing out of the assault made it dangerous for him to traverse the country, prevented the meeting from taking place.
The following resolves were adopted by the Legislature of Massachusetts, and duly presented to both Houses of Congress.
“Resolves concerning the recent Assault upon the Honorable Charles Sumner at Washington.
“Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, that we have received with deep concern information of the recent violent assault committed in the Senate Chamber at Washington upon the person of the Honorable Charles Sumner, one of our Senators in Congress, by Preston S. Brooks, a member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina,—an assault which no provocation could justify, brutal and cowardly in itself, a gross breach of parliamentary privilege, a ruthless attack upon the liberty of speech, an outrage of the decencies of civilized life, and an indignity to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
“Resolved, That the Legislature of Massachusetts, in the name of her free and enlightened people, demands for her representatives in the National Legislature entire Freedom of Speech, and will uphold them in the proper exercise of that essential right of American citizens.
“Resolved, That we approve of Mr. Sumner’s manliness and courage in his earnest and fearless declaration of free principles and his defence of human rights and free territory.
“Resolved, That the Legislature of Massachusetts is imperatively called upon by the plainest dictates of duty, from a decent regard to the rights of her citizens, and respect for her character as a sovereign State, to demand, and the Legislature of Massachusetts hereby does demand, of the National Congress, a prompt and strict investigation into the recent assault upon Senator Sumner, and the expulsion by the House of Representatives of Mr. Brooks of South Carolina, and any other member concerned with him in said assault.
“Resolved, That his Excellency the Governor be requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing resolves to the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives, and to each of the Senators and Members of the House of Representatives from this Commonwealth, in the Congress of the United States.”
The Governor of New York addressed Mr. Sumner directly by letter as follows.
“State of New York, Executive Department.
Albany, May 28, 1856.
“Honorable Charles Sumner:—
“My dear Sir,—From the moment the lightning flashed the intelligence of the barbarous and brutal assault made upon you by the sneaking, slave-driving scoundrel Brooks, the blood has tingled in my veins, and I have desired to express to you, not my abhorrence of the villain, for I could not find words adequate, but my personal sympathy for you, and, in their behalf, that of the people of this State (except a few ‘doughfaces,‘—we have still a very few, the breed is not yet quite extinct here),—assuring you that the hearts of our people are warmly and strongly with you, and that your noble and eloquent speech has already been very generally read by our citizens,—that it is not only entirely approved, but highly applauded,—and that its doctrines, sentiments, and expressions, and its author, will be sustained and DEFENDED by the people of this State.
“Ardently hoping for your recovery and speedy restoration to health, I have the honor to remain, with the highest regard,
“Your friend and servant,
“Myron H. Clark.”
Of the resolutions at public meetings a few only are presented.
The following, from the pen of William Lloyd Garrison, were adopted by the New England Antislavery Society.
“1. Resolved, That this Convention fully participates in the general feeling of indignation and horror which is felt in view of the recent dastardly and murderous assault made in the Senate Chamber at Washington upon the person of the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, Hon. Charles Sumner, by a fitting Representative of and from the lawless State of South Carolina; that, whether regard be had to the place or to the manner in which it was committed, or to the position and character of the victim, an assault characterized by greater cowardice and ruffianism, or more daring in its contempt for all that is sacred in constitutional liberty, or more comprehensively malignant against the cause of human freedom, cannot be found on the page of history; that it indicates a conspiracy, on the part of the Slave Oligarchy, to ‘crush out’ freedom of speech on the floor of Congress as effectually as it is done on the slave plantation, by putting in peril the life of every Northern Senator or Representative who shall dare to lift up a manly voice against Executive usurpation and border-ruffianism; and, therefore, that whoever shall attempt to find any justification, or to frame any apology for it, will reveal himself to be on a level with the base assailant of as pure and generous and noble a man as ever yet occupied a seat in our national legislature.
“2. Resolved, That the speech made by Mr. Sumner, which has subjected him to this most brutal treatment, is a speech at any time worth dying for,—perfect in its conception, arrangement, and execution, conclusive in its argument and evidence, masterly in its exposure of Executive usurpation, sublime in its moral heroism, invincible in its truthfulness, just in its personal impeachment, unsurpassed in its eloquence, and glorious in its object; that, sealed with his blood, it shall quicken the pulses of millions now living to engage in a death-grapple with the Slave Power, and go down to posterity as a rich legacy to the cause of Universal Liberty.”
The following resolution was passed unanimously, at the meeting of Ministers in Boston, immediately after the news of the assault.
“Resolved, That the murderous assault upon our honored Senator, Charles Sumner, is not only a dastardly assault upon his person, and, through him, upon the right of free speech, but also a wound which we individually feel, and by which our very hearts bleed; and whether he shall recover, or sink into a martyr’s grave,—which may God avert!—we will address ourselves unto prayer and effort that this sorrowful event may become the glorious resurrection of national virtue, and the triumph of Freedom.”
At the Political Radical Abolition Convention, held at Syracuse, N. Y., May 28th and 29th, 1856, on motion of Lewis Tappan, the following was unanimously adopted.
“Resolved, That we hold in grateful admiration the character of the Hon. Charles Sumner; that we honor the splendid services he has rendered to the cause of Liberty; that we deeply sympathize with him in his present sufferings in consequence of the cowardly and brutal attack of the villain who dared to assault the intrepid advocate of the Slave in the American Senate Chamber; and that we hope and pray that Mr. Sumner’s valuable life will be spared until he shall witness the complete overthrow of the execrable system that now brutalizes our brethren in bondage, and brutalizes their oppressors, and disgraces our country.”
At New York there was a meeting immense in numbers and unprecedented in character, of which George Griswold was Chairman. Among the speakers were William C. Bryant, Daniel Lord, the eminent lawyer, Samuel B. Ruggles, Charles King, President of Columbia College, Edwin B. Morgan, John A. Stevens, Joseph Hoxie, and Henry Ward Beecher. The following resolutions were moved by Hon. William M. Evarts, afterwards Attorney-General.
“Whereas it has become certainly known to the citizens of New York, upon a formal investigation by a Committee of the Senate of the United States, and otherwise, that on the 22d day of May, instant, the Honorable Charles Sumner [long, loud, and enthusiastic cheers], Senator from Massachusetts, while in his seat in the Senate Chamber, was violently assaulted with a weapon of attack by Preston S. Brooks [loud hisses and groans for Brooks], a member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina, and beaten to insensibility upon the floor of the Senate, which was stained with his blood; that the assailant sought the Senate Chamber to perpetrate this outrage, provided with his weapon and attended by a follower in its aid, and, taking his unarmed victim unawares and in a posture which renders defence impossible, by a heavy blow utterly disabled him, and with cruel repetition inflicted frequent and bloody wounds upon his prostrate, helpless form, with which wounds Senator Sumner now languishes in peril of his life; that the sole reason alleged for this violent outrage was a speech made by Senator Sumner in debate upon a public question then pending in the Senate, no word of which was, during its delivery, made the subject of objection by the President of the Senate or any Senator, and which was concluded on the 20th day of May, instant: Now, at a public meeting of citizens of New York, convened without distinction of party [applause], and solely in reference to the public event above recited, it is
“Resolved, That we sincerely and respectfully tender our sympathy to Senator Sumner in the personal outrage inflicted upon him, and the anguish and peril which he has suffered and still suffers from that outrage, and that we feel and proclaim that his grievance and his wounds are not of private concern [cheers], but were received in the public service, and every blow which fell upon his head we recognize and resent as an insult and injury to our honor and dignity as a people, and a vital attack upon the Constitution of the Union. [Loud cheers and applause.]
“Resolved, That we discover no trace or trait, either in the meditation, the preparation, or the execution of this outrage by Preston S. Brooks [loud hisses and groans for Brooks], which should qualify the condemnation with which we now pronounce it brutal, murderous, and cowardly. [Continued cheers, and cries of ‘Read it again!’ Mr. Evarts repeated the last clause. Voices,—‘Yes, cowardly! that’s the word!—cowardly!’ Another voice,—‘Now let him send another challenge!’]
…
“Resolved, That we have witnessed with unmixed astonishment and the deepest regret the clear, bold, exulting espousal of the outrage, and justification and honor of its perpetrator, exhibited by Senators and Representatives of the Slave States, without distinction of party, in their public places, and by the public press, without distinction of party, in the same portion of our country, and that, upon the present state of the evidence, we are forced most unwillingly to the sad conclusion that the general community of the Slave States is in complicity in feeling and principle with the system of intimidation and violence, for the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press, of which the assault on Senator Sumner is the most signal, but not the singular instance. [Applause.] That we sincerely hope, that, on fuller and calmer consideration, the public men and public press and the general community of the Slave States will give us a distinct manifestation of their sentiments which will enable us, too, to reconsider our present judgment. [Applause.]”
At this meeting the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher spoke as follows.
“Had Mr. Sumner been a man of war, or a man of brawling words, had he been any other than what he was, the case could not have been so strong. I know not that there would have been found throughout all the land one man so fit to be offered up as a sacrifice for Liberty, a man so worthy to be offered up on the great altar of our country. [Applause.] No aspiring politician has he been. His past career has not been marked by ambitious clutchings. A lawyer by profession, but a scholar by instinct,—a man of refined ideas, of social taste,—he was seized by one of those sudden gusts of popular feeling which break out occasionally in all our Free States, and elected to the Senate of the United States. While his election was yet pending, I had the pleasure of conversation with him in his office, I being a clergyman, and confessor on that occasion [laughter], and he told me the secrets of his heart. I am sure, that, although not without honorable and manly ambition, this man had no desire for that position. Since he has been in Washington, his course has been that which became a man, a Christian, a gentleman, a statesman, and a scholar. He has everywhere not merely observed the rules of decorum, but, with true chivalry, with the lowliest gentleness, he has maintained himself void of offence, so that the only complaint which I have ever heard of Senator Sumner has been this, that he, by his shrinking and sensitive nature, was not fit for the ‘rough and tumble’ of politics in our day.…
“Mr. Sumner had no other weapon in his hand than his pen. Ah, Gentlemen, here we have it! The symbol of the North is the pen; the symbol of the South is the bludgeon.”
At a public meeting in Canandaigua, of which Hon. Francis Granger, Postmaster-General under President Harrison, was Chairman, the following resolutions were adopted.
“1. Resolved, That in this premeditated and brutal attack upon Senator Sumner, for words spoken by him in legislative debate, and in the conscientious discharge of his public duty, we behold not only a malignant outrage upon the person of a distinguished public servant, but also a wanton violation of the right of freedom of speech,—a right which is guarantied to every Representative, and through him to his constituents, by the express provisions of the Constitution,—a right without which the office of the legislator would be powerless and the liberties of the people would become extinct, and which is therefore ‘inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.’
“2. Resolved, That, participating in the righteous indignation which was recently expressed by thousands of freemen assembled in the city of New York, ‘we discover no trace or trait, either in the meditation, the preparation, or the execution of this outrage, which should qualify the condemnation with which we now pronounce it brutal, murderous, and cowardly.’
…
“5. Resolved, That to the Hon. Charles Sumner, the man of pure and generous qualities, the accomplished scholar, the distinguished lawyer, and the able and eloquent Senator, we respectfully and sincerely offer our sympathies in the pain and peril which he has suffered and is still suffering from this despicable assault; and we earnestly hope that his restoration to health may be speedy and complete, and that he may long be spared to vindicate the great popular rights at which the blows inflicted upon him were aimed.”
At Providence, Rhode Island, there was a public meeting, in which the most distinguished citizens took part. Among the able speakers was the Rev. Dr. Hedge, who said, among other things:—
“I have heard of crimes which betoken greater pravity of heart, but never have I heard or read of an act more flagitious in its open defiance of sacred rights, in its ruthless disregard of all humane sentiment and shameless violation of decency and order. We shall form a more just conception of the outrage by viewing it abstractedly from any interest we may feel in it as fellow-citizens of the parties concerned. Suppose we had read, among the items of recent transatlantic intelligence, that Count Buol, at the Peace Congress in Paris, offended by some expression of the Earl of Clarendon, had felled him to the ground with murderous blows. Imagine what a thrill of horror would have struck through the heart of Europe, and how the wrath of the nations would have chased the perpetrator of such an act from the face of the earth. Or suppose Mr. Hume, of the British Commons, had entered the House of Lords, and beaten Lord Brougham with a club until he was borne senseless from the spot. “With what confidence should we look to be advised by the next steamer that the culprit had been doomed to expiate his crime by the direst penalty which the laws of England have provided!—if, indeed, the English law has made any provision for such a case, and not rather, as the law of the Roman Commonwealth did the crime of parricide, left it unprovided for, as an impossible, unsupposable enormity.
“One supposition more. Conceive the situation of the parties in the case before us reversed. Suppose Senator Butler, who has said severer things of Mr. Sumner than Mr. Sumner of him, to have been the victim, and some member from Massachusetts, perhaps a far-away cousin of Mr. Sumner, to have been the aggressor. Does any one here present imagine that the ‘gallant relative’ in that case would be going about unmolested on a paltry bail of five hundred dollars? If the trusty bowie-knife or omnipresent revolver of Southern chivalry did not otherwise dispose of him, does any one doubt that the summary and prompt vengeance of Congress and the law would have been demanded by one side and conceded by the other?”
Here is a brief extract from the speech of Rev. Dr. Wayland.
“The question before us is simply, whether you, here and now, consent to this change in our form of government, and accept the position which it assigns to you,—and whether you agree to transmit to your children this precious inheritance? For myself, I must decline the arrangement. I was born free, and I cannot be made a slave. I bow before the universal intelligence and conscience of my country, and when I think this defective, I claim the privilege of using my poor endeavors to enlighten it. But to submit my reason to the bludgeon of a bully or the pistol of an assassin I cannot; nor can I tamely behold a step taken which leads inevitably to such a consummation.
“You see that I consider this as a case of unusual solemnity. It becomes us to deliberate wisely, to resolve in view of the future as well as the past, and prepare ourselves to carry our resolutions out to all their legitimate conclusions, and, in doing this, to pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
At a public meeting in Chapman Hall, Boston, immediately after the assault, Wendell Phillips said:—
“Nobody needs now to read this speech of Charles Sumner to know whether it is good. We measure the amount of the charge by the length of the rebound. [Cheers.] When the spear, driven to the quick, makes the Devil start up in his own likeness, we may be sure it is the spear of Ithuriel. [Great applause.] That is my way of measuring the speech which has produced this glorious result. Oh, yes, glorious! for the world will yet cover every one of those scars with laurels. [Enthusiastic cheering.] Sir, he must not die! We need him yet, as the vanguard leader of the hosts of Liberty. No, he shall yet come forth from that sick-chamber, and every gallant heart in the Commonwealth be ready to kiss his very footsteps. [Loud cheers.]
…
“Perhaps, Mr. Chairman and fellow-citizens, I am wrong; but I accept that speech of my loved and honored friend, and with an unmixed approbation,—read it with envious admiration,—take it all. [Cheers.] Yes, what word is there in it that any one of us would not have been proud to utter? Not one! [Great applause.] In utter scorn of the sickly taste, of the effeminate scholarship, that starts back, in delicate horror, at a bold illustration, I dare to say there is no animal God has condescended to make that man may not venture to name. [Applause.] And if any ground of complaint is supposable in regard to this comparison, which shocks the delicacy of some men and some presses, it is the animal, not Mr. Douglas, that has reason to complain. [Thunders of applause, renewed again and again.]
…
“Mr. Chairman, there are some characters whose worth is so clear and self-evident, so tried and approved, so much without flaw, that we lay them on the shelf,—and when we hear of any act attributed to them, no matter in what doubtful terms it be related, we judge the single act by the totality of the character, by our knowledge of the whole man, letting a lifetime of uprightness explain a doubtful hour. Now, with regard to our honored Senator, we know that his taste, intellect, and heart are all of this quality,—a total, unflawed gem; and I know, when we get the full and complete report of what he said, the ipsissima verba in which it was spoken, that the most fastidious taste of the most delicate scholar will not be able to place finger on a word of Charles Sumner which the truest gentleman would not gladly indorse. [Loud cheers.] I place the foot of my uttermost contempt on those members of the press of Boston that have anything to say in criticism of his language, while he lies thus prostrate and speechless,—our champion beaten to the ground for the noblest word Massachusetts ever spoke in the Senate. [Prolonged applause.]”
A great meeting in Faneuil Hall was remarkable for the speeches, of which a few extracts are given.
His Excellency, Henry J. Gardner, at the time Governor of Massachusetts, said:—
“Were this a party occasion, my feet would not be upon this platform; were this to stir up sectional animosity or promote local discord, my voice would never reverberate from these arches above my head; but when the State of Massachusetts is attacked in one of her dearest rights, one of her most glorious privileges, I should be recreant to my duty, I should be false to my trust, as every one who hears me would be, did I not protest against this infraction of our common rights. I wish, my friends, in order to give the greatest moral weight possible to this meeting, to give its proceedings the most cogent force, to assume in the outset that this case can in no wise, in no way, and under no consideration, be considered anything but a spontaneous expression of the sentiments of gentlemen of every party in the State of Massachusetts upon this question. The last time the eloquent and honorable Senator of Massachusetts addressed his fellow-citizens of Boston, he stood where I now stand, on the eve of the election in November last; and here, he being a Senator of Massachusetts in the Congress of the United States, and I being Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, he indulged in what he honestly believed to be facts and statements in regard to those of my friends who were striving to place me again in the post I then occupied, using no unfair, but only honest statements of the views he held; and he being still a Senator from Massachusetts, and I again her Governor, and this being the first time since then that my voice has been heard in Faneuil Hall, while I lament most deeply the circumstance which has called us together, I rejoice that it gives me an opportunity to rise superior to party feelings, to party bias, and to express my sentiments that we must stand by him who is the representative of Massachusetts, under all circumstances. [Loud cheers.] And while he represents the old Commonwealth in the United States Senate, in the performance of his constitutional duties as he understands them, I will, so help me Heaven, do all in my humble ability to strengthen his arm and encourage his heart. [Loud applause.]”
Hon. George S. Hillard said:—
“But now, when I read of this event in the Senate, of this assault upon Sumner, it seemed to me it was a very bad specimen of a very bad school. [Laughter.] And all of us were affected in the same manner, upon reading the account. What was our first exclamation? Not that it was an inhuman outrage, or a brutal outrage, but that it was cowardly. I say that the cowardliness of this attack stands out even more conspicuous, to my eye, than its brutality or its inhumanity. To approach a man imprisoned, tied hand and foot, as it were, between an arm-chair and a desk, and to strike him over the head without warning or immediate provocation, a stunning, deadly blow with a bludgeon, is, in my opinion, the act of an assassin. [Applause.] And I say, that, compared to such an act, the act of the man who meets me on the high-road, and horsewhips, or at least attempts to horsewhip me [laughter], soars to something like manliness and courage. [Cheers.]”
Hon. Peleg W. Chandler said:—
“For more than twenty years, Mr. President and fellow-citizens, I have been on terms of the closest intimacy with Charles Sumner. For more than one half that period I have been his political opponent. It is precisely because I have been, and now am, his personal friend, and it is precisely because I have been, and now am, his political opponent, that I have come here to-night,—not with the intention of speaking upon this platform, but to listen to the voices of those who are his political as well as personal friends, in relation to the great outrage which has brought a stain upon our country.
“I have heard here, Gentlemen, a great deal of sympathy expressed for Mr. Sumner. As his personal friend, I beg to say that that feeling is entirely uncalled for, if not to some extent misplaced. Have sympathy for the great martyrs of the past, for those who wear the civic crown, if you will,—but I tell you that that gentleman in Washington who now lies upon a bed of pain, whose life it may be is hanging in the balance, needs no sympathy from us. Every drop of blood shed by him in this disgraceful affair has raised up ten thousand armed men. [Applause.] Every gash upon that forehead will be covered with a political crown, let it be resisted as much as it may be resisted, here or elsewhere. [Loud cheers.] This matter is raised far above and beyond all personal considerations. It is a matter of trifling consequence to Mr. Sumner. It makes those who love him love him more,—and no man is more loved, or more to be considered, so far as the affections or friendship are concerned. Yet personal feelings are of little or no consequence in this outrage. It is a blow not merely at Massachusetts, a How not merely at the name and fame of our common country; it is a blow at constitutional liberty all the world over; it is a stab at the cause of Universal Freedom. It is aimed at all men, everywhere, who are struggling for what we now regard as our great birthright, and which we intend to transmit unimpaired to our latest posterity. [Loud cheers.]
“Whatever may be done in this matter, however, one thing is certain, one thing is sure. The blood of this Northern man, who had dared to stand up in the Senate of the United States under circumstances that would have discouraged a man of less ardor, less enthusiasm, and less courage,—that blood now stains the Senate floor; and let me tell you, that not all the water of the Potomac can wash it out. They may cry, with the great tragic queen, ‘Out, damned spot!’ but no water of this world can ever efface it. Forever, forever and aye, that stain will plead in silence for liberty, wherever man is enslaved, for humanity all over the world, for truth and for justice, now and forever. [Continued applause.]”
The meeting at Cambridge was distinguished for the character of those who took part in it, many of whom had not sympathized with Mr. Sumner in his public life. The President was Hon. Joel Parker, formerly Chief Justice of New Hampshire; and among the Vice-Presidents were Theophilus Parsons, the eminent law-writer,—C. C. Felton, afterwards President of Harvard University,—Jared Sparks, the historian,—Henry W. Longfellow,—Charles Beck, the Latin scholar,—Joseph E. Worcester, the lexicographer,—Willard Phillips, the law-writer and judge,—Joseph T. Buckingham, the well-known editor.
Professor Felton thus alluded to Mr. Sumner:—
“I know Mr. Sumner well. In former times I had a long, an intimate, and an affectionate acquaintance with him; and I feel bound to say that he is a scholar of rich and rare acquirements, a gentleman of noble qualities and generous aims, distinguished for the amenities of social life, and a companion most welcome in the society of the most generous, the most refined, the most exalted. Sir, I had nothing to do with sending Mr. Sumner to the Senate of the United States; I had no vote to cast on that occasion; and if I had had, it would not, on public grounds, have been cast for him. I shall have none to cast, when the time for another election comes; but if I had five hundred votes, every one should be given to send him back again. [Great applause.]
“Such is the man for whom ruffians lay in wait, whom they assaulted, when unarmed and defenceless, in the Senate House.”
Richard H. Dana, Jr., Esq., made an elaborate speech, of which the following is only an extract.
“But I cannot, if I would, altogether withdraw my thoughts from this personal outrage upon Mr. Sumner. Charles Sumner!
‘He is my friend,—faithful and just to me.’
I cannot allow myself to call up that scene in the Senate House, lest I should feel more than I shall be able to express or be willing to betray. Boston, his native town, has spoken. Next to Boston, there is no place so dear to him as Cambridge. He is a true son of Harvard. The best years of his early life, from fifteen to twenty-three, he spent here: the four years of college,—a fifth year which he wisely, though unusually, added to his course, for the perfecting of his classical and general studies,—and the three years of his studies in the Law School. At the Law School his attainments were not only great, but wonderful; and for purity of character, kindness, and frankness, he was respected and beloved by all. He was the friend, young as he was, the beloved friend, the frequent and honored guest of Story, of Channing, and of Allston. He was the companion of your Longfellow and your Felton. No young man was more honored by Mr. Webster—in I had almost said his better days. He was the friend of every man and of every cause that deserved to have a friend. At the bar he distinguished himself, especially in juridical literature. He was the reporter of Judge Story’s decisions, and editor of the Jurist, where the young student will find the copious results of his enthusiastic labors in his then beloved profession. When he went abroad, he took nothing in his hand that his own merits had not given him. He had not one claim that did not rest on character, learning, and talents. Still under the age of thirty, he became in Europe the honored friend of men whose names have honored the world. Turning his back upon the attractions of dissipation and fashion, he devoted himself to the society of the learned, the wise, the philanthropic, and to all great and good objects. Thomas Carlyle, in a letter to America, says, “We have had popular Sumner here,”—so universally was he liked. In Paris, while the Northeastern Boundary question was agitating England and America, and attracting much of the attention of Europe, Sumner shut himself into the libraries and public archives, and produced a treatise upon the subject, thought then to be almost exhausted, which, published in the great journals of Europe, and brought before Parliaments and Councils, changed the aspect of the question in Europe, and redounded to his great honor at home.
“After his return, under the influence of Dr. Channing, and in sympathy with Dr. Howe and others, he devoted much of his time to the great philanthropic and social problems of the day,—Slavery, Pauperism, Crime, and Prison Discipline,—and gradually the overshadowing social, political, and national importance of the Slave question drew him first before the people and into public life. When his sentiments on the Slave question were to be sustained at the risk of his ease, his interests, his friendships, and his popularity, he put them all to the hazard. When proposed as candidate for the Senate, the highest office Massachusetts can give, while his election hung trembling in the balance week after week, when one or two votes would secure it, and this or that thing said or done it was thought would gain them, nothing would induce Charles Sumner to take one step from his regular course from his house to his office to speak to any man; he would not make one bow the more, nor put his hand to a line, however simple or unobjectionable, to secure the result. I know—I have right to say this—I know that in this course he resisted temptations and advice and persuasions which few men would not have yielded to. He was elected. It was a tribute to character and talent.
“When he went to Washington, to fight almost alone, with only two or three allies, discountenanced by colleagues and cried down by the great majority, to fight the fight for Freedom, he determined not to speak on the subject of Slavery until he had done all in his power to secure the confidence and good-will of his opponents. So far did he carry this, that his friends here feared that he was bending before the idol, as others had bent. He secured his footing as well as it could be secured. All but fanatics for Slavery admitted his claims to personal affection and public respect. On this basis he took his stand for Freedom. You have seen the result. Few men in America have ever had, perhaps no one man now has, so many readers as he. His opponents say that he burns the midnight lamp. He does. And
‘How far that little candle throws his beams!’
His opponents, too, burn the midnight lamp; but, as you remember, Sir, the great Athenian said, there is a difference between the objects on which their lamp throws its glare and his.”
Among the meetings, that of Concord deserves mention. The resolutions, introduced by Hon. E. Rockwood Hoar, were as follows.
“Resolved, That we have heard with feelings of the deepest indignation of the cowardly and brutal assault upon a Senator of Massachusetts, in the Senate Chamber of the United States, for words spoken in debate, in his place, upon the floor of the Senate.
“Resolved, That this dastardly outrage has in itself dishonored no one but the ruffian who committed it,—but that the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States will make themselves accomplices of the criminal, and deliberate partakers of the guilt and infamy of the crime, if they shall fail to visit upon him speedy and condign punishment.
“Resolved, That, if there are those who imagine that the voice of a Senator of Massachusetts can be silenced, or the expression of the deliberate opinions of her people upon public measures and public men can be stifled and suppressed, by the terrors of assassination, we know that in Charles Sumner they have mistaken the man, and we will endeavor to show that they have mistaken the Commonwealth.
“Resolved, That, in this assault upon our distinguished Senator, the right of free debate in Congress, guarantied by the Constitution of the United States, has been dangerously assailed; and all men who are not willing to see it wholly destroyed are called upon, personally, to rebuke the outrage, and all its abettors, defenders, and apologists.
“Resolved, That we thank Mr. Sumner with our whole hearts for his heroic defence of the Kansas settlers, and his solemn arraignment before the country of the perpetrators of the great Crime against that unhappy and conquered province.
“Resolved, That we have a right to look to the House of Representatives to vindicate the honor of the country in the eyes of the civilized world, by expelling from their body a member with whom none but bullies and savages can hereafter fitly associate.”
These were followed by a speech from Ralph Waldo Emerson, of which this is an extract.
“The outrage is the more shocking from the singularly pure character of its victim. Mr. Sumner’s position is exceptional in its honor. He had not taken his degrees in the caucus and in hack politics. It is notorious, that, in the long time when his election was pending, he refused to take a single step to secure it. He would not so much as go up to the State House to shake hands with this or that person whose good-will was reckoned important by his friends. He was elected. It was a homage to character and talent. In Congress he did not rush into a party position. He sat long silent and studious. His friends, I remember, were told that they would find Sumner a man of the world, like the rest: ‘’Tis quite impossible to be at Washington and not bend; he will bend, as the rest have done.’ Well, he did not bend. He took his position, and kept it. He meekly bore the cold shoulder from some of his New England colleagues, the hatred of his enemies, the pity of the indifferent, cheered by the love and respect of good men with whom he acted, and has stood for the North, a little in advance of all the North, and therefore without adequate support. He has never faltered in his maintenance of justice and freedom. He has gone beyond the large expectation of his friends in his increasing ability and his manlier tone.
“I have heard that some of his political friends tax him with indolence or negligence in refusing to make electioneering speeches, or otherwise to bear his part in the labor which party organization requires. I say it to his honor. But more to his honor are the faults which his enemies lay to his charge. I think, Sir, if Mr. Sumner had any vices, we should be likely to hear of them. They have fastened their eyes like microscopes, now for five years, on every act, word, manner, and movement, to find a flaw,—and with what result? His opponents accuse him neither of drunkenness, nor debauchery, nor job, nor peculation, nor rapacity, nor personal aims of any kind. No: but with what? Why, beyond this charge, which it is impossible was ever sincerely made, that he broke over the proprieties of debate, I find him accused of publishing his opinion of the Nebraska conspiracy in a letter to the People of the United States, with discourtesy. Then, that he is an Abolitionist: as if every sane human being were not an Abolitionist, or a believer that all men should be free. And the third crime he stands charged with is, that his speeches were written before they were spoken: which of course must be true in Sumner’s case,—as it was true of Webster, of Adams, of Calhoun, of Burke, of Chatham, of Demosthenes, of every first-rate speaker that ever lived. It is the high compliment he pays to the intelligence of the Senate and of the country. When the same reproach was cast upon the first orator of ancient times by some caviller of his day, he said, ‘I should be ashamed to come with one unconsidered word before such an assembly.’
“Mr. Chairman, when I think of these most small faults as the worst which party hatred could allege, I think I may borrow the language which Bishop Burnet applied to Sir Isaac Newton, and say, that Charles Sumner ‘has the whitest soul I ever knew.’
“Well, Sir, this noble head, so comely and so wise, must be the target for a pair of bullies to beat with clubs! The murderer’s brand shall stamp their foreheads, wherever they may wander in the earth. But I wish, Sir, that the high respects of this meeting shall be expressed to Mr. Sumner, that a copy of the resolutions that have been read may be forwarded to him. I wish that he may know the shudder of terror that ran through all this community on the first tidings of this brutal attack. Let him hear that every man of worth in New England loves his virtues,—that every mother thinks of him as the protector of families,—that every friend of Freedom thinks him the friend of Freedom. And if our arms at this distance cannot defend him from assassins, we confide the defence of a life so precious to all honorable men and true patriots, and to the Almighty Maker of men.”
At a meeting in Worcester, Hon. Charles Allen, the eminent Judge, and formerly a Representative in Congress, said:—
“Now, Sir, we have met to express our warm feelings of indignation—at what? That Charles Sumner has been stricken down by the hand of a brutal ruffian? No, Sir: that is but a small portion of the question which is presented for our consideration at this time. Not by the hand of Brooks of South Carolina, alone, did he fall; but it was through a concerted effort, which has not been denied in the House of Representatives, although the question was evaded by Mr. Brooks, declaring that he had informed no one of the time when it should take place; but he did not deny—and it is well known in Washington, and will be throughout the country, that this attack upon Mr. Sumner—that this slaughter of Mr. Sumner, for such was the purpose—was concerted among Southern men, and that Brooks was but the base instrument by which the purpose was to be carried into effect. Sir, we must hold, not Mr. Brooks responsible alone, but all those who combined with him to do this foul deed,—all those—and you will find there will be hosts in another section of the country—who will applaud the act, and profess to honor the man who was put forward to perpetrate this deed. And, Sir, if we consider it merely as a combination of slaveholders against our Senator, and nothing more, we shall not reach the magnitude of the question open for our consideration. That blow was not meant for Mr. Sumner alone. It was meant for the State which he represented. It was the State of Massachusetts whose honor was outraged by that act. It was her majesty which was stricken down in the person of her Senator. It is her body that lies bleeding, and demands retribution at the hands of her children. Shall retribution not come? Shall there not be a voice from one end of Massachusetts to the other, calling aloud for retribution upon the perpetrator, and the aiders and abettors of that foul act? [Loud cries of ‘Yes,’ and applause.]”
The voice of the Young Men of Boston found utterance at a large and enthusiastic meeting of the Mercantile Library Association, held at their rooms, June 6, 1856, when the following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted.
“Whereas the Hon. Charles Sumner, Senator in Congress from this Commonwealth, and an honorary member of this Association, has been most brutally assaulted in his seat in Congress for words uttered in debate: Therefore
“Resolved, That it is with feelings of profound sorrow and shame that we are obliged to recognize in this act a cowardly and base assault upon the rights of free speech, and to regard this indignity, perpetrated upon the person of our honored and beloved Senator, as an insult to the city of Boston and its institutions, the State of Massachusetts, and our common country.
“Resolved, That the members of the Mercantile Library Association of Boston, without distinction of party, most respectfully tender to the Hon. Charles Sumner their kindest feelings of sympathy and esteem, and earnestly hope, that, by the blessing of Divine Providence, he may resume his seat in Congress, and reiterate those principles of humanity which every institution, whether political or literary, should most earnestly espouse.
“Resolved, That the Corresponding Secretary of this Association is hereby requested to furnish the Hon. Charles Sumner with an appropriate copy of these resolves.”
The sentiments of the medical profession appear in a speech and toast by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, at the dinner of the Massachusetts Medical Society, at the Revere House, Boston.
“Look into the chamber where our own fellow-citizen, struck down without warning by the hand of brutal violence, lies prostrate, and think what fearful issues hang on the skill or incompetence of those who have his precious life in charge. One little error, and the ignis sacer, the fiery plague of the wounded, spreads his angry blush over the surface, and fever and delirium are but the preludes of deadlier symptoms. One slight neglect, and the brain, oppressed with the products of disease, grows dreamy, and then drowsy, its fine energies are palsied, and too soon the heart that filled it with generous blood is still forever. It took but a little scratch from a glass, broken at his daughter’s wedding, to snatch from life the great anatomist and surgeon, Spigelius, almost at the very age of him for whose recovery we look, not without anxious solicitude.
“At such a moment as this, more than at any other, we feel the dignity, the awful responsibility, of the healing art. Let but that life be sacrificed, and left unavenged, and the wounds of that defenceless head, like the foul witch’s blow on her enchanted image, are repeated on the radiant forehead of Liberty herself, and flaw the golden circlet we had vainly written with the sacred name of Union!
“‘Dî, prohibete minas! Dî, talem avertite casum!’
“I give you, Mr. President,—
“The Surgeons of the City of Washington.—God grant them wisdom! for they are dressing the wounds of a mighty empire, and of uncounted generations.”
Hon. Josiah Quincy, in the eighty-fifth year of his age, addressed a letter to the Unitarian Festival, in which he said:—
“The hostile irruption of two members of Congress into the Senate Chamber of the United States, openly armed with deadly bludgeons, and probably secretly, according to the habits of their breed, with bowie-knives and revolvers, and there prostrating on the floor with their bludgeons a Senator of the United States, sitting peaceably in his seat, unconscious of danger, and from his position incapable of defence, inflicting upon him blows, until he sunk senseless under them, and which, if they do not prove mortal, it was not for want of malignant intent in the cowardly assassins,—and all this for words publicly spoken in the Senate, in the course of debate, allowed by its presiding officer to be spoken, and exceeding not one hair’s breadth any line of truth or duty: this is the fifth, and the climax, of this series of outrages, unparalleled, nefarious, and brutal.”
At an indignation meeting in the town of Quincy, this venerable citizen spoke as follows.
“The blow struck upon the head of Charles Sumner did not fall upon him alone. It was a blow purposely aimed at the North. It was a blow struck at the very Tree of Liberty. It speaks to us in words not to be mistaken. It says to us that Northern men shall not be heard in the halls of Congress, except at the peril of the bowie-knife, the bludgeon, and revolver. Nor is this any new thing.
“The bludgeon, heretofore only brandished, has at last been brought down; and now is the time for the North to fight. Charles Sumner needs not our sympathy: if he dies, his name will be immortal,—his name will be enrolled with the names of Warren, Sidney, and Russell; if he lives, he is destined to be the light of the nation.”
Hon. Edward Everett, at Taunton, opened his “Address on the Character of Washington” by allusion to the assault.
“With the satisfaction which I feel in addressing you at the present time are mingled the profoundest anxiety and grief. An irrepressible sadness takes possession of my heart at the occurrences of the past week, and the most serious apprehensions force themselves upon me that events are already in train, with an impulse too mighty to be resisted, which will cause our beloved country to weep tears of blood through all her borders for generations to come. The civil war,—for such it is,—with its horrid train of pillage, fire, and slaughter, carried on, without the slightest provocation, against the infant settlements of our brethren on the frontier of the Union,—the worse than civil war which has for months raged unrebuked at the capital of the Union, and has at length, by an act of lawless violence, of which I know no parallel in the history of Constitutional Government, stained the floor of the Senate Chamber with the blood of an unarmed, defenceless man, and he a Senator of Massachusetts,—ah, my friends, these are events which, for the good name, the peace, the safety of the country, for the cause of free institutions throughout the world, it were worth all the gold of California to blot from the record of the past week. They sicken the heart of the good citizen, of the patriot, of the Christian; they awaken a gloomy doubt whether the sacrifices and the sufferings endured by our fathers, that they might found a purer, higher, and freer civilization on this Western Continent than the world had yet seen, have not been endured in vain.”
William H. Hurlbut, of New York, the eminent journalist, wrote thus, under date of June 7, 1856.
“The newspapers, which have for so long kept the millions of the North as watchers about your bed, now gladden all our hearts with the news that you are soon to stand again upon that floor which promises to become as sacred in the annals of Freedom as is the arena of the Coliseum in the story of our faith.…
“Nothing, I am sure, could so have touched and roused every class of Northern society, nothing could so have put the terrible realities of the issue we must confront before the most unwilling and the most indifferent minds, as the atrocious deed which, imbecile as it was atrocious, makes the firmest enemy of Slavery the perpetual representative alike of Northern honor and of Northern manhood, and enlists around you, as the perpetual Senator of Massachusetts, every instinct, passion, and necessity of Northern civilization.
“It is your rare good fortune to be able to wear the martyr’s crown into the battle of life, and I really do not see how any true man can have any words for you but those of congratulation and of stern exultation. The scoundrelly simpleton who struck you fled from the recoil of his weapon; but there will be a fiercer recoil from that blow, and a flowing of blood not so easily to be stanched.
“I think, if you could have seen the meeting at the Tabernacle, you would have marked the 22d of May with white in your calendar: it is marked with red in the calendar of our country.
“I am going to England in a few weeks, but I hope, before I go, to hear that you are quite reëstablished in health, and once more face to face with the lions,—I beg the pardon of the forest-king,—with the tigers of the Senate House.
“In this season of our national degradation, it will be something, that, when Englishmen talk to me of their dead Miltons and Marvells and Hampdens and Sidneys, I can answer them with a living name, which, like these names, shall never cease to live.”
Dr. John W. Francis, the eminent physician, of New York, wrote, under date of October 9, 1856:—
“I now write a line or two for the purpose of renewing to you the sentiments I cherish in your behalf, and my admiration of your noble patriotism and commanding eloquence. I had read carefully your classical speeches, and rejoiced that there was at least one in the Senate who to rich culture added the graces of finished oratory and the abiding principles of constitutional freedom. Yes, my dear Sir, I have been for several months, amidst many cares, absorbed on the consequences which I inferred must follow the brutal assault which you received. I almost at once exclaimed, That blow will effect a revolution in our political relationship; yet I pray God that the Union may continue intact under its momentous influences. You have, by your parliamentary demonstrations, evinced the heroism of the patriots of the earlier days of our Republic; you have stamped your Senatorial career with the impress of the loftiest intrepidity and moral courage. You are destined to occupy an ample page in your country’s history. These expressions, dear Sir, flow from a full heart and a deep conviction.”
Governor Banks, in his annual message to the Legislature of Massachusetts, January, 1858, associated the violence in Kansas with that upon Mr. Sumner.
“Nothing but the direct intervention of Federal influence can force through Congress the Lecompton Constitution; and if the Government, with the sanction of the people, can force upon Kansas a Constitution conceived in fraud and violence, it will be the weightiest blow ever given against free governments.
“Violence and fraud, if successful in this instance, will be repeated whenever occasion demands it. It will not be limited to Territories or States. No shrine will be held sacred. The Senate Chamber of the United States has been already invaded, and this State was for a time bereft of a part of its representative power by an act of fearful wrong, committed upon the most cherished and brilliant of her sons, while in the performance of constitutional duty.”
The following extract from a poem by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe appeared in the New York Tribune at the time.
“A WOMAN’S WORD FOR THE HOUR.
“While she yet spake, from the heaven God’s thunder had fallen,
And I heard: ‘The crime, not the paltry offender, so stirs us.’
Take heart, thou lone one! a champion leaps to defend thee,
Armed with the loftier issue, the art and the moral,—
Eloquent lips, and the integral heart of Conviction,
Powerful still when the arm of the spoiler has crumbled,—
Doctrine of Right, and the Old-World tradition of Freedom,—
Doctrine of Justice, thank God, no New-England invention,—
Known to the ancients, known to the gods and their poets,
Known to great Tully, whose pillars of perfect marble
Stand in the temple of Truth, his remembrance for ages.
There shall thy record be, Knight of the wronged and the helpless!
There shall thy weapon be kept, with the motto, ‘I hurled it.’
How hast thou hardened the living heart and quick feelings
To stand up and speak the great spirit-dividing sentence,—
To stand, a mark for the thief and assassin to aim at!
More than our envy, more than thy hope, was thy guerdon,
Setting the seal of thy blood to the word of thy courage!
If but the pure of heart in a pure cause should suffer,
Sumner, the task thou hast chosen was thine for its fitness.
Never was paschal victim more stainlessly offered,—
Never on milder brow gleamed the crown of the martyr.
“Stand thence, a mark for the better and nobler ambition!
For they are holy, the wounds that the Southerner dealt thee:
Count them blessed, and blessed the mother that bore thee.
“Would that the thing I best love, ay, the son of my bosom,
Suffering beside thee, had shared the high deed and its glory!
Shall we bend over those wounds with our tears and our balsams,—
Tears warm with rapture, balsams of costliest clearness?
Take thy deserving, then; wear it for life on thy forehead!
Crowned with those scars, shalt thou enter the just man’s heaven,—
Crowned with those scars, shalt thou stand in the record of heroes!
“If earthly counsel were vain, should the heavens befriend thee!
Sinking Orion, flung far in the wrath of the tyrant,
Calls not in vain on the dumb heart of Nature to help him:
Lo! the deep comes to his aid, and its monsters upbear him;
Hesper stoops over the Ocean her long shining tresses,
Till he is drawn by them up to the zone of her beauty,
And, like fair sisters, the stars close around him forever!”
The wide-spread, spontaneous sentiment of the North found echo in Europe, especially in England. Among various testimonies, the following is selected from the Morning Star of London, June 24, 1856.
“The assault upon Mr. Sumner stands without parallel in the annals of civilized communities. While sitting at his desk in the Senate Chamber, quietly engaged in writing, a member of the other legislative body, the House of Representatives, deliberately walks up to him, and, taking advantage of his utterly helpless position, where he could neither escape nor defend himself, begins to beat him violently upon his bare head with a heavy cane, until he falls down stunned and insensible, covered with his own blood, the cowardly ruffian not desisting even then, when the form of his antagonist lay prostrate and senseless before him. While this is taking place, a number of his brother Senators stand round and make no attempt to stay the arm of the assailant; some of them, indeed, mounted guard expressly to prevent interference. Such conduct is utterly inexplicable to us in this country.
…
“If anything could aggravate the inherent brutality of this act, it is the character of the man upon whom it was committed. For Mr. Sumner is a gentleman in whom there meets a combination of qualities adapted in a rare degree to inspire the affectionate attachment of friends, and to command courtesy and respect from all generous and honorable opponents: a man of a chivalrous and heroic spirit, of a refined and sensitive nature, of a powerful and cultivated intellect disciplined by hard study and adorned with profound and various learning, who has led a life of irreproachable purity and active benevolence,—the favorite pupil of Story, the intimate friend and disciple of Channing, the chosen associate of the finest living minds of America, Quincy, Sparks, Longfellow, Goodrich, Dana, Everett, Bryant, Emerson.
…
“And when the greatest of American orators and statesmen, Daniel Webster, was stricken down by the hand of death, Mr. Sumner was the man whom the State of Massachusetts chose from among her sons, as most worthy to be his successor. And most nobly has he vindicated the wisdom of their choice. Taking small interest in the ordinary conflicts of parties, he has stood forth, from the moment that he entered the Senate, as the courageous and resolute champion of the slave. His speeches are elaborate and masterly orations, with perhaps almost too much of classical stateliness and refinement for the tribune. Over the hard and dry abstraction of politics he throws the glancing lights of his fertile and polished fancy, and relieves the tedium of debate by the rich stores of an elegant and varied erudition. The speech that brought upon him the recent attack was perhaps the greatest of all his efforts. It is in every respect a magnificent production. With a lofty and relentless logic he tears away the covering veil of sophistry with which the Southern members had sought to conceal the naked iniquity of the transactions in Kansas. There are, no doubt, passages of terrible severity, but not, we think, exceeding the license of parliamentary debate among ourselves. And the most conclusive testimony to the power of the orator is afforded by the desperate extremities to which it reduced his discomfited foes.
“We have no words of commiseration to offer to Mr. Sumner. God grant only that a life so valuable may be spared, and he will occupy in the estimation of all men, at home and abroad, whose judgment he would value, a prouder position than he ever occupied before. He stood in the vanguard of Freedom, and the marks of the ruffianly outrage inflicted upon him, which he will probably bear to the grave, he will wear as more honorable scars than ever warrior brought from a battle-field.”
This record of opinion at the North, echoed from Europe, may be closed by words from an important journal at New York, The Courier and Enquirer, in the summer of 1856.
“The fact is incontestable, that, when the Massachusetts Senator again crosses the threshold of that Senate Chamber, Slavery will have to confront the most formidable foe it ever had to face before the public eye. He will come with every muscle braced and every sinew strung by the sense of measureless personal wrong; but infinitely more than that, he will come armed with the indignation and shielded by the moral support of the whole North. Hitherto he has figured but in one character, the assailant of Slavery; henceforth he will be also the accredited assertor and champion of the most sacred right of freedom of speech, and as such will command tenfold greater consideration. His antagonists have affected to despise him before, and to treat him with scorn. The day for that has passed. The public man, who has once been the occasion of such an outburst of sympathy and good-will as has within the last week sprung from the mouth of millions upon millions of his countrymen, is no longer a man to be disdained. He has henceforth position, power, and security, beyond any of his adversaries. Let his sentiments be what they may, his free utterance of them hereafter becomes an assured thing, insomuch as that utterance will serve as the best of all possible tests of that freedom of debate which has once been outraged in his person, and which it is the present determination of the North shall be maintained at all hazards.”
V.
INJURIES AND CONTINUED DISABILITY OF MR. SUMMER.
Senator Butler, in reply to Mr. Sumner, June 12, 1856, remarked on his absence from his seat as follows.
“If I give credence to the testimony of Dr. Boyle, I see no reason why he should not be present. For anything that appears in that testimony, if he had been an officer of the Army, and had not appeared the next day on the battle-field, he would have deserved to be cashiered.”[152]
This fling was so agreeable to the Senator that he repeated it, with a variation, on the second day of his speech.
“After all that has been said and done, on a post bellum examination, what is it? A fight in the Senate Chamber, resulting in two flesh wounds, which ought not to have detained him from the Senate. Being rather a handsome man, perhaps he would not like to expose himself by making his appearance for some time; but if he had been in the Army, there was no reason why he should not go to the field the next day; and he would deserve to be cashiered, if he did not go.”[153]
After such remarks in open Senate, it was easy for the press in sympathy with Slavery to assert that Mr. Sumner had received no injury, and that his reported disability was a pretence for the benefit of his political party.
At the time of the assault Mr. Sumner was in perfect health, without any weakness or disturbing incident. Having confidence in the native force of his constitution, he looked forward to a very early restoration, thinking that the injuries he had received would yield easily to Nature. His disappointment affords another instance of the extent to which patients are deceived with regard to their true condition, which in his case was revealed tardily. He had hoped to resume his seat in a few days. Months and years passed, leaving him an invalid.
On the healing of the flesh wounds, he found himself still a sufferer from a pressure on the brain, with weakness in the spinal column. The latter became more positive with time. First a guest of F. P. Blair, Esq., at Silver Spring, near Washington, he was able early in July to reach Philadelphia, where he found rest at the house of Rev. William H. Furness. Here he came under the medical care of Dr. Caspar Wister. From Philadelphia he went to Cape May, where he was welcomed by the family of James T. Furness, Esq., at their cottage. Here he was very feeble, so that his kind hosts were alarmed with regard to him. From Cape May he went to Cresson, an elevated place in Pennsylvania, where he stayed with Dr. R. M. Jackson. Once more in Philadelphia at the beginning of September, he was welcomed by his hosts of Cape May, with whom he remained until his return to Boston at the beginning of November. This return was postponed by the advice of his physician, who was unwilling that he should expose himself to the excitement of such an event.
In Boston he was treated by Dr. Marshall S. Perry, in consultation with the venerable physician, Dr. James Jackson. Here he remained several months, most of the time in the house, on his bed. He did not reach Washington until just before the close of the session of Congress, but in season to determine by his vote the fate of the tariff of 1857.[154] On the 4th of March he was sworn as Senator for the second term, and on the 7th of March sailed for Havre in the Steamer Fulton. Still confident in his recuperative force, and underrating his injuries, his object was simply rest and recreation, rather than medical treatment. After some time in Paris, he travelled in France, Switzerland, England, and Scotland, including a stay in London. While in Edinburgh he became acquainted with George Combe, the eminent phrenologist and physiologist, who, taking a strong interest in his case, wrote to Sir James Clark, the Queen’s physician, for his opinion upon it. The two united in advising against an early return to public duties; but Mr. Sumner felt constrained to try himself at Washington. Accordingly he resumed his seat at the beginning of the session, in December, 1857, only to find himself within the circumscriptions of an invalid. Without pretending to take part in business, he sought to be at hand to vote on important questions. At last he was admonished by a succession of relapses that he must make a more serious effort for recovery. On the 22d May, 1858, just two years from his original injuries, he sailed in the steamer Vanderbilt for Havre. His first purpose was to visit Switzerland, and there commence pedestrian exercise in the open air, beginning with a short distance and extending it daily, as the athlete, beginning with the calf, at last carried the ox; but this idea proceeded on a radical misconception of his case, which required repose rather than exercise. A medical friend to whom he communicated this plan warned him against it, saying, curtly, “Then you’ll be a dead man!”
At Paris he first enjoyed the advice of Dr. George Hayward, the eminent surgeon of Boston, but soon afterward came under the care of that remarkable physiologist and specialist, Dr. Brown-Séquard, who, after a most careful diagnosis, reported that the blows on the head had taken effect, by contre-coups, in the spine, producing disturbance in the spinal cord. To Mr. Sumner’s instant inquiry as to the remedy, the Doctor replied, “Fire.” The resolution of the former was taken at once, and he asked, “When can you apply it?” “To-morrow, if you please,” said the Doctor. “Why not this afternoon?” said the patient; and that afternoon it was done by the moxa, which was followed by other applications, being seven in number, always without chloroform, which Mr. Sumner declined to take. This was in June. During this painful treatment he found solace in the study of engravings, to which he devoted himself, according to the limitations of his health, with daily assiduity.
Some time in August he left Paris for the baths of Aix, in Savoy, famous from antiquity, where he underwent still another treatment by hot and cold douches. Then traversing Switzerland, he entered Germany by Venice and Trieste, visiting Vienna, Berlin, and Munich. Reaching Paris in November, he was arrested in his proposed return to the Senate by a medical conference, in which Dr. Brown-Séquard, Dr. George Hayward, and the eminent French practitioner, Dr. Trousseau, took part, all uniting against it. Leaving the excitements of Paris, he passed the ensuing winter at Montpellier, in the South of France. Here he led a retired life, being cupped on the spine daily, and passing as many as eighteen hours out of the twenty-four on the bed or sofa, finding recreation in reading, and, so far as he could, in the public lectures at the college on history and literature. Taking advantage of his improved condition in the spring, he made a hurried visit to Italy, and then reported himself to Dr. Brown-Séquard at Paris, who pronounced him well. To the various treatments already mentioned he added sea-baths at Havre during the following August. At the opening of Congress in December, 1859, he was in his seat, with a certain consciousness of restored health, although admonished to enter upon work slowly.
Contemporary reports in newspapers and letters illustrate the condition of Mr. Sumner at the time, and something of his frame of mind.
A correspondent of the Boston Telegraph and Chronicle, under date of February 20, 1857, shows his occupations at the time he was struck down.
“It was my good fortune to be a frequent caller upon Mr. Sumner during his residence here. I always found him studiously devoted to the duties of his office. He was one of the most active, hard-working men in Congress. Down to the 22d day of May, 1856, when he was so brutally assailed by the agent of the Slave Oligarchy, he had never been out of his seat a single day. It was in this spirit of fidelity that he always discharged his duties. If I may be pardoned in the exhibition of a little selfishness, I will acknowledge that it was in part the discovery of the fact that Mr. Sumner kept a better run of all the public business before Congress than most other members, that induced me, as a member of the press, to make more frequent calls upon him than perhaps I should otherwise have done. He was particularly well posted on all questions of foreign affairs, from the reception of Kossuth down to the important part that he took in the Sound Dues of Denmark; he was always enlightened on all propositions of general legislation, touching the judiciary, commerce, patents, the tariff, and everything concerning the great interests of Massachusetts.
“At the time he was disabled, the Journal of the Senate will show a large number of special propositions introduced by him, among which was the proposition he has brought forward annually for the revision and consolidation of the Statutes of the United States, which must yet prevail; also for cheap ocean postage, another annual proposition; also for post-office orders, as a mode of transfer of money in small sums for the accommodation of the poor,—an idea recently adopted by the House Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads; several propositions of amendment of Patent Law, particularly one to take off the heavy fees on foreign patents, in order to pave the way for a similar reduction abroad; a bill altering the Commercial Law, so as to relieve ship-owners of liability in the case of fire under certain circumstances; a bill amending the Law of Copyright; a bill providing for the regulation of passengers coming into the United States; also a whole group of bills for the improvement of the rivers and harbors of Massachusetts, for the building of a Court-House and Post-Office at Boston, &c., &c.
“None, except those who have had experience in Washington, and have had an inside view of the practical life of a Congressman, can form a correct idea of the vast amount of labor performed by them which does not appear before the public. Mr. Sumner’s correspondence was one of the largest in the Senate,—not confined to Massachusetts, but coming from every part of the country. He neglected nothing.”
While Mr. Sumner was at Cresson, Mrs. Swisshelm, who saw him there, wrote a long letter on his condition, addressed to the New York Tribune, under date of August 23, 1856, which contained the following.
“He has all the impatience of ordinary men in illness, or in the prospect of restraint, and assures everybody that he is doing very well, feels very well, is quite strong, and will surely be able to go to Washington in two weeks. Mr. Burlingame assures me, with tears in his eyes, that this is what he always said. Ever since his injury he has been going to be quite well in two weeks; but when he rises from his chair, he takes hold of the table. His gait, at a first glance, appears that of a man of ninety years of age; but, watching him awhile, I felt that it was the very kind of step one takes when creeping through a darkened chamber under the influence of a paroxysm of nervous headache; but he says, with a kind of lofty, incredulous scorn, that his head does not ache! Sometimes he feels a pressure on the top of his head, and it appears to hurt him when he walks; but he will be ready to go to Washington in two weeks.
…
“Mr. Burlingame came on Friday evening, about six o’clock, in company with a gentleman and lady from Philadelphia. He had not before seen Mr. Sumner since the Brooks challenge, and we all sat together until after eleven o’clock,—there was so much to be told, and said, and explained. Without any personal resemblance, these two appeared together like father and son; but I could give no idea of their interview, even so much of it as the sacredness of private conversation would permit to be made public, in less than a column, and Mr. Sumner crowds everything from my thoughts just now. When his friends left, he had no disposition to retire, and when he did, slept but one hour.
…
“Those mistaken friends of his who would fain see Brooks killed or maimed would greatly distress him, if any such killing or maiming were done by their agency. He shudders at the thought that Burlingame might have shot him, and appears to feel about as much resentment against him as I should feel toward a tile which had fallen upon my head. I could not discern the slightest symptom of chagrin or mortification,—no sense of the dishonor which so many attach to the blow unrevenged.
“I asked him if he would have defended himself, if it had been possible?
“‘Most certainly,’ was the prompt reply, ‘to the best of my ability, and the last extremity.’
“To Dr. Jackson’s suggestion, that the same principle which permitted him to defend himself, when attacked, should induce him to punish the offence, he promptly explained the difference between self-defence and revenge. He appears to have no idea, however remote, of personal enmity in the matter,—but if he was only able to deliver one more speech! His brain is throbbing with pent thunderbolts,—and if he could only get into the citadel of his foes, and hurl them hissing into their faces! Kansas, Kansas and her wrongs, if he could but fight her battles! He does not appear as if he knew how to be afraid, or could learn, if he tried for a lifetime. There is a lion look about him, and a courage which could not stoop to assault so frail a thing as a human body.”
A correspondent of the Springfield Republican, after describing a visit to Mr. Sumner, reports, under date of February 8, 1857:—
“I ventured after a time to speak to him of the outrage from whose effects came this sad weakness, and to express a wonder which I have always felt that serious commotions did not follow it. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘It was little, in comparison with daily occurrences. The poorest slave is in danger of worse outrages every moment of his life.’”
A correspondent of the Boston Traveller reports, under date of February 20, 1858:—
“Much interest is felt, I find, among our friends in Massachusetts and elsewhere, to know the nature of Mr. Sumner’s feelings toward the person who inflicted upon him so great a calamity, taking from him nearly two years of active life, and putting in jeopardy both his life and reason. Sharing this feeling, I have endeavored to learn the Senator’s sentiments on the subject. Yet I have never heard him utter one word from which I could even found a conjecture of them, though the matter has been referred to by myself, and by others in my hearing, in the course of conversation. Moreover, I have heard his private secretary, who was his nurse and watcher during the long, sultry days and nights of his illness in Washington, remark that he had never heard the Senator speak of the assault or the assailant, or in any way express any feeling on the subject. But I presume, however, that the feelings of Mr. Sumner are justly excited against the cruel Slave Power, which originally instigated and has since sanctioned the assault.”
Mr. Sumner was constantly wrestling with his disability, and impatient under the necessary constraint. He longed to be at work. Here friends exerted an adverse pressure.
Wendell Phillips wrote from Nahant, under date of July 13, 1856:—
“The rumor is, on all sides, that you purpose returning as soon as possible to your seat. Allow me, as a most near friend, careful alike of you and the cause, to urge you not to attempt taking your seat again this session. No such step is necessary. Every one here recognizes most fully and heartily your fearless devotion. Every one is more than ready, anxious, to wait till confirmed health and strength make it, not an effort, but a pleasure, for you to return to your place. The only fear is lest you be tempted to hurry back before your strength is fully restored. Nothing you can do will shut the mouths of journals whose trade is lying and abuse. It is fair to say, and a hopeful sign of the times also, that these cavils fall to the ground utterly ineffectual and harmless. At least their only result is indignation. Let this session go by. Be sure Massachusetts will give you six more years to work in. You have done more than your share in this session’s fight,—enough to satisfy the most impatient spirit. Come home and rest. Come home to recruit for years and a crisis when we shall need you even more than now,—when your voice will be worth more, far more, than even now. The most ardent wish of all who love you is that you consider yourself: in so doing now you best serve the cause.”
Hon. Schuyler Colfax wrote from Washington, under date of July 21, 1856:—
“We miss you here very much, and, as I pass your recent lodgings, I often regret that I cannot run up and bore you with a few minutes’ talk; but I think, and such is the general feeling of all your friends, that you ought not to think of resuming your seat this session. The weather and the excitement will both be against you, if you do.
“Besides, next December you can resume that expressively vacant seat with the proud consciousness that the wand of the Oligarchy is broken,—or, if a different fortune is reserved for us, which I pray God to avert, to head the forlorn hope which is then to battle for the Right against the Furies which the triumph of the Wrong will let loose on us all. But you know best, and I will not presume to advise.
“I was glad to hear the report of your Philadelphia physician, which relieved the forebodings which I fear were preying on you; and it confirms what an eminent physician wrote me, that the action of the absorbent vessels would relieve you slowly, if you would abstain from all excitement and give them the opportunity.”
Rev. William H. Furness, of Philadelphia, wrote, under date of August 15, 1856:—
“Dr. Wister says, ‘For God’s sake don’t let Mr. Sumner think of leaving the mountains till the 1st or 15th of September.’ I find that yesterday, when we were jogging down the gorge, it was oppressively hot here, and only last night came there a slight change. Dr. Wister is most positive and earnest in his opinion that you should remain where you are. You will lose everything, if you quit that invigorating mountain air, and run the hazard of being an invalid for months to come. ‘It would be the extreme of folly,’ he says, ‘to turn your back upon your present place.’”
The venerable Josiah Quincy wrote from Quincy, under date of August 22, 1856:—
“I entreat you, my dear friend, not to think or act on public affairs until your health is firmly restored. You have time enough before you to perfect your duty to your country, which you have already so gloriously commenced. History will avenge you on your adversary, which not all the votes of all the slave-holders between the tropics can save from an infamy as lasting as the history of our country.
“God bless you, and preserve you, and soon restore you to health, to your friends, and your country!”
Wendell Phillips, under date of August 23, 1856, renewed his appeal:—
“I have talked with men of all parties, (on your case there is but one party worth naming,) and without a dissentient voice they deplore your anxiety to return this session to Washington. No man but urges me to write and make you feel that you have struck the blow already, and that now our interests and that of the cause, as well as your own, and our hearts, too, demand of you to ‘stand and wait.’ I know you can make speeches worth dying for; but let me tell you, just now to the nation’s heart your empty chair can make a more fervent appeal than even you. The canvass goes well, the ‘idea’ grows. We thank God that he has given us such texts: now make our gratitude unalloyed by building up your strength in silence and quiet for that fiercer struggle yet which lies before us all.
“I conjure you, as you love Freedom, save yourself: we need you more in the future than now. You are not the best judge.”
Hon. William H. Seward wrote from Auburn, under date of September 24, 1856:—
“I wish that I could convince you that it is neither necessary for the public nor would it be useful in any way to yourself to speak in this canvass, even if you should find yourself able. It belongs to others to do that work. You have suffered enough, even if you had done nothing; and yet what you have suffered is only a consequence of having done more than any other.
…
“I believe with you that we shall succeed in this election, and I earnestly hope for it. It is time that Freedom should have a decided triumph in order to commend itself to a vacillating people.”
By such letters was Mr. Sumner somewhat soothed in the seclusion which had become a necessity.
The same spirit animated his friends to the end, following him to Europe, and watching with sympathy the severe medical treatment adopted. Without their countenance he would not have ventured to remain so long absent from his duties. He would have resigned, or have resumed them at any hazard.
In one of his letters, received in Europe, Mr. Chase wrote as follows, under date of June 16, 1858.
“We learn from the newspapers that you have submitted yourself to a most trying operation, and that the physicians give good hope of most beneficial results. Most earnestly do I hope, in common with many thousand friends of human liberty and progress, that their best anticipations may be fully realized. I am anxious to hear your voice once more in the Senate, mirum spargens sonum. I want to see the Oligarchs and Serviles once more cowering under your rebukes of despotism and servility.
“It is amazing to see to what depths of baseness some of the partisan presses in the interest of the Oligarchy will descend. Not content with half vindications of the assassination attempted upon you, several have had the infinite meanness to represent you as playing a part all the while you have been suffering from the effects of the assault. When will men learn decency?
“Oh, if you shall be only able to take your seat again next winter in your full vigor! There is no one who hates the wrong of Slavery in its principle as you do: I should except Durkee.”
Mr. Wilson wrote as follows, under date of October 19, 1858.
“We are all anxious about you. Get well, if possible, and do not trouble yourself about your duties as a Senator. Do not attempt to take your seat, unless your health will allow you to do it. The session will be a short one, and we can get on without you. Take time, if you require it, and let the next session go. Our friends will stand by you, if you do not feel able to take your seat next session. I feel confident that our friends desire above all things that you shall be able to keep your seat, and they will be pleased to have you adopt the course most conducive to the recovery of your health. If your health will be improved by continuing in Europe for months longer, pray take the time. This is my advice to you. I hope, however, you will be able to return to your home and your seat this winter, with health and vigor, able to engage once more in the battles for the great cause for which you have suffered so much and so long.”
Sustained by this testimony, and that of other friends, Mr. Sumner submitted to the medical advice which postponed return to his public duties.
The authentic diagnosis of the case in its early stages is here preserved.
“CASE OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER.[155]
“Read before the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, December 15, 1856.
“By Marshall S. Perry, M. D., of Boston.
“The assault was made upon Mr. Sumner in the Senate of the United States, on Thursday, May 22d. The first blow produced insensibility. It is not certain how many blows he received: they were many. He bled profusely, and fell insensible on the floor. When he was removed to the anteroom, it was thought he could not survive. His wounds were dressed by Dr. Boyle. He had two gashes on the back of the head, one above each ear, about two or two and a half inches in length. These gashes went through the scalp to the bone, which was laid bare, but it is supposed not fractured. Besides these, he had bruises on the face, on the back of each hand, and on the arms.
“From the time of the attack until the Monday following, no serious symptoms manifested themselves, except some pain and soreness in the head, and nervousness. Tuesday morning he had more pain, and in the afternoon he was quite feverish. During the night the pain became very violent, and when I saw him, early on Wednesday, for the first time professionally, he had a high fever, pulse 104, intense pain in the head, eyes suffused, and extreme nervousness. The scalp above the right ear was inflamed, having the appearance of erysipelas. This inflammation extended to the glands of the neck, which were swollen and tender to the touch. On examination, it was found that pus had formed under the scalp, which escaped readily on opening the wound, which had been closed over with collodion by Dr. Boyle. Mr. Sumner had suffered so much during the last ten hours, that he had become very much exhausted. He was put under the influence of opium, the wound was poulticed, and perfect rest enjoined. For three days he was in a critical situation. The local inflammation, the danger of poison from the absorption of pus, and the extreme nervous exhaustion made it a formidable case. At the end, however, of this time, he appeared to be out of immediate danger.
“The wound on the left side of the head healed by first intention. It was several weeks before that on the right side closed over. During this time he was very weak, had some fever, especially when excited, and was confined mostly to his bed. He did not at that time complain of much pain in his head, but, as the wound healed after several weeks, he had neuralgic pain in the back of the head, coming on in paroxysms. As these passed away, he had a feeling of oppressive weight or pressure of the brain, which was increased when excited or engaged in conversation. He described it as “a fifty-six pounds weight” upon his head. At the same time he lost flesh and strength, his appetite was irregular, and his nights wakeful,—sometimes lying awake all night, or, when sleeping, disturbed. He had also increased sensibility of the spinal cord, and a sense of weakness in the small of the back. These were developed by walking, and every step he took seemed to produce a shock upon the brain. His walk was irregular and uncertain, and after slight efforts he would lose almost entire control of the lower extremities.
“In this condition he was advised by Dr. Lindsly, of Washington, to remove from that place to some more quiet spot. He accordingly came to Philadelphia, and there called upon Dr. Wister for advice. Mountain air and complete seclusion were recommended; but Mr. Sumner undertook first to try the sea air, and went to Cape May. Here he was very weak, so that he was unable to bathe, and he finally left without any sensible improvement. On the recommendation of Dr. Wister, he went to Cresson, in the Alleghany Mountains. While there he was in the family of Dr. R. M. Jackson, and under his medical direction.
“The following letters, received from Drs. Wister and Jackson, describe Mr. Sumner’s condition while under their care.
“‘Philadelphia, Oct. 14, 1856.
“‘Dr. M. S. Perry:—
“‘Dear Sir,—It gives me much pleasure to reply to your note of inquiry concerning the health of Mr. Sumner.
“‘You are perfectly aware of the condition of Mr. Sumner when he reached this city on the 9th of July,—a condition of extreme nervous exhaustion, his circulation feeble, and in fact every vital power alarmingly sunken. At that time his steps were feeble and tottering, as in extreme old age; he complained of constant pain in the back and lower extremities,—in the latter it was a tired and weary sensation; and he had a sense of constriction and pressure about the head. At that time his pulse was quick and small, appetite languid, and his sleep broken, disturbed, and unrefreshing. All the above conditions were heightened by exertion, either mental or physical. I could find no evidence of organic disease. I understood Mr. Sumner to be in that state of extreme nervous exhaustion from which men are months, and at times even years, in being fully restored.
“‘Mr. Sumner has done eminently well. His present state is but a shadow of that above described; and although none of the features of the past are lost, they are only evident when imprudent exertion, mental or physical, shall call them up. Within the limits of exertion of an ordinary retired gentleman, Mr. Sumner improves daily, and all his powers improve, with a steady progress towards perfect health. Indiscretion brings on morbid wakefulness, and, in the recurring outline of his former condition, admonishes him, that, though recovering, he is still in risk.
“‘With much respect, truly yours,
“‘Caspar Wister.’
“LETTER FROM DR. JACKSON.[156]
“‘You ask for a brief report of the case of the Hon. Charles Sumner, as it came under my observation during his visit and stay on the Alleghany Mountain in Pennsylvania. Mr. Sumner came to Cresson on the 3d of August last. On his arrival, he had the appearance of a man who had been sick for a long time, and was still extremely unwell. Careful observations and examinations of the case, for some time, revealed the following appearances and symptoms.
“‘The lips were pale, showing a watery condition of the blood, evinced also by general pallor of the countenance and flabbiness of the solids. The action of the heart and arteries was weak, the pulse being slow and languid. On the surface of the head the integuments showed a slight redness around the cicatrices of the recently healed cuts,—also some morbid sensibility on pressure. Efforts at walking gave a tottering and uncertain gait, as if from partial paralysis (say threatened paraplegia),—the steps being short and unsteady, the muscles evidently not under the complete control of the will, the limbs even giving way partially. The slightest exertion was followed by lassitude quite disproportioned to the efforts. His nights were frequently passed in a state of morbid wakefulness and general uneasiness. The action of the brain was always followed by a sense of weight and dull throbbing pain in the head. This result invariably followed even the slightest mental effort of writing a common letter of business.
“‘The entire chain of symptoms soon pointed to the head and spine as the seat of a highly morbid condition. The contents of the other cavities of the body seemed normal. As no regular medical report had been given me of the case before its arrival at the Mountain, its original condition after the assault had to be inferred from present inspection, without the history of its progress. From this it was clearly evident that the brain and spinal cord had been the seat of a grave and, formidable lesion. As the first violent symptoms had passed off, the consequences of which, veiled and obscure, were the only evidence by which the case could be read, it was clearly apparent that its present pathological condition was of a most serious character, and had been preceded by impending danger to life. From all the facts it was evident that from the blows upon the skull there must have been either congestion, or concussion followed by congestion, or positive inflammation of the brain or its investing membranes, in this case. Actual fracture is not at all necessary to this result. In Hope’s Pathological Anatomy we have the following statement: “In several cases of fracture of the skull, and in some of injury of the scalp alone (!), I have found pus, either liquid or of a pasty consistence, between the bone and the dura mater, and adhering to both.” Thus inflammation and its products on the interior of the skull proceed from “injuries of the scalp alone.” The injury occurring in a subject of a highly impressible and delicate nervous temperament, at a time in which the central organ of the nervous system was exhausted by excessive mental tension for days and nights of severe effort, carried with it impending destruction. The insidious danger of the first injury was now only to be estimated by its threatening consequences at the stage of progress of the case when it arrived at the Mountain. All too plainly marked by fearful features the true character of the effects of the assault in the Senate, and plainly showed their fatal tendencies in the condition of the man. At this stage of the case, whatever might have been or might now be the condition of the suffering internal organs, debility and exhaustion of life was manifestly the clearest phenomenon visible.
“‘This was accompanied with an interrupted action of the muscles of voluntary motion, great weakness of the loins, inability to protract beyond a few minutes any mental effort without pain, weight and uneasiness in the head, together with soreness in the region of the cervical vertebræ; all of which symptoms, taken together, demonstrate a case ravaged by severe disease in the great nervous centre, and showing in that region still a highly pathological condition of parts. All the symptoms being of a depressed order, exhaustion and weakness predominating in all the functions, the clear indication in the case was to reënergize the man in every way and by every influence. This, it seemed, would be most effectually secured by a judicious diet, mild tonic agents, constant exercise in the open air on horseback or in a carriage, and by cessation of all active efforts of the diseased parts, and a gradual stringing up and intonation of the whole body under the influence of mountain air, mountain water, and change of climate. Within five weeks, the effects of this treatment were marked and clearly visible to all. So emphatic were they in the consciousness of Mr. Sumner, that he could not be persuaded he was still an invalid, and not almost well and ready for the field of active operations. He left the Mountain prematurely, before he was hardened and his body restored to its normal tone. This was done contrary to my urgent advice and entreaties. It was clearly apparent, that, with one more month of the bracing influences of the Mountain, he would have been much better than at present, and the perfect final restoration of the Senator’s health greatly facilitated.
“‘Yours truly,
“‘R. M. Jackson.
“‘Cresson, Nov. 12, 1856.’
“Since Mr. Sumner’s return to Boston, he has been gradually improving. He has followed a rigid system of exercise in the open air, and carefully avoided all intellectual excitement. The pressure in his head, or sensation of weight, which formerly came on after the slightest mental or physical exertion, and which was very oppressive, is now felt only after great fatigue, or considerable effort of the mind. He still complains, after sitting up for a long time, of pain in his back; and when he rises from his bed or chair, he finds at first some difficulty in using the muscles of the lower extremities, but after walking a short time they become quite flexible and under the complete control of the will. His appetite is good, he sleeps much better than he did, and is gaining flesh and strength. I see no reason why he may not entirely recover, unless he allows himself too soon to enter upon his Senatorial duties. He has already assumed the external appearance of health. Time and mental repose will do the rest.
“I think it is impossible to decide with absolute certainty what the pathological condition of Mr. Sumner’s brain has been; but I am inclined to the opinion of Dr. Jackson, ‘that the brain, as well as the spinal cord, has been the seat of some serious lesion.’ The long continued sense of weight in his head, the pain along the spine, the partial loss of power in the lower extremities, the loss of flesh during the first three months after the attack, and the wakefulness, without any affection of the mind, would lead, I think, to this conclusion. Had the patient died, a post-mortem examination would have determined conclusively the character of the injury; but we can only make an approximation to a true appreciation of the case by a cautious interpretation of the symptoms.”
This diagnosis does not extend beyond December, 1856. Subsequent newspapers contain notices of the case. The diagnosis, at a later day, by Dr. Brown-Séquard, has never been published.
“WHATEVER MASSACHUSETTS CAN GIVE, LET IT ALL GO TO SUFFERING KANSAS.”
Telegraphic Despatch to Boston, June 6, 1856.
On the 3d of June, 1856, a resolution for the relief of Kansas failed in the Massachusetts Legislature, mainly, it was alleged, through the hostility of Governor Gardner. On the next day a message from the Governor was received by the Legislature, recommending the payment of the expense of the illness of Mr. Sumner. This was followed in the Senate by a resolution to the same effect. On learning these proceedings, Mr. Sumner dictated the following telegraphic despatch, which was signed by his immediate representative in Congress.
Washington, June 6, 1856.
MR. SUMNER has just learned the recommendation of Governor Gardner that the Commonwealth should assume the expense of his illness. He desires me to telegraph at once his hope that the recommendation will not be pressed. In no event can he accept the allowance proposed, and Mr. Sumner adds, “Whatever Massachusetts can give, let it all go to suffering Kansas.”
Anson Burlingame.
REFUSAL TO RECEIVE TESTIMONIAL
IN APPROBATION OF KANSAS SPEECH.
Letter to a Committee in Boston, June 13, 1856.
Immediately after the assault on Mr. Sumner a subscription was started for a testimonial to him. The terms of the paper were as follows.
“Being desirous of expressing to the Hon. Charles Sumner, in some permanent and appropriate form, our admiration of his spotless public and private character, of our lively gratitude for his dauntless courage in the defence of Freedom on the floor of Congress, and especially our unqualified approbation of his speech in behalf of Free Kansas, delivered in the Senate on the 20th of May last,—a speech characterized by comprehensive knowledge of the subject, by logical acuteness, and by Spartan intrepidity in the chastisement of iniquity, for which he has wellnigh lost his life at the brutal and cowardly hands of the creature for which (thanks to the rarity of its appearance) the English tongue has as yet no appropriate name,—we deem it alike a privilege and an honor to participate in offering him some suitable token of our sentiments. For this purpose we subscribe the sums set opposite our names.”
Among the early signers were the venerable Josiah Quincy, Henry W. Longfellow, Jared Sparks, F. D. Huntington, R. H. Dana, Jr., Edward Everett, Edwin P. Whipple, Alexander H. Rice, Charles Hudson, Charles Francis Adams, Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Charles A. Phelps, Amasa Walker, William Claflin, Eli Thayer, and George Bliss.
Mr. Sumner was on his bed when he heard of this purpose. He at once dictated the following letter.
Washington, June 13, 1856.
MY DEAR SIR,—The papers speak of a token planned by you, in approbation of my recent speech exposing the Crime against Kansas. Pardon me, if, in advance of any direct information, I say to you frankly that I cannot allow this flattering project to proceed further.
It is enough for me that you and your generous associates approve what I said. Such sympathy and support in the cause, of which I am a humble representative, is all that I ask for myself, or am willing to accept. But the cause itself has constant claims on us all. And I trust you will not deem me too bold, if I express a desire that the contributions intended for the testimonial to me may be applied at once, and without abatement of any kind, to the recovery and security of Freedom in Kansas.
For this I spoke in the Senate, and I shall be proud to regard these contributions thus applied as my words hardened into deeds.
Believe me, my dear Sir, with much regard,
Very faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
Carlos Pierce, Esq.
This letter was laid before a meeting of the subscribers in Mercantile Hall, with Rev. F. D. Huntington, afterwards Bishop of the Western Diocese of New York, in the chair. A contemporary newspaper records what ensued.
“A beautiful design of the testimonial which it had been proposed to offer Mr. Sumner was also submitted to the meeting. It was to have been a massive and elaborate silver vase, two feet in height, and was planned by Messrs. Bailey, Kettell, and Chapman. Upon its summit was a figure representing Charles Sumner holding his Kansas speech in his right hand. On either side were the figures of Justice and Freedom, crowning him with a wreath of laurels. A winged genius sits at his feet, and is inscribing his name on a tablet. Figures representing Victory are upon the arms of the vase, heralding the triumph of Freedom. Above the inscription to Mr. Sumner, and in the centre, was the coat of arms of Massachusetts. On the foot of the vase was the coat of arms of the nation, between masks and appropriate emblems of Liberty and Slavery.
“Although all were unwilling to abandon this favorite plan of expressing to Mr. Sumner by a substantial token their sympathy and their support, yet they were of the opinion that his letter left them no choice in the matter, and, after discussing many plans for the disposition of the funds already raised, the suggestion of Mr. Sumner was unanimously adopted by the following resolves.
“‘Resolved, That the Secretary of this meeting be instructed to subscribe the amount of funds in his hands to aid the cause of Freedom in Kansas, in the name of Hon. Charles Sumner.
“‘Resolved, That the subscribers be notified by the Secretary of the above vote, and have leave to withdraw their subscriptions.’
“The amount already subscribed is one thousand dollars, and by the action of the meeting Mr. Sumner’s noble and eloquent speech has ‘hardened into deeds,’ for which we hope many a poor sufferer in Kansas will long have occasion to bless his memory.”
The resolutions of the meeting were communicated to Mr. Sumner by the Chairman in the following letter.
“Cambridge, June 25, 1856.
“My dear Sir,—You have already been made acquainted with the earnest movement of some of your host of friends in this quarter to convey to you a tangible evidence of their profound esteem for your character, and their enthusiastic admiration of your conduct. The arrival of your generous letter stopped their proceedings. At your own request one thousand dollars will go to Kansas instead of to you.
“At the public meeting where this decision was taken, I was directed, as being Chairman, to acquaint you with the acquiescence of the subscribers to the testimonial in your wishes, and to assure you that all your motives in this act, and throughout the recent signal and portentous events, are by us fully appreciated and honored. I will not add to your fatigues, and to the crowd of communications which must be pouring in upon you, by a long communication. Your name is inseparably and nobly associated with the history of Freedom, in America and in the world, henceforth. We confide in you for the future. We thank you for the past. We supplicate, in your behalf, from the Almighty Source of Good a rapid restoration of your health and strength, and ever-increasing powers of will, of faith, of action, and of speech, in the infinite service of Humanity.
“You will believe, my dear Sir, that my personal feelings go undivided into these assurances of good-will.
“I beg you to account me, now as always,
“Your faithful friend and servant,
“F. D. Huntington.
“Hon. Charles Sumner.”
The following extract from a letter of Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, the much-loved and always popular author, shows how this act was regarded at the time.
“Your letter declining the testimonial proffered by your native Commonwealth pleased me more than anything you ever did. I had previously said, ‘I hope Massachusetts will express her gratitude toward him with princely magnificence, and I hope he will transfer the gift to Kansas: that would be morally grand on both sides.’ And Mr. Child answered: ‘Depend upon it, he will do it. Nothing could be more characteristic of the man.’ That letter and Mr. Wilson’s answer to the challenge have revived my early faith in human nature. It is impossible to calculate the salutary influence of such examples.”