Perley's reminiscences of sixty years in the national metropolis, v. 1-2

by Benjamin Perley Poore

The proposition to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and to admit Kansas and Nebraska as States, with or without slavery, as their citizens might respectively elect, gave rise to exciting debates. The North was antagonistic to the South, and the champions of freedom looked defiantly at the defenders of slavery. One of the most exciting scenes in the House of Representatives was between Mr. John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, and Mr. Francis B. Cutting, a New York lawyer, who had defeated Mr. James Brooks, who then was editor of the Express.

Mr. Cutting was advocating the passage of the Senate bill, and complaining that the friends of the Administration not only wanted to consign it to the Committee of the Whole—that tomb of the Capulets—but they had encouraged attacks in their organs upon him and those who stood with him. Mr. Breckinridge interrupted him while he was speaking, to ask if a remark made was personal to himself, but Mr. Cutting said that it was not. Mr. Breckinridge, interrupting Mr. Cutting a second time, said that while he did not want to charge the gentleman from New York with having intentionally played the part of an assassin, he had said, and he could not now take it back, that the act, to all intents, was like throwing one arm around it in friendship, and stabbing it with the other—to kill the bill. As to a statement by the gentleman that in the hour of his greatest need the "Hards" of New York had come to his assistance, he could not understand it, and asked for an explanation.

"I will give it," replied Mr. Cutting. "When, during the last Congressional canvass in Kentucky, it was intimated that the friends of the honorable Representative from the Lexington district needed assistance to accomplish his election, my friends in New York made up a subscription of some fifteen hundred dollars and transmitted it to Kentucky, to be employed for the benefit of the gentleman, who is now the peer of Presidents and Cabinets."

"Yes, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Breckinridge, springing to his feet, "and not only the peer of Presidents and Cabinets, but the peer of the gentleman from New York, fully and in every respect."

A round of applause followed this assertion, and ere it had subsided the indomitable Mike Walsh availed himself of the opportunity to give his colleague a rap. "When [he said] we came here we protested against the Administration interfering in the local affairs of the State of New York, and now my colleague states that a portion of his constituents have been guilty of the same interference in the affairs of the people of Kentucky." "Is that all," said Mr. Cutting, in a sneering tone, "that the gentleman from New York rose for?" "That's all," replied Mr. Walsh, "but I will by on hand by and by, though."

Mr. Breckinridge, his eyes flashing fire, remarked in measured tones that the gentleman from New York should have known the truth of what he uttered before he pronounced it on the floor. He (Mr. B.) was not aware that any intimations were sent from Kentucky that funds were needed to aid in his election, nor was he aware that they were received. He did not undertake to say what the fact might be in regard to what the gentleman had said, but he had no information whatever of that fact. He (Mr. B.) came to Congress not by the aid of money, but against the use of money. The gentleman could not escape by any subtlety or by any ingenuity a thorough and complete exposure of any ingenious device to which he might resort for the purpose of putting gentlemen in a false position, and the sooner he stopped that game the better.

Mr. Cutting, who was also very much excited, made an angry reply, in which he stated "that he had given the gentleman an opportunity of indulging in one of the most violent, inflammatory, and personal assaults that had ever been known upon this floor; and he would ask how could the gentleman disclaim any attack upon him. The whole tenor and scope of the speech of the gentleman from Kentucky was an attack upon his motives in moving to commit the bill. It was in vain for the gentleman to attempt to escape it by disclaiming it; the fact was before the Committee. But he would say to the gentleman that he scorned his imputation. How dare the gentleman undertake to assert that he had professed friendship for the measure with a view to kill it, to assassinate it by sending it to the bottom of the calendar? And then, when he said that the Committee of the Whole had under its control the House bill upon this identical subject, which the Committee intended to take up, discuss, amend, and report to the House, the gentleman skulked behind the Senate bill, which had been sent to the foot of the calendar!"

"Skulked!" hissed Mr. Breckinridge. "I ask the gentleman to withdraw that word!"

"I withdraw nothing!" replied Mr. Cutting. "I have uttered what I have said in answer to one of the most violent and most personal attacks that has ever been witnessed upon this floor."

"Then," said Mr. Breckinridge, "when the gentleman says I skulked, he says what is false!" The Southern members began to gather around the excited Kentuckian, and the Speaker, pounding with his gavel, pronounced the offensive remark out of order.