Mr. President,—Since I had the honor of addressing the Senate two days ago, various Senators have spoken. Of these, several have alluded to me in terms clearly beyond the sanction of parliamentary debate. Of this I make no complaint, though, for the honor of the Senate, at least, it were well, had it been otherwise. If to them it seems fit, courteous, parliamentary, let them
"unpack the heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion";
I will not interfere with the enjoyment they find in such exposure of themselves. They have given us a taste of their quality. Two of them, the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Butler], who sits immediately before me, and the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason], who sits immediately behind me, are not young. Their heads are amply crowned by Time. They did not speak from any ebullition of youth, but from the confirmed temper of age. It is melancholy to believe that in this debate they showed themselves as they are. It were charitable to believe that they are in reality better than they showed themselves.
I think, Sir, that I am not the only person on this floor, who, listening to these two self-confident champions of that peculiar fanaticism of the South, was reminded of the striking words of Jefferson, picturing the influence of Slavery, where he says: "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism, on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal.... The parent storms. The child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to the worst of passions, and, thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy, who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances."[78] Nobody, who witnessed the Senator from South Carolina or the Senator from Virginia in this debate, will place either of them among the "prodigies" described by Jefferson. As they spoke, the Senate Chamber must have seemed to them, in the characteristic fantasy of the moment, a plantation well-stocked with slaves, over which the lash of the overseer had free swing. Sir, it gives me no pleasure to say these things. It is not according to my nature. Bear witness that I do it only in just self-defence against the unprecedented assaults and provocations of this debate. In doing it, I desire to warn certain Senators, that, if, by any ardor of menace, or by any tyrannical frown, they expect to shake my fixed resolve, they expect a vain thing.
There is little that fell from these two champions, as the fit was on, which deserves reply. Certainly not the hard words they used so readily and congenially. The veteran Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason] complained that I had characterized one of his "constituents"—a person who went all the way from Virginia to Boston in pursuit of a slave—as Slave-Hunter. Sir, I choose to call things by their right names. White I call white, and black I call black. And where a person degrades himself to the work of chasing a fellow-man, who, under the inspiration of Freedom and the guidance of the North Star, has sought a freeman's home far away from coffle and chain,—that person, whosoever he may be, I call Slave-Hunter. If the Senator from Virginia, who professes nicety of speech, will give me any term more precisely describing such an individual, I will use it. Until then, I must continue to use the language which seems to me so apt. But this very sensibility of the veteran Senator at a just term, truly depicting an odious character, shows a shame which pleases me. It was said by a philosopher of Antiquity that a blush is the sign of virtue; and permit me to add, that, in this violent sensibility, I recognize a blush mantling the cheek of the honorable Senator, which even his plantation manners cannot conceal.
And the venerable Senator from South Carolina, too, [Mr. Butler,]—he has betrayed his sensibility. Here let me say that this Senator knows well that I always listen with gurgles forth,—sometimes tinctured by generous ideas,—except when, forgetful of history, and in defiance of reason, he undertakes to defend what is obviously indefensible. 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?" 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, 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.
But, Mr. President, since the brief response which I made to the inquiry of the Senator, and which leaped unconsciously to my lips, has drawn upon me such various attacks, all marked by grossness of language and manner,—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. The authentic report in the "Globe" shows what was actually said. The report in the "Sentinel" is substantially the same. And one of the New York papers, which has been put into my hands since I entered the Senate Chamber to-day, under its telegraphic head, states the incident with substantial accuracy,—though it omits the personal, individual appeal addressed to me by the Senator, and preserved in the "Globe." Here is the New York report.