The question which the venerable Senator from South Carolina opens by his vaunt I have no desire to discuss; but since it is presented, I confront it at once. This is not the first time, during my brief service here, that this Senator has sought on this floor to provoke comparison between slaveholding communities and the Free States.
Mr. Butler [from his seat]. You cannot quote a single instance in which I have done it. I have always said I thought it was in bad taste, and I have never attempted it.
Mr. Sumner. I beg the Senator's pardon. I always listen to him, and I know whereof I affirm. He has profusely dealt in it. I allude now only to a single occasion. In his speech on the Nebraska Bill, running through two days, it was one of his commonplaces. There he openly presented a contrast between the Free States and "slaveholding communities" in certain essential features of civilization, and directed shafts at Massachusetts which called to his feet my distinguished colleague at that time [Mr. Everett], and more than once compelled me to take the floor. And now, Sir, the venerable Senator, not rising from his seat and standing openly before the Senate, undertakes to deny that he has dealt in such comparisons.
Mr. Butler. Will the Senator allow me?
Mr. Sumner. Certainly: I yield the floor to the Senator.
Mr. Butler. Whenever that speech is read,—and I wish the Senator had read it before he commented on it with a good deal of rhetorical enthusiasm,—it will be found that I was particular not to wound the feelings of the Northern people who were sympathizing with us in the great movement to remove odious distinctions. I was careful to say nothing that would provoke invidious comparisons; and when that speech is read, notwithstanding the vehement assertion of the honorable Senator, he will find, that, when I quoted the laws of Massachusetts, particularly one Act which I termed the Toties Quoties Act, by which every negro was whipped every time he came into Massachusetts, I quoted them with a view to show, not a contrast between South Carolina and Massachusetts, but to show that in the whole of this country, from the beginning to this time,—even in my own State,—I made no exception,—public opinion had undergone a change, and that it had undergone the same change in Massachusetts; for at one time they did not regard this institution of Slavery with the same odium that they do at this time. That was the purpose; and I challenge the Senator, as an orator of fairness, to look at it and see if it is not so.
Mr. Sumner. Has the Senator done?
Mr. Butler. I may not be done presently; but that is the purport of that speech.
Mr. Sumner. Will the Senator refer to his own speech? He now admits, that, under the guise of an argument, he did draw attention to what he evidently regarded an odious law of Massachusetts. And, Sir, I did not forget, that, in doing this, there was, at the time, an apology which ill concealed the sting.[96] But let that pass. The Senator is strangely oblivious of the statistical contrasts which he borrowed from the speech of a member of the other House, and which, at his request, were read by a Senator before him on this floor. The Senator, too, is strangely oblivious of yet another imputation, which, at the very close of his speech, he shot as a Parthian arrow at Massachusetts. It is he, then, who is the offender; and no hardihood of denial can extricate him. 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 detail 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 intrusted its interests here will not allow me to be still.
God forbid that I should do injustice to South Carolina! I know well the gallantry of many of her sons. I know the response which she made to the appeal of Massachusetts for union against the Stamp Act—the Fugitive Slave Act of that day—by the pen of Christopher Gadsden. And I remember with sorrow that this patriot was obliged to confess, at the time, her "weakness in having such a number of slaves," though it is to his credit that he recognized Slavery as "crime."[97] I have no pleasure in dwelling on the humiliations of South Carolina; I have little desire to expose her sores; I would not lay bare even her nakedness. But the Senator, in his vaunt for "slaveholding communities," has made a claim for Slavery so derogatory to Freedom, and so inconsistent with history, that I cannot allow it to pass unanswered.