“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.’