“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.