This incident was much noticed by the Northern press, especially in Massachusetts. The Boston Atlas and Bee expressed itself thus:—
“In our opinion the people of the Free States are never better satisfied with their representatives than when they see them repelling indignantly and manfully the arrogant insults of the slave-driving aristocracy. It will not diminish their attachment to Mr. Sumner, when they take notice that his rebuke of Mr. Mason was not in reply to any insult upon himself, but upon one of his outraged and abused constituents.”
PETITIONS AGAINST SLAVERY.
Speech in the Senate, April 18, 1860.
The treatment of these petitions illustrates the tyranny of the Slave Power to the very eve of its fall. Such an incident is not without historic significance.
MR. PRESIDENT,—I present the petition of Henry Elwell, Jr., and four hundred and fifty-five others, of Manchester, in Massachusetts, earnestly petitioning Congress to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850,—to abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the United States Territories,—to prohibit the inter-State slave-trade,—and to pass a resolution pledging Congress against the admission of any Slave State into the Union, the acquisition of any Slave Territory, and the employment of any slaves by any agent, contractor, officer, or department of the National Government; also, a like petition of Alvan Howes and fifty-five others, of Barnstable, Massachusetts; also, a like petition of John Clement and one hundred and nineteen others, of Townsend, Massachusetts; also, a like petition of Samuel L. Rockwood and seventy-three others, of Weymouth, Massachusetts; also, a like petition of J. H. Browne and sixty-four others, of Sudbury, Massachusetts; also, a like petition of Daniel Hosmer and ninety-eight others, of Sterling, Massachusetts; also, a like petition of Albert Gould and one hundred and thirty-one others of Leicester, Massachusetts; also, a like petition of James M. Evelett and two hundred others, of Princeton, Massachusetts; also, a like petition of Daniel Otis and seventy-nine others, of South Scituate, Massachusetts; also, a like petition of Calvin Cutter and eighty-four others, of Warren, Massachusetts; also, a like petition of R. W. French and thirty others, of Lawrence, Massachusetts; also, a like petition of Edmund H. Sears and two hundred and forty-five others, of Wayland, Massachusetts.