“As this edition will make its first appearance appended to your speech, I have ventured to put on it the name Alaska, proposed by you, as I have no doubt it will be generally adopted.”
[227] Bancroft’s Life of Washington (Worcester, 1807), p. 47.
[228] Ante, Vol. XIV. p. 355.
[229] Hon. Charles G. Atherton, Representative from New Hampshire,—author of the resolutions of December 11, 1838, on which was based the notorious 21st Rule of the House, providing that “No petition, memorial, resolution, or other paper, praying the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia or any State or Territory, or the slave-trade between the States or Territories of the United States in which it now exists, shall be received by this House, or entertained in any way whatever.”
[230] Article IV.: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XV. p. 542.
[231] Article VI.
[232] The allusion to Kentucky drew from Mr. Davis, of that State, some days later, a vehement Philippic, where, among other things, he said: “The Senator from Massachusetts himself has been complicated in the crime of treason” (alluding to his opposition to the Fugitive Slave Bill).… “Massachusetts now is in high feather. Why? She feels conscious and proud that the Constitution of the United States is prostrate at her feet, and that she is leading the whole Radical host of America to execute her wild, oppressive, and unconstitutional behests.… The Senator from Massachusetts pretends to be a statesman, and gets up to speak in this Chamber, not only to the Senate, not only to the people of the United States, but to the legislators and statesmen and publicists of Europe, … as if he fancied himself the autocratic lawgiver of the whole land,—as though he was a great Colossus in wisdom and power, bestriding Government, Constitution, and country.… The people of the South are enslaved; they are enslaved by the usurped power of the Senator from Massachusetts, in part, and he knows it.… If justice could overtake the States of this Union, Massachusetts would be reconstructed and brought to greater shame than even South Carolina. The honorable Senator was almost in an ecstasy, a few days ago, when he foretold the advent of negro Senators into this body. He was jubilant.… We see the fell purpose of the honorable Senator from Massachusetts. We know with what persistence he pursues his objects.” Mr. Sumner, in reply, simply read extracts from speeches by Judge Goodloe, Willard Davis, G. H. Graham, and General Brisbin, all of Kentucky, at a recent celebration, on the 4th of July, at Lexington, in that State.[A]
[A] Congressional Globe, 40th Cong. 1st Sess., July 13, 1867, pp. 631-633.
[233] See, ante, p. 190.
[234] Statutes at Large, Vol. XV. pp. 14-16.