"I do not blame gentlemen of the South for using this threat of rending God's creation from foundation to turret. They have tried it fifty times, and fifty times they have found weak and recreant tremblers in the North who have been affected by it, and who have retreated before these intimidations."
He turned to the group of conservative members of his own party with a look of triumphant taunting. He wanted war. He courted it. He saw its coming with a shout of joy.
The House was in an uproar. Members leaped from their seats and jammed the aisles, shouting, cheering, hissing, catcalling. The clerk was powerless to preserve order.
For two months the bedlam continued while they voted in vain to elect a Speaker. The new party was determined to have John Sherman. The opposition was divided but finally chose Mr. Pennington, a moderate of mediocre ability.
During these eight weeks of senseless wrangling the members began to arm themselves with revolvers. One of the weapons dropped from the pocket of a member from New York and he was accused of attempting to draw it for use against an opponent.
The sergeant at arms was summoned and pandemonium broke loose. For a moment it seemed that a pitched battle before the dais of the Speaker was inevitable.
John Sherman rose and made a remarkable statement—remarkable in showing how the mob mind will inevitably destroy the mind of the individual until its unity is undisputed. He spoke in tones of reconciliation.
"When I came here I did not believe that the Slavery question would come up; and but for the unfortunate affair of Brown's at Harper's Ferry I do not believe that there would have been any feeling on the subject. Northern members came here with kindly feelings, no man approving of the deed of John Brown, and every man willing to say so, every man willing to admit it an act of lawless violence."
It was true. And yet before that mad session closed they were Brown's disciples and he had become their martyr here. The mob mind devours individuality, and reduces all to the common denominator of the archaic impulse.
In the fierce conflict for Speaker four years before, when Banks had been chosen, Slavery was then the issue. Good humor, courtesy and reason ruled the contest which lasted three days longer than the fight over Sherman. Instead of courtesy and reason—hatred, passion, defiance, assertion were now the order of the day. Four years before a threat of disunion was made on the floor. The House received it with shouts of derision and laughter. Keitt's dramatic threat had thrown the House into an uproar which had to be quelled by the sergeant at arms. Envy, hate, jealousy, spite, passion were supreme. The favorite epithets hurled across the Chamber were: