Dr. Stephen G. Hubbard.—One.
Mr. Beecher here stated that if twenty-five could be raised on the spot, he would pledge twenty-five more from the church at Plymouth—fifty being a sufficient number for the whole supply. (Clapping of hands all over the house.)
Prof. Silliman now left Mr. Beecher to speak for the bid, and sat down to enjoy the occasion.
Mr. Killem.—I give one.
Mr. Beecher.—Killem—that's a significant name in connection with a good Sharpe's rifle. (Laughter.)
After this, this clerical vagabond, Beecher, blessed the weapons, and encouraged the party to go forth and "do or die" in the sublime "cause of nigger freedom!" In all human probability, sweet Mary Dutton's rifle may have sped the ball that pierced the side of Sheriff Jones, the officer of the law, while in the honest discharge of a sworn duty! Subsequent murders, where pro-slavery men were shot down with these rifles, we attribute to the omen that Beecher found in his name "Killem"—it is a significant name in connection with Sharpe's rifle. The real assassins shoot down their men, and with their rifles and Bibles flee; but she who unfrocked herself by furnishing a rifle, and he who gave and blessed the weapon of death, are here to accept the thanks of their admirers and partisans. Let sweet Mary and her beloved pastor be crowned with wreaths of deadly night-shade, and consigned to one cell in Sing Sing prison!
But the success of Ruffianism in Kansas, in the hands of those vile Abolition Democrats, has emboldened members of the same party to introduce it in the Federal Capital. But the other day, Mr. Sumner, of Massachusetts, made, in his place in the U. S. Senate, one of the most incendiary and inflammatory speeches ever uttered on the floor of either House of Congress! The vocabulary of Billingsgate was exhausted in denouncing all who dared to justify the institution of slavery—using, over and over again, such terms as "hireling, picked from the drunken spew of an uneasy civilization in the form of men," &c. The language made use of was disgraceful to the vile Abolitionist himself, and to the Senate, of which he never ought to have been a member. There was no limit to the personal abuse in which the villainous Senator indulged, no restraint to the vile epithets coined in his insane head; and the very natural consequence was, a personal chastisement of Mr. Sumner, in the Senate chamber, by Mr. Brooks, a Representative from South Carolina, and a relative of Judge Butler, the gentleman abused in his absence, which, for its severity, never was equalled in Washington. Mr. Sumner was the aggressor, because he poured out the vials of his wrath upon not only Judge Butler, a distinguished Senator, but upon the whole State of South Carolina.
We do not justify the selection of a time and place by Mr. Brooks, for punishing this Massachusetts Abolitionist; but we should despise the son of South Carolina who could hear his native State arraigned in such temper and language, without feeling intensely, and manifesting that feeling at a proper time and place. Indeed, it would be strange if a South Carolinian did not resent the arrogant, insulting, and contemptuous tone which Mr. Sumner saw fit to indulge in towards South Carolina in general, and her Senator in particular! We know Judge Butler—we have seen him on the Bench, in the discharge of the duties of a Circuit-Judge—we have seen and heard him in the Senate Chamber, where he has served for years, with credit to himself and honor to his State. He is an accomplished man, and a most amiable and honorable gentleman. His character is unblemished; he stands deservedly high; he is a gentleman of urbane and courteous demeanor, and is beloved, esteemed, and respected, by all gentlemen who know him or associate with him. Besides, he is an old man, gray-haired, and palsied; and, whether present or absent, deserved to be treated as a gentleman.
Northern men may not expect to vilify the South in this way, without having to atone for it. Men who profess to belong to the peace party, ought not to employ language that will provoke a fight, and then shield themselves behind their non-resistant defences. They voluntarily put themselves upon the platform of resistance—they pass insults, and they must submit to the consequences. We have just finished the perusal of a case in Æsop's Fables, exactly in point. It is the case of a trumpeter taken prisoner in battle. He claimed exemption from the common fate of prisoners of war, in ancient times, on the ground that he carried no weapons, and was, in fact, a non-combatant, belonging to the peace party! "Non-combatant, the Devil!" exclaimed the opposing party, pointing to his trumpet, as preparations were being made to put him to death, "Why, Sir, you hold in your hands the very instrument which incites our foes to tenfold furies against us!"
But this fight between the parties has to come, and it should begin at Washington, and if not in the halls of Congress, at least in the streets of the Federal city. Let the battle be fought there, and not in Kansas, and let it fall upon the villainous agitators of the Slavery question, and the Democratic disturbers of the Compromises of the Constitution. Let it come now, that it may be fought out and settled, and not left to posterity, to curse and crush the rising generation!