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10 - Charles Sumner, The Scholar in Politics by Archibald Grimké · Charles Sumner, The Scholar in Politics

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Speaker 1: Chapter nine of Charles Sumner, The Scholar in Politics by
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Speaker 1: Archibald Grimkey. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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Speaker 1: Defender of Humanity. At the instant that Charles Sumner entered
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Speaker 1: that iron and marble body, as his friend Charles Francis
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Speaker 1: Adams very fiddly characterized the Senate of the United States
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Speaker 1: of those days, the last of its early giants was
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Speaker 1: leaving it forever. Calhoun had already passed away. Webster was
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Speaker 1: in Millard Fillmore's cabinet, and Clay was escaping in his
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Speaker 1: own picturesque and pathetic phrase, scarred by spears and worried
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Speaker 1: by wounds, to drag his mutilated body to his lair
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Speaker 1: and lie down and die. The representative of compromise was
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Speaker 1: making his exit from one doort of the stage, the
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Speaker 1: representative of conscience his entrance through another. Was it accident
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Speaker 1: or a prophecy, where the bells of destiny ringing in
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Speaker 1: the valiant man and free the larger heart, the kindlier hand,
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Speaker 1: and wringing out the darkness of the land. But whether
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Speaker 1: accident or a prophecy, Sumner had advanced into the midst
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Speaker 1: of a hostile camp. On either side enemies surrounded him.
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Speaker 1: Southern Whigs and Southern Democrats hated him. Northern Whigs and
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Speaker 1: Northern Democrats likewise hated him. He was wholly without party affiliations,
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Speaker 1: well nigh friendless, but thanks to the revolution which was
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Speaker 1: working in the Free States, he was not absolutely so,
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Speaker 1: for William H. Seward was already there, and Salmon P.
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Speaker 1: Chase and John P. Hale and Hannibal Hamlin. Under these circumstances,
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Speaker 1: it behooved him to take no precipitate step. A smaller man,
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Speaker 1: a leader, less, fearless and wise, might have blundered just
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Speaker 1: here by leaping too hastily with his cause into the
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Speaker 1: arena of the Sumner did nothing of the kind his
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Speaker 1: self poison control for nine months were simply admirable endurance,
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Speaker 1: as lowell is, their grounding quality and patience, all the
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Speaker 1: passion of great hearts. Certainly during those trying months, they
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Speaker 1: were Sumner's, the crowning quality and the passion. First the
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Speaker 1: blade he had to acquaint himself with the routine and
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Speaker 1: business of legislation. Then the ear had to study the
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Speaker 1: personnel of the Senate, become master of the situation. Four
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Speaker 1: times he essayed his strength on subjects of inferior interest
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Speaker 1: to the one which he was carrying in his heart
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Speaker 1: as mothers carry their unborn babes. Each trial of his
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Speaker 1: parliamentary wings raised him in the estimation of friends and foes.
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Speaker 1: His welcome to go sooth, and his tribute to Robert
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Speaker 1: Rantoul Junior proved him to be an accomplished orator. His
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Speaker 1: speech on the public land question evinced him besides strong
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Speaker 1: in history, argument, and law, No vehemence of anti slavery pressure,
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Speaker 1: no shock of angry criticism coming from home, was able
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Speaker 1: to jostle him out of his fixed determination to speak
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Speaker 1: only when he was ready upon the paramount subject of
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Speaker 1: his own and the nation's thoughts. Winter went and spring appeared,
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Speaker 1: and yet his silence remained. Some or two was waiting
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Speaker 1: before he was really prepared to begin. Then, like in
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Speaker 1: August Storm, he burst on the Senate and the country
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Speaker 1: in that powerful performance freedom, national slavery sectional. Like all
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Speaker 1: of mister Sumner's efforts, whether popular or parliamentary or academic,
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Speaker 1: this one was carefully written out and memorized. He was
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Speaker 1: not absolutely incapable of speaking without this sort of preparation,
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Speaker 1: though what he said then was apt to lack spontaneity
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Speaker 1: and the moral fervor which distinguished his written words. When
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Speaker 1: speaking without the aid of manuscript preparation, his utterance acquired
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Speaker 1: an air of what may be termed literary dictation. Wanted
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Speaker 1: the true requisite for the forcible declamation of an orator.
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Speaker 1: He was deficient in the qualities of the great debater,
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Speaker 1: as the reader has probably surmised, was not able to
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Speaker 1: think effectively on his feet, to give and take hard
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Speaker 1: hits within the short range of extemporaneous and hand to
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Speaker 1: hand encounters. Clay and John Quincy Adams were pre eminent
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Speaker 1: in this species of intellectual warfare. Webster and Calhoun where formidable.
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Speaker 1: Sumner doubtless never experienced that quick sympathy and marvelous interplay
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Speaker 1: of emotion and intelligence between himself and an audience which
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Speaker 1: made Window Phillips the unrivaled monarch of the anti slavery platform.
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Speaker 1: Sumners was the eloquence of elaboration rather than the eloquence
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Speaker 1: of inspiration. What he did gave the impression of size,
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Speaker 1: of length, breadth, and thoroughness. He needed space and he
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Speaker 1: needed time. These granted he could indeed be tremendous. He
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Speaker 1: was tremendous on this occasion before the Senate. His theme
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Speaker 1: furnishes the keynote and the keystone of his opposition to slavery. Garrison,
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Speaker 1: Phillips and Theodore D Weld appealed against the evil, to
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Speaker 1: a common humanity, to the primary moral instincts of mankind,
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Speaker 1: in condemnation of its villainies and depressions, the appeal that
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Speaker 1: carried them beyond and above constitutions and codes, to the
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Speaker 1: unwritten and eternal right. Sumner appealed against the Institution, to
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Speaker 1: the self evident truths of the Declaration of Independence, to
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Speaker 1: the spirited letter of the Constitution, to the sentiments and
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Speaker 1: hopes of the fathers, and to the early history and
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Speaker 1: policy of the country which they had founded. All these
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Speaker 1: were for freedom and against slavery. There reverse was error.
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Speaker 1: Public opinion was Arab bound, the North was Arab bound,
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Speaker 1: and so was the South. Parties and politicians were air bound.
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Speaker 1: Freedom was the heritage of the nation. Slavery had robbed
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Speaker 1: it of its birthright. Slavery must be dispossessed, Cathago asked Delenda.
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Speaker 1: As it was in the beginning, so it hath ever been.
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Speaker 1: The world needs light. The great want of his country
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Speaker 1: on the subject of slavery. Sumner believed to be light.
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Speaker 1: This speech of his was but a repetition in a
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Speaker 1: world of wrong, of the divine fiat. Let there be light.
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Speaker 1: Light burst from it upon the national darkness. Such light
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Speaker 1: as a thunderbolt scatters, shriveling and shivering the deep rooted
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Speaker 1: lie and sin of the land. A new hour that
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Speaker 1: speech struck for America. Not before in the government had
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Speaker 1: freedom touched so high a mark. Heretofore the power had
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Speaker 1: been arrogant and exacting. A keen observer might then have
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Speaker 1: foreseen that freedom also would someday become exacting and aggressive
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Speaker 1: for its advancing billows, and had broken in the resounding
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Speaker 1: periods and passions of his eloquent champion. The manner of
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Speaker 1: the orator, which marked all his public deliverances, was that
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Speaker 1: of a man speaking with authority, of a man who
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Speaker 1: defers to no one, prefers no one to himself. He
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Speaker 1: was in fined the imperious manner of an orator, conscious
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Speaker 1: of the possessions of great powers and of ability to
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Speaker 1: use them. Such a champion of freedom as was Sumner,
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Speaker 1: the crisis required God made one American statesman without moral joints.
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Speaker 1: When he made Charles Sumner, he could not bend the
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Speaker 1: supple hinges of the knee to the South. Free he
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Speaker 1: had none to bend. He must needs stand erect, in flexible,
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Speaker 1: uncompromising an image of Puritan harshness and Puritan grandeur against
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Speaker 1: his granite like character and convictions. The haughty will of
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Speaker 1: the seuth was to hurl itself in vain orator and
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Speaker 1: oration revealed to the slave power, as in a magic mirror,
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Speaker 1: some things which before had seemed indistinct and elusive, like
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Speaker 1: burnham wood moving toward high density. But the miracle was
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Speaker 1: now performed. The impossible had happened. The insurgent moral sense
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Speaker 1: of a mud sill and shopkeeping North has at last
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Speaker 1: found in the government voice and vent with What rising
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Speaker 1: apprehensions must the South have listened to these bold and
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Speaker 1: prophetic words. The movement against slavery is from the everlasting arm.
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Speaker 1: Even now it is gathering its forces, soon to be
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Speaker 1: confessed everywhere. It may not yet be felt in the
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Speaker 1: places of office and power, but all who can put
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Speaker 1: their ears humbly to the ground will hear and comprehend
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Speaker 1: its incessant and advancing tread. Before the delivery of this speech,
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Speaker 1: Sumner had obtained a taste of the intolerance and tyranny
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Speaker 1: of the Iron and marble body in the interest of slavery.
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Speaker 1: As early as July, he had endeavored to get the
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Speaker 1: floor for remarks on the Fugitive slave Law, and was
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Speaker 1: thwarted by the vigilant hostage of the Masters of the Senate.
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Speaker 1: He did, however, hold the ear of that body long
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Speaker 1: enough in July to notify it of his intention to
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Speaker 1: move at an early day the repeal of the obnoxious law,
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Speaker 1: and to explain why he had not attempted to address
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Speaker 1: the members on the subject before. After this, it was
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Speaker 1: openly asserted that he should not be allowed to carry
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Speaker 1: out his intention during the session then pending. But the
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Speaker 1: slave power knew not the man whom it had determined
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Speaker 1: to silence. Vigilantly watched as he was by his foes,
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Speaker 1: he was no less vigilant in watching for parliamentary opening
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Speaker 1: for himself and his cause in the Citadel of slavery.
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Speaker 1: On August twenty sixth, eighteen fifty two, the opening cane,
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Speaker 1: and quickly Summer perceived it, and in a flash was
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Speaker 1: through it and upon the floor of the chamber. On
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Speaker 1: that day the Civil and Diplomatic Bill being under consideration
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Speaker 1: by the Senate, mister Hunter of Virginia moved an amendment
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Speaker 1: to the same to provide for the payment of sundry
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Speaker 1: officers of the government in the enforcement of the Fugitive
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Speaker 1: Slave law. Mister Hunter was so intent upon safeguarding Southern
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Speaker 1: property that, for the nonce he quite forgot that he
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Speaker 1: and his colleagues were trying to silence an alert and
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Speaker 1: determined adversary. No sooner had he thus exposed his flanks
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Speaker 1: than Sumner dashed promptly in with an amendment to the
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Speaker 1: amendment to it, that no such allowance be authorized for
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Speaker 1: any expenses incurred in executing the Fugitive Slave Bill, and
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Speaker 1: that the same be repealed. It was in support of
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Speaker 1: this amendment, and by this stratagem, that he finally obtained
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Speaker 1: the floor and made his first great speech against slavery
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Speaker 1: in the Senate. Sumner did not limit his opposition to
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Speaker 1: the giant wrong of the land to any particular place,
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Speaker 1: or occasion or motive attack. He struck it whenever, wherever,
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Speaker 1: and with whatsoever he got a chance. He made use
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Speaker 1: in the noblest sense of all the means which God
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Speaker 1: and Nature put within his reach to weaken and destroy
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Speaker 1: the slave power in the government and the cruel proscriptive
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Speaker 1: spirit which it generated towards the colored race in the
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Speaker 1: Free States. His argument in favor of equality before the
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Speaker 1: law in Massachusetts and against the constitutionality of separate Colored
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Speaker 1: schools in Boston before the Supreme Court of that state
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Speaker 1: December fourteen forty nine, was action against the national iniquity.
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Speaker 1: Along this line, he made for the time being the
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Speaker 1: Supreme Court an anti slavery meeting house and its bar,
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Speaker 1: an anti slavery platform, and a very effective anti slavery agent.
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Speaker 1: He proved all the more so because of the presidence
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Speaker 1: of Robert Morris, a black lawyer, whom he had associated
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Speaker 1: with himself as counsel in the case, so also should
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Speaker 1: be classed. His speech entitled the Party of Freedom, Its
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Speaker 1: Necessity and Practicability, delivered before the Free Soil State Convention
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Speaker 1: of Massachusetts, held at Lowell September fifteen, eighteen fifty two,
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Speaker 1: Sumner's purpose and it was to create a freedom power
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Speaker 1: in the North to meet and master the slave power
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Speaker 1: of the South. He was a member of the Convention
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Speaker 1: to revise and amend the Constitution of Massachusetts in eighteen
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Speaker 1: fifty three, and here again two of the four speeches
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Speaker 1: made by him during the sessions of that body must
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Speaker 1: be viewed as indirect attacks upon slavery and its progeny
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Speaker 1: cast prejudice. One of these speeches was on the Power
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Speaker 1: of the State over the Militia, in which he argues
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Speaker 1: that in the organization of the volunteer military companies of
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Speaker 1: the Commonwealth, there shall be no distinction of color or race.
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Speaker 1: The other address was on Bill of Rights, their History
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Speaker 1: and Policy, which furnished a capital text for an anti
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Speaker 1: slavery sermon from the great lay preacher of the Gospel
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Speaker 1: of National righteousness. With these sturdy blows upon the many
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Speaker 1: headed wrong with which he was battling must be classed
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Speaker 1: his addressed entitled finger Point from Plymouth Rock, given by
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Speaker 1: him on the occasion of the festival held August oneh
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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty three, in commemoration of the Embarkation of the Pilgrims.
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Speaker 1: Although called up to speak to the toast the Senate
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Speaker 1: of the United States the concentrated light of the Stars
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Speaker 1: of the Union, he nevertheless chose his own text, which
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Speaker 1: was more in consonance with the thought which had then
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Speaker 1: possession of his hearted mind. While he made no overt
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Speaker 1: allusion to the irrepressible conflict and raging between freedom and
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Speaker 1: slavery in the Republic, yet it was palpable to all
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Speaker 1: that behind the struggles of the persecuted Puritans for religious liberty,
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Speaker 1: he was exalting the struggles of the friends of freedom,
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Speaker 1: of his own day and of the country founded by
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Speaker 1: the devotion of tue duty, and the courage and constancy
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Speaker 1: of those seventeenth century reformers and foes of oppression. But
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Speaker 1: while he thus utilized all the ways and means which
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Speaker 1: his increasing influence and opportunities were bringing to him in
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Speaker 1: well delivered blows upon the head of the great iniquity,
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Speaker 1: his seat in the Senate furnished him now his chief
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Speaker 1: coin advantage in the war. From this commanding position he
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Speaker 1: trained his heaviest guns toward his most destructive fire upon
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Speaker 1: the strongholds of the slave power. After the long silence
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Speaker 1: of those early months was broken by the broad side
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Speaker 1: of his first great speech against the slave despotism, the
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Speaker 1: deep thunder of his artillery was heard oftener speaking from
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Speaker 1: those heights. Meanwhile, the temper of the South was growing
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Speaker 1: more unreasonable, violent and arrogant. Worsted as she clearly was
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Speaker 1: in the contest for political supremacy since the admission of
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Speaker 1: California as a free state into the Union, she nevertheless
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Speaker 1: clung passionately to her pretensions to sectional leadership and control.
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Speaker 1: As she had no longer anything to lose and much
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Speaker 1: to recover. Her action acquired a certain defiant and reckless tone.
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Speaker 1: If finally defeated inner purpose, there were in the background
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Speaker 1: secession and a Southern confederacy to retreat upon. On the
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Speaker 1: other hand, the North was the theater where was enacting
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Speaker 1: a kind of double drama. There was, in the first place,
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Speaker 1: the capital issue between it and its southern rival, the
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Speaker 1: struggle for political supremacy in the Union. There was, besides,
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Speaker 1: the conflict between its aspirations for sexual ascendency and its
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Speaker 1: anxiety for the preservation of the Union. This byplay of
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Speaker 1: its aspirations and its apprehensions rose at times to the
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Speaker 1: gravity of the main action. It was this double movement
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Speaker 1: of the passions which destroyed Northern unity of purpose in
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Speaker 1: the presence of danger and of its Southern antagonists, gave
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Speaker 1: to its leaders a timid, halting, irresolute disposition pulled them
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Speaker 1: back from any decisive step the moment they had aspired
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Speaker 1: the shadow of a crisis above the national horizon, slave
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Speaker 1: power gained constantly in singleness and energy of ain. The
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Speaker 1: freedom power, because of this duality of purpose, was subjected
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Speaker 1: to ever recurrent irregularities and perturbations of conduct. The situation
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Speaker 1: at the North was still further complicated by the disintegration
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Speaker 1: and chaos into which the two old parties were tumbling there,
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Speaker 1: and by the fierce jealousies and rivalries of party leaders
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Speaker 1: within them. The conditions in eighteen fifty four were all
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Speaker 1: propitious to Southern aggression, favorable for the commission of some bold,
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Speaker 1: unprecedented crime against liberty. Clay did not live to see
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Speaker 1: the black spirits and white red spirits in gray which
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Speaker 1: issued from the cauldron of eighteen fifty about which he
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Speaker 1: sang his sad swan song. Calhoun had preceded him to
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Speaker 1: the everlasting quiety of the grave. Webster, broken hearted and dishonored,
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Speaker 1: yet gran still in his ruin, followed their wearied way
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Speaker 1: to the tomb. At last, the three master lights to
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Speaker 1: which all men had looked in trial hours, were quenched
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Speaker 1: in their lofty towers, the sea had risen, and the
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Speaker 1: wind and the witching voices of storm and night. They
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Speaker 1: were abroad and mingling those black spirits and white which
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Speaker 1: the music of their trioone and triumphant eloquence had so
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Speaker 1: often enraptured back to hell. As these imposing luminaries sank
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Speaker 1: one after another into the void, darkness and tumult advanced
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Speaker 1: to pace through the land. It was at this juncture
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Speaker 1: that the most striking and perhaps sinister figure in American
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Speaker 1: Party history loomed into greatness. Stephen A. Douglas was a
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Speaker 1: curious and grim example of the survival of Viking instincts
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Speaker 1: in the modern office seeker on the sea of politics.
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Speaker 1: He was a veritable water dog, daring, unscrupulous, lawless, transcendently able,
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Speaker 1: and transcendently heartless. The sight of the presidency affected him
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Speaker 1: in much the same manner as did the defeat in
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Speaker 1: rich civilizations and countries of Latin Europe affect his roving
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Speaker 1: robber prototypes twelve hundred years before it stirred every drop
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Speaker 1: of his seawolf's blood to give possession of it. His
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Speaker 1: quarter sovereignty device was, indeed the pirate ship that carried
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Speaker 1: consternation to many an anxious community in the Free States.
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Speaker 1: In these circumstances, and with such a northern ally, the
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Speaker 1: self undertook the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The introduction
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Speaker 1: of a measure by mister Dodge of Iowa on December fourteen,
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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty three, in the Senate for the organization of
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Speaker 1: the upper division of the Louisiana Purchase into the territory
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Speaker 1: of Nebraska was made the occasion for achieving this result.
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Speaker 1: All that country, the reader doubtless knows, the slave line
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Speaker 1: of eighteen twenty had consecrated forever to freedom. Calhoun boldis
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Speaker 1: he was in action, had not ventured to counsel the
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Speaker 1: abrogation of that memorable covenant between the sections, because the
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Speaker 1: agitation growing out of such a proposition would disturb the
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Speaker 1: peace and harmony of the Union. As he put it,
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Speaker 1: the South had got the worst of the bargain, he reasoned,
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Speaker 1: was overreached. But a bargain was a bargain, and therefore
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Speaker 1: the slave states should stand by their plighted faith unless
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Speaker 1: released by the free But what the great Nullifier would
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Speaker 1: not counsel his disciples and successors dared to do. The
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Speaker 1: execution of the scheme was adroitly committed to the leadership
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Speaker 1: of Douglas. Thus the movement seemed to come from the North,
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Speaker 1: and thus did the South hope to conceal the sectionalism
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Speaker 1: and rapacity of its design. Clearly did her leaders foresee
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Speaker 1: that what they would do for slavery ought to be
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Speaker 1: done deftly and quickly, before the full tide and rush
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Speaker 1: of public sentiment at the North should overtake and overwhelm
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Speaker 1: all such mischievous attempts. Texas, upon which Calhoun had built
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Speaker 1: strong hopes of prolonged Southern tendency in the Union, had
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Speaker 1: disappointed Southern expectations in that regard. Far easier, it was found,
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Speaker 1: to annex and empower than to people. The emergency states
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Speaker 1: provided for by the bill admitting Texas to statehood were
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Speaker 1: not forthcoming to meet the exigencies of the slave power
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Speaker 1: on the political chess board. There was but a single
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Speaker 1: move left for it to make, and that was the
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Speaker 1: prevention of any further relative increase in the number of
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Speaker 1: free states. This final checkmate that power designed to accomplish
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Speaker 1: by throwing down the wall a partition between freedom and
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Speaker 1: slavery erected by the Missouri compromise. Here, indeed, were spaces
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Speaker 1: larger than the thirteen original states to be occupied to
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Speaker 1: figure sooner or later with decisive weight and effect in
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Speaker 1: the struggle for political supremacy between the two halves of
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Speaker 1: the Republic. The exclusive right of freedom to the occupancy
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Speaker 1: of this immense region was to be set aside, and
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Speaker 1: to slavery was to be granted, and equality of interest
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Speaker 1: and ownership in the same Hence the powerful practical utility
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Speaker 1: of the squad of sovereignty scheme of Douglas as an
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Speaker 1: instrument of demolition, then to the North might recall so
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Speaker 1: possibly the South reasoned that plausible and pernicious notion of
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Speaker 1: Webster of the futility of reaffirming an ordinance of nature,
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Speaker 1: of re enacting the will of God, and cooperate in
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Speaker 1: the work of destruction. But the Free States did not
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Speaker 1: take at all to the monstrous proposition. It threw them,
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Speaker 1: on the contrary, into a fever of alarm and activity
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Speaker 1: in view of the disastrous consequences which impended from the
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Speaker 1: measure to their interests and institutions. The self love and
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Speaker 1: sectionalism of the North took fire everywhere through the Free States.
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Speaker 1: There spread in blaze Northern Protestation and opposition to the
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Speaker 1: consummation of the dark conspiracy. The repeal fought its way
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Speaker 1: through Congress during four stormy minds. Blows fell upon it
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Speaker 1: and its authors, thick and furious, from Seward, Jase Wade, Fessenden, Giddings,
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Speaker 1: and Jarrett Smith. But Sumner was the colossus of the hour,
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Speaker 1: the heart of fame of his section. He was he
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Speaker 1: more than any other, who swung the ponderous Northern hammer
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Speaker 1: and smote plot and plotters with the stern strength of
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Speaker 1: the Northern giant. Such as speeches. Was his landmarks of freedom,
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Speaker 1: only Christ's breed. He was a ground swell of the
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Speaker 1: moral throes of the times, a law of a tide
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Speaker 1: of argument, appeal, history, and eloquence. The august rites and
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Speaker 1: wrath of the Northern people thundered and lightened along its
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Speaker 1: rolling lines. Accomplish thou thy manhood and thyself is of humanity,
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Speaker 1: ringing ever in the soul of the reformer, he must
22:48
Speaker 1: needs bestir himself in obedience to the high mandate. This
22:51
Speaker 1: labor is the special mission of great men. It was
22:55
Speaker 1: without doubt Sumner's he stood for the manhood of the
22:58
Speaker 1: north of the slave of the nation. For this he
23:01
Speaker 1: strenuously toiled. It shines in every sentence of that memorable
23:05
Speaker 1: speech and of the shorter one in defense of the
23:07
Speaker 1: New England Clergy, made at midnight on the that black
23:11
Speaker 1: Thursday of May, which closed the bitter struggle and consummated
23:14
Speaker 1: the act of repeal. Here is a passage from the
23:18
Speaker 1: latter of these speeches. From the depths of my soul,
23:22
Speaker 1: as loyal citizen and as Senator, I plead remonstrate protest
23:27
Speaker 1: against the passage of this bill. I struggle against it
23:30
Speaker 1: as against death, But as in death its self, corruption
23:33
Speaker 1: puts on immortality. So from the sting of this hour
23:37
Speaker 1: I find assurance of that triumph by which freedom will
23:40
Speaker 1: be restored to her immortal birthright in the Republic. Sir,
23:45
Speaker 1: the bill you are about to pass is at once
23:47
Speaker 1: the worst and the best on which Congress ever acted,
23:50
Speaker 1: Yes their worst and best. At the same time, it
23:55
Speaker 1: is the worst bill inasmuch as it is a present
23:58
Speaker 1: victory of slavery. Among the crimes of history. Another is
24:02
Speaker 1: soon to be recorded, which no tears can blot out,
24:05
Speaker 1: and which in better days will be read with universal shame.
24:09
Speaker 1: Do not start the t Tax and Stamp Act, which
24:12
Speaker 1: aroused the patriot rage of our father's were virtues by
24:16
Speaker 1: the side of your transgression. Nor would it be easy
24:19
Speaker 1: to imagine at this day any measure which more openly
24:22
Speaker 1: defied every sentiment of justice, humanity, and Christianity. Am I
24:28
Speaker 1: not right than in calling it the worst bill on
24:31
Speaker 1: which Congress ever acted? There is another side to which
24:34
Speaker 1: I gladly turn, sir. It is the best bill on
24:38
Speaker 1: which Congress ever acted for id and alls all past
24:42
Speaker 1: compromises with slavery, and makes any future compromises impossible. Thus
24:47
Speaker 1: it puts freedom and slavery face to face and bids
24:50
Speaker 1: them grapple. Who can doubt the result? It opens wide
24:53
Speaker 1: the door of the future, when at last there will
24:56
Speaker 1: really be anore, and the slave power will be broken,
24:59
Speaker 1: When this wretched despotism will cease to dominate over our government,
25:03
Speaker 1: no longer impressing itself upon everything at home and abroad,
25:07
Speaker 1: When the national government will be divorced in every way
25:10
Speaker 1: from slavery, and according to the true intention of our fathers,
25:14
Speaker 1: freedom will be established by Congress everywhere, at least beyond
25:17
Speaker 1: the local limits of the states. Slavery will then be
25:21
Speaker 1: driven from usurped foothold here in the District of Columbia,
25:26
Speaker 1: in the national territories, and elsewhere beneath the national flag.
25:29
Speaker 1: The fugitive slave Bill Sumner would never call it law,
25:33
Speaker 1: as vile as it is unconstitutional, will become a dead letter.
25:37
Speaker 1: And the domestic slave trade, so far as it can
25:39
Speaker 1: be reached, but especially on the high seas, will be
25:42
Speaker 1: blasted by congressional prohibition. Everywhere within the sphere of Congress,
25:47
Speaker 1: the great Northern hammer will descend to smite the wrong,
25:51
Speaker 1: and the irresistible cry will break forth no more slave
25:54
Speaker 1: states significant enough had the south Ears to interpret it
25:59
Speaker 1: a right was the prolonged applause in the galleries, which
26:02
Speaker 1: greeted a passage from the earlier speech in which their
26:05
Speaker 1: orator likened the power of slavery in loosening and destroying
26:09
Speaker 1: the character of Northern men. To the fabled influence of
26:12
Speaker 1: the Black magnetic Mountain in the Arabian story, whereby the
26:15
Speaker 1: iron boats which held together the strong timbers of a
26:18
Speaker 1: stately ship floating securely on the distant wave, were drawn
26:22
Speaker 1: out till the whole fell apart and became a disjointed wreck.
26:27
Speaker 1: So were the principles of Northern representatives sucked out by
26:30
Speaker 1: the black magnetic mountain of the slave power. And from
26:33
Speaker 1: the miserable, loosened fragments is found that human anomaly, a
26:37
Speaker 1: Northern man with Southern principles, Sir, exclaimed the orator. No
26:42
Speaker 1: such man can speak for the North. And thereupon the
26:44
Speaker 1: galleries burst into applause. Freedom had grown bolder. It had
26:48
Speaker 1: invaded the Senate Chamber. It had invaded also the galleries
26:52
Speaker 1: of that chamber, with unwonted sounds and emotions. They were
26:56
Speaker 1: the burning brands borne by the swift rising winds of
26:59
Speaker 1: public opinion at the north, from the fierce fires spreading
27:02
Speaker 1: and blazing from one end of that section to the other,
27:05
Speaker 1: against the monumental perfidy and iniquity of the slave power,
27:09
Speaker 1: in throwing down the sacred landmark of liberty erected by
27:13
Speaker 1: the Missouri Compromise. The munition of Sumner that the passage
27:19
Speaker 1: of the active repeal would mark the close of an
27:21
Speaker 1: era of compromises was made also by William H. Sewart,
27:25
Speaker 1: in different words, but with not less certainty of sense.
27:28
Speaker 1: The shifting sands of compromise, said he to the Senate,
27:32
Speaker 1: are passing from under my feet, and they are now
27:35
Speaker 1: without agency of my own, taking hold again on the
27:38
Speaker 1: rock of the Constitution. It shall be no fault of
27:40
Speaker 1: mine if they do not remain firm. This seems to
27:43
Speaker 1: me auspicious of better days and wiser legislation. Through all
27:48
Speaker 1: the darkness and gloom of the present hour, bright stars
27:52
Speaker 1: are breaking that inspire me with hope and excite me
27:55
Speaker 1: to perseverance. The greed of the South had overreached itself,
27:59
Speaker 1: for in a time eept to seize fresh advantages in
28:02
Speaker 1: his contests with the North. For the political balance of
28:05
Speaker 1: the federal system. It had, by the passion of fears
28:08
Speaker 1: and the deep sense of injury thereby aroused toward it
28:12
Speaker 1: throughout that section unwittingly could imperil its erstwhile strong, almost
28:16
Speaker 1: impregnable position in the Union. The conduct of the South
28:21
Speaker 1: at this juncture of the irrepressible conflict furnished another illustration
28:25
Speaker 1: of the truth of the saying that whom the gods
28:28
Speaker 1: would destroy, they first make mad. Madder, and yet more
28:31
Speaker 1: mad from this time grew the slave Section. Sumner's bold
28:35
Speaker 1: and uncompromising tone, pending the Great Debate, mightily incensed the
28:40
Speaker 1: South against him. This feeling of growing hate and hostility
28:43
Speaker 1: toward him on the part of the slave power was
28:45
Speaker 1: fanned almost into an open violence by an incident arising
28:49
Speaker 1: out of the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law in Boston,
28:52
Speaker 1: and which occurred on the evening of May twenty sixth,
28:55
Speaker 1: in the morning of which Sumner concluded his midnight speech
28:59
Speaker 1: on the Kansas Raska Bill. This was the attempt to
29:03
Speaker 1: rescue Anthony Burns by a number of citizens who attacked
29:07
Speaker 1: the courthouse where the fugitive slave was confined for safekeeping,
29:10
Speaker 1: and during which one of the slave guard was killed
29:13
Speaker 1: by a pistol shot from the rescuing party. The news
29:16
Speaker 1: of this attempt to defeat the execution of the slave law,
29:20
Speaker 1: and of the killing of the guard in the melee,
29:23
Speaker 1: produced a profound sensation in Washington, aroused the worst passions
29:27
Speaker 1: against Sumner, who was immediately charged with responsibility for the
29:31
Speaker 1: act and denounced by administrative organs as a murderer, notwithstanding
29:36
Speaker 1: the fact that at the hour of the attack upon
29:38
Speaker 1: the courthouse, the speech of the Massachusetts Senator to which
29:41
Speaker 1: the South attributed the tragedy, had not then reached Boston.
29:47
Speaker 1: It was not until the next day that it arrived
29:49
Speaker 1: by mail in the city. But the South was in
29:51
Speaker 1: no rational mood for the reception of such swift fulfillment
29:55
Speaker 1: of Sumner's prediction that the abrogation of the Compromise of
29:58
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty would scatter dragon's teeth fructify in civil strife
30:03
Speaker 1: and feud. Even while he was speaking, the dragon's teeth
30:06
Speaker 1: were fructifying in the stony soil of the Bay State.
30:10
Speaker 1: And now a cry was raised against a cry of
30:13
Speaker 1: insane hate, of gathering malignity on the part of the
30:17
Speaker 1: slave power. He was ruthlessly assailed by the Union and
30:20
Speaker 1: the star organs of the Administration, and language plainly intended
30:24
Speaker 1: to make emmodious at the Capitol, and to provoke against
30:27
Speaker 1: him violence of some sort, open or secret. Boston in
30:31
Speaker 1: arms against the Constitution, invade the former journal and an
30:35
Speaker 1: abolition fanatic. The distant leader saved from the fire and
30:39
Speaker 1: the fagot he invokes from his seat in the Senate
30:42
Speaker 1: of the United States, giving the command men shot down
30:46
Speaker 1: in the faithful discharge of duty to a law based
30:49
Speaker 1: upon a constitutional guarantee, and the word which encourages the
30:53
Speaker 1: assassin given by a man who has sworn on the
30:56
Speaker 1: Holy Evangelist and the presence of his maker to support
31:00
Speaker 1: the constitution of the country. Let Sumner and his infamous
31:05
Speaker 1: gang feel raid the latter newspaper that he cannot outrage
31:10
Speaker 1: the fame of his country council, treason to his laws,
31:13
Speaker 1: incite the ignorant to bloodshed and murder, and still receive
31:16
Speaker 1: the supporting countenance of the society of this city, which
31:19
Speaker 1: he has done so much to vilify. While the person
31:22
Speaker 1: of a Virginia citizen is only safe from rudeness and
31:26
Speaker 1: outrage behind the serried ranks of armed men, Charles Sumner
31:30
Speaker 1: is permitted to walk among the slave catchers and fire
31:32
Speaker 1: eaters of the South in peace and security. Thus raged
31:37
Speaker 1: the Southern heathen against him. The sinister appeals to the
31:40
Speaker 1: mob spirit by such powerful papers have their effect. In Alexandria,
31:44
Speaker 1: just across the river, the incubation of mischief advanced to
31:48
Speaker 1: pace violence was beginning to peck through the thin shell
31:52
Speaker 1: of law and order which confined it in that region.
31:56
Speaker 1: The air of the capital was full of ugly rumors
31:58
Speaker 1: of plans and plots to put the abolition fanatic down.
32:02
Speaker 1: Now he was to be seized as hostage for the surrender,
32:05
Speaker 1: burns now to receive some personal affront and violence, now
32:08
Speaker 1: to have a ball put through his head, All of
32:10
Speaker 1: which menaces were duly communicated to their object, with a
32:14
Speaker 1: view doubtless of driving him from his post in Washington.
32:17
Speaker 1: But those who sought to cow him into flight or
32:20
Speaker 1: silence surely knew him not un an awed and unterrified.
32:24
Speaker 1: He pursued the even tenor of his ways, walking to
32:27
Speaker 1: him from the Senate by Pennsylvania Avenue. The while, as
32:30
Speaker 1: was his wont unarmed. One day, at a restaurant where
32:33
Speaker 1: he dined, he was threatened and insulted by a Southern
32:37
Speaker 1: fire eater. Like begins like, and this violent temper of
32:42
Speaker 1: the South begot at the North. A temper of similar
32:45
Speaker 1: violence has witnessed the following ridden to mister sunderby Gallant
32:50
Speaker 1: Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut, at present a United States
32:53
Speaker 1: Senator from that state, If you really think there is
32:56
Speaker 1: any danger worth mentioning, I wish you would telegram me instantly.
33:01
Speaker 1: I will come to Washington by the next train and
33:03
Speaker 1: quietly stand by. I have revolvers and can use them.
33:07
Speaker 1: And while there should not be a word of unnecessary provocation,
33:11
Speaker 1: still if anybody in Alexandria or Washington really means to
33:14
Speaker 1: trouble you or any other free Democrat there, you know
33:18
Speaker 1: several can play at that game. This brave offer of
33:22
Speaker 1: the future Union General was called forth by the alarming
33:25
Speaker 1: rumors in regard to mister Sumner's safety, which were telegraphed
33:29
Speaker 1: May thirty first, from the seat of the Government to
33:32
Speaker 1: New York and other places. As mister Hawley was then feeling,
33:36
Speaker 1: so were thousands through the Free States. If the blood
33:39
Speaker 1: of the South was fast mounting to the fighting point,
33:42
Speaker 1: so was that of the North. So strong was the
33:45
Speaker 1: fighting feeling grown at the North that the secretary of
33:48
Speaker 1: the Peace Society, Reverend George C. Beckwith, who saw Anthony
33:52
Speaker 1: Burns return to slavery, could have thought of the deed,
33:56
Speaker 1: write in this bellicose vein to mister Sumner, I think
33:59
Speaker 1: I am still true to my peace principles, but my
34:01
Speaker 1: heart is stirred to his lowest steps of indignation. And
34:05
Speaker 1: I say, frankly to men who applaud what our forefathers did,
34:08
Speaker 1: that we have now even stronger reasons for resistance to
34:12
Speaker 1: the slave power than they had to the usurpations of England.
34:16
Speaker 1: Then this time Sumner's position at Washington became one of
34:20
Speaker 1: constantly present peril. Aided, insulted, denounced, menaced by mob violence.
34:27
Speaker 1: His life was every day in jeopardy, but he did
34:30
Speaker 1: not flinch or falter. Freedom was his master, humanity his guide.
34:34
Speaker 1: He climbed the hazardous steps that conducted him to duty,
34:37
Speaker 1: heedless of the dangers which arose in his path. His
34:40
Speaker 1: collisions with the slave leaders and their northern allies became
34:44
Speaker 1: thenceforth more frequent and fierce. Everywhere he turned he encountered
34:48
Speaker 1: increasing intolerance and malignity. All the powers of the man
34:51
Speaker 1: became braced, eager alert. It was many against one, but
34:54
Speaker 1: that one was in himself a host, and roused as
34:57
Speaker 1: he was, not only by the grandeur of his call,
35:00
Speaker 1: but also by a sense of personal indignity and persecution.
35:05
Speaker 1: Whoever else could he would not submit to senatorial insult
35:10
Speaker 1: and bondage. His rising temper began to thrust like a rapier.
35:14
Speaker 1: Scorn he matched with scorn, and clashed pride against pride.
35:17
Speaker 1: As a regiment bristles with bayonets. So bristled he with
35:20
Speaker 1: the cold and glittering steel of facts and figures, which
35:24
Speaker 1: mortally stabbed with the merciless truth of history, the superlative
35:28
Speaker 1: insolence and pretensions of the South. His sarcasm was terrific,
35:32
Speaker 1: possessed the ferocity of a panther, he upon whom its
35:35
Speaker 1: sprang got his quivering flash torn away. It is not
35:38
Speaker 1: in human nature to suffer such lacerations of the feelings
35:42
Speaker 1: as some are now inflicted upon the self, and readily
35:45
Speaker 1: forgive or forget their author. The slave power did not
35:48
Speaker 1: forgive Sumner nor forget its scars. The rendition of the
35:52
Speaker 1: second fugitive slave from Boston was a bitter dose of
35:55
Speaker 1: humiliation and inhumanity for that city to swallow. With many
35:59
Speaker 1: of the merchant class who had previously supported the infamous
36:02
Speaker 1: law as a part of the compromised measures of eighteen
36:05
Speaker 1: fifty and for the sake of composing the differences between
36:09
Speaker 1: the two halves of the Union, this ocular demonstration of
36:12
Speaker 1: his atrocious wickedness produced a decided feeling of moral revulsion
36:17
Speaker 1: from the act. Such were now ready to ask for
36:19
Speaker 1: its repeal, to wash their hands of all complicity in
36:22
Speaker 1: the crime of returning fellowmen to bondage. They joined with
36:25
Speaker 1: the friends of Freedom in signing a petition to Congress
36:28
Speaker 1: praying for the abrogation of the law. This petition, with
36:31
Speaker 1: the names of twenty nine hundred petitioners appended, was on
36:35
Speaker 1: June twenty to eighteen fifty four, presented to the Senate,
36:38
Speaker 1: and on the twenty sixth debated by that body. Several
36:43
Speaker 1: Senators had engaged in the worthy warfare which ensued, among
36:47
Speaker 1: whom was mister G. W. Jones of Tennessee. Before mister
36:50
Speaker 1: Sumner gained the floor, mister Jones had given the Senator
36:54
Speaker 1: taste of the bullying assurance of his section and debate,
36:57
Speaker 1: and had put the question, can anyone suppose that if
36:59
Speaker 1: the Fugitive Slave Act be repealed? This union can exist?
37:03
Speaker 1: With the air of a champion who flings his gage
37:05
Speaker 1: of battle down and dares any man to pick it up. Sumner,
37:09
Speaker 1: in beginning his speech, lifted the insolent challenge and threw
37:12
Speaker 1: it full in the face of the Dowley Tennessee. And thus,
37:15
Speaker 1: mister President, I begin by answering the interrogatory propounded by
37:19
Speaker 1: the senator from Tennessee, mister Jones, Can anyone suppose that
37:22
Speaker 1: if the Fugitive Slave Act be repealed? This union can exist?
37:26
Speaker 1: To which I replied once, that if the Union be
37:28
Speaker 1: in any way dependent on an act, I cannot call
37:31
Speaker 1: it a law so revolting in every respect as that
37:34
Speaker 1: to which he refers, then it ought not to exist.
37:37
Speaker 1: To much else that has fallen from that, Senator, I
37:40
Speaker 1: do not desire to reply matters already handled again and
37:44
Speaker 1: again in the long drawn out debates of this session,
37:47
Speaker 1: he has disgusted at length like the excited hero of Macedonia.
37:51
Speaker 1: He is renewed his past conflicts, and thrice he routed
37:55
Speaker 1: all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain. With
37:58
Speaker 1: this half playful, half dangerous attention to mister Jonesy shoves
38:01
Speaker 1: him into space and attacks the subject of debate, restating
38:05
Speaker 1: his arguments against the constitutionality of the Slave Act, repeating
38:09
Speaker 1: his historical parallel between it and the Stamp Act, reiterating
38:13
Speaker 1: his stern denunciation of it as in violation of the
38:16
Speaker 1: Law of God and of the Constitution of the United States,
38:19
Speaker 1: all of which was by no means calculated to soften
38:22
Speaker 1: the feelings of the South towarding or to turn from
38:25
Speaker 1: him its growing rage. On the contrary, they hardened the
38:27
Speaker 1: hatred of that section toward him and unloosed upon him
38:31
Speaker 1: a pack of furious Southern representatives of and outdone by
38:34
Speaker 1: a northern man with Southern principles, John Pettitt of Indiana,
38:40
Speaker 1: half a dozen I rate Senators, when mister Sumner sat down,
38:43
Speaker 1: proceeded to assail him with an acrimony and brutality that
38:46
Speaker 1: went beyond anything of the kind before perpetrated by the
38:50
Speaker 1: southern side of the Senate in debate. A. P. Butler
38:52
Speaker 1: of South Carolina and James M. Bason of Virginia, author
38:55
Speaker 1: of the Fugitive Slave Built, were coursed in savagely in
38:58
Speaker 1: its salent and offensive. But for that matter, other assailants
39:02
Speaker 1: of the Massachusetts Senator were coarsely and savagely, insolent and
39:06
Speaker 1: offensive to a high degree. These others, it is well
39:10
Speaker 1: to remember, and I shall therefore name them. They were
39:13
Speaker 1: ce Sea Clay of Alabama, A Dixon of Kentucky, Stephen R.
39:16
Speaker 1: Mallory of Florida, afterwards Secretary of the Navy in the
39:19
Speaker 1: cabinet of Jefferson Davis, and that human anomaly named above,
39:24
Speaker 1: a Northern man with Southern principles. Those were the Slaves Champions,
39:28
Speaker 1: who one after another flung themselves upon the thick bosses
39:31
Speaker 1: of Sumner's shield, with a violence and virulence of vituperation
39:34
Speaker 1: more beseeming the manners of a slave plantation than the
39:37
Speaker 1: dignity and order of the upper branch of the national legislature.
39:41
Speaker 1: In the midst of his excitement and tired, mister Butler,
39:43
Speaker 1: turning to mister Sumner, demanded to know whether he would
39:46
Speaker 1: return a fugitive slave, and got the swift in questioning retort,
39:50
Speaker 1: is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?
39:53
Speaker 1: Whereupon the Carolinian was thrown into a state of mind
39:56
Speaker 1: in which his fury and amazement at such unheard of
39:58
Speaker 1: audacity on the part of a Northern senator quite got
40:02
Speaker 1: the better of him, and went to his apoplectic interrogatory.
40:05
Speaker 1: You stand in my presence as a coequal senator, and
40:08
Speaker 1: tell me that it is a dog's offers to execute
40:11
Speaker 1: the Constitution of the United States. Some are quietly remarked,
40:14
Speaker 1: I recognized no such obligation, meaning, of course, to return
40:18
Speaker 1: fugitive slaves to their masters. The Southerner's mental condition may
40:21
Speaker 1: be better imagined than described mister Mason, who was to
40:27
Speaker 1: add to his evil eminence, says the author, of the
40:29
Speaker 1: fugitive save bill as sorry and sensational distinction in connection
40:32
Speaker 1: with the war of the rebellion. Was no whit behind
40:35
Speaker 1: mister Butler in insolence and violence of behavior and speech. Why, sir,
40:39
Speaker 1: he cried, am I speaking of a fanatic one whose
40:42
Speaker 1: reason is dethroned? Can such a one expect to make
40:45
Speaker 1: impressions upon the American people? From his vapid, vulgar declaration
40:50
Speaker 1: here accompanied by a declaration that he would violate his
40:53
Speaker 1: oath now recently taken Through two days, the assailants of
40:57
Speaker 1: mister Sumner ran the debate, if debate it can be cold,
41:00
Speaker 1: in which every note, in alternation, and sometimes altogether, in
41:03
Speaker 1: the gamut of rage and hate, was sounded and resounded
41:06
Speaker 1: by them. On the second day of the attack upon him,
41:08
Speaker 1: some obtained the floor and replied to his assailants in
41:11
Speaker 1: a speech which, cutting deep into the pride and pretensions
41:14
Speaker 1: of the self, rankled long afterwards in the bosoms of
41:17
Speaker 1: her representatives. Mercilessly he returned blow for blow upon the
41:20
Speaker 1: heads of his foes. The opening sentences of his reply
41:25
Speaker 1: he fired at his assailants collectively. Thus, mister President, since
41:29
Speaker 1: I had the honor of addressing the Senate two days ago.
41:32
Speaker 1: Various Senators have spoken of these. Several have alluded to
41:35
Speaker 1: me in terms clearly beyond the sanction of parliamentary debate.
41:38
Speaker 1: Of this I make no complaints, though for the honour
41:41
Speaker 1: of the Senate at least it were well had it
41:43
Speaker 1: been otherwise. If to them it seems fit courteous parliamentary,
41:47
Speaker 1: let them unpack the heart with words and fall accursing
41:51
Speaker 1: like a very drab auscullion. I will not interfere with
41:54
Speaker 1: the enjoyment they find in such exposure of themselves. They
41:58
Speaker 1: have given us a taste of their quality. After this
42:01
Speaker 1: preliminary defiance of the Senatory a bunch of his assailants,
42:04
Speaker 1: he selected two of the company for more particular and
42:07
Speaker 1: energetic attention. These were Messrs Butler and Mason, whom he
42:11
Speaker 1: proceeded immediately to acquaint with his own quality, to teach
42:14
Speaker 1: how to be severe in parliamentary At the same time,
42:17
Speaker 1: their behavior reminded him of Jefferson's picture of the influence
42:20
Speaker 1: of slavery upon the master class. The parent storms, and
42:24
Speaker 1: the child looks on and imitates what he sees in
42:26
Speaker 1: the circle of smaller slaves et cetera. The Great Virginian
42:30
Speaker 1: adjudged that master a prodigy who was able to retain
42:34
Speaker 1: his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. But some
42:39
Speaker 1: was certain that nobody who witnessed the Senator from South
42:42
Speaker 1: Carolina or the Senator from Virginia in this debate were
42:45
Speaker 1: placed either of them among the prodigies described by Jefferson.
42:49
Speaker 1: In this wise, he met the accusation that he had
42:52
Speaker 1: disowned the obligations of the Constitution in swearing to support
42:55
Speaker 1: the Constitution at your desk, Mister President, I did not
42:58
Speaker 1: swear to support it as you understand it, Oh, no, sir,
43:01
Speaker 1: or as the Senator from Virginia understands it by no means,
43:05
Speaker 1: or as the Senator from South Carolina understands it, with
43:07
Speaker 1: the kennel of bloodhounds, or at least a dog in it,
43:10
Speaker 1: powing to get free his hinder parts in pursuit of
43:13
Speaker 1: a slave. No such thing, sir. I swore to support
43:16
Speaker 1: the Constitution as I understand it, Nor more nor less
43:21
Speaker 1: mister Butler had, in the course of his assault to
43:24
Speaker 1: mister Sumner, and with the customary swagger and pretensions of
43:27
Speaker 1: his class, boasted that the independence of America was won
43:31
Speaker 1: by the arms and treasure of slaveholding communities. To this
43:35
Speaker 1: grandiose assertion, Sumner replied with a thoroughness of knowledge, a
43:39
Speaker 1: skill of statement, a weight and scorn of diction, which
43:42
Speaker 1: polverized the false and foolish vaunt, and humbled the pride
43:45
Speaker 1: of its author and the insolent assumptions of his state
43:48
Speaker 1: and section in the dust and vanity of it. While
43:51
Speaker 1: some was pounding upon this overweening laudation of slave holding communities,
43:55
Speaker 1: and was in the way of reducing it to powder
43:57
Speaker 1: with the great northern hammer, its author, with the rising
44:00
Speaker 1: from his seat, attempted to break the force of the
44:02
Speaker 1: blows which he was receiving by remark in interruption of
44:05
Speaker 1: the northern giant. The Summer was in no mood to
44:08
Speaker 1: let pass n notice such a piece of bad parliamentary manners,
44:11
Speaker 1: and accordingly administered to the offender a fit rebuke on
44:15
Speaker 1: the spot. And now, Sir, the venerable Senator, not rising
44:18
Speaker 1: from his seat and standing openingly before the Senate, undertakes
44:22
Speaker 1: to deny that he has dealt in such comparisons. It
44:25
Speaker 1: is needless to say that after this incident, mister Butler
44:28
Speaker 1: observed the next time he wished to interrupt his Massachusetts
44:31
Speaker 1: antagonist the etiquette of debate, rising from his seat and
44:34
Speaker 1: first addressing mister Sumner with the customer will the Senator
44:37
Speaker 1: allow me? Which did not fail to elicit the speakers
44:40
Speaker 1: dignified in invariable response. In that regard, certainly I yield
44:44
Speaker 1: the floor to the Senator. But perhaps the most effective
44:48
Speaker 1: and characteristic stroke of his reply was the spirited manner
44:51
Speaker 1: in which he met the peremptory assertion of mister Mason
44:54
Speaker 1: that the fugitive slave ac does not deny the habeas corpus.
44:58
Speaker 1: But here is the passage alluded, which is given entire
45:02
Speaker 1: and now for the present, I part with the venerable
45:05
Speaker 1: Senator from South Carolina, pursuing his inconsistencieson exposing them to judgment.
45:10
Speaker 1: I'd almost forgotten his associate leader in the wanton personal
45:13
Speaker 1: assault upon me in this long debate. I mean the
45:16
Speaker 1: veteran Senator from Virginia, mister Mason, who is now directly
45:19
Speaker 1: in my eye with imperious looking in the style of
45:22
Speaker 1: Sir forcible feeble, that Senator undertakes to call in question
45:27
Speaker 1: my statement that the fugitive slave Ac denies the rid
45:29
Speaker 1: of APUs Corpus. In doing this, he assumes a superiority
45:33
Speaker 1: for himself, which permit me to tell him now in
45:35
Speaker 1: this presence, nothing in him can warrant. Sir. I claim
45:39
Speaker 1: little for myself, but I shrink in no respect from
45:42
Speaker 1: any comparison with the Senator Veteran, though he be sitting
45:45
Speaker 1: near him. As has been my fortune, since I had
45:47
Speaker 1: the honor of a seat in this chamber, I came
45:49
Speaker 1: to know something of his conversation, something of his manner,
45:53
Speaker 1: something of his attainment, something of his ability, something of
45:56
Speaker 1: his character, ay, Sir, and something of his associations. And
45:59
Speaker 1: while i've would not disparage him in these respects, I
46:02
Speaker 1: feel that I do not exalt in myself unduly, that
46:05
Speaker 1: I do not claim too much for the position which
46:07
Speaker 1: I hold or the name which I have established, when
46:10
Speaker 1: I openly declare that as Senator of Massachusetts and as
46:13
Speaker 1: a man, I placed myself at every point in unhesitating
46:16
Speaker 1: comparison with that honorable assailant. And to his peremptory assertion
46:21
Speaker 1: that the fugitive slave back does not deny the Hapeas Corpus,
46:24
Speaker 1: I pose my assertion peremptory as his own that it does,
46:28
Speaker 1: and there I leave that issue. When mister Sumner had
46:32
Speaker 1: made an end of his reply, mister Chase, who sat
46:35
Speaker 1: next to him, greeted him with the words, you have
46:37
Speaker 1: struck slavery the strongest blow it ever received. You have
46:40
Speaker 1: made it real to the center, and all things considered.
46:43
Speaker 1: Taking the matter and the manner of that speech, this
46:46
Speaker 1: estimate of it by so competent it just as was
46:49
Speaker 1: mister Chase, as perhaps not in excess of its deserts.
46:52
Speaker 1: It was indeed a staggering blow which it dealt the
46:55
Speaker 1: slave power and its champions. In the Senate. There were
46:57
Speaker 1: suggestions made for his expulsion from that body, and for
47:00
Speaker 1: a while there is no doubt that some sub scheme
47:03
Speaker 1: was seriously entertained by his enemies of avenging themselves and
47:06
Speaker 1: the outraged self love of their section upon him and
47:09
Speaker 1: the ruthless Northern Giant with his terrible trip hammer attachment.
47:14
Speaker 1: The proposed active expulsion was to be based upon sumness
47:17
Speaker 1: alleged refusal to recognize the obligations of the Constitution. He
47:21
Speaker 1: not refused to recognize the obligations of the Constitution, only
47:25
Speaker 1: the obligations of the Constitution to return fugitive slaves. This
47:29
Speaker 1: he distinctly and repeatedly refused to recognize, and this refusal
47:32
Speaker 1: his enemies attempted to distort into a denial of the
47:35
Speaker 1: obligation of his oath to support the Constitution. The project
47:39
Speaker 1: of expulsion was, however, finally abandoned, and mister Sumnon was
47:43
Speaker 1: sent to Coventry instead. Mister Sumnus's splendid reply to his assailants,
47:48
Speaker 1: while it augmented the intense and tolerable hate of the
47:51
Speaker 1: self toward him, added at the same time vastly to
47:54
Speaker 1: his popularity and influence in Massachusetts and through the Free
47:57
Speaker 1: States generally. He was probably at the moment the most
48:00
Speaker 1: conspicuous representative of freedom in public life at the North.
48:03
Speaker 1: He was certainly the transcendent figure in public life in Massachusetts.
48:08
Speaker 1: John P. Hale, on his way from Washington to New York,
48:12
Speaker 1: heard but one expression in steamboat and railway car, and
48:15
Speaker 1: that from people of every political complexion In regard to
48:17
Speaker 1: the speech, it was one of unmingled gratification on the
48:21
Speaker 1: part of the gentleman's sex, especially, he added. William I.
48:24
Speaker 1: Bowditch wrote from Boston. One gentleman whom I saw this forenoon,
48:28
Speaker 1: said that he involuntarily gave three cheers when he had
48:31
Speaker 1: finished reading your speech, And an old hunker said to me, smilingly,
48:34
Speaker 1: I really don't know, but that I shall myself come
48:37
Speaker 1: out of sumner Man. Benjamin F. Butler, who was attending
48:41
Speaker 1: court at conquered Massachusetts and seeing people of all parties,
48:44
Speaker 1: heard but one sentiment expressed in regard to the great
48:47
Speaker 1: topic of conversation Sumler's reply to his assailants, and that
48:51
Speaker 1: was of approval. Daniel Shadduck wrote, being one of the
48:54
Speaker 1: old time Whigs, I was not pleased with your election
48:57
Speaker 1: to the high seat which you hold. For that opinion
49:00
Speaker 1: will forgive me. I'm sure when I say that, I
49:02
Speaker 1: go with you now, heart and so, and approve all
49:04
Speaker 1: you have said in defense of your native state, whose
49:07
Speaker 1: sons I know. Approve you your course, and wish you
49:10
Speaker 1: god speed. All of which indicated the good progress that
49:14
Speaker 1: the freedom power was making in the North, for the
49:17
Speaker 1: development of which Sumner, in and out of Congress was
49:20
Speaker 1: strenuously striving. Certainly, there was a revolution and public sentiment
49:24
Speaker 1: on the subject of slavery progressing on a grand scale
49:26
Speaker 1: through the Free States. I aid it signally now by
49:29
Speaker 1: one thing, now by another. Now it was hurried forward
49:32
Speaker 1: by the execution of the Fugitive Slave Act, now by
49:35
Speaker 1: the approgation of the User Compromise, and now by a
49:38
Speaker 1: sef scene in Congress, as and such an exhibition of
49:41
Speaker 1: backbone and power in a northern representatives as have been
49:44
Speaker 1: just depicted. The title defender Humanity, rejected by Webster, had,
49:48
Speaker 1: through brave words and brave deeds, become sumners in the
49:54
Speaker 1: Chapter nine