“That, in all great changes of established governments, forms
ought to give way to substance; that a rigid adherence in
such cases to the former would render nominal and nugatory
the transcendent and precious right of the people to ‘abolish
or alter their governments as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their safety and happiness.’ … Nor could it have
been forgotten _that no little ill-timed scruples, no zeal for
adhering to ordinary forms, were anywhere seen, except in those
who wished to indulge, under these masks, their secret enmity
to the substance contended for_.”[124]
Proceedings thus sustained I am unwilling to call _revolutionary_,
although this term has the sanction of the Senator from New York.
They are founded on unquestionable American right, declared with
Independence, confirmed by the blood of the Fathers, and expounded by
patriots, which cannot be impeached without impairing the liberties
of all. On this head the language of Mr. Buchanan, in reply to Mr.
Calhoun, is explicit.
“Does the gentleman [Mr. CALHOUN] contend, then, that,
if, in one of the States of this Union, the Government be
so organized as utterly to destroy the right of equal
representation, there is no mode of obtaining redress, but
by an Act of the Legislature authorizing a Convention, or by
open rebellion? Must the people step at once from oppression
to open war? Must it be either absolute submission or absolute
revolution? _Is there no middle course?_ I cannot agree with
the Senator. I say that the whole history of our Government
establishes the principle that the people are sovereign, and
that a majority of them can alter or change their fundamental
laws at pleasure. _I deny that this is either rebellion or
revolution. It is an essential and a recognized principle in
all our forms of government._”[125]
Surely, Sir, if ever there was occasion for the exercise of this
right, the time had come in Kansas. The people there were subjugated
by a horde of foreign invaders, and brought under a tyrannical code of
revolting barbarity, while among them property and life were exposed
to shameless assaults which flaunted at noonday, and to reptile abuses
which crawled in the darkness of night. _Self-defence is the first law
of Nature_; and unless this law is temporarily silenced, as all other
law is silenced there, you cannot condemn the proceedings in Kansas.
Here, Sir, is unquestionable authority, _in itself an overwhelming
law_, which belongs to all countries and times,--which is the same in
Kansas as at Athens and Rome,--which is now, and will be hereafter,
as it was in other days,--in presence of which Acts of Congress and
Constitutions are powerless as the voice of man against the thunder
which rolls through the sky,--which declares itself coëval with
life,--whose very breath is life itself; and now, in the last resort,
do I place all these proceedings under this supreme safeguard, which
you will assail in vain. Any opposition must be founded on absolute
perversion of facts, or perversion of fundamental principles, which no
speeches can uphold, though surpassing in numbers the myriad piles sunk
in the mud to sustain the Dutch Stadthouse at Amsterdam.
* * * * *
Thus, on every ground of precedent, whether as regards population
or forms of proceeding,--also, on the vital principle of American
Institutions,--and, lastly, on the supreme law of self-defence, do I
now invoke the power of Congress to admit Kansas at once and without
hesitation into the Union. “New States _may_ be admitted by the
Congress into this Union”: such are the words of the Constitution.
If you hesitate for want of precedent, then do I appeal to the great
principle of American Institutions. If, forgetting the origin of the
Republic, you turn away from this principle, then, in the name of human
nature, trampled down and oppressed, but aroused to just self-defence,
do I plead for the exercise of this power. Do not hearken, I pray you,
to the propositions of Tyranny and Folly; do not be ensnared by that
other proposition of the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS], where is
the horrid root of Injustice and Civil War; but apply gladly, and at
once, the True Remedy, where are Justice and Peace.
* * * * *
Mr. President, an immense space has been traversed, and I stand now at
the goal. The argument in its various parts is here closed. The Crime
against Kansas has been displayed in its origin and extent, beginning
with the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery, next cropping out in
conspiracy on the borders of Missouri, then hardening into continuity
of outrage through organized invasion and miscellaneous assaults
where all security was destroyed, and ending at last in the perfect
subjugation of a generous people to an unprecedented Usurpation.
Turning aghast from the Crime, which, like murder, confesses itself
“with most miraculous organ,” we have looked with mingled shame and
indignation upon the four Apologies, whether of Tyranny, Imbecility,
Absurdity, or Infamy, in which it is wrapped, marking especially false
testimony, congenial with the original Crime, against the Emigrant Aid
Company. Then were noted, in succession, the four Remedies, whether
of Tyranny, Folly, Injustice and Civil War, or of Justice and Peace,
which last bids Kansas, in conformity with past precedents and under
exigencies of the hour, for redemption from Usurpation, to take her
place as a State of the Union; and this is the True Remedy. If in this
argument I have not unworthily vindicated Truth, then have I spoken
according to my desires,--if imperfectly, then only according to my
powers. But there are other things, not belonging to the argument,
which still press for utterance.
* * * * *
Sir, the people of Kansas, bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh,
with the education of freemen and the rights of American citizens,
now stand at your door. Will you send them away, or bid them enter?
Will you push them back to renew their struggle with a deadly foe, or
will you preserve them in security and peace? Will you cast them again
into the den of Tyranny, or will you help their despairing efforts to
escape? These questions I put with no common solicitude, for I feel
that on their just determination depend all the most precious interests
of the Republic; and I perceive too clearly the prejudices in the
way, and the accumulating bitterness against this distant people, now
claiming a simple birthright, while I am bowed with mortification, as
I recognize the President of the United States, who should have been
a staff to the weak and a shield to the innocent, at the head of this
strange oppression.
At every stage the similitude between the wrongs of Kansas and those
other wrongs against which our fathers rose becomes more apparent.
Read the Declaration of Independence, and there is hardly an
accusation against the British Monarch which may not now be hurled
with increased force against the American President. The parallel
has fearful particularity. Our fathers complained, that the King had
“sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out
their substance,”--that he had “combined with others to subject us
to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, _giving his assent
to their acts of pretended legislation_,”--that he had “abdicated
government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and _waging
war against us_,”--that he had “excited domestic insurrections amongst
us, and _endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the
merciless savages_,”--that “our repeated petitions have been answered
only by repeated injury.” And this arraignment was aptly followed by
the damning words, that “a Prince whose character is thus marked by
every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free
people.” And surely the President who does all these things cannot be
less unfit than a Prince. At every stage the responsibility is brought
directly to him. His offence is of commission and omission. He has done
that which he ought not to have done, and has left undone that which
he ought to have done. By his activity the Prohibition of Slavery was
overturned. By his failure to act the honest emigrants in Kansas are
left a prey to wrong of all kinds. His activity and inactivity are
alike fatal. And now he stands forth the most conspicuous enemy of that
unhappy Territory.
As the tyranny of the British King is all renewed in the President,
so are renewed on this floor the old indignities which embittered
and fomented the troubles of our fathers. The early petition of
the American Congress to Parliament, long before any suggestion of
Independence, was opposed--like the petitions of Kansas--because that
body “was assembled without any requisition on the part of the Supreme
Power.” Another petition from New York, presented by Edmund Burke, was
flatly rejected, as claiming rights derogatory to Parliament. And still
another petition from Massachusetts Bay was dismissed as “vexatious and
scandalous,” while the patriot philosopher who bore it was exposed to
peculiar contumely. Throughout the debates our fathers were made the
butt of sorry jest and supercilious assumption. And now these scenes,
with these precise objections, are renewed in the American Senate.
With regret I come again upon the Senator from South Carolina [Mr.
BUTLER], who, omnipresent in this debate,[126] overflows with rage
at the simple suggestion that Kansas has applied for admission as a
State, and, with incoherent phrase, discharges the loose expectoration
of his speech, now upon her representative, and then upon her people.
There was no extravagance of the ancient Parliamentary debate which
he did not repeat; nor was there any possible deviation from truth
which he did not make,--with so much of passion, I gladly add, as to
save him from the suspicion of intentional aberration. But the Senator
touches nothing which he does not disfigure--with error, sometimes
of principle, sometimes of fact. He shows an incapacity of accuracy,
whether in stating the Constitution or in stating the law, whether in
details of statistics or diversions of scholarship. He cannot ope his
mouth, but out there flies a blunder. Surely he ought to be familiar
with the life of Franklin; and yet he referred to this household
character, while acting as agent of our fathers in England, as above
suspicion: and this was done that he might give point to a false
contrast with the agent of Kansas,[127]--not knowing, that, however
the two may differ in genius and fame, they are absolutely alike in
this experience: that Franklin, when intrusted with the petition of
Massachusetts Bay, was assaulted by a foul-mouthed speaker where he
could not be heard in defence, and denounced as “thief,” even as the
agent of Kansas is assaulted on this floor, and denounced as “forger.”
And let not the vanity of the Senator be inspired by parallel with the
British statesmen of that day; for it is only in hostility to Freedom
that any parallel can be found.
But it is against the people of Kansas that the sensibilities of the
Senator are particularly aroused. Coming, as he announces, “from a
State,”--ay, Sir, from South Carolina,--he turns with lordly disgust
from this newly formed community, which he will not recognize even as
“a member of the body politic.”[128] Pray, Sir, by what title does he
indulge in this egotism? Has he read the history of the “State” which
he represents? He cannot, surely, forget its shameful imbecility from
Slavery, confessed throughout the Revolution, followed by its more
shameful assumptions for Slavery since. He cannot forget its wretched
persistence in the slave-trade, as the very apple of its eye, and the
condition of its participation in the Union. He cannot forget its
Constitution, which is republican only in name, confirming power in the
hands of the few, and founding the qualifications of its legislators
on “a settled freehold estate of five hundred acres of land _and_ ten
negroes.”[129] And yet the Senator to whom this “State” has in part
committed the guardianship of its good name, instead of moving with
backward-treading steps to cover its nakedness, rushes forward, in the
very ecstasy of madness, to expose it, by provoking comparison with
Kansas. South Carolina is old; Kansas is young. South Carolina counts
by centuries, where Kansas counts by years. But a beneficent example
may be born in a day; and I venture to declare, that against the two
centuries of the older “State” may be set already the two years of
trial, evolving corresponding virtue, in the younger community. In the
one is the long wail of Slavery; in the other, the hymn of Freedom.
And if we glance at special achievement, it will be difficult to
find anything in the history of South Carolina which presents so much
of heroic spirit in an heroic cause as shines in that repulse of the
Missouri invaders by the beleaguered town of Lawrence, where even the
women gave their effective efforts to Freedom. The matrons of Rome who
poured their jewels into the treasury for the public defence, the wives
of Prussia who with delicate fingers clothed their defenders against
French invasion, the mothers of our own Revolution who sent forth
their sons covered over with prayers and blessings to combat for Human
Rights, did nothing of self-sacrifice truer than did these women on
this occasion. Were the whole history of South Carolina blotted out of
existence, from its very beginning down to the day of the last election
of the Senator to his present seat on this floor, civilization might
lose--I do not say how little, but surely less than it has already
gained by the example of Kansas, in that valiant struggle against
oppression, and in the development of a new science of emigration.
Already in Lawrence alone are newspapers and schools, including a High
School,--and throughout this infant Territory there is more of educated
talent, in proportion to its inhabitants, than in his vaunted “State.”
Ah, Sir, I tell the Senator, that Kansas, welcomed as a Free State, “a
ministering angel shall be” to the Republic, when South Carolina, in
the cloak of darkness which she hugs, “lies howling.”[130]
The Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS] naturally joins the Senator
from South Carolina, and gives to this warfare the superior intensity
of his nature. He thinks that the National Government has not
completely proved its power, as it has never hanged a traitor,--but,
if occasion requires, he hopes there will be no hesitation; and this
threat is directed at Kansas, and even at the friends of Kansas
throughout the country. Again occurs a parallel with the struggles
of our fathers; and I borrow the language of Patrick Henry, when, to
the cry from the Senator of “Treason! treason!” I reply, “If this be
treason, make the most of it.” Sir, it is easy to call names; but I
beg to tell the Senator, that, if the word “traitor” is in any way
applicable to those who reject a tyrannical Usurpation, whether in
Kansas or elsewhere, then must some new word, of deeper color, be
invented to designate those mad spirits who would endanger and degrade
the Republic, while they betray all the cherished sentiments of the
Fathers and the spirit of the Constitution, that Slavery may have new
spread. Let the Senator proceed. Not the first time in history will a
scaffold become the pedestal of honor. Out of death comes life, and the
“traitor” whom he blindly executes will live immortal in the cause.
“For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands;
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
To glean up the scattered ashes into History’s golden urn.”[131]
Among these hostile Senators is yet another, with all the prejudices
of the Senator from South Carolina, but without his generous impulses,
who, from his character before the country, and the rancor of his
opposition, deserves to be named: I mean the Senator from Virginia [Mr.
MASON], who, as author of the Fugitive Slave Bill, has associated
himself with a special act of inhumanity and tyranny. Of him I shall
say little, for he has said little in this debate, though within that
little was compressed the bitterness of a life absorbed in support of
Slavery. He holds the commission of Virginia; but he does not represent
that early Virginia, so dear to our hearts, which gave to us the pen of
Jefferson, by which the equality of men was declared, and the sword of
Washington, by which Independence was secured: he represents that other
Virginia, from which Washington and Jefferson avert their faces, where
human beings are bred as cattle for the shambles, and a dungeon rewards
the pious matron who teaches little children to relieve their bondage
by reading the Book of Life.[132] It is proper that such a Senator,
representing such a State, should rail against Free Kansas.
Such as these are natural enemies of Kansas, and I introduce them with
reluctance, simply that the country may understand the character of
the hostility to be overcome. Arrayed with them are all who unite,
under any pretext or apology, in propagandism of Human Slavery. To
such, indeed, time-honored safeguards of popular rights can be a name
and nothing more. What are trial by jury, _Habeas Corpus_, ballot-box,
right of petition, liberty in Kansas, your liberty, Sir, or mine,
to one who lends himself, not merely to the support at home, but to
propagandism abroad, of that preposterous wrong which denies even the
right of a man to himself? Such a cause can be maintained only by the
practical subversion of all rights. It is, therefore, merely according
to reason that its partisans should uphold the Usurpation in Kansas.
To overthrow this Usurpation is now the special, importunate duty of
Congress, admitting of no hesitation or postponement. To this end must
it ascend from the cabals of candidates, the machinations of party, and
the low level of vulgar strife. Especially must it turn from that Slave
Oligarchy now controlling the Republic, and refuse to be its tool. Let
its power be stretched forth into this distant Territory, not to bind,
but to release,--not for oppression of the weak, but for subversion of
the tyrannical,--not for prop and maintenance of revolting Usurpation,
but for confirmation of Liberty.
“These are imperial arts, and worthy thee!”[133]
Let it now take stand between the living and dead, and cause this
plague to be stayed. All this it can do; and if the interests of
Slavery were not hostile, all this it would do at once, in reverent
regard for justice, law, and order, driving far away all alarms of war;
nor would it dare to brave the shame and punishment of this “Great
Refusal.”[134] But the Slave Power dares anything; and it can be
conquered only by the united masses of the People. From Congress to the
People I appeal.
Already Public Opinion gathers unwonted forces to scourge the
aggressors. In the press, in daily conversation, wherever two or three
are gathered together, there the indignant utterance finds vent. And
trade, by unerring indications, attests the growing energy. Public
credit in Missouri droops. The six per cents of that State, which
at par should be 102, have sunk to 84,--thus at once completing the
evidence of Crime, and attesting its punishment. Business is now
turning from the Assassins and Thugs that infest the Missouri River,
to seek some safer avenue. And this, though not unimportant in itself,
is typical of greater change. The political credit of the men who
uphold the Usurpation droops even more than the stocks; and the People
are turning from all those through whom the Assassins and Thugs derive
their disgraceful immunity.
It was said of old, “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor’s
Landmark. _And all the people shall say, Amen._”[135] “Cursed,” it
is said, “in the city and in the field; cursed in basket and store;
cursed when thou comest in, and cursed when thou goest out.”[136] These
are terrible imprecations; but if ever any Landmark were sacred, it
was that by which an immense territory was guarded _forever_ against
Slavery; and if ever such imprecations could justly descend upon any
one, they must descend now upon all who, not content with the removal
of this sacred Landmark, have since, with criminal complicity, fostered
the incursions of the great Wrong against which it was intended to
guard. But I utter no imprecations. These are not my words; nor is it
my part to add to or subtract from them. But, thanks be to God! they
find response in the hearts of an aroused People, making them turn from
every man, whether President or Senator or Representative, engaged in
this Crime,--especially from those who, cradled in free institutions,
are without the apology of education or social prejudice,--until upon
all such those other words of the Prophet shall be fulfilled: “I will
set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb,
and I will cut him off from the midst of my people.”[137] Turning thus
from the authors of this Crime, the People will unite once more with
the Fathers of the Republic in just condemnation of Slavery, determined
especially that it shall find no home in the National territories,
while the Slave Power, in which the Crime had its beginning, and by
which it is now sustained, will be swept into the charnel-house of
defunct Tyrannies.
In this contest Kansas bravely stands forth, the stripling leader, clad
in the panoply of American Institutions. Calmly meeting and adopting a
frame of government, her people with intuitive promptitude perform the
duties of freemen; and when I consider the difficulties by which she is
beset, I find dignity in her attitude. _Offering herself for admission
into the Union as a_ FREE STATE, _she presents a single issue for the
people to decide_. And since the Slave Power now stakes on this issue
all its ill-gotten supremacy, the People, while vindicating Kansas,
will at the same time overthrow this Tyranny. Thus the contest which
she begins involves Liberty not only for herself, but for the whole
country. God be praised that Kansas does not bend ignobly beneath the
yoke! Far away on the prairies, she is now battling for the Liberty of
all, against the President, who misrepresents all. Everywhere among
those not insensible to Right, the generous struggle meets a generous
response. From innumerable throbbing hearts go forth the very words of
encouragement which in the sorrowful days of our fathers were sent by
Virginia, speaking by the pen of Richard Henry Lee, to Massachusetts,
in the person of her popular tribune, Samuel Adams:--
“CHANTILLY, VA., June 23, 1774.
“I hope the good people of Boston will not lose their spirits,
under their present heavy oppression, for they will certainly
be supported by the other Colonies; and the cause for which
they suffer is so glorious, and so deeply interesting to the
present and future generations, that all America will owe, in a
great measure, their political salvation to the present virtue
of Massachusetts Bay.”[138]
In all this sympathy there is strength. But in the cause itself there
is angelic power. Unseen of men, the great spirits of History combat
by the side of the people of Kansas, breathing divine courage. Above
all towers the majestic form of Washington, once more, as on the bloody
field, bidding them remember those rights of Human Nature for which
the War of Independence was waged. Such a cause, thus sustained, is
invincible.
* * * * *
The contest, which, beginning in Kansas, reaches us will be transferred
soon from Congress to that broader stage, where every citizen is
not only spectator, but actor; and to their judgment I confidently
turn. To the People, about to exercise the electoral franchise, in
choosing a Chief Magistrate of the Republic, I appeal, to vindicate
the electoral franchise in Kansas. Let the ballot-box of the Union,
with multitudinous might, protect the ballot-box in that Territory.
Let the voters everywhere, while rejoicing in their own rights, help
guard the equal rights of distant fellow-citizens, that the shrines of
popular institutions, now desecrated, may be sanctified anew,--that
the ballot-box, now plundered, may be restored,--and that the cry, “I
am an American citizen,” shall no longer be impotent against outrage.
In just regard for free labor, which you would blast by deadly contact
with slave labor,--in Christian sympathy with the slave, whom you would
task and sell,--in stern condemnation of the Crime consummated on
that beautiful soil,--in rescue of fellow-citizens, now subjugated to
Tyrannical Usurpation,--in dutiful respect for the early Fathers, whose
aspirations are ignobly thwarted,--in the name of the Constitution
outraged, of the Laws trampled down, of Justice banished, of Humanity
degraded, of Peace destroyed, of Freedom crushed to earth,--and in the
name of the Heavenly Father, whose service is perfect Freedom, I make
this last appeal.
Mr. Sumner spoke for two days. As soon as he took his seat, the
storm which had been preparing broke forth. Mr. Cass was the
first to speak. He began by saying that he had “listened with
equal regret and surprise” to the speech of Mr. Sumner, which
he characterized as “the most un-American and unpatriotic that
ever grated on the ears of the members of this high body.”
Mr. Douglas followed in a tirade of personality, in which he
renewed the old assault of two years before, charging Mr.
Sumner with defying the Constitution, when he exclaimed with
regard to the rendition of a fugitive slave, “Is thy servant
a dog, that he should do this thing?”[139] The speech of Mr.
Sumner was characterized in the most offensive terms. “He seems
to get up a speech as in Yankee-land they get up a bed-quilt.”
Then again: “Is it his object to provoke some of us to kick
him as we would a dog in the street, that he may get sympathy
upon the just chastisement?” Then again: “We have had another
dish of the classics served up,--classic allusions, each one
only distinguished for its lasciviousness and obscenity,--each
one drawn from those portions of the classics which all decent
professors in respectable colleges cause to be suppressed, as
unfit for decent young men to read. Sir, I cannot repeat the
words. I should be condemned as unworthy of entering decent
society, if I repeated those obscene, vulgar terms which have
been used at least a hundred times in that speech.” Then,
further, he said that “the Senator from Massachusetts had his
speech written, printed, committed to memory, practised every
night before the glass, with a negro boy to hold the candle and
watch the gestures, and annoying the boarders in the adjoining
rooms until they were forced to quit the house.” All this was
uttered with the sympathy of the slave-masters about him.
Mr. Mason followed with a bitterness which seemed a
prolongation of the debate two years before. The tone of his
speech appears in these words:--
“The necessities of our political position bring us into
relations and associations upon this floor, which, in obedience
to a common government, we are forced to admit. They bring
us into relations and associations which beyond the walls of
this Chamber we are enabled to avoid,--associations here whose
presence elsewhere is dishonor, and the touch of whose hand
would be a disgrace.…
“I have said that the necessity of political position alone
brings me into relations with men upon this floor who elsewhere
I cannot acknowledge as possessing manhood in any form. I am
constrained to hear here depravity, vice in its most odious
form uncoiled in this presence, exhibiting its loathsome
deformities in accusation and vilification against the quarter
of the country from which I come; and I must listen to it
because it is a necessity of my position, under a common
government, to recognize as an equal politically one whom to
see elsewhere is to shun and despise.”
This debate, which was much in harmony with that of June, 1854, showed
a state of feeling bordering on violence. The language of Mr. Douglas
seemed to invite it, especially when he asked, “Is it his object to
provoke some of us to kick him as we would a dog in the street, that he
may get sympathy upon the just chastisement?” It came soon.
Mr. Sumner followed in unpremeditated remarks, replying to the only
point of argument, and giving expression to the indignant sentiments
inspired by the attack. These are preserved here as belonging to the
history of this occasion.
MR. PRESIDENT,--Three Senators have spoken: one venerable in years,
with whom I have had associations of personal regard longer than with
anybody now within the sound of my voice,--the Senator from Michigan
[Mr. CASS]; another, the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS]; and a
third, the Senator from Virginia [Mr. MASON].
The Senator from Michigan knows well that nothing I say can have
anything but kindness for him. He has declared on this floor to-day
that he listened with regret to my speech. I have never avowed on
this floor how often, with heart brimming full of friendship for him,
I have listened with regret to what has fallen from his lips. I have
never said that he stood here to utter sentiments which seemed beyond
all question disloyal to the character of the Fathers and to the true
spirit of the Constitution; but this, with his permission, and in all
kindness, I do now say to him.
The Senator proceeded very briefly and in a cursory manner to criticise
my statement of the Michigan case. Sir, my statement was founded on
the actual documents. No word was mine: it was all from Jackson, from
Grundy, from Buchanan, from Benton, from the Democratic leaders of that
day. When the Senator criticised me, his shaft did not touch me, but
fell upon them. And here I leave the Senator from Michigan.
To the Senator from Illinois I should willingly yield the privilege of
the common scold,--the last word; but I will not yield to him, in any
discussion with me, the last argument, or the last semblance of it. He
has crowned the outrage of this debate by venturing to rise here and
calumniate me. He has said that I came here, took an oath to support
the Constitution, and yet determined not to support a particular
clause in that Constitution. To that statement I give, to his face,
the flattest denial. When it was made previously on this floor by the
absent Senator from South Carolina [Mr. BUTLER], I then repelled it:
you shall see how explicitly and completely. I read from the debate of
the 28th of June, 1854, as published in the “Globe.” Here is what I
answered to the Senator from South Carolina:--
“This Senator was disturbed, when, to his inquiry, personally,
pointedly, and vehemently addressed to me, whether I would join
in returning a fellow-man to Slavery, I exclaimed: ‘Is thy
servant a dog, that he should do this thing?’”
You will observe that the inquiry of the Senator was, whether I would
join in returning my fellow-man to slavery? It was not, whether I would
support any clause of the Constitution of the United States?--far from
that. I then proceeded:--
“In fitful phrase, which seemed to come from unconscious
excitement, so common with the Senator, he shot forth various
cries about ‘dogs,’ and, among other things, asked if there was
any ‘dog’ in the Constitution? The Senator did not seem to bear
in mind, through the heady currents of that moment, that, by
the false interpretation he fastens upon the Constitution,”--
and in which the Senator from Illinois now joins,--
“he has helped to nurture there a whole kennel of Carolina
bloodhounds, trained, with savage jaw and insatiable scent,
for the hunt of flying bondmen. No, Sir, I do not believe that
there is any ‘kennel of bloodhounds,’ or even any ‘dog,’ in the
Constitution.”