“As I left my native State on account of Slavery, and deserted
the home of my fathers to escape the sound of the lash and the
shrieks of tortured victims, I would gladly bury in oblivion
the recollection of those scenes with which I have been
familiar; but this may not, cannot be.”[85]
These are the words of a Southern lady, daughter of the accomplished
Judge Grimké, of South Carolina.
A catalogue of affrays between politicians, commonly known as “street
fights,”--I use the phrase furnished by the land of Slavery,--would
show that these authorities are not mistaken. That famous Dutch
picture, admired particularly from successful engraving, and called
_The Knife-Fighters_,[86] presents a scene less revolting than one
of these. Two or more men, armed to the teeth, meet in the streets,
at a court-house, or a tavern, shoot at each other with revolvers,
then gash each other with knives, close, and roll upon the ground,
covered with dirt and blood, struggling and stabbing, till death,
prostration, or surrender puts an end to the conflict. Each instance
tells its shameful story, and cries out against the social system
tolerating such Barbarism. A catalogue of duels would testify again to
the reckless disregard of life where Slavery exists, while it exhibited
Violence flaunting in the garb of Honor, and prating of a barbarous
code disowned equally by reason and religion. But you have already
surfeited with horrors, and I hasten on.
Ancient Civilization did not condemn assassination. Statues were raised
to Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who slew Hipparchus. Brutus and Cassius
were glorified. Modern Civilization judges otherwise; but Slavery, not
content with the Duel, which was unknown to Antiquity, rejoices in
assassinations also,--rejoices in both.
Pardon me, if I stop for one moment to expose and denounce the Duel.
I do it only because it belongs to the brood of Slavery. Long ago an
enlightened Civilization rejected this relic of Barbarism, and never
was one part of the argument against it put more sententiously than
by Franklin. “A duel decides nothing,” said this patriot philosopher;
and the person appealing to it “makes himself judge in his own cause,
condemns the offender without a jury, and undertakes himself to be the
executioner.”[87] To these emphatic words I add two brief propositions,
which, if practically adopted, make the Duel impossible: first, that
the acknowledgment of wrong, with apology or explanation, can never
be otherwise than honorable; and, secondly, that, in the absence of
such acknowledgment, no wrong can be repaired by gladiatorial contest,
where brute force, or skill, or chance must decide the day. Iron and
adamant are not stronger than these arguments; nor can any one attempt
an answer without exposing his feebleness. And yet Slave-Masters,
disregarding its irrational character, insensible to its folly,
heedless of its impiety, and unconscious of its Barbarism, openly
adopt the Duel as regulator of manners and conduct. Two voices from
South Carolina have been raised against it, and I mention them with
gladness as testimony from that land of Slavery. The first was Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney, who, in the early days of the Republic, after
asking if there were “no way of abolishing throughout the Union this
absurd and _barbarous_ custom,” invoked the clergy of his State, “as
a particular favor, at some convenient early day, to preach a sermon
on the sin and folly of duelling.”[88] The other was Mr. Rhett, who,
on this floor, openly declared, as his reason for declining the Duel,
“that he feared God more than man.”[89] Generous words, for which many
errors will be pardoned. But these voices condemn the social system of
which the Duel is a natural product.
Looking at the broad surface of society where Slavery exists, we find
its spirit actively manifest against all freedom of speech and the
press, especially with regard to this wrong. Nobody in the Slave States
can speak or print plainly about Slavery, except at peril of life or
liberty; and a curious instance shows how this same spirit is carried
by our Slave-Masters into foreign lands. As early as 1789, and in
Paris, a poor play,[90] where Slavery was painted truthfully, excited
the hostility of what Baron Grimm, who reports the incident, calls
“an American cabal,” so that its failure was attributed by some to
this influence, being the early prototype of that so strong among us.
St. Paul could call upon the people of Athens to give up the worship
of unknown gods; he could live in his own hired house at Rome, and
preach Christianity in this Heathen metropolis; but no man can be heard
against Slavery in Charleston or Mobile. We condemn the Inquisition,
which subjects all within its influence to censorship and secret
judgment; but this tyranny is repeated in American Slave-Masters.
Truths as simple as the great discovery of Galileo are openly denied,
and all who declare them are driven to recant. We condemn the “Index
Expurgatorius” of the Roman Church; but American Slave-Masters have
an Index where are inscribed all the generous books of the age. One
book, the marvel of recent literature, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” is treated
thus by the Church as by Slave-Masters, being honored by the same
suppression at the Vatican as at Charleston.
Not to dwell on these instances, there is one which has a most
instructive ridiculousness. A religious discourse of the late Dr.
Channing on West India Emancipation--the last effort of his beautiful
life--was offered for sale by a book agent at Charleston. A prosecution
by the South Carolina Association ensued, and the agent was held
to bail in the sum of one thousand dollars. Shortly afterward, the
same agent received for sale a work by Dickens, “American Notes,”
freshly published; but, determined not to expose himself again to the
tyrannical Inquisition, he gave notice through the newspapers that the
book would “be submitted to highly intelligent members of the South
Carolina Association for _inspection_, and _if_ the sale is approved by
them, it will be for sale,--if not, not.”[91]
Listen also to another recent instance, as recounted in the “Montgomery
Mail,” a newspaper of Alabama.
“Last Saturday we devoted to the flames a large number of
copies of Spurgeon’s Sermons, and the pile was graced at the
top with a copy of ‘Graves’s Great Iron Wheel,’ which a Baptist
friend presented for the purpose. We trust that the works of
the greasy cockney vociferator may receive the same treatment
throughout the South. And if the Pharisaical author should ever
show himself in these parts, we trust that a stout cord may
speedily find its way around his eloquent throat. He has proved
himself a dirty, low-bred slanderer, and ought to be treated
accordingly.”
Very recently we had the opportunity of reading in the journals, that
the trustees of a college in Alabama resolved against Dr. Wayland’s
admirable work on Moral Science, as containing “Abolition doctrine of
the deepest dye,” and proceeded to denounce “the said book, and forbid
its further use in the Institute.”
The speeches of Wilberforce in the British Parliament, and especially
those magnificent efforts of Brougham, where he exposed “the wild
and guilty fantasy that man can hold property in man,” were insanely
denounced by the British planters in the West Indies; but our
Slave-Masters go further. Speeches delivered in the Senate are stopped
at the Post-Office; booksellers receiving them have been mobbed; and on
at least one occasion the speeches were solemnly proceeded against by a
Grand Jury.[92]
All this is natural, for tyranny is condemned to be consistent with
itself. Proclaim Slavery a permanent institution, instead of a
temporary Barbarism, soon to pass away, and then, by the unhesitating
logic of self-preservation, all things must yield to its support.
The safety of Slavery becomes the supreme law. And since Slavery
is endangered by Liberty in any form, therefore all Liberty must
be restrained. Such is the philosophy of this seeming paradox in
a Republic. And our Slave-Masters show themselves apt. Violence
and brutality are their ready instruments, quickened always by the
wakefulness of suspicion, and perhaps often by the restlessness of
uneasy conscience. The Lion’s Mouth of Venice is open everywhere in the
Slave States; nor are wanting the gloomy cells and the Bridge of Sighs.
This spirit has recently shown itself with such intensity and activity
as to constitute what is properly termed a Reign of Terror. Northern
men, unless recognized as delegates to a Democratic Convention, are
exposed in their travels, whether for business or health. They are
watched and dogged, as in a land of Despotism,--are treated with the
meanness of disgusting tyranny,--and live in peril always of personal
indignity, often of life and limb. Complaint is sometimes made of
wrongs to American citizens in Mexico; but the last year witnessed
outrages on American citizens perpetrated in the Slave States exceeding
those in Mexico. Here, again, I have no time for details, already
presented in other quarters. Instances are from all conditions of life
and in various quarters. In Missouri, a Methodist clergyman, suspected
of being an Abolitionist, was taken to prison, amidst threats of tar
and feathers. In Arkansas, a schoolmaster was driven from the State.
In Kentucky, a plain citizen from Indiana, on a visit to his friends,
was threatened with death by the rope. In Alabama, a simple person from
Connecticut, peddling books, was thrust into prison, amidst cries of
“Shoot him! Hang him!” In Virginia, a Shaker, from New York, peddling
garden-seeds, was forcibly expelled from the State. In Georgia, a
merchant’s clerk, Irish by birth, who simply asked the settlement of a
just debt, was cast into prison, robbed of his pocket-book containing
nearly one hundred dollars, and barely escaped with life. In South
Carolina, a stone-cutter, also an Irishman, was stripped naked, and
then, amidst cries of “Brand him!” “Burn him!” “Spike him to death!”
scourged so that blood came at every stroke, while tar was poured upon
the lacerated flesh. These atrocities, calculated, according to the
words of a great poet, to “make a holiday in Hell,” were all ordained
by Vigilance Committees, or that swiftest magistrate, Judge Lynch,
inspired by the demon of Slavery.
“He let them loose, and cried, Halloo!
How shall we yield him honor due?”[93]
In perfect shamelessness, and as if to blazon this fiendish spirit, we
have this winter had an article in a leading newspaper of Virginia,
offering twenty-five dollars each for the heads of citizens, mostly
Members of Congress, known to be against Slavery, with fifty thousand
dollars for the head of William H. Seward. In still another paper
of Virginia we find a proposition to raise ten thousand dollars for
the kidnapping, and delivery at Richmond, of a venerable citizen,
Joshua R. Giddings, “or five thousand dollars for the production of
his head.” These are fresh instances, but not alone. At a meeting of
Slave-Masters in Georgia, in 1836, the Governor was recommended to
issue a proclamation offering five thousand dollars as a reward for
the apprehension of _either_ of ten persons named in the resolution,
citizens of New York and Massachusetts, and one a subject of Great
Britain,--neither of whom was it pretended had ever set foot on the
soil of Georgia. The Milledgeville “Federal Union,” a newspaper of
Georgia, in 1836, contained an offer of ten thousand dollars for
kidnapping a clergyman residing in the city of New York. A Committee of
Vigilance in Louisiana, in 1835, offered, in the “Louisiana Journal,”
fifty thousand dollars to any person who would deliver into their
hands Arthur Tappan, a liberty-loving merchant of New York; and during
the same year a public meeting in Alabama, with a person entitled
“Honorable” in the chair, offered a similar reward of fifty thousand
dollars for the apprehension of the same Arthur Tappan, and of La Roy
Sunderland, a clergyman of the Methodist Church in New York.
These manifestations are not without example in the history of the
Antislavery cause elsewhere. From the beginning, Slave-Masters have
encountered argument by brutality and violence. St. Jerome had before
him their type, when he described certain persons “whose words are in
their fists and syllogisms in their heels.”[94] If we go back to the
earliest of Abolitionists, the wonderful Portuguese preacher, Vieyra,
we find that his matchless eloquence and unquestioned piety did not
save him from indignity. The good man was seized and imprisoned, while
one of the principal Slave-Masters asked him, in mockery, “where were
all his learning and all his genius now, if they could not deliver him
in this extremity?”[95] He was of the Catholic Church. But the spirit
of Slavery is the same in all churches. A renowned Quaker minister
of the last century, Thomas Chalkley, while on a visit at Barbadoes,
having simply recommended charity to the slaves, without presuming to
breathe a word against Slavery itself, was first met by disturbance
in the meeting, and afterward, on the highway, in open day, was shot
at by one of the exasperated planters, with a fowling-piece “loaded
with small shot, ten of which made marks, and several drew blood.”[96]
In England, while the Slave-Trade was under discussion, the same
spirit raged. Wilberforce, who represented the cause of Abolition
in Parliament, was threatened with personal violence; Clarkson, who
represented the same cause before the people, was assaulted by the
infuriate Slave-Traders, and narrowly escaped being hustled into the
dock; and Roscoe, the accomplished historian, on return to Liverpool
from his seat in Parliament, where he had signalized himself as an
opponent of the Slave-Trade, was met at the entrance of the town by a
savage mob, composed of persons interested in the traffic, armed with
_knives and bludgeons_, the distinctive arguments and companions of the
partisans of Slavery.
Even in the Free States, these same partisans from the beginning acted
under the inspiration of violence. The demon of Slavery entered into
them, and through its influence they have behaved like Slave-Masters.
Public meetings for the discussion of Slavery have been interrupted;
public halls, dedicated to its discussion, have been destroyed or
burned to the ground. In all our populous cities the great rights of
speech and of the press have been assailed precisely as in the Slave
States. In Boston, an early and most devoted Abolitionist was dragged
through the streets with a halter about his neck; and in Illinois,
another, while defending his press, was ferociously murdered. The
former yet lives to speak for himself, while the latter lives in
his eloquent brother, a Representative from Illinois in the other
House.[97] Thus does Slavery show its natural character even at a
distance.
Nor in the Slave States is this spirit confined to outbreaks of
mere lawlessness. Too strong for restraint, it finds no limitations
except in its own barbarous will. The Government becomes its tool,
and in _official acts_ does its bidding. Here again the instances
are numerous. I might dwell on the degradation of the Post-Office,
when its official head consented that for the sake of Slavery the
mails themselves should be rifled. I might dwell also on the cruel
persecution of free persons of color, who, in the Slave States
generally, and even here in the District of Columbia, are not allowed
to testify where a white man is in question, and now in several States
are menaced by legislative act with the alternative of expulsion from
their homes or of reduction to Slavery. But I pass to two illustrative
transactions, which a son of Massachusetts can never forget.
1. The first relates to a citizen of purest life and perfect integrity,
whose name is destined to fill a conspicuous place in the history
of Freedom, William Lloyd Garrison. Born in Massachusetts, bred to
the same profession with Benjamin Franklin, and, like his great
predecessor, becoming an editor, he saw with instinctive clearness the
wrong of Slavery, and, at a period when the ardors of the Missouri
Question had given way to indifference throughout the North, he stepped
forward to denounce it. The jail at Baltimore, where he then resided,
was the earliest reward. Afterward, January 1st, 1831, he published the
first number of “The Liberator,” inscribing for his motto an utterance
of Christian philanthropy, “Our country is the world, our countrymen
are mankind,” and declaring, in the face of surrounding apathy: “I am
in earnest,--I will not equivocate,--I will not excuse,--I will not
retreat a single inch,--AND I WILL BE HEARD.” In this sublime spirit
he commenced his labors for the Slave, proposing no intervention by
Congress in the States, and on well-considered principle avoiding
all appeals to the bond-men themselves. Such was his simple and
thoroughly constitutional position, when, before the expiration of
the first year, the Legislature of Georgia, by solemn act, a copy
of which I have before me, “approved” by Wilson Lumpkin, Governor,
appropriated five thousand dollars “to be paid to any person or persons
who shall arrest, bring to trial, and prosecute to conviction under
the laws of this State, the editor or publisher of a certain paper
called _The Liberator_, published in the town of Boston and State
of Massachusetts.”[98] This infamous statute, touching a citizen
absolutely beyond the jurisdiction of Georgia and in no way amenable
to its laws, constituted a plain bribe to the gangs of kidnappers
engendered by Slavery. With this barefaced defiance of justice and
decency Slave-Masters inaugurated the system of violence by which they
have sought to crush every voice raised against Slavery.
* * * * *
2. Here is another illustration, of a different character. Free
persons of color, citizens of Massachusetts, and, according to the
institutions of this Commonwealth, entitled to equal privileges with
other citizens, being in service as mariners, and touching at the
port of Charleston, in South Carolina, have been seized, and, with no
allegation against them, except of entering this port in the discharge
of their rightful business, have been cast into prison, and there
detained during the stay of the vessel. This is by virtue of a statute
of South Carolina, passed in 1822, which further declares, that, in
the failure of the captain to pay the expenses, these freemen “shall
be deemed and taken as absolute slaves,” one moiety of the proceeds of
their sale to belong to the sheriff. Against all remonstrance,--against
the official opinion of Mr. Wirt, as Attorney-General of the United
States, declaring it unconstitutional,--against the solemn judgment
of Mr. Justice Johnson, of the Supreme Court of the United States,
himself a Slave-Master and citizen of South Carolina, also pronouncing
it unconstitutional,[99]--this statute, which is an obvious injury
to Northern ship-owners, as it is an outrage to the mariners whom it
seizes, has been upheld to this day by South Carolina.
Massachusetts, anxious to obtain for her people that protection which
was denied, and especially to save them from the dread penalty of being
sold into Slavery, appointed a citizen of South Carolina as her agent
for this purpose, and in her behalf to bring suits in the Circuit Court
of the United States to try the constitutionality of this pretension.
Owing to the sensitiveness of the people in that State, the agent
declined to render this simple service. Massachusetts next selected
one of her own sons, a venerable citizen, who had already served with
honor in the other House of Congress, and was of admitted eminence
as a lawyer, the Hon. Samuel Hoar, of Concord, to visit Charleston,
and there do what the agent first appointed shrank from doing. This
excellent gentleman, beloved by all who knew him, gentle in manners
as he was firm in character, with a countenance that was in itself a
letter of recommendation, arrived at Charleston, accompanied only by
his daughter. Straightway all South Carolina was convulsed. According
to a story in Boswell’s Johnson, all the inhabitants at St. Kilda, a
remote island of the Hebrides, on the approach of a stranger, “catch
cold”[100]; but in South Carolina it is fever that they catch. The
Governor at the time, who was none other than one of her present
Senators [Mr. HAMMOND], made his arrival the subject of special message
to the Legislature, which I have before me; the Legislature all caught
the fever, and swiftly adopted resolutions calling upon his Excellency
the Governor “to expel from our territory the said agent, after due
notice to depart,” and promising to “sustain the Executive authority
in any measures it may adopt for the purpose aforesaid.”
Meanwhile the fever raged in Charleston. The agent of Massachusetts
was first accosted in the streets by a person unknown to him, who,
flourishing a bludgeon in his hand,--the bludgeon always shows
itself where Slavery is in question,--cried out: “You had better be
travelling, and the sooner the better for you, I can tell you; if
you stay here until to-morrow morning, you will feel something you
will not like, I’m thinking.” Next came threats of attack during the
following night on the hotel where he was lodged; then a request from
the landlord that he should quit, in order to preserve the hotel
from the impending danger of an infuriate mob; then a committee of
Slave-Masters, who politely proposed to conduct him to the boat. Thus
arrested in his simple errand of good-will, this venerable public
servant, whose appearance alone, like that of the “grave and pious
man” mentioned by Virgil, would have softened any mob not inspired by
Slavery, yielded to the ejectment proposed, precisely as the prisoner
yields to the officers of the law, and left Charleston, while a person
in the crowd was heard to declare that he “had offered himself as a
leader of a tar-and-feather gang, to have been called into the service
of the city on the occasion.” Nor is this all. The Legislature a
second time caught the fever, and, yielding to its influence, passed
a statute, forbidding, under severe penalties, any person within the
State from accepting a commission to befriend these colored mariners,
and, under penalties severer still, extending even to unlimited
imprisonment, prohibiting any person, “on his own behalf, or under
color or in virtue of any commission or authority from any State or
public authority of any State in this Union, or of any foreign power,”
to come into South Carolina for this purpose; and then, to complete its
work, by still another statute took away the writ of _Habeas Corpus_
from all such mariners.[101]
Such is a simple narrative, founded on authentic documents. I do not
adduce it for present criticism, but simply to enroll it in all its
stages--beginning with the earliest pretension of South Carolina,
continuing in violence, and ending in yet other pretensions--among
the special instances where the Barbarism of Slavery stands confessed
even in official conduct. And yet this transaction, which may well
give to South Carolina the character of a shore “where shipwrecked
mariners dread to land,” was openly vindicated in all its details, from
beginning to end, by both the Senators from that State, while one of
them [Mr. HAMMOND], in the same breath, bore testimony from personal
knowledge to the character of the public agent thus maltreated, saying,
“He was a pleasant, kind old gentleman, well informed, and I had a sort
of friendship for him during the short time that I sat near him in
Congress.”[102]
Thus, Sir, whether we look at individuals or at the community
where Slavery exists, at lawless outbreaks or at official conduct,
Slave-Masters are always the same. Enough, you will say, has been
told. Yes, enough to expose Slavery, but not enough for Truth. The
most instructive and most grievous part still remains. It is the
exhibition of Slave-Masters in Congressional history. Of course, the
representative reflects the character as well as the political opinions
of the constituents whose will it is his boast to obey. It follows that
the passions and habits of Slave-Masters are naturally represented in
Congress,--chastened to a certain extent, perhaps, by the requirements
of Parliamentary Law, but breaking out in fearful examples. And here,
again, facts speak as nothing else can.
In proceeding with this duty, to which, as you will perceive, I
am impelled by the positive requirements of this debate, I crave
indulgence of the Senate, while, avoiding all allusions to private
life or private character, and touching simply what is of record,
and already “enrolled in the Capitol,” I present a few only of many
instances, which, especially during these latter days, since Slavery
became paramount, have taken their place in our national history.
Clarendon has mildly pictured successive Congresses, when, recounting
what preceded the Civil War in England, he says: “It is not to be
denied that there were in all those Parliaments … several passages and
distempered speeches of particular persons, not fit for the dignity and
honor of those places.”[103] But Congress, under the rule of Slavery,
has been worse than any Parliament.
Here is an instance. On the 13th of February, 1837, R. M. Whitney
was arraigned before the House of Representatives for contempt, in
refusing to attend, when required, before a committee investigating the
administration of the Executive office. His excuse was, that “he could
not attend without exposing himself thereby to outrage and violence”
in the committee-room; and on examination at the bar of the House,
Mr. Fairfield, a member of the Committee, afterward a member of this
body, and Governor of Maine, testified to the actual facts. It appeared
that Mr. Peyton, a Slave-Master from Tennessee, and a member of the
Committee, regarding a certain answer in writing by Mr. Whitney to
an interrogatory propounded by him as offensive, broke out in these
words: “Mr. Chairman, I wish you to inform this witness that he is not
to insult me in his answers; if he does, God damn him, I will take his
life upon the spot!” Mr. Wise, another Slave-Master, from Virginia,
Chairman of the Committee, and latterly Governor of Virginia, then
intervened, saying, “Yes, this damned insolence is insufferable.” The
witness, thereupon rising, claimed the protection of the Committee;
on which Mr. Peyton exclaimed: “God damn you, you shan’t speak; you
shan’t say a word while you are in this room; if you do, I will put
you to death!” Soon after, Mr. Peyton, observing that the witness was
looking at him, cried out: “Damn him, his eyes are on me; God damn him,
he is looking at me; he shan’t do it; damn him, he shan’t look at me!”
These things, and much more, disclosed by Mr. Fairfield, in reply to
interrogatories in the House, were confirmed by other witnesses; and
Mr. Wise himself, in a speech, made the admission that he was armed
with deadly weapons, saying: “I watched the motion of that right arm
[of the witness], the elbow of which could be seen by me; and had it
moved one inch, he had died on the spot. That was my determination.”
All this will be found in the thirteenth volume of the “Congressional
Debates,” with the evidence in detail, and the discussion thereupon.
Here is another instance, of similar character, which did not occur
in a committee-room, but during debate in the Senate Chamber. While
the Compromise Measures were under discussion, on the 17th of April,
1850, Mr. Foote, a Slave-Master from Mississippi, in the course of
remarks, commenced personal allusion to Mr. Benton. This was aggravated
by the circumstance that only a few days previously he had made this
distinguished gentleman the mark for most bitter and vindictive
personalities. Mr. Benton rose at once from his seat, and, with
angry countenance, but without weapon of any kind in his hand, or,
as appeared afterward before the Committee, on his person, advanced
in the direction of Mr. Foote, when the latter, gliding backward,
drew from his pocket a five-chambered revolver, full-loaded, which he
cocked. Meanwhile Mr. Benton, at the suggestion of friends, was already
returning to his seat, when he perceived the pistol. Excited greatly by
this deadly menace, he exclaimed: “I am not armed. I have no pistols.
I disdain to carry arms. Stand out of the way, and let the assassin
fire.” Mr. Foote remained standing in the position he had taken, with
pistol in hand, cocked. “Soon after,” says the Report of the Committee
appointed to investigate this occurrence, “both Senators resumed their
seats, and order was restored.”
This will be found at length in the twenty-first volume of the
“Congressional Globe.”[104]
I cite yet another instance from the same authentic record. Mr. Arnold,
of Tennessee, had proclaimed himself as “belonging to the Peace party,”
when Mr. Dawson, of Louisiana, coming to his seat, called him “a damned
coward,” “a damned blackguard,” and then said, that, if Mr. Arnold did
not behave better, “he would cut his throat from ear to ear.”[105]
The Duel, which at home in the Slave States is “twin” with the “street
fight,” is also “twin” with these instances. It is constantly adopted
or attempted by Slave-Masters in Congress. But I shall not enter upon
this catalogue. I content myself with showing the openness with which
it has been menaced in debate, and without any call to order.
Mr. Foote, the same Slave-Master already mentioned, in debate in the
Senate, the 26th of March, 1850, thus sought to provoke Mr. Benton. I
take his words from the “Congressional Globe,” Vol. XXI. p. 603.
“There are incidents in his [Mr. Benton’s] history, of somewhat
recent occurrence, which might well relieve any man of honor
from the obligation to recognize him as a fitting antagonist;
yet is it, notwithstanding, true, that, if the Senator from
Missouri will deign to acknowledge himself _responsible to
the laws of honor_, he shall have a very early opportunity
of proving his prowess in contest with one over whom I hold
perfect control; or, if he feels in the least degree aggrieved
at anything which has fallen from me, now or formerly, he
shall, on demanding it, _have full redress accorded him_,
according to the said laws of honor. I do not denounce him as
a coward; such language is unfitted for this audience; but, if
he wishes to patch up his reputation for courage, now greatly
on the wane, he will certainly _have an opportunity of doing
so, whenever he makes known his desire in the premises_. At
present he is shielded by his age, _his open disavowal of the
obligatory force of the laws of honor_, and his Senatorial
privileges.”
With such bitter taunts and reiterated provocations to the Duel was Mr.
Benton pursued; but there was no call to order, nor any action of the
Senate on this outrage.
I give another instance. In debate in the Senate on the 27th February,
1852, Mr. Clemens, a Slave-Master of Alabama, thus directly attacked
Mr. Rhett for undertaking to settle their differences by argument in
the Senate rather than by the Duel. “No man,” said he, “with the
feeling of a man in his bosom, would have sought redress here. He would
have looked for it _elsewhere_. He now comes here, not to ask redress
in the only way he should have sought it.”[106] There was no call to
order.
Here is still another. In the debate on the Bill for the Improvement
of Rivers and Harbors, 29th July, 1854, the Senator from Louisiana
[Mr. BENJAMIN], who is still a member of this body, ardent for
Slavery, while professing to avoid personal altercation in the
Senate, especially “with a gentleman who professes the principles of
non-resistance, as he understood the Senator from New York does,”
proceeded most earnestly to repel an imagined imputation on him by Mr.
Seward, and wound up by saying, “If it came from another quarter, _it
would not be upon this floor that I should answer it_.”[107]
During the present session, the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. JEFFERSON
DAVIS], who speaks so often for Slavery, in a colloquy on this floor
with the Senator from Vermont [Mr. COLLAMER], maintained the Duel
as a mode of settling personal differences, and vindicating what is
called personal honor,--as if personal honor did not depend absolutely
upon what a man does, and not on what is done to him. After certain
refinements on the imagined relations between an insult and the
obligation to answer for it, the Senator declared, in reply to the
Senator from Vermont, that, in case of insult, taking another out and
shooting him might be “satisfaction.”[108]
I do not dwell on this instance, nor on any of these instances, except
to make a single comment. These declarations have all been made in
open Senate, without any check from the Chair. Of course, they are
clear violations of the first principles of Parliamentary Law, and
tend directly to provoke a violation of the law of the land. Here, in
the District of Columbia, all duels are prohibited by solemn Act of
Congress.[109] In case of death, the surviving parties are declared
guilty of felony, to be punished by hard labor in the penitentiary; and
even where nothing has occurred beyond the challenge, all the parties
to it, whether givers, receivers, or bearers, are declared guilty of
high crime and misdemeanor, also to be punished by hard labor in the
penitentiary. Of course, every menace of duel in Congress sets this
law at defiance. And yet Senators, who thus openly disregard a law
sanctioned by the Constitution and commended by morality, presume to
complain on this floor because other Senators disregard the Fugitive
Slave Bill, a statute which, according to the profound convictions of
large numbers, is as unconstitutional as it is offensive to the moral
sense. Let Senators, whose watchword is “the enforcement of laws,”
begin by enforcing the statute which declares the Duel to be felony. At
least, let the statute cease to be a dead letter in this Chamber, where
the watchword is so often heard. But this is too much to expect while
Slavery prevails here; for the Duel is part of that System of Violence
which has its origin in Slavery.
It is when aroused by the Slave Question in Congress that Slave-Masters
have most truly shown themselves; and here again I shall speak only
of what has already passed into history. Slavery is a perpetual
fever-and-ague, under which Congress has shaken with alternate heats
and chills. Even in that earliest debate, in the first Congress after
the Constitution, on the memorial of Dr. Franklin, simply calling upon
Congress to “step to the verge of its power to discourage every species
of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men,”[110] the Slave-Masters
became angry, indulged in sneers at “the men in the gallery” being
Quakers and Abolitionists, and, according to the faithful historian,
Hildreth,[111] poured out “torrents of abuse,” while one of them began
the charge so often since directed against all Antislavery men, by
declaring his astonishment that Dr. Franklin had “given countenance”
to “an application which called upon Congress, in explicit terms, to
break a solemn compact to which he had himself been a party,” when it
was obvious that Dr. Franklin had done no such thing. The great man
was soon summoned away by death, but not until he had fastened upon
this debate an undying condemnation, by portraying, with matchless
pen, a scene in the Divan at Algiers, where a Corsair Slave-Dealer,
insisting upon the enslavement of White Christians, is made to repeat
the Congressional speech of an American Slave-Master.[112]
These displays of Violence naturally increase with the intensity of
the discussion. Impelled to be severe, but with little appreciation of
debate in its finer forms, they cannot be severe except by violating
the rules of debate,--not knowing that there is a serener power than
any found in personalities, and that all severity transcending the
rules of debate becomes disgusting as the utterance of a Yahoo, and
harms him only who degrades himself to be its mouthpiece. Of course,
on such occasions, amidst all seeming triumphs, the cause of Slavery
loses, and Truth gains. If men cannot afford to be decent, they ought
to suspect the justice of their cause, or at least the motives with
which they sustain it; but our Slave-Masters, not seeing the indecency
of their conduct, know not their losses. There is waste as well as
economy of character; but the latter is found only in the cultivation
of those principles which make Slavery impossible.
Against John Quincy Adams this violence was first directed in full
force. To a character spotless as snow, and to universal attainments
as a scholar, this illustrious citizen added experience in all the
eminent posts of the Republic, which he had filled with an ability and
integrity now admitted even by enemies, and which impartial history can
never forget. Having been President of the United States, he entered
the House of Representatives at the period when the Slave Question,
in its revival, first began to occupy public attention. In all the
completeness of his nature, he became the representative of Human
Freedom. The first struggle occurred on the Right of Petition, which
Slave-Masters, with characteristic tyranny, sought to suppress. This
was resisted by the venerable patriot, and what he did was always
done with his whole heart. Then was poured upon him abuse “as from a
cart,” according to a famous phrase of Demosthenes. Slave-Masters,
“foaming out their shame,” became conspicuous, not less for the avowal
of sentiments at which Civilization blushed than for an effrontery
of manner where the accidental legislator was lost in the natural
overseer, and the lash of the plantation resounded in the voice.
In an address to his constituents, September 17, 1842, Mr. Adams thus
frankly describes the treatment he experienced:--
“I never can take part in any debate upon an important subject,
be it only upon a mere abstraction, but a pack opens upon me of
personal invective in return. Language has no word of reproach
and railing that is not hurled at me.”