Chapter 8

“He let them loose, and cried, Halloo!How shall we yield him honor due?”[93]

“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 apprehensionofeitherof 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. Butthe 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 withknives 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 SlaveStates. 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 inofficial actsdoes 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 whenthe 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 calledThe 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 sensitivenessof 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 ofHabeas Corpusfrom 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 vindictivepersonalities. 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 enterupon 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 himselfresponsible 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 certainlyhave 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 itelsewhere. 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 theseinstances, 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 perpetualfever-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 whodegrades 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.”

And in the same speech he shows us Slave-Masters:—

“Where the South cannot effect her object by browbeating, she wheedles.”

On another occasion, he announced, with accustomed power:—

“Insult, bullying, and threat characterize the Slaveholders in Congress; talk, timidity, and submission, the Representatives from the Free States.”

Nor were the Slave-Masters content with violence of words, or with ejaculation of personalities by which debate became a perpetual syringe of liquid foulness, and every one seemed to vie with Squirt the apothecary, according to the verse admired by Pope,—

“Such zeal he had for that vile utensil.”[113]

True to the instincts of Slavery, they threatened personal indignity of every kind, and even assassination. And here South Carolina naturally took the lead.

The “Charleston Mercury,” which always speaks the true voice of Slavery, said in 1837:—

“Public opinion in the South would now, we are sure, justify an immediate resort to force by the Southern delegation,even on the floor of Congress, were they forthwith to seize and drag from the Hall any man who dared to insult them, as that eccentric old showman, John Quincy Adams, has dared to do.”

And at a public dinner at Walterborough, in South Carolina, on the 4th of July, 1842, the following toast, afterwards preserved by Mr. Adams in one of his speeches, was drunk with unbounded applause:—

“May we never want a Democrat to trip up the heels of a Federalist, or a hangman to prepare a halter for John Quincy Adams! [Nine cheers.]”

A Slave-Master from South Carolina, Mr. Waddy Thompson, in debate in the House of Representatives, threatened the venerable patriot with the “penitentiary”; and another Slave-Master, Mr. Marshall, of Kentucky, insisted that he should be “silenced.” Ominous word! full of incentive to the bludgeon-bearers of Slavery. But the great representative of Freedom stood firm. Meanwhile Slavery assumed more and more the port of Giant Maul in “Pilgrim’s Progress,” who continued with his club breaking skulls, until he was slain by Mr. Great-Heart, soon to join the congenial pilgrims, Mr. Honest, Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, and Mr. Standfast.

Next to John Quincy Adams, no person in Congress has been more conspicuous for long-continued and patriotic services against Slavery than Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio; nor have any such services received in higher degree that homage found in the personal and most vindictive assaults of Slave-Masters. For more than twenty years he sat in the House of Representatives, bearing his testimony austerely, and never shrinking,though exposed to the grossest brutality. In a recent address at New York he has recounted some of these instances.

On his presentation of resolutions affirming that Slavery was a local institution and could not exist outside of the Slave States, and applying this principle to the case of the “Creole,” the House caught the South Carolina fever. A proposition of censure was introduced by Slave-Masters, and under the previous question pressed to a vote, without giving him a moment for explanation or reply. This glaring outrage upon freedom of debate was redressed by the constituency of Mr. Giddings, who without delay returned him to his seat. From that time the rage of the Slave-Masters against him was constant. Here is his own brief account.

“I will not speak of the time when Dawson, of Louisiana, drew a bowie-knife for my assassination. I was afterward speaking with regard to a certain transaction in which negroes were concerned in Georgia, when Mr. Black, of Georgia, raising his bludgeon, and standing in front of my seat, said to me, ‘If you repeat that language again, I will knock you down.’ It was a solemn moment for me. I had never been knocked down, and, having some curiosity upon that subject, I repeated the language. Then Mr. Dawson, of Louisiana, the same who had drawn the bowie-knife, placed his hand in his pocket and said, with an oath which I will not repeat, that he would shoot me, at the same time cocking the pistol, so that all around me could hear it click.”

Listening to these horrors, ancient stories of Barbarism are all outdone; and the “viper broth,” which was a favorite decoction in a barbarous age, seems to be the daily drink of American Slave-Masters. The blasphemingmadness of the witches in “Macbeth” is renewed, and they dance again round the caldron, dropping into it “sweltered venom sleeping got,” with every other “charm of powerful trouble.” Men are transformed into wolves, as according to early Greek superstition, and a new lycanthropy has its day. But Mr. Giddings, strong in consciousness of right, knew the dignity of his position. He knew that it is always honorable to serve the cause of Liberty, and that it is a privilege to suffer for this cause. Reproach, contumely, violence even unto death, are rewards, not punishments; and clearly the indignities you offer can excite no shame except for their authors.

Besides these eminent instances, others may be mentioned, showing the personalities to which Senators and Representatives are exposed, when undertaking to speak for Freedom. And truth compels me to add, that it would be easy to show how these are grossly aggravated towards individuals who notoriously reject the Duel; for then they can be offered with personal impunity.

Here is an instance. In 1848, Mr. Hale, the Senator from New Hampshire, who still continues an honor to this body, introduced into the Senate a bill for the protection of property in the District of Columbia, especially against mob-violence, when, in the debate that ensued, Mr. Foote, a Slave-Master from Mississippi, thus menaced him:—

“I invite the Senator to the good State of Mississippi, and will tell him beforehand, in all honesty, that he could not go ten miles into the interior before he would grace one of the tallest trees of the forest with a rope around his neck, with the approbation of every virtuous and patriotic citizen, and that, if necessary,I should myself assist in the operation.”[114]

That this bloody threat may not seem to stand alone, I add two others.

In 1836, Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, now a Senator, is reported as saying in the House of Representatives:—

“I warn the Abolitionists, ignorant, infatuated barbarians as they are, that, if chance shall throw any of them into our hands, he may expecta felon’s death!”[115]

In 1841, Mr. Payne, a Slave-Master from Alabama, in the course of debate in the House of Representatives, alluding to the Abolitionists, among whom he insisted the Postmaster-General ought to be included, declared that

“He would put the brand of Cain upon them,—yes, the mark of Hell; and if they came to the South, he wouldhang them like dogs.”[116]

And these words were applied to men who simply expressed the recorded sentiments of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin.

Even during the present session of Congress, I find in the “Congressional Globe” the following interruptions of the eloquent and faithful Representative from Illinois, Mr. Lovejoy, when speaking on Slavery. I do not characterize them, but simply cite the language.

By Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi:—

“Order that black-hearted scoundrel and nigger-stealing thief to take his seat.”

By Mr. Boyce, of South Carolina, addressing Mr. Lovejoy:—

“Then behave yourself.”

By Mr. Gartrell, of Georgia (in his seat):—

“The man is crazy.”

By Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi, again:—

“No, Sir, you stand there to-day an infamous, perjured villain.”

By Mr. Ashmore, of South Carolina:—

“Yes, he is a perjured villain; and he perjures himself every hour he occupies a seat on this floor.”

By Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi:—

“And a negro-thief into the bargain.”

By Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi, again:—

“I hope my colleague will hold no parley with that perjured negro-thief.”

By Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi, again:—

“No, Sir! any gentleman shall have time, but not such a mean, despicable wretch as that!”

By Mr. Martin, of Virginia:—

“And if you come among us, we will do with you as we did with John Brown,—hang you up as high as Haman. I say that as a Virginian.”[117]

But enough,—enough; and I now turn from this branch of the great subject with a single remark. While exhibiting the Character of Slave-Masters, these numerous instances—and they might be multiplied indefinitely—attest the weakness of their cause. It requires no special talent to estimate the insignificance of an argument that can be supported only by violence. The scholar will not forget the ancient story of the colloquybetween Jupiter and a simple countryman. They talked with ease and freedom until they differed, when the angry god at once menaced his honest opponent with a thunderbolt. “Ah! ah!” said the clown, with perfect composure, “now, Jupiter, I know you are wrong. You are always wrong, when you appeal to your thunder.” And permit me to say, that every appeal, whether to the Duel, the revolver, or the bludgeon, every menace of personal violence and every outrage of language, besides disclosing a hideous Barbarism, also discloses the fevered nervousness of a cause already humbled in debate. And then how impotent! Truth, like the sunbeam, cannot be soiled by outward touch, while the best testimony to its might is found in the active passions it provokes. There are occasions when enmity is a panegyric.

(4.) Much as has been said to exhibit the Character of Slave-Masters, the work would be incomplete, if I failed to point out thatunconsciousnessof its fatal influence which completes the evidence of the Barbarism under which they live. Nor am I at liberty to decline this topic; but I shall be brief.

That Senators should seriously declare Slavery “ennobling,” at least to the master, and “the black marble keystone of our national arch,” would excite wonder, if it were not explained by examples of history. There are men who, in the spirit of paradox, make themselves partisans of a bad cause, as Jerome Cardan wrote an Encomium on Nero. But where there is no disposition to paradox, it is natural that a cherished practice should blind those under its influence; nor is there any end to these exaggerations. According to Thucydides,piracy in the early ages of Greece was alike wide-spread and honorable; and so much was this the case, that Telemachus and Mentor, on landing at Pylos, were asked by Nestor if they were “pirates,”[118]—precisely as in South Carolina the stranger might be asked if he were a Slave-Master. Kidnapping, too, a kindred indulgence, was openly avowed, and I doubt not held to be “ennobling.” Next to the unconsciousness of childhood is the unconsciousness of Barbarism. The real Barbarian is unconscious as an infant; and the Slave-Master shows much of the same character. No New-Zealander exults in his tattoo, no savage of the Northwest Coast exults in his flat head, more than the Slave-Master of these latter days—always, of course, with honorable exceptions—exults in his unfortunate condition. The Slave-Master hugs his disgusting practice as the Carib of the Gulf hugged Cannibalism, and as Brigham Young now hugs Polygamy. The delusion of the Goitre is repeated. This prodigious swelling of the neck, nothing less than a loathsome wallet of flesh pendulous upon the breast, and sometimes so enormous, that the victim, unable to support the burden, crawls along the ground, is common to the population on the slopes of the Alps;[119]but, accustomed to this deformity, the sufferer comes to regard it with pride,—as Slave-Masters with us, unable to support their burden, and crawling along the ground, regard Slavery,—and it is said that those who have no swelling are laughed at and called “goose-necked.”[120]

With knowledge comes distrust and the modest consciousness of imperfection; but the pride of Barbarism has no such limitation. It dilates in the thin air of ignorance, and makes boasts. Surely, if the illustrations which I have presented to-day are not entirely inapplicable, then must we find in the boasts of Slave-Masters new occasion to regret that baleful influence under which even love of country is lost in love of Slavery, and the great motto of Franklin is reversed, so as to read,Ubi Servitudo, ibi Patria.

It is this same influence which renders Slave-Masters insensible to those characters which are among the true glories of the Republic,—which makes them forget that Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and Washington, who commanded our armies, were Abolitionists,—which renders them indifferent to the inspiring words of the one and the commanding example of the other. Of these great men it is the praise, well deserving perpetual mention, and grudged only by malign influence, that, reared amidst Slavery, they did not hesitate to condemn it. Jefferson, in repeated utterances, alive with the fire of genius and truth, has contributed the most important testimony to Freedom ever pronounced in this hemisphere, in words equal to the cause; and Washington, often quoted as a Slave-Master, in the solemn dispositions of his last will and testament, has contributed an example which is beyond even the words of Jefferson. Do not, Sir, call him Slave-Master, who entered into the presence of his Maker only as Emancipator of his slaves. The difference between such men and the Slave-Masters whom I expose to-day is so precise that it cannot be mistaken. The firstlooked downupon Slavery; the secondlook uptoSlavery. The first, recognizing its wrong, were at once liberated from its insidious influence; while the latter, upholding it as right and “ennobling,” must naturally draw from it motives of conduct. The first, conscious of the character of Slavery, were not misled by it; the second, dwelling in unconsciousness of its true character, surrender blindly to its barbarous tendencies, and, verifying the words of the poet,—

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