Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

return with their shields or on them; more than | while the back of the feline monster arched far Rome gathered on her seven hills, when, under upwards, even beyond reach, and one paw actually her kings, she commenced that sovereign sway, forsook the earth, until at last the discomfited diwhich afterwards embraced the whole earth; more vinity desisted; but he was little surprised at his than London held, when, on the fields of Crecy defeat, when he learned that this creature, which and Agincourt, the English banner was carried seemed to be a cat and nothing more, was not victoriously over the chivalrous hosts of France." merely a cat, but that it belonged to and was a part of the great Terrestial Serpent which in its innumerable folds, encircled the whole globe. Even so the creature whose paws are now fastened upon Kansas, whatever it may seem to be, constitutes in reality a part of the slave power, which, with loathsome folds, is now coiled about the whole land.

Then after dwelling on the prosecution of Verres, he proceeds :

"Sir, speaking in an age of light, and in a land of constitutional liberty, where the safeguards of elections are justly placed among the highest triumphs of civilisation, I fearlessly assert that the wrongs of much-abused Sicily, thus memorable in history, were small by the side of the wrongs of Kansas, where the very shrines of popular institutions, more sacred than any heathen altar, have been desecrated; where the ballot-box, more precious than any work, in ivory or marble, from the cunning hand of art, has been plundered; and where the cry, 'I am an American citizen,' has been interposed in vain against outrage of every kind, even upon life itself. Are you against sacrilege? I present it for your execration. Are you against robbery? I hold it up to your scorn. Are you for the protection of American citizens? I show you how their dearest rights have been cloven down, while a tyrannical usurpation has sought to install itself on their very necks!

"But the wickedness which I now begin to expose is immeasurably aggravated by the motive which prompted it. Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin. It is the rape of a virgin territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved longing for a new slave State, the hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the national government."

The all-pervading influence of the slave States is thus illustrated and brought home to senatorial comprehension:

“There, sir, stands the criminal-all unmasked before you-heartless, grasping, and tyrannicalwith an audacity beyond that of Verres, a subtlety beyond that of Macchiavel, a meanness beyond that of Bacon, and an ability beyond that of Hastings. Justice to Kansas can be secured only by the prostration of this influence; for this is the power behind greater than any President-which succours and sustains the crime. Nay, the proceedings I now arraign derive their fearful consequence only from this connection.

"Such is the crime, and such the criminal, which it is my duty in this debate to expose, and, by the blessing of God, this duty shall be done completely to the end. But this will not be enough. The apologies which, with strange hardihood. have been offered for the crime, must be brushed away, so that it shall stand forth, without a single rag, or fig-leaf, to cover its vileness."

The "individual instances" relied upon in the following passages are positively brought into doubt, instead of being more deeply impressed, by historic allusions and superfluous epithets :

"But our souls are wrung by individual instances. In vain do we condemn the cruelties of an

other age-the refinements of torture to which men have been doomed-the rack and thumbscrew of the Inquisition, the last agonies of the

And

regicide Ravaillac- Luke's iron crown, and Damiens' bed of steel'-for kindred outrages have disgraced these borders. Murder has stalked-asgassination has skulked in the tall grass of the prairie, and the vindictiveness of man has assumed unwonted forms. A preacher of the Gospel of the Saviour has been ridden on a rail, and then thrown into the Missouri, fastened to a log, and left to lately we have had the tidings of that enormity drift down its muddy, tortuous current. without precedence-a deed without a name where a candidate of the Legislature was most brutally gashed with knives and hatchets, and then, after weltering in blood on the snow-clad earth, was trundled along with gaping wounds, to fall dead in the face of his wife. It is common to drop a tear of sympathy over the trembling solicitudes of our early fathers, exposed to the stealthy assault of the savage foe; and an eminent American artist has pictured this scene in a marble group of rare beauty, on the front of the National Capitol, where the uplifted tomahawk is arrested by the stong arm and generous countenance of the pioneer, while his wife and children find shelter at his feet; but now the tear must be dropped over the trembling solicitudes of fellow-citizens, seeking to build a new state in Kansas, and exposed to the perpetual assault of murderous robbers from Missouri. Hirelings, picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilisation

"In now opening this great matter, I am not insensible to the austere demands of the occasion; but the dependence of the crime against Kansas upon the slave power is so peculiar and important, that I trust to be pardoned while I impress it by an illustration, which to some may seem trivial. It is related in Northern mythology, that the god of Force, visiting an enchanted region, was chal-in the form of menlenged by his royal entertainer to what seemed a humble feat of strength, merely, sir, to lift a cat from the ground. The god smiled at the challenge, and, calmly placing his hand under the belly of the animal, with superhuman strength, strove,

Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men;
As hounds and grey-hounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Sloughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves, are called
All by the name of dogs;'

[ocr errors]

leashed together by secret signs and lodges, have which, though not unadorned by flights of renewed the incredible atrocities of the Assassins fancy, hardly ever deviates from the severest and of the Thugs; showing the blind submission canons of good taste. At the same time it of the Assassins to the Old Man of the Mountain, is right to add that the main argument is in robbing Christians on the road to Jerusalem, and showing the heartlessness of the Thugs, who, clearly stated and powerfully enforced by avowing that murder was their religion, way-laid Mr. Sumner, and that, if he occasionally in travellers on the great road from Agra to Delhi; vites the critic's rod, his transgressions are with the more deadly bowie knife for the dagger never of a kind to be repressed or retaliated of the Assassin, and the more deadly revolver for by the bludgeon or the bowie-knife. He the noose of the Thug.” had a clear right to designate the series of outrages, advisedly and with malice aforeMost readers will suppose that the orator thought perpetrated against the bona fide had reached by this time the very acmé of settlers in Kansas, as a crime ;" and if his exaltation, but he has reserved an illustra- language was unparliamentary (or uncontion for the climax, as the Irish postilion re-gressional) he might have been called to served a trot for the avenue:

"I would go further, if language could further go. It is the crime of crimes-surpassing far the old crimen majestatis, pursued with vengeance by the laws of Rome, and containing all the crimes, as the greater contains the less. I do not go too far, when I call it the crime against nature, from which the soul recoils, and which language refuses to describe."

There is an old story about a gentleman, who, whilst listening to a popular preacher, took the liberty of audibly ejaculating, as they occurred to him, the names of the divines from whom the most ambitious passa ges had been borrowed-"that's Jeremy Taylor"-" that's Barrow"-" that's South" -and at length when the exasperated preacher turned round and rebuked him for his ir

[ocr errors]

reverence" that's his own." With equal
facility could any one tolerably well read in
ancient and modern oratory, assign much of
Mr. Sumner's highly coloured and grandilo-
quent sentences to their original owners-
"that's Burke"-"that's Grattan"-" that's
Erskine"-" that's Curran ;" and on coming
to the plain, appropriate, and really effective
passages "that's his own." This oration
was addressed to the Senate, a grave unex-
citable body, who may be seen seated at
their desks, writing or reading, and only lift-
ing their heads to listen at intervals; and it
occupied two consecutive sittings in the de-
livery.
The ornate and emphatic parts,
therefore, must have been deliberate compo-
sitions, written out and committed to memo-
ry, not sudden bursts elicited by the enthu-
siastic applause of a sympathizing audience;
and Mr. Sumner's friends justify them on
the ground that the speech was meant for
general circulation and popular effect. If so,
the exordium and peroration would consti-
tute the strongest implied satire on the taste
of his countrymen. But this would be un-
merited and uncalled for, as may be inferred
from the effect produced by the speech of
Governor Seward on the same side; a speech

[ocr errors]

order at the time. Whether any strength of expression could be considered irregular or unprecedented in the United States, is a question. In the Journal which Sir James Mackintosh kept of his visit to Paris in 1814, he has set down,-"There is another Ma

dame de

who is said to be still more clever than her namesake. She is out of society. I should like to know what her of fences could be." We should like to know what could be the oratorical transgressions of an orator who should shock the feelings of a transatlantic assembly. At all events, Mr. Sumner's opponents paid him off so amply in the coin of abuse upon the spot, that they might surely have refrained from encouraging or sanctioning the knock-me-down arguments of their chivalrous champion, Mr. Brooks.

We have to thank Mr. Senior, (the author of "American Slavery") for the only readable reprint of Mr. Summer's speech, and also for an instructive "Notice of the 29 Here Events which followed that Speech.' are two of the replies which it elicited in the Senate :

:

"Is it," said Mr. Douglas (a candidate for the voke some of us to kick him as we would a dog Presidency), "the object of the senator to proin the street, that he may get sympathy upon the just chastisement?

"The senator, by his charge of crime, stultifies three-fourths of the whole body, a majority of the North, nearly the whole South, a majority of Whigs, and a majority of Democrats here. He says they are infamous. If he so believed, who could suppose that he would ever show his face among such a body of men? How dare he approach one of those gentlemen to give him his hand after that act? If he felt the courtesies between men, he would not do it. He would deserve to have himself spit in the face for doing so.

"The attack of the senator from Massachusetts now is not on me alone. Even the courteous and

the accomplished senator from South Carolina [Mr. Buller] could not be passed in his absence." Mr. Mason." Advantage was taken of it." Mr. Douglas."It is suggested that advantage

is taken of his "absence. I think that is a House was abandoned for similar reasons, mistake. I think the speech was written and and it was at length determined to strike practised, and the gestures fixed; and if that him when he was off his guard, or in a defencepart had been struck out, the senator would not less position, and to strike in such a manner have known how to repeat the speech. All that

tirade of abuse must be brought down on the as to disable him at once. This plan was head of the venerable, the courteous, and the executed. He was seated at his desk, with distinguished senator from South Carolina. I his head bent upon it. The first blow shall not defend that gentleman here. He will stnnned him, and it was followed up by a be here in due time to speak for himself, and to succession n of blows till till the weapon broke, act for himself too. I know what will happen. by which time the victim was in a state of The senator from Massachusetts will go to him, stupor. Mr. Brooks, a tall strong man, whisper a secret apology in his ear, and ask him to accept that as satisfaction for a public outrage was accompanied by a brother legislator, on his character! I know how the senator from Mr. Keith, armed also with a cane, and Massachusetts is in the habit of doing those obviously prepared to give his friend the things. I have some experience of his skill in that respect."

Mr. Mason, of Virginia, said :-

advantage of odds in case of resistance. There had been no antecedent demand of explanation or satisfaction, and the alleged provocation did not individually or directly effect Mr. Brooks.

"Mr. President, the necessities of our political Yet, instead of being repudiated by his position bring us into relations and associations party, who claim to represent the refineupon this floor, which, in obedience to a common ment of the United States, Mr. Brooks is government, we are forced to admit. They bring us into relations and associations which, beyond applauded by them; congratulatory and the walls of this chamber, we are enabled to approving address are voted to him at avoid,-associations here whose presence elsewhere public meetings: gold-headed canes, inis dishonour, and the touch of whose hand would scribed "At him again," have been presented be a disgrace. to him; and his example has been vehemently recommended to "other gentlemen." The "Richmond Inquirer 22 of June 12, re

marks:

"The necessity of political position alone brings me into relations with men upon this floor whom elsewhere I cannot acknowledge as possessing manhood in any form. I am constrained to hear here depravity, vice in its most odious form "In the main, the press of the South applaud uncoiled in this presence, exhibiting its loathsome the conduct of Mr. Brooks, without condition or deformities in accusation and vilification_against limitation. Our approbation, at least, is entire the quarter of the country from which I come; and unreserved. We consider the act good in conand I must listen to it because it is a necessity of ception, better in execution, and best of all in my position, under a common government, to reconsequence. The vulgar Abolitionists in the cognise as an equal, politically, one whom to see Senate are getting above themselves. They have elsewhere is to shun and despise. I did not been humoured until they forget their position intend to be betrayed into this debate; but I They have grown saucy, and dare to be impudent submit to the necessity of my position. I am to gentlemen! Now, they are a low, mean, here now, united with an honoured band of patriots, from the North equally with the South, to try if we can preserve and perpetuate those institutions which others are prepared to betray, and are seeking to destroy; and I will submit to the necessity of that position at least until the work is accomplished."

scurvy set, with some little book learning, but as utterly devoid of spirit or honour as a pack of curs. Intrenched behind 'privilege,' they fancy they can slander the South, and insult its representatives with impunity. The truth is, they have been suffered to run too long without collars. They must be lashed into submission. Sumner, in particular, ought to have nine-and-thirty early These specimens prove that the senators every morning. He is a great strapping fellow, of the South can hold their own in vitupera- and could stand the cowhide beautifully. Brooks tion; and the wonder is that they did not frightened him, and at the first blow of the cane rest satisfied without resorting to an outrage, he bellowed like a bull-calf. There is the blackwhich could hardly fail to throw lasting guard Wilson, an ignorant Natick cobbler, discredit on their cause. We are assured swaggering in excess of muscle, and absolutely that the assault on Mr. Summer was preced- him in hand? Hale is another huge, red-faced, dying for a beating. Will not somebody take ed by a consultation as to the safest mode sweating scoundrel, whom some gentleman should of perpetrating it. The notion of encoun- kick and cuff until he abates something of his imtering him on equal terms in one of the pudent talk. . . . In the absence of an adequate public walks was speedily dismissed, upon law, Southern gentlemen must protect their own the ground that, he being a stout man of honour and feelings. It is an idle mockery to acknowledged spirit, his assailant might get useless to attempt to disgrace them. They are inchallenge one of these scullions. It is equally worsted in the struggle. A proposition to sensible to shame, and can be brought to reason make a rush at him from the higher ground only by an application of cowhide or gutta as he was ascending the steps of the Senate percha. Let them once understand that for every

vile word spoken against the South, they will The only punishment inflicted on Mr. suffer as many stripes, and they will soon Brooks was a fine of 300 dollars. learn to behave themselves like decent dogs

“This,” -they can never be gentlemen. Mr. Brooks says Mr. Senior, "is the value at Washinghas initiated this salutary discipline, and he ton on freedom of debate. Any ruffian deserves applause for the bold, judicious manner willing to pay £60 may waylay and disable in which he chastised the scamp Sumner. It was an opponent." The nearest parallel in the a proper act, done at the proper time, and in the social or parliamentary history of England proper place. is afforded by the circumstances which led

Of all places on earth, the Senate Chamber, to the passing of the Coventry Act (22 & the theatre of his vituperative exploits, was the 23 Car. II.) In the course of a discussion very spot where Sumner should have been made

to suffer for his violation of the decencies of de- on the Court Theatre, the expense of which corous debate, and for his brutal denunciation of was defended on the ground that it was for a venerable statesman. It was literally and en- the King's pleasure, Sir John Coventry tirely proper that he should be stricken down and inquired whether his Majesty's pleasure was beaten just beside the desk against which he derived from the acting or the actresses. leaned as he fulminated his filthy utterances To revenge this indiscreet allusion, some of through the Capitol. It is idle to talk of the the court bullies set upon him in the dark, sanctity of the Senate Chamber, since it is pollut slit his nose, and cut off his lips. The offended by the presence of such fellows as Wilson, and Sumner, and Wade. They have desecrated it, ers were not discovered, although no pains and cannot now fly to it as to a sanctuary from were spared for their detection, but the the lash of vengeance. Statute declared that any such act in future should be a capital felony. We know of no instance out of America in which virtual impunity has been openly awarded to an armed offender against the honour and dignity of the Supreme Legislature, as well as against all the rules and decencies of civilized life.

"We trust other gentlemen will follow the example of Mr. Brooks, that so a curb may be imposed upon the truculence and audacity of Abolition speakers. If need be, let us have a caning or cowhiding every day. If the worst come to the worst, so much the sooner, so much the

better."

[ocr errors]

That the Senate Chamber was แ of all We dwell upon this remarkable incident, places on earth" the fittest for the perpetra- with its curious details, because we regard it tion of such an act, may sound paradoxical as the turning point of the cardinal question, on this side of the Atlantic, but our Ame- and the conclusive test of the relative strength, rican descendants have notions of their own spirit and confidence of the slaveholders and touching the fitness of things and places. the Abolitionists. The free and enlightened The "South Side Democrat entirely population of the North are insulted in the agrees with the "Richmond Inquirer." person of one of their most distinguished advocates. They are practically told that "The telegraph has recently announced no in- they are an inferior caste, not even entitled formation more grateful to our feelings than the to the privileges of the so-called law of classical caning which this outrageous Abolition-honour. They are addressed in pretty nearly ist received, on Thursday, at the hands of the the same terms which Roderick Dhu adchivalrous Brooks, of South Carolina. It is

enough for gentlemen to bear to be compelled to dresses to a supposed spy :—

associate with such a character as Sumner, and to be bored with the stupid and arrogant dogmas with which his harangues invariably abound; but when, in gross violation of Senatorial courtesy, and in defiance of public opinion, the unscrupulous Abolitionist undertakes to heap upon the head of a venerable Senator a vulgar tirade of abuse and calumny, no punishment is adequate to a proper restraint of his insolence but a deliberate, cool, dignified, and classical caning."

"Though the beast of game
The privilege of chase may claim,
Though space and law the stag we lend,
Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend,
Who ever reck'd how, where, or when,
The prowling fox was trapped and slain ?"

It is ridiculous in the representatives of the United States to dwell upon the sarcastic, or, if they choose, insulting terms in which Colonel Brooks, adds the "South Caro- Mr. Sumner denounced their plans, or anlina Times," "has done nothing that South swered their arguments; for, as we have Carolinians ought to be ashamed of. He shown, they habitually indulge in a still has boldly stepped forward at the risk of wider license of exasperating expression. his life, love, and social relation, in defence He was notoriously singled out as the boldof the chivalrous Butler, and we know that est and most persevering opponent of the there will be found but one sentiment pro-slavery party, when he was struck down. among the people of South Carolina, which The boasted equality of the Free States was is, 'Well done, thou good and faithful ser- prostrated along with him, and they should vant." have risen as one man to vindicate it.

The tameness with which this national John W. Whitfield, for delegate ;" and outrage has been endured by one side is" that, in the present condition of the terrilittle less dishonourable to the people of the tory, a fair election cannot be had without a United States than the effrontery with which new census, a stringent and well-guarded it has been lauded and vaunted by the other. election law, the selection of impartial judges, How happens it that the high-minded and and the presence of United States troops at thoughtful, yet vehement and impassioned, every place of election." The out-going Preappeals of Emerson and Dana have struck sident Pierce declared in his parting message no universally responsive chord; at all that the Executive had no right to intervene events, have been followed by no becoming in the internal legislation of any state or or adequate result? Mr. Dana (the author territory; nor is it easy to point out how of "Two Years before the Mast,") fully such intervention can be reconciled with the expressed the degrading and precarious po- democratic principles of the Federal Constisition in which the people of the Free States tution. How, then, is the Border Ruffian are now placed. After dwelling on the Code of the Bogus Legislature to be repealaggravated details of the assault, he conti- ed? How, till it is repealed, can the authonued:

rities refuse to enforce its provisions? Or who disapproves of slavery live under it, how, whilst it remains in force, can any one without constant liability to personal outrage or to death?

“All this may seem bad, wrong, grievous, intolerable. But I have not begun to name the great evil yet. There are ninety representatives from the Slave States. Every one present at the vote, voted against inquiry. There were several sena- It were a waste of time to speculate on a tors from the Slave States present at the assault. problem which is in a process of solution as Blow after blow fell on his defenceless head. No we write; and although the new President's one knew that the next blow might not be the mode of dealing with Kansas will be the best fatal blow; yet no one interfered; no word, no criterion of his statesmanship and policy, cry, no motion. [Yes, Mr. Crittenden did.] Per

haps he did, at the close, a little, but for that there are other indications to be narrowly little he was threatened with chastisement on the watched and carefully appreciated. Mr. spot. Not one press south of the Potomac has Buchanan was the principal author of the condemned the act. Not one public man or public famous Ostend Manifesto of 1854. He was body, has condemned it. On the contrary, all have then accredited Minister to Great Britain; adopted and defended it. It is recognised as a policy Mr. Mason filled the corresponding position —as a system—and commendation and honour are at Paris, and Mr. Soulé (the hero of the Madheaped upon the perpetrator, so that others may be stimulated to do the like. Already the leading rid duel) at Madrid. These three gentlemen southern journals are pointing out the next victim. were commissioned by the Foreign Secretary A kind of Lynch law is to be instituted wherever of the United States to meet and report on the subject of slavery is involved.

"Now, fellow-citizens, I beg you to ask yourselves what all this indicates. Let us not be children, gazing at the painted scene; let us lift the curtain and look at the movers and actors behind. "Freedom of speech is at stake in Congress. Freedom in the choice of institutions is at stake in Kansas. Seven in every eight of the inhabitants of Kansas desire free institutions; yet slavery is forced upon them. The people cannot select their institutions, nor can Congress prescribe them. Force governs irregular, unlawful brute-force governs; and governs by aid and countenance of the national authorities !"

the best means of getting possession of Cuba. They conferred accordingly, and reported, in effect, by paraphrasing a well-known axiom : -"Get Cuba-honestly, if you can ; but, at all events, get Cuba." We extract a portion of this curious document :

"Our past history forbids that we should ac quire the island of Cuba without the consent of Spain, unless justified by the great law of self-preservation. We must, in any event, preserve our own conscious rectitude and our own self-respect.

"Whilst pursuing this course we can afford to disregard the censures of the world, to which we have been so often and so unjustly exposed. Cuba far beyond its present value, and this shall "After we shall have offered Spain a price for have been refused, it will then be time to consider the question,-Does Cuba, in the possession of Spain, seriously endanger our internal peace, and the existence of our cherished Union?

Bold and eloquent words, pregnant with wise warning. Yet, since they were spoken, the South has obtained a fresh victory, with the aid of a large section of the North. Mr. Buchanan has been elected president; and if he carries out his pledges as these were understood by his southern supporters, the "Should this question be answered in the afwhole power of the Executive is again at firmative, then by every law, human and divine, we their disposal for four years. The Committee shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we of the House of Representatives appointed principle that would justify an individual in tearpossess the power; and this upon the very same to inquire into the Kansas affair, reported ing down the burning house of his neighbour, if "that Andrew H. Reeder received a greater there were no other means of preventing the flames number of votes of resident candidates than from destroying his own home.

« PoprzedniaDalej »