Violence in the Senate Chamber.Baltimore, Maryland, Sun [American](23 May 1856)
Scarcely
a session of Congress passes in which the
public ear is not abused with violence of some
sort in one or other of the houses of Congress, or
among the members elsewhere. Senator Sumner,
immediately after the adjournment of both
Houses, yesterday, was attacked and knocked
down with a cane by Mr. Brooks, a member of
the House of Representatives from South Carolina.
The cause of this outrage both upon the Senator
and upon the sanctity of the Senate hall was,
it appears, "words spoken in debate" by Mr.
Sumner in a very elaborate, and evidently well
studied speech, which he delivered on Monday
and Tuesday last, on the Kansas and slavery subject,
and in which he indulged, directly, in such
character of personal allusions and comparisons
as to call forth from Mr. Cass immediately thereafter,
the declaration that he regarded it as the most
un-American and unpatriotic speech that he had
ever heard upon that floor, and he hoped he
might never hear such another there or elsewhere."
It also elicited denunciatory rejoinders
from Messrs. Douglas, of Ill., and Mason, of
Va., as shown in the sketch of the debate given
in the Sun the following day. Mr. Sumner had
spoken of the Kansas measure as the crime of
crimes, and treated its friends as the blackest of
criminals, and as showing in part the alleged
provocation for the present assault, we make the
annexed extract from the more full report:
Before entering upon the argument, I must say
something of a general character, particularly in
response to what has fallen from senators who
have raised themselves to eminence on this floor
in championship of human wrongs; I mean the
senator from South Carolina, (Mr.
Butler), and
the senator from Illinois, (Mr.Douglas, who,
though unlike as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza,
yet, like this couple, sally forth together in
the same cause. The senator from South Carolina
has read many books of chivalry, and believes
himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments
of honor and courage. Of course he has
chosen a mistress to whom he has made his
vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always
lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of
the world, is chaste in his sight -- I mean the
harlot, Slavery. For her his tongue is always
profuse in words. Let her be impeached in
character, or any proposition made to shut
her out from the extension of her wantonness,
and no extravagance of manner or hardihood
of assertion is then too great for this Senator.
The frenzy of Don Quixote in behalf of
his wench Dulcinea del Toboso is all surpassed.
The asserted rights of slavery, which shock
equality of all kinds, are cloaked by a fantastic
claim of equality. If the Slave States cannot
enjoy what in mockery of the great fathers of
the Republic, he misnames equality under the
Constitution -- in other words, the full power in
the National Territories to compel fellow men to
unpaid toil, to separate husband and wife, and
to sell little children at the auction-block -- then,
sir, the chivalric Senator will conduct the State
of South Carolina out of the Union! heroic
knight! Exalted senator! A second Moses
come for a second Exodus!
The speech further proceeds to portray Mr.
Butler as a "sectionalist," on the ground of
slavery being sectional, and next as a "fanatic" --
reversing thus the charges applied to northern
anti-slavery men.
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