Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

“Senator Sumner’s Kansas speech is the most masterly,
striking, and scathing production of the session. The
galleries were crowded with intellect, beauty, and fashion,
and the anterooms were also thronged. His excoriation
of Douglas was scornfully withering and scorching. He
designated Senator Butler as the Don Quixote of Slavery,
and Douglas as its Sancho Panza. Mr. Sumner never before
made such an impression in force, manner, and emphatic
style. He was animated and glowing throughout, hurling
defiance among the opposition, and bravely denouncing the
Kansas swindle from first to last. Some passages quite
electrified the Chamber, and gave a new conception of the
man. Finer effect has rarely been produced.”

The scene was sketched by a correspondent of the _Missouri
Democrat_, at St. Louis, as follows.

“It may be rash to publish in Missouri a just estimate of
the abilities of an Abolitionist. Sectional opinion demands
caricatures, and not portraits. It views the leading men
of the other section through the medium of its fear, its
hatred, or its contempt, and can recognize no likeness,
unless the features are distorted and the canvas is
darkened, unless the countenance is wicked and the figure
hideous.

“Sumner had an audience calculated to arouse all his
faculties, and to remind him that his position was in
many respects similar to that of Burke, when he impeached
Warren Hastings. His brother Senators were mostly in their
seats,--by no means a common occurrence. The lobbies
were crowded with the great outside politicians, of whom
Senators and Members are frequently the instruments,
who originate and guide political movements by means
of the press. Francis P. Blair, and Thurlow Weed, and
Robert J. Walker, and bevies of Southern delegates to the
Cincinnati Convention were there; and the young orators of
the House were also there,--Stephens, the keenest blade
in the Proslavery ranks, looking as if his face was the
battle-ground of boyhood and old age, and Keitt, measuring
himself silently with Sumner, and doubtless thinking
that the speech to which he was listening so attentively
was like a Burmese idol, a monster covered with jewels.
The ladies’ gallery was crowded to excess, and the fair
ones overflowed into the anteroom of the Senate. The
letter-writers in double file occupied their own gallery
(for which their best thanks are due to John P. Hale), and
passed upon the speech as it gradually came forth. The
people in compact mass occupied the background.

“That Sumner displayed great ability, and showed that in
oratorical talent he was no unworthy successor of Adams,
Webster, and Everett, no one who heard him will deny. In
vigor and richness of diction, in felicity and fecundity
of illustration, in breadth and completeness of view,
he stands unsurpassed. He laid the classics, the Gothic
mythology, the imaginative literature of Europe, and the
Bible under tribute for imagery or quotation. That he had
the great speech of Cicero and the greater speech of Burke
in his mind’s eye, there can be no doubt.

“In his reply to Cass, Douglas, and Mason, who stung him
into excitement, he was more successful than at any other
time. The collision knocked fire from him; and well it
might, for he was abused and insulted as grossly as any man
could be; but he replied successfully to the unmeasured
vituperation of Douglas, and the aristocratic and withering
hauteur of Mason.”

The able correspondent of the _Evening Post_ at New York,
William S. Thayer, afterwards Consul-General at Alexandria,
furnished this description.

“There is but one opinion among all competent judges
as to the unexampled feast of eloquence which has been
enjoyed in the Senate for the past two days, from the
lips of Senator Sumner. In a speech of five hours in
length, he has exhibited the most signal combination of
oratorical splendors which, in the opinion of a veteran
Senator, has ever been witnessed in that Hall. Indeed,
for the union of clear statement, close and well-put
reasoning, piquant personality and satire, freighted with
a wealth of learned and apposite illustrations, every
one of which was subsidiary to the main purpose of the
argument, it may safely challenge comparison with the great
speeches of Burke, to whom the Massachusetts Senator, in
the ripened vigor of his abilities, and in his varied
accomplishments, bears no small similitude.… But Mr. Sumner
was more fortunate than Burke in drawing and detaining his
audience.… From the beginning to the end of each session,
not only were the galleries thronged to their utmost
capacities with ladies and gentlemen, but all the doorways
were completely blocked up with listeners who hung in
breathless suspense upon his eloquence. It seemed even as
if the members of the other House had adjourned to crowd
the lobbies of the Senate. No such scene has been witnessed
since the days of Webster.”

A writer in the _Liberator_ thus recorded his impressions on
reading the speech:--

“Never, I think, from anything did I receive an impression
of greater power and grandeur. It came over me like the
sound of many waters. I laid down the paper, and still
there seemed to press around me a solemn, majestic anthem
from a mighty organ. I can almost imagine that around that
sick-bed the invisible angels gather, and that on that
bruised and mangled head the rays of a divine halo gleam
between the blossoms of an imperishable wreath.”

Another writer, in a country journal of Massachusetts,
expresses himself thus:--

“It were the merest commonplace to say that Massachusetts
may well be proud of her son. She owes him a debt which she
can never fitly discharge. I would avoid estimating him
too highly; but it seems to me that it may be said without
extravagance, that to much of the firmly knit strength and
unassailable logic of a Webster he unites all the fire and
fervor of an Otis, with the grace and classic elegance of
an Everett. But underlying, interpenetrating, and informing
all this brilliancy of genius is the earnest philanthropy
of the man,--a philanthropy which gives an effect to all
his productions, which the cold-blooded politician, or
statesman, even, can never hope to attain. His words go
straight to the popular heart, and find there an earnest
and immediate response.”

The Rev. Gilbert Haven, in a published sermon at Westfield,
Massachusetts, spoke thus:--

“Read the great speech which excited such rage, and won
for its author the crown of a martyr. For, before he
uttered a word, he knew its probable effect; he measured
the danger before he struck the blow. But three or four
in all history are its equals in beauty and strength of
thought and language,--Demosthenes against the Philipizing
Douglas of Athens, the keen, ready, insolent tool of her
tyrants,--Cicero against the Atchison Catiline of the Roman
Republic,--Burke against the wholesale enslaver of India,
Hastings,--Webster against the South Carolinian traducer of
Freedom and its fruits: with these four, this stands, and
will always stand, equal to the highest in all the literary
qualities of an oration, higher than the highest in the
sweep of his theme,--the preservation of the liberty,
culture, and religion of a great Christian nation.”

The testimony of the press was followed by that of
correspondents, who vied in grateful felicitations. Of these a
few examples are given.

John G. Whittier, the poet, wrote:--

“I have read and re-read thy speech, and I look upon it as
thy best. A grand and terrible philippic, worthy of the
great occasion; the severe and awful truth which the sharp
agony of the national crisis demanded. It is enough for
immortality. So far as thy own reputation is concerned,
nothing more is needed. But this is of small importance. We
cannot see as yet the entire results of that speech, but
everything now indicates that it has _saved the country_.”

Joseph E. Worcester, the distinguished lexicographer, wrote:--

“I take my pen in hand to express to you--shall I say my
sympathy or congratulation, or something of both, for
the scene through which you have recently passed? No one
would wish to be the victim of ‘border-ruffianism,’ which
has broken out in so disgraceful a manner at Washington;
yet I am happy to be able to congratulate you on standing
so honorably as you do in relation to this affair before
the public, and that such public feeling is manifested
in relation to the transaction. I cannot but hope that
the recent occurrence will have a powerful influence in
advancing the good cause which you have so zealously and
ably defended.”

The Count Gurowski wrote from New York:--

“That is grand and beautiful, what you uttered again, and
hurled against traitors,--grand and beautiful in thought
(_der Idee_), which is principal with an old German
pupil, but not less so in form, for which likewise I have
appreciation. I wish I could find new words to communicate
to you the impression full of charm and joy, reading your
speech this morning. You still ascend in higher regions
with every one of your oratorical efforts.”

George P. Putnam, of New York, the eminent publisher, wrote:--

“May so small an item as myself, among the millions who
are electrified by this bold and masterly exposition of
the great curse of the land, be permitted to join in the
expression of hearty admiration of the consummate ability
and unflinching fearlessness of the man who thus stands up
in the front ranks of the battle for Freedom and Humanity!

“Be assured, dear Sir, that you have gained a great many
repenting sinners from the ranks of the timid cotton-bound
apologists of Southern tyranny. Scarcely a man of
intelligence and standing within my range of observation
will now hesitate to indorse heartily your position on this
question, which was so recently in advance of the age.
‘There is a good time coming.’”

Simeon Draper, of New York, active and eminent as a political
leader, wrote:--

“I sincerely regret that you have received from the hand
of an assassin so serious a blow. I pray you may be
saved from pain, and soon be brought to your seat in the
Senate, and be long spared to defend the right and tell
the truth. In this great city of money-worshippers, thank
God, there are none to defend this act of cowardice and
meanness. Your sufferings may be great and even prolonged
by this scoundrelism, _but the life of Slavery will be much
shortened_.”

Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, famous for his early and constant
warfare with Slavery, afterwards Minister of the United States
at Petersburg, wrote:--

“I think your speech is far the best one delivered this
session, and will confer upon you immortality as a
parliamentary debater,--not merely a ‘maker of addresses,’
as your enemies would have it. I think it will stand
right alongside with Webster’s reply to Hayne on the Foot
resolution, which was his greatest effort in my judgment,
and will be considered equal to it in apt classical
allusion, strength of argument, bitter irony, and lofty
patriotism. Perhaps the only drawback in the comparison is
the studied arrangement of your speech, which, although
assisting the memory in the public mind, savors too much
of the pulpit, and ‘smells too much of the lamp.’ My dear
Sir, I have said thus much of your speech because I think
every orator would like to hear a candid criticism from any
source, however humble.

“The effect of your speech will be tremendous,--all the
more effective on account of the sequel.”

George W. Curtis, of New York, the elegant writer and speaker,
wrote to George Sumner:--

“While the whole free country is testifying its respect for
the statesman, and its honor for the brave defender of the
only great cause in human politics, it is a privilege upon
which I congratulate myself, that I may send my love to
your brother.

“Tell him that those of us whose pursuits are not political
postpone them to the commanding interest of the time, and
stand ready to prove our sympathy.

“I am writing an oration, to be delivered before the
societies of the Wesleyan University at Middletown,
Connecticut,--unfortunately not until August; my theme is
naturally the duty of the American scholar to politics;
and as I remember the scholar John Milton, who was the
great orator of Liberty in those days, I shall not forget,
nor allow my audience to forget, the scholar who in later
days--these very summer months, that will not then have
passed by--stood in the same way, splendid, not only by the
glory of his cause, but by the powers he consecrated to it,
and by the wrongs he suffered for it.”

Hon. E. Rockwood Hoar, afterwards Attorney-General, wrote from
Concord, Massachusetts:--

“Courage and good cheer, my noble friend! We will stand by
you in everything that head can devise or hand can execute.

“If you had been killed, no man could desire a nobler
epitaph than your speech; and you will live to say again,
in many a form, and on many a fit occasion, the stinging
home truths to which no reply could be found but this.”

Edwin P. Whipple, of Boston, admired as a writer, wrote with
the warmth of personal friendship:--

“You have been constantly in my mind and heart since the
attempt at your assassination, and I must tell you how
much I sympathize with the sentiments of your speech, how
I glory in its genius, and how impossible it is for me to
find words to express my rage and abhorrence in regard to
the outrage that followed it. I cannot account for the
course of Senator Butler, and of South Carolina, except on
the supposition, that, fearing certain charitable persons
might think you were too severe in your comments on them,
they hastened to prove they were worse than it had ever
entered your imagination to conceive them to be.

“Your speech is more than a speech: it is an event. It
would have been an event, had not your opponents answered
it in the only way they were capable of answering it.
It is much more so now. But your position, though more
glorious than that of any other living man, has great
responsibilities attached to it.”

Chauncey Clark, an earnest constituent, of Northampton, Mass.,
wrote:--

“I have carefully read your speech; I have read the
concluding retort, which some of your friends wish had not
been made; and I most fervently thank God for enabling you
to say just what you said, and to say it in the very manner
you did. And, Sir, you may well thank God, too. It required
no ordinary power. It was not the work of a day nor of a
night, nor of successive nights with lamps and ‘nigger
boys.’ Douglas knows little of the requisites necessary for
bringing up through this crooked world, and establishing
the heart and mind, in such a place as the Senate Chamber,
of _an honest man_.

“Had not God separated you early in life, and guided and
guarded and instructed you through many years, with special
reference to this very exigency, that concentration of
clear and just conception, of indignant hatred of tyranny,
and of confidence in the final triumph of justice, could
not have been called up at pleasure by you, merely to grace
a speech.”

Rev. Francis Wayland, of Providence, the able author of works
on Moral Philosophy and Political Economy, wrote:--

“I will not say that I, the whole nation, or the free
portion of it, sympathize with you,--and, what is far
better, I believe them to be solemnly moved. At least I
have seen nothing like it before. With us the wave has
reached an elevation which it never before touched. Our
ablest, best, and most influential men, men who have
been highly conservative, as it is called, have made up
their minds on this subject. They are calm, considerate,
constitutional; but they mean what they say, and they will
never go back.…

“I thank you for your speech, as I do for all the others
you have sent me. I hope you will deliver many such, and
I think you will do it henceforth without peril. Do not,
however, go out, or use your mind actively, until you are
perfectly well.”

Rev. Convers Francis, of Harvard University, wrote:--

“I remember you told me last November, just before your
departure for Washington, that you were looking forward to
fearful trials in the approaching session, but that the
path of duty was plain before you, and that you should
walk therein. Nobly, most nobly, have you redeemed that
pledge. But the apprehension with which the first part of
your remark filled me at the time included nothing like
this scene of murderous guilt. How could it? How could any
one, who had not measured all the length and breadth of
slaveholding depravity, as I had not, have brought such a
thing within the range of imagination or prophecy?”

Thomas Sherwin, Head Master of the Boston High School, wrote:--

“To-day we have had a public Declamation, and in the
preparation my chief difficulty was to determine how many
lads should be allowed to make selections from your speech.
I send you a programme, from which you will see that there
is a good sprinkling of the true spirit. To you, intrusted
with the momentous interests of our whole country, not
to say those of the world, these boyish affairs may seem
trifling.”

Dr. Joseph Sargent, the eminent surgeon, of Worcester, wrote:--

“You have not said one word that we would have unsaid; and
when you shall have opportunity again to speak those words
of truth which are words of fire, we only wish to be at
hand to take the blows ourselves, while you shall have the
glory of having aroused a nation as it has not been aroused
before, since the days which preceded the Revolution. Shame
on the country which needed such a wrong to move it to the
right!”

Mrs. Lydia Maria Child wrote thus:--

“My chief motive in writing is to thank you for your
magnificent speech, which met the requirements of the time
with so much intellectual strength and moral heroism. Some
‘patriots’ called it ‘Un-American.’ It recalled to my mind
the words of Aristophanes:--

“‘Sparta shall find
An _honest_ chronicler, though Fear may try
The prize with Truth. Yes, I have fears, and those
In no small brood. I know the people well,
Their temper’s edge and humor. Does some tongue
Link cunning commendation with their own
And country’s name? Their joy o’erflows the measure;
It matters not the praise be wrong, nor that
Their freedom pays the tickling of their ears.’

“Your political adversaries made such an outcry about your
imprudent severity and unjustifiable personalities, that
I cautiously examined whether there was any ground for
such an allegation. Few persons have stronger aversion
to harsh epithets and personal vituperation than I have,
but I confess I could find nothing in your Kansas Speech
which offended either my taste or my judgment. You rebuked
States and individuals merely as the representatives of
that ever-encroaching Slave Power, whose characteristic
artifice, arrogance, and despotism it was necessary for you
to portray in connection with the subject under debate.”

These testimonies, which reveal the feelings of the time, might
be multiplied indefinitely. The “sequel,” to which Mr. Clay
refers, and to which allusion is made by other correspondents,
will be found at the end of the speech in an Appendix.

SPEECH.

MR. PRESIDENT,--You are now called to redress a great wrong. Seldom in the history of nations is such a question presented. Tariffs, army bills, navy bills, land bills, are important, and justly occupy your care; but these all belong to the course of ordinary legislation. As means and instruments only, they are necessarily subordinate to the conservation of Government itself. Grant them or deny them, in greater or less degree, and you inflict no shock. The machinery of Government continues to move. The State does not cease to exist. Far otherwise is it with the eminent question now before you, involving, as it does, Liberty in a broad Territory, and also involving the peace of the whole country, with our good name in history forevermore.

* * * * *

Take down your map, Sir, and you will find that the Territory of Kansas, more than any other region, occupies the middle spot of North America, equally distant from the Atlantic on the east and the Pacific on the west, from the frozen waters of Hudson’s Bay on the north and the tepid Gulf Stream on the south,--constituting the precise geographical centre of the whole vast Continent. To such advantages of situation, on the very highway between two oceans, are added a soil of unsurpassed richness, and a fascinating, undulating beauty of surface, with a health-giving climate, calculated to nurture a powerful and generous people, worthy to be a central pivot of American institutions. A few short months have hardly passed since this spacious mediterranean country was open only to the savage, who ran wild in its woods and prairies; and now it has drawn to its bosom a population of freemen larger than Athens crowded within her historic gates, when her sons, under Miltiades, won liberty for mankind on the field of Marathon,--more than Sparta contained, when she ruled Greece, and sent forth her devoted children, quickened by a mother’s benediction, to return with their shields or on them,--more than Rome gathered on her seven hills, when, under her kings, she commenced that sovereign sway which afterwards embraced the whole earth,--more than London held, when, on the fields of Crécy and Agincourt, the English banner was borne victorious over the chivalrous hosts of France.

Against this Territory, thus fortunate in position and population, a Crime has been committed which is without example in the records of the Past. Not in plundered provinces or in the cruelties of selfish governors will you find its parallel; and yet there is an ancient instance which may show at least the path of justice. In the terrible impeachment by which the Roman Orator has blasted through all time the name of Verres, charges were, that he had carried away productions of Art, and had violated the sacred shrines. But, amidst charges of robbery and sacrilege, the enormity which most aroused the indignant voice of his accuser, and which still stands forth with strongest distinctness, arousing the sympathetic indignation of all who read the story, was, that away in Sicily he had scourged a citizen of Rome,--that the cry, “I am a Roman citizen,” had been interposed in vain against the lash of the tyrant governor. It was in the presence of the Roman Senate that this arraignment proceeded,--in a temple of the Forum,--amidst crowds such as no orator had ever before drawn together, thronging the porticos and colonnades, even clinging to the house-tops and neighboring slopes, and under the anxious gaze of witnesses summoned from the scene of crime. But an audience grander far, of higher dignity, of more various people, and of wider intelligence,--the countless multitude of succeeding generations, in every land where eloquence has been studied, or where the Roman name has been recognized,--has listened to the accusation, and throbbed with condemnation of the criminal. 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 civilization, 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, are desecrated,--where the ballot-box, more precious than any work in ivory or marble from the cunning hand of Art, is plundered,--and where the cry, “I am an American citizen,” is interposed in vain against outrage of every kind, even upon life itself. Are you against robbery? I hold it up to your scorn. Are you against sacrilege? I present it for your execration. Are you for the protection of American citizens? I show you how their dearest rights are cloven down, while a Tyrannical Usurpation seeks to install itself on their very necks!

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;[63] and it may be clearly traced to a depraved desire for a new Slave State, hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of Slavery in the National Government. Yes, Sir, when the whole world, alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to condemn this wrong, making it a hissing to the nations, here in our Republic, _force_--ay, Sir, FORCE--is openly employed in compelling Kansas to this pollution, and all for the sake of political power. There is the simple fact, which you will vainly attempt to deny, but which in itself presents an essential wickedness that makes other public crimes seem like public virtues.

This enormity, vast beyond comparison, swells to dimensions of crime which the imagination toils in vain to grasp, when it is understood that for this purpose are hazarded the horrors of intestine feud, not only in this distant Territory, but everywhere throughout the country. The muster has begun. The strife is no longer local, but national. Even now, while I speak, portents lower in the horizon, threatening to darken the land, which already palpitates with the mutterings of civil war. The fury of the propagandists, and the calm determination of their opponents, are diffused from the distant Territory over wide-spread communities, and the whole country, in all its extent, marshalling hostile divisions, and foreshadowing a conflict which, unless happily averted by the triumph of Freedom, will become war,--fratricidal, parricidal war,--with an accumulated wickedness beyond that of any war in human annals, justly provoking the avenging judgment of Providence and the avenging pen of History, and constituting a strife such as was pictured by the Roman historian, more than _foreign_, more than _social_, more than _civil_, being something compounded of all these, and in itself more than war,--“_sed potius commune quoddam ex omnibus, et plus quam bellum_.”[64]

* * * * *

Such is the Crime which you are to judge. The criminal also must be dragged into day, that you may see and measure the power by which all this wrong is sustained. From no common source could it proceed. In its perpetration was needed a spirit of vaulting ambition which would hesitate at nothing; a hardihood of purpose insensible to the judgment of mankind; a madness for Slavery, in spite of Constitution, laws, and all the great examples of our history; also a consciousness of power such as comes from the habit of power; a combination of energies found only in a hundred arms directed by a hundred eyes; a control of Public Opinion through venal pens and a prostituted press; an ability to subsidize crowds in every vocation of life,--the politician with his local importance, the lawyer with his subtle tongue, and even the authority of the judge on the bench,--with a familiar use of men in places high and low, so that none, from the President to the lowest border postmaster, should decline to be its tool: all these things, and more, were needed, and they were found in the Slave Power of our Republic. There, Sir, stands the criminal, all unmasked before you, heartless, grasping, and tyrannical, with an audacity beyond that of Verres, a subtlety beyond that of Machiavel, 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 succors and sustains the Crime. Nay, the proceedings I now arraign derive their fearful consequence only from this connection.

In 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 challenged 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, while the back of the feline monster arched far upwards, even beyond reach, and one paw actually forsook the earth, when at last the discomfited divinity desisted; but he was little surprised at his defeat, when he learned that this creature, which seemed to be a cat, and nothing more, was not merely a cat, but that it belonged to and was part of the great Terrestrial 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 part of the Slave Power, which, with loathsome folds, is now coiled about the whole land. Thus do I exhibit the extent of the present contest, where we encounter not merely local resistance, but also the unconquered sustaining arm behind. But from the vastness of the Crime attempted, with all its woe and shame, I derive well-founded assurance of commensurate effort by the aroused masses of the country, determined not only to vindicate Right against Wrong, but to redeem the Republic from the thraldom of that Oligarchy which prompts, directs, and concentrates the distant wrong.

* * * * *

Such is the Crime and such the criminal which it is my duty 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, are offered for the Crime must be torn away, so that it shall stand forth without a single rag or fig-leaf to cover its vileness. And, finally, the True Remedy must be shown. The subject is complex in relations, as it is transcendent in importance; and yet, if I am honored by your attention, I hope to present it clearly in all its parts, while I conduct you to the inevitable conclusion that Kansas must be admitted at once, with her present Constitution, as a State of this Union, and give a new star to the blue field of our National Flag. And here I derive satisfaction from the thought, that the cause is so strong in itself as to bear even the infirmities of its advocates; nor can it require anything beyond that simplicity of treatment and moderation of manner which I desire to cultivate. Its true character is such, that, like Hercules, it will conquer just so soon as it is recognized.

My task will be divided under three different heads: _first_, THE CRIME AGAINST KANSAS, in its origin and extent; _secondly_, THE APOLOGIES FOR THE CRIME; and, _thirdly_, THE TRUE REMEDY.

* * * * *

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 wrong: 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 adventure. I regret much to miss the elder Senator from his seat; but the cause against which he has run a tilt, with such ebullition of animosity, demands that the opportunity of exposing him should not be lost; and it is for the cause that I speak. 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 be 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!

Not content with this poor menace, which we have been twice told was “measured,” the Senator, in the unrestrained chivalry of his nature, has undertaken to apply opprobrious words to those who differ from him on this floor. He calls them “sectional and fanatical”; and resistance to the Usurpation of Kansas he denounces as “an uncalculating fanaticism.” To be sure, these charges lack all grace of originality and all sentiment of truth; but the adventurous Senator does not hesitate. He is the uncompromising, unblushing representative on this floor of a flagrant _sectionalism_, now domineering over the Republic,--and yet, with a ludicrous ignorance of his own position, unable to see himself as others see him, or with an effrontery which even his white head ought not to protect from rebuke, he applies to those here who resist his _sectionalism_ the very epithet which designates himself. The men who strive to bring back the Government to its original policy, when Freedom and not Slavery was national, while Slavery and not Freedom was sectional, he arraigns as _sectional_. This will not do. It involves too great a perversion of terms. I tell that Senator that it is to himself, and to the “organization” of which he is the “committed advocate,” that this epithet belongs. I now fasten it upon them. For myself, I care little for names; but, since the question is raised here, I affirm that the Republican party of the Union is in no just sense _sectional_, but, more than any other party, _national_,--and that it now goes forth to dislodge from the high places that tyrannical sectionalism of which the Senator from South Carolina is one of the maddest zealots.

To the charge of fanaticism I also reply. Sir, fanaticism is found in an enthusiasm or exaggeration of opinion, particularly on religious subjects; but there may be fanaticism for evil as well as for good. Now I will not deny that there are persons among us loving Liberty too well for personal good in a selfish generation. Such there may be; and, for the sake of their example, would that there were more! In calling them “fanatics,” you cast contumely upon the noble army of martyrs, from the earliest day down to this hour,--upon the great tribunes of human rights, by whom life, liberty, and happiness on earth have been secured,--upon the long line of devoted patriots, who, throughout history, have truly loved their country,--and upon all who, in noble aspiration for the general good, and in forgetfulness of self, have stood out before their age, and gathered into their generous bosoms the shafts of tyranny and wrong, in order to make a pathway for Truth;--you discredit Luther, when alone he nailed his articles to the door of the church at Wittenberg, and then to the imperial demand that he should retract firmly replied, “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God!” you discredit Hampden, when alone he refused to pay the few shillings of ship money, and shook the throne of Charles the First; you discredit Milton, when, amidst the corruptions of a heartless court, he lived on, the lofty friend of Liberty, above question or suspicion; you discredit Russell and Sidney, when, for the sake of country, they calmly turned from family and friends, to tread the steps of the scaffold; you discredit those early founders of American institutions, who preferred the hardships of a wilderness, surrounded by a savage foe, to injustice on beds of ease; you discredit our later fathers, who, few in numbers and weak in resources, yet strong in their cause, did not hesitate to brave the mighty power of England, already encircling the globe with her morning drumbeats. Yes, Sir, of such are the fanatics, according to the Senator. But I tell the Senator that there are characters, badly eminent, of whose fanaticism there can be no question. Such were the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped divinities in brutish forms; the Druids, who darkened the forests of oak, in which they lived, by sacrifices of blood; the Mexicans, who surrendered countless victims to the propitiation of obscene idols; the Spaniards, who, under Alva, sought to force the Inquisition upon Holland, by a tyranny kindred to that now employed to force Slavery upon Kansas; and such were the Algerines, when, in solemn conclave, after listening to a speech not unlike that of the Senator from South Carolina, they resolved to continue the slavery of white Christians, and to extend it over countrymen of Washington,--ay, Sir, extend it! And in this same dreary catalogue faithful History must record all who now, in an enlightened age, and in a land of boasted Freedom, stand up, in perversion of the Constitution, and in denial of immortal truth, to fasten a new shackle upon their fellow-man. If the Senator wishes to see fanatics, let him look round among his own associates,--let him look at himself.

But I have not done with the Senator. There is another matter regarded by him of such consequence that he interpolated it into the speech of the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. HALE], and also announced that he had prepared himself with it, to take in his pocket all the way to Boston, when he expected to address the people there.[65] On this account, and for the sake of truth, I stop for one moment and tread it to the earth. The North, according to the Senator, was engaged in the slave-trade, and helped to introduce slaves into the Southern States; and this undeniable fact he proposed to establish by statistics, in giving which his errors exceeded his sentences in number. I let these pass for the present, that I may deal with his argument. Pray, Sir, is acknowledged turpitude in a departed generation to become the example for us? And yet the suggestion, if entitled to any consideration in this discussion, must have this extent. I join my friend from New Hampshire in thanking the Senator from South Carolina for this instance, since it gives me opportunity to say that the Northern merchants, with homes in Boston, Bristol, Newport, New York, and Philadelphia, who catered for Slavery during the years of the slave-trade, are lineal progenitors of the Northern men, with homes in these places, who lend themselves to Slavery in our day,--and especially that all, whether North or South, who take part, directly or indirectly, in the conspiracy against Kansas, do but continue the work of the slave-traders, which you condemn. It is true, too true, alas! that our fathers were engaged in this traffic; but that is no apology for it. And in repelling the authority of this example, I repel also the trite argument founded on the earlier example of England. It is true that our mother country, at the Peace of Utrecht, extorted from Spain the shameful Asiento, securing the monopoly of the slave-trade with the Spanish Colonies, as part pay for the blood of great victories,--that she higgled at Aix-la-Chapelle for another lease of this exclusive traffic,--and again at the Treaty of Madrid bartered the wretched piracy for money. It is true that in this spirit the power of the mother country was prostituted to the same base ends in her American Colonies, against indignant protests from our fathers. All these things now rise in judgment against her. Let us not follow the Senator from South Carolina to do the very evil which in another generation we condemn.

As the Senator from South Carolina is the Don Quixote, so the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS] is the squire of Slavery, its very Sancho Panza, ready to do its humiliating offices. This Senator, in his labored address vindicating his labored report,--piling one mass of elaborate error upon another mass,--constrained himself, as you will remember, to unfamiliar decencies of speech. Of that address I have nothing to say at this moment, though before I sit down I shall show something of its fallacies. But I go back now to an earlier occasion, when, true to native impulses, he threw into this discussion, “for a charm of powerful trouble,” personalities most discreditable to this body. I will not stop to repel imputations which he cast upon myself; but I mention them to remind you of the “sweltered venom sleeping got,” which, with other poisoned ingredients, he cast into the caldron of this debate. Of other things I speak. Standing on this floor, the Senator issued his rescript requiring submission to the Usurped Power of Kansas; and this was accompanied by a manner--all his own--befitting the tyrannical threat. Very well. Let the Senator try. I tell him now that he cannot enforce any such submission. The Senator, with the Slave Power at his back, is strong; but he is not strong enough for this purpose. He is bold. He shrinks from nothing. Like Danton, he may cry, “_De l’audace! encore de l’audace! et toujours de l’audace!_” but even his audacity cannot compass this work. The Senator copies the British officer who with boastful swagger said that with the end of his sword he would cram the “stamps” down the throats of the American people; and he will meet a similar failure. He may convulse this country with civil feud. Like the ancient madman, he may set fire to this Temple of Constitutional Liberty, grander than Ephesian dome; but he cannot enforce obedience to that tyrannical Usurpation.

The Senator dreams that he can subdue the North. He disclaims the open threat, but his conduct implies it. How little that Senator knows himself, or the strength of the cause which he persecutes! He is but mortal man; against him is immortal principle. With finite power he wrestles with the infinite, and he must fall. Against him are stronger battalions than any marshalled by mortal arm,--the inborn, ineradicable, invincible sentiments of the human heart; against him is Nature with all her subtile forces; against him is God. Let him try to subdue these.

Passing from things which, though touching the very heart of the discussion, are yet preliminary, I press at once to the main question.

I.

I undertake, in the first place, to expose the CRIME AGAINST KANSAS, in origin and extent. Logically this is the beginning of the argument. I say Crime, and deliberately adopt this strongest term, as better than any other denoting the consummate transgression. 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 other 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. To lay bare this enormity I now proceed. The whole subject has become a twice-told tale, and its renewed recital will be a renewal of sorrow and shame; but I shall not hesitate. The occasion requires it from the beginning.

It is well remarked by a distinguished historian of our country, that, “at the Ithuriel touch of the Missouri discussion, the Slave Interest, hitherto hardly recognized as a distinct element in our system, started up portentous and dilated,”[66] with threats and assumptions which are the origin of our existing national politics. This was in 1820. The debate ended with the admission of Missouri as a Slaveholding State, and the prohibition of Slavery in all the remaining territory west of the Mississippi and north of 36° 30´, leaving the condition of other territory south of this line, or subsequently acquired, untouched by the arrangement. Here was a solemn act of legislation, called at the time compromise, covenant, compact, first brought forward in this body by a slaveholder, vindicated in debate by slaveholders, finally sanctioned by slaveholding votes,--also upheld at the time by the essential approbation of a slaveholding President, James Monroe, and his Cabinet, of whom a majority were slaveholders, including Mr. Calhoun himself; and this compromise was made the condition of the admission of Missouri, without which that State could not have been received into the Union. The bargain was simple, and was applicable, of course, only to the territory named. Leaving all other territory to await the judgment of another generation, the South said to the North, Conquer your prejudices so far as to admit Missouri as a Slave State, and, in consideration of this much coveted boon, Slavery shall be prohibited “forever” (mark here the word “_forever_”)[67] in all the remaining Louisiana Territory above 36° 30´; and the North yielded.

In total disregard of history, the President, in his annual message, tells us that this compromise “was _reluctantly_ acquiesced in by Southern States.” Just the contrary is true. It was the work of slaveholders, and by their concurring votes was crowded upon a reluctant North. It was hailed by slaveholders as a victory. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, in an oft quoted letter, written at eight o’clock on the night of its passage, says: “It is considered here by the Slaveholding States as a great triumph.”[68] At the North it was accepted as a defeat, and the friends of Freedom everywhere throughout the country bowed their heads with mortification. Little did they know the completeness of their disaster. Little did they dream that the prohibition of Slavery in the territory, which was stipulated as the price of their fatal capitulation, would also, at the very moment of its maturity, be wrested from them.

Time passed, and it became necessary to provide for this territory an organized government. Suddenly, without notice in the public press, or the prayer of a single petition, or one word of open recommendation from the President, after an acquiescence of thirty-four years, and the irreclaimable possession by the South of its special share under this compromise, in breach of every obligation of honor, compact, and good neighborhood, and in contemptuous disregard of the outgushing sentiments of an aroused North, this time-honored Prohibition--in itself a Landmark of Freedom--was overturned, and the vast region now known as Kansas and Nebraska was opened to Slavery. It is natural that a measure thus repugnant in character should be pressed by arguments mutually repugnant. It was urged on two principal reasons, so opposite and inconsistent as to fight with each other: one being, that, by the repeal of the Prohibition, the Territory would be left open to the entry of slaveholders with their slaves, without hindrance; and the other being, that the people would be left absolutely free to determine the question for themselves, and to prohibit the entry of slaveholders with their slaves, if they should think best. With some the apology was the alleged rights of slaveholders; with others it was the alleged rights of the people. With some it was openly the extension of Slavery; and with others it was openly the establishment of Freedom, under the guise of Popular Sovereignty. The measure, thus upheld in defiance of reason, was carried through Congress in defiance of all securities of legislation. These things I mention that you may see in what foulness the present Crime was engendered.

It was carried, _first_, by _whipping in_, through Executive influence and patronage, men who acted against their own declared judgment and the known will of their constituents; _secondly_, by _thrusting out of place_, both in the Senate and House of Representatives, important business, long pending, and usurping its room; _thirdly_, by _trampling under foot_ the rules of the House of Representatives, always before the safeguard of the minority; and, _fourthly_, by _driving it to a close_ during the very session in which it originated, so that it might not be arrested by the indignant voice of the People. Such are some of the means by which this snap judgment was obtained. If the clear will of the people had not been disregarded, it could not have passed. If the Government had not nefariously interposed, it could not have passed. If it had been left to its natural place in the order of business, it could not have passed. If the rules of the House and the rights of the minority had not been violated, it could not have passed. If it had been allowed to go over to another Congress, when the People might be heard, it would have been ended; and then the Crime we now deplore would have been without its first seminal life.

Mr. President, I mean to keep absolutely within the limits of parliamentary propriety. I make no personal imputations, but only with frankness, such as belongs to the occasion and my own character, describe a great historical act, now enrolled in the Capitol. Sir, the Nebraska Bill was in every respect a swindle. It was a swindle of the North by the South. On the part of those who had already completely enjoyed their share of the Missouri Compromise, it was a swindle of those whose share was yet absolutely untouched; and the plea of unconstitutionality set up--like the plea of usury after the borrowed money has been enjoyed--did not make it less a swindle. Urged as a bill of peace, it was a swindle of the whole country. Urged as opening the doors to slave-masters with their slaves, it was a swindle of Popular Sovereignty in its asserted doctrine. Urged as sanctioning Popular Sovereignty, it was a swindle of slave-masters in their asserted rights. It was a swindle of a broad territory, thus cheated of protection against Slavery. It was a swindle of a great cause, early espoused by Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, surrounded by the best fathers of the Republic. Sir, it was a swindle of God-given, inalienable rights. Turn it over, look at it on all sides, and it is everywhere a swindle; and if the word I now employ has not the authority of classical usage, it has, on this occasion, the indubitable authority of fitness. No other word will adequately express the mingled meanness and wickedness of the cheat.

Its character is still further apparent in the general structure of the bill. Amidst overflowing professions of regard for the sovereignty of the people in the Territory, they are despoiled of every essential privilege of sovereignty. They are not allowed to choose Governor, Secretary, Chief Justice, Associate Justices, Attorney, or Marshal,--all of whom are sent from Washington; nor are they allowed to regulate the salaries of any of these functionaries, or the daily allowance of the legislative body, or even the pay of the clerks and door-keepers: but they are left free to adopt Slavery. And this is nicknamed Popular Sovereignty! Time does not allow, nor does the occasion require, that I should stop to dwell on this transparent device to cover a transcendent wrong. Suffice it to say, that Slavery is in itself an arrogant denial of human rights, and by no human reason can the power to establish such a wrong be placed among the attributes of any just sovereignty. In refusing it such a place, I do not deny popular rights, but uphold them, I do not restrain popular rights, but extend them. And, Sir, to this conclusion you must yet come, unless deaf, not only to the admonitions of political justice, but also to the genius of our Constitution, under which, when properly interpreted, no valid claim for Slavery can be set up anywhere in the National territory. The Senator from Michigan [Mr. CASS] may say, in response to the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. BROWN], that Slavery cannot go into the Territory, under the Constitution, without legislative introduction; and permit me to add, in response to both, that Slavery cannot go there at all. _Nothing can come out of nothing_; and there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution out of which Slavery can be derived, while there are provisions, which, when properly interpreted, make its existence anywhere within the exclusive National jurisdiction impossible.