|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 22
But 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 opposition to
the usurpation in 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, which now domineers 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 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 has
been 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 of the
Government the tyrannical sectionalism of which the Senator from South
Carolina is one of the maddest zealots. * * *
As the Senator from South Carolina, is the Don Quixote, the Senator from
Illinois (Mr. Douglas) is the Squire of Slavery, its very Sancho Panza,
ready to do all 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 his
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 the 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--such as befits 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, "l'audace!
l'audace! toujours l'au-dace!" but even his audacity cannot compass this
work. The Senator copies the British officer who, with boastful swagger,
said that with the hilt 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 a civil feud. Like the ancient madman, he
may set fire to this Temple of Constitutional Liberty, grander than
the 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 still implies it. How little that Senator knows
himself or the strength of the cause which he persecutes! He is but a
mortal man; against him is an 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 in all
her subtle forces; against him is God. Let him try to subdue these. * * *
With regret, I come again upon the Senator from South Carolina (Mr.
Butler), who, omnipresent in this debate, overflowed with rage at the
simple suggestion that Kansas had applied for admission as a State;
and, with incoherent phrases, discharged the loose expectoration of his
speech, now upon her representative, and then upon her people. There was
no extravagance of the ancient parliamentary debate, which he did not
repeat; nor was there any possible deviation from truth which he did not
make, with so much of passion, I am glad to add, as to save him from
the suspicion of intentional aberration. But the Senator touches
nothing which he does not disfigure--with error, sometimes of principle,
sometimes of fact. He shows an incapacity of accuracy, whether in
stating the Constitution, or in stating the law, whether in the details
of statistics or the diversions of scholarship. He cannot ope his mouth,
but out there flies a blunder. Surely he ought to be familiar with the
life of Franklin; and yet he referred to this household character, while
acting as agent of our fathers in England, as above suspicion; and this
was done that he might give point to a false contrast with the agent of
Kansas--not knowing that, however they may differ in genius and fame, in
this experience they are alike: that Franklin, when entrusted with the
petition of Massachusetts Bay, was assaulted by a foul-mouthed speaker,
where he could not be heard in defence, and denounced as a "thief," even
as the agent of Kansas has been assaulted on this floor, and denounced
as a "forger." And let not the vanity of the Senator be inspired by
the parallel with the British statesman of that day; for it is only in
hostility to Freedom that any parallel can be recognized.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|