Well, Sir, I accept the Senator’s word, and I say ‘criticism.’ But I say, in his criticism, he used every word that I can conceive a fertile imagination could invent, or a malignant passion suggest.

This is the way in which the speech of my colleague should have been met,--not by blows, not by an assault.

Why was it necessary, why did the ‘chivalry’ of South Carolina require, that for words uttered on this floor, under the solemn guaranties of Constitutional Law, a Senator should be met here by violence?

Why appeal from the floor of the Senate, from a judicial tribunal, to the bludgeon?

I put the question to the Senator,--to the ‘chivalry’ of South Carolina,--ay, to ‘the gallant set’ (to use the Senator’s own words) of ‘Ninety-Six,’--Why was it necessary to substitute the bludgeon for the judicial tribunal?

It is a piny-wood doctrine, a plantation idea.

To be a member of the House of Representatives of South Carolina, it is necessary to own a certain number of acres of land and ten slaves, or seven hundred and fifty dollars of real estate, free of debt.

Sumner was, that South Carolina was nominally republican, but in reality had aristocratic features in her Constitution.

This Legislature, having these personal qualifications, placing them in the rank of a privileged few, are elected upon a representative basis as unequal as the rotten-borough system of England in its most rotten days.

The privileged few govern; the many have the privilege of being governed by them.

God knows that I would peril my life in defence of any State of this Union, if assailed by a foreign foe.

I have voted, and I will continue to vote, while I have a seat on this floor, as cheerfully for appropriations, or for anything that can benefit South Carolina, or any other State of this Union, as for my own Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

I am opposed to its system of Slavery, to its aristocratic inequalities, and I shall continue to be opposed to them; but it is a sovereign State of this Union, a part of my country, and I have no disposition to do injustice to it.

These sons of South Carolina have given to the world the indisputable evidence that Slavery impaired the power of that State in the War of Independence.

I think my colleague is right,--that the Senator from South Carolina is one of the chieftains of a sectionalism at war with the fundamental ideas that underlie our democratic institutions, and at war with the repose and harmony of the…

Those sentiments of liberty and patriotism have penetrated the hearts of the whole population of that Commonwealth.

Slavery was abolished by judicial decision,--abolished at once, without limitation, without time to send men out of the State.

But Massachusetts, by one stroke of the pen of the Supreme Court, abolished Slavery forever in that State, and the slaves became freemen.

I suppose they care more for their own opinions, and the approbation of their own consciences, than even for the grave censure of this Senate.

Honorable Senators who have been so swift with criticism and sarcasm might profit by their example.

Sumner, as follows: ‘I do not want any of these flaming speeches here, calculated to excite merely, to feed a flame without seeing where it shall extend.

If we repeal the Fugitive Slave Law, will the honorable Senator tell me that Massachusetts will execute the provision of the Constitution without any law of Congress?

Suppose we should take away all laws, and devolve upon the different States the duties that properly belong to them, I would ask that Senator, whether, under the prevalence of public opinion there, Massachusetts would execute that…

Does the honorable Senator ask me if I would personally join in sending a fellow-man into bondage?

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.