Mr. Butler began by claiming that the American Revolution was carried through by "slaveholding States," thus making boast for Slavery,--and then turned to pour contempt upon Mr. Sumner, whose speech he characterized as "a species of rhetoric intended to feed the fires of fanaticism in his own State"; then it was "a Fourth of July Oration,"--"vapid rhetoric,"--"a species of rhetoric which ought not to come from a scholar,"--"a rhetoric with more fine color than real strength"; and then he announced, "If sectional agitation is to be fed by such sentiments, such displays, and such things as come from the honorable gentleman near me, I say we ought not to be in a common confederacy, and we should be better off without it." Then again, "If the object be to make the issue between the North and the South, let the issue come." He then asked if Massachusetts "would send fugitives back to us after trial by jury or any other mode?" Then, turning to Mr. Sumner, he demanded, with much impetuosity of manner, "Will this honorable Senator tell me that he will do it?" To which Mr. Sumner promptly replied, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" The _Globe_ reports the disorderly ejaculations which followed from Mr. Butler, winding up with the words, "You stand in my presence as a coëqual Senator, and tell me that it is a dog's office to execute the Constitution of the United States?" Here Mr. Sumner remarked, "I recognize no such obligation,"--meaning, plainly, no obligation to return a fugitive slave. Mr. Mason, afterwards so conspicuous in the Rebellion, followed in similar vein. He began by saying: "I say, Sir, the dignity of the American Senate has been rudely, wantonly, grossly assailed by a Senator from Massachusetts,--and not only the dignity of the Senate, but of the whole people, trifled with in the presence of the American Senate, either ignorantly or corruptly, I do not know which, nor do I care." He then proceeded to vindicate the "gentleman from Virginia" who had sought his slave in Boston, denounced Mr. Sumner for having "the boldness to speak here of such a man as a slave-hunter," and boasted that the law had been executed in Boston,--that "in that city, within the last fortnight, it has done its office, and done it in the presence of a mob, which that Senator and his associates roused and inflamed to the very verge of treason, subjecting them to traitors' doom, while he and his associates sat here and kept themselves aloof from danger." Then he exclaimed: "Why, Sir, am I speaking of a fanatic, one whose reason is dethroned? Can such a one expect to make impressions upon the American people from his vapid, vulgar declamation here, accompanied by a declaration that he would violate his oath now recently taken?"