MR. BUTLER [_from his seat_]. You cannot quote a single instance in which I have done it. I have always said I thought it was in bad taste, and I have never attempted it. MR. SUMNER. I beg the Senator's pardon. I always listen to him, and I know whereof I affirm. He has profusely dealt in it. I allude now only to a single occasion. In his speech on the Nebraska Bill, running through two days, it was one of his commonplaces. There he openly presented a contrast between the Free States and "slaveholding communities" in certain essential features of civilization, and directed shafts at Massachusetts which called to his feet my distinguished colleague at that time [Mr. EVERETT], and more than once compelled me to take the floor. And now, Sir, the venerable Senator, not rising from his seat and standing openly before the Senate, undertakes to deny that he has dealt in such comparisons. MR. BUTLER. Will the Senator allow me? MR. SUMNER. Certainly: I yield the floor to the Senator. MR. BUTLER. Whenever that speech is read,--and I wish the Senator had read it before he commented on it with a good deal of rhetorical enthusiasm,--it will be found that I was particular not to wound the feelings of the Northern people who were sympathizing with us in the great movement to remove odious distinctions. I was careful to say nothing that would provoke invidious comparisons; and when that speech is read, notwithstanding the vehement assertion of the honorable Senator, he will find, that, when I quoted the laws of Massachusetts, particularly one Act which I termed the _Toties Quoties_ Act, by which every negro was whipped every time he came into Massachusetts, I quoted them with a view to show, not a contrast between South Carolina and Massachusetts, but to show that in the whole of this country, from the beginning to this time,--even in my own State,--I made no exception,--public opinion had undergone a change, and that it had undergone the same change in Massachusetts; for at one time they did not regard this institution of Slavery with the same odium that they do at this time. That was the purpose; and I challenge the Senator, as an orator of fairness, to look at it and see if it is not so. MR. SUMNER. Has the Senator done? MR. BUTLER. I may not be done presently; but that is the purport of that speech.