Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 05 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
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Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 05 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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