“There are incidents in his [Mr. Benton’s] history, of somewhat recent occurrence, which might well relieve any man of honor from the obligation to recognize him as a fitting antagonist; yet is it, notwithstanding, true, that, if the Senator from Missouri will deign to acknowledge himself _responsible to the laws of honor_, he shall have a very early opportunity of proving his prowess in contest with one over whom I hold perfect control; or, if he feels in the least degree aggrieved at anything which has fallen from me, now or formerly, he shall, on demanding it, _have full redress accorded him_, according to the said laws of honor. I do not denounce him as a coward; such language is unfitted for this audience; but, if he wishes to patch up his reputation for courage, now greatly on the wane, he will certainly _have an opportunity of doing so, whenever he makes known his desire in the premises_. At present he is shielded by his age, _his open disavowal of the obligatory force of the laws of honor_, and his Senatorial privileges.” With such bitter taunts and reiterated provocations to the Duel was Mr. Benton pursued; but there was no call to order, nor any action of the Senate on this outrage. I give another instance. In debate in the Senate on the 27th February, 1852, Mr. Clemens, a Slave-Master of Alabama, thus directly attacked Mr. Rhett for undertaking to settle their differences by argument in the Senate rather than by the Duel. “No man,” said he, “with the feeling of a man in his bosom, would have sought redress here. He would have looked for it _elsewhere_. He now comes here, not to ask redress in the only way he should have sought it.”[106] There was no call to order. Here is still another. In the debate on the Bill for the Improvement of Rivers and Harbors, 29th July, 1854, the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. BENJAMIN], who is still a member of this body, ardent for Slavery, while professing to avoid personal altercation in the Senate, especially “with a gentleman who professes the principles of non-resistance, as he understood the Senator from New York does,” proceeded most earnestly to repel an imagined imputation on him by Mr. Seward, and wound up by saying, “If it came from another quarter, _it would not be upon this floor that I should answer it_.”[107]