Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 06 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
History
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 06 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
And at a public dinner at Walterborough, in South Carolina, on the 4th
of July, 1842, the following toast, afterwards preserved by Mr. Adams
in one of his speeches, was drunk with unbounded applause:--
“May we never want a Democrat to trip up the heels of a
Federalist, or a hangman to prepare a halter for John Quincy
Adams! [_Nine cheers._]”
A Slave-Master from South Carolina, Mr. Waddy Thompson, in debate
in the House of Representatives, threatened the venerable patriot
with the “penitentiary”; and another Slave-Master, Mr. Marshall, of
Kentucky, insisted that he should be “_silenced_.” Ominous word!
full of incentive to the bludgeon-bearers of Slavery. But the great
representative of Freedom stood firm. Meanwhile Slavery assumed more
and more the port of Giant Maul in “Pilgrim’s Progress,” who continued
with his club breaking skulls, until he was slain by Mr. Great-Heart,
soon to join the congenial pilgrims, Mr. Honest, Mr. Valiant-for-Truth,
and Mr. Standfast.
Next to John Quincy Adams, no person in Congress has been more
conspicuous for long-continued and patriotic services against Slavery
than Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio; nor have any such services received
in higher degree that homage found in the personal and most vindictive
assaults of Slave-Masters. For more than twenty years he sat in the
House of Representatives, bearing his testimony austerely, and never
shrinking, though exposed to the grossest brutality. In a recent
address at New York he has recounted some of these instances.
On his presentation of resolutions affirming that Slavery was a local
institution and could not exist outside of the Slave States, and
applying this principle to the case of the “Creole,” the House caught
the South Carolina fever. A proposition of censure was introduced by
Slave-Masters, and under the previous question pressed to a vote,
without giving him a moment for explanation or reply. This glaring
outrage upon freedom of debate was redressed by the constituency of Mr.
Giddings, who without delay returned him to his seat. From that time
the rage of the Slave-Masters against him was constant. Here is his own
brief account.
“I will not speak of the time when Dawson, of Louisiana, drew a
bowie-knife for my assassination. I was afterward speaking with
regard to a certain transaction in which negroes were concerned
in Georgia, when Mr. Black, of Georgia, raising his bludgeon,
and standing in front of my seat, said to me, ‘If you repeat
that language again, I will knock you down.’ It was a solemn
moment for me. I had never been knocked down, and, having some
curiosity upon that subject, I repeated the language. Then Mr.
Dawson, of Louisiana, the same who had drawn the bowie-knife,
placed his hand in his pocket and said, with an oath which
I will not repeat, that he would shoot me, at the same time
cocking the pistol, so that all around me could hear it click.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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