10 his case could go before any impartial tribunal, and I could employ counsel such as I would select, probably I would choose my friend from California, [Mr. Weller,] who lives in a free State, who is an impartial man, an advocate, a gentleman, a man of honor and courage. If a civil action were brought by Mr. Sumner against Mr. Brooks for assault and battery, I pledge myself that, with all the resources he could bring to his command, he would be able to reduce the verdict to a penny damages. What would be the state of the pleadings? Mr. Brooks struck Mr. Sumner, would be the allegation. It would be admitted that he struck him, and inflicted two flesh wounds. Mr. Sumner would reply, “ I am a Senator of the United States ; and although, the Senate was not in session, I was in that sacred temple, and my character is so sacred under the privileges of the Senate, that I am not to be assailed.” What would Mr. Brooks’s counsel rejoin? The rejoinder would be, “ Sir, you had Erofaned and disgraced the seat you occupied, efore you were struck. ’ ’ Then the question would be, what is this privilege so much spoken of—freedom of debate ? The court would examine the question, whether what was said was privile,ged within the rules of the Senate, or whethei- it was a libel. If it should be pronounced to be a libel, and I were the judge before whom an action were brought—if a man brought before me could show that another insulted his mother, or his father, or his sister, or himself, or his country, I would say to the man i who inflicted the blow, “ My duty is to fine you; you are not justified .by the law; but it is my privilege to say that, whilst I will enforce the law and maintain its dignity, I shall fine you as small a sum as I possibly can within my discretion.” Now let me state the testimony in such an action. It would be that, in the absence of the t Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Sumner rose in his seat, and pronounced what northern papers themselves say is an unparalleled insult, not only to the State of South Carolina, but to her absent Senator. It is one for which I cannot account. I ought to thank one of the Boston editors—I think the editor of the Courier—for a beautiful, perhaps an undeserved compliment, which he has paid to my speech. I ought to thank him here publicly, as one who has independence enough to express his opinions in opposition to the tide prevailing in his part of the country. In my absence, language was used'of me which, I venture to say, no one who knew me believed. I mightput that question to the Senator’s colleague. I know nothing against either of the Senators from Massachusetts personally or privately. I dare say, as neighbors and individuals, I should not have the least right to complain of their judgment outside of the influences which operate upon them publicly and politically. They have no right here to attack any man’s private character. I never transgressed the limits of propriety to reach over and look at any man’s private character. I do not know that I have anything against Mr. Sumner’s private character; but that has nothing to do with the matter. Here, in his place, in colore officii, as a Senator from Massa-1 chusetts, he undertook to traduce and calumniate the revolutionary history of South Carolina, and to make remarks in regard to one of her Senators|| on this floor, a coequal with him, to which no one could have submitted. It happens that that Senator was the constituent of a member of the House of Representatives, who was his friend. That friend, finding that his own blood was insulted by an insult to his absent relative, was goaded on by the necessity of circumstances to take some measure of revenge. As I said yesterday, surely under such circumstances much is to be pardoned to the feelings of a man acting under such motives. With these remarks I dismiss the resolutions of Massachusetts, hoping that somebody else besides a Senatorfrom South Carolina will say something of them,for I do not wish to identify myself too much with them as a personal matter. I Eave attempted to keep aloof from that. The Senatorfrom Massachusetts, in his speech, made one or two allusions which I must incidentally notice to show how erroneous he is whenever he touches any subject. He says I indulged in licentious abuse of the people of Kansas. When he speaks of the people of Kansas I suppose he means those who were sent there by the aid societies. I oresume he considers nobody as the people of Kansas except those who have the impression upon them of the people whom he designates to choose and comprehend’ within the term, “people of Kansas.” He has no regard for the people of Kentucky, of Missouri, of Iowa, of Virginia, of South Carolina, who may have gone into that Territory, but he says I have abused its people. I never did abuse them. I did say that the man who came here with the so-called petition of Kansas in his hands without signatures, was attempting to come into the fold of this Federal Government by a fraud. I did not use as strong an expression as my friend from Louisiana, [Mr. Benjamin,] my friend from Virginia, [Mr. Mason,] and others. I did not say that the petition was a forgery. I denounced it as a violation of the rules of the Senate to print a paper of that kind, or to give it the dignity of a paper coming from a State. This is all that I said. I did not abuse the people. But what does Mr. Sumner say of the portion, my portion, if he chooses to call them so, though I do not wish so to characterize them, of the people of Kansas? He speaks of them as “ hirelings, picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilization—in the form of men— “ ‘ Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men ; As hounds and grayhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves, are called All by the name of dogs.’ ” ' Sir, he could not have provoked me in the spirit1 of controversy to say that. I have no doubt many worthy individuals have gone there under the influence of aid societies; I have not compared them, as the Senator has those who have gone there from Arkansas, Missouri, and Virginia, to the genus ofwolves, dogs, andhirelings, from the spew of an uneasy civilization. All are dogs, in his estimation, that do not come under the.impression of his indorsement. This is language which I could not use of any set of men with whom I was not acquainted. If I were to settle in Kansas to-morrow among those very people, I think it probable that I should be on good terms with them; for I have never had a dispute with a neighbor. I do not think these people would
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