3 exposing him should not be lost; .and it is fer the cause that 1 speak. The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him ; though polluted in the sight of the. world, is chaste in his sight—I mean the harlot Slavery. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then top great for-this Senator. The frenzy of Don Quixote, in behalf of his wench Dulcinea del Toboso, is all surpassed. The asserted rights of Slavery, which shock equality of all kinds, are cloaked by a fantastic claim of equality. If the slave States cannot enjoy what, in mockery of the great fathers of the Republic, he misnames equality under the Constitution—in other words, the full pow^r in the National Territories to compel fellow-men to unpaid toil, to separate husband and wife, and to sell little children at the auction block—then, sir, the chivalric Senator will conduct the State of South Carolina out of the Union! Heroic knight! Exalted Senator 1 A second Moses come for a second exodus! • But not content with this poor menace, which we have been twice told was £ measured,’ the Senator, in the'Unrestrained chivalry of his nature, has undertaken to apply Opprobrious words to those who differ from him on this floor. He calls them ‘sectional and fanatical;’and opposition to the usurpation in Kansas, he denounces as £ an uncalculating fanaticism.’ To be sure, these charges lack all grace of originality, and all sentiment of truth ; but the adventurous Senator does not hesitate. He is the uncompromising, unblushing representative on this floor of a flagrant sectionalism, which now domineers over the Republic, and yet with a ludicrous ignorance of his own position —unable to see himself as others see him—or with an effrontery which even his white head ought not to protect from rebuke, he applies to those here who resist his sectionalism, the very epithet which designates himself. The men who strive to bring back the Government to its original policy, when Freedom and not Slavery was pational while Slavery and not Freedom was sectional, he arraigns as sectional. This will not do. It involves too great a perversion of terms. I tell that Senator, that it is to himself, and to the ‘ organization’ of which he is the ‘ committed advocate,’ that this epithet belongs. I now fasten it upon them. For myself, I care little for names; but since the question has been raised here, I affirm that the Republican party of the Union is in no just sense sectional, but, more than any other party, national; and that it now goes forth to dislodge from the high places of the Government the tyrannical sectionalism of which the Senator from South Carolina is one of the maddest zealots.” Mr. BUTLER. Now, Mr. President, how any man, who has not been excluded from society, could use such an illustration on this floor, I know not. I do not see how any man could obtain the consent of his own conscience to rise in the presence of a gallery of ladies and give to slavery the personification of "a “ mistress,” and ~say that I loved her because she was a “ harlot.” I beg pardon for repeating it. What in the name of justice and decency could have, ever led that man to use such language ? That is the language of Cleon. It is a somewhat remarkable thing, that in the speech which I delivered here in reply to the Senator from New Hampshire, I used the word “ slavery” but in one paragraph, and that was in response to a remark of his speaking of the Supreme Court as the citadel of slavery. I rebuked him. I said'I would rather regard that court as the defender or as the promontory of the Constitution; and that he was at too great a distance ever to reach it by any arrow which he •could discharge from his bow. Sectionalism was not in the speech itself. When I spoke of individuals in a particular section, I did not speak in terms which would imply or convey the idea that I meant the public of the slaveholding and nonslaveholding States. I confined it to that section who are suffering at this time, I hope to a limited ■ extent, and who are burning their fires until they will be reduced to the caustic ashes of disappoint- mentand disgrace.’ I did notspeakof sectionalism in any other point of view. Sir, there are men on this floor who I believe honestly differ from me. I would not make any personal allusion to them. Far from widening this controversy, the object of my speech was to appease public sentiment. In the course of it I ventured to say, what I h'ad never said before, that the man does not live who could look without concern at the consequences of a separation of these States effected in blood. I remarked that I would not aay there was not intelligence enough ultimately to form new governments and make them a union of confederacies. Sir, in that speech I attempted to throw oil upon the troubled waters. My friends in some measure blamed me for the tone of my remarks. The so-called reply was already in the sap, the poisonous sap behind, and the Senator had to use his speech as a conduit to pour it out on me and on the country, when he had less occasion than was presented by any speech whieh I ever before made. Anybody who says we are incapable of preserving free institutions,! should be inclined to consider a slanderer on free insti- ! tutions; but I will never agree to live in any Government that has not some operative and enford- ble provisions of a constitution to preserve my rights. If the Government were as it formerly was, South Carolina and Massachusetts having a common interest, do you think the Senator could arise as an adversary to be applauded by his people ? There was a time, sir, when his people would have disgraced him forthat very speech. At this day, I do not say they will acquit my kinsman; I dare say they will not; but the time is coming when there will be but one opinion—that that is the most mischievous speech which has ever been delivered in this country, and has involved more innocent persons. If the contest goes on upon such issues as it makes, blood must follow. I do not look on any such scenes with pleasure. I have not temper for them, though when a young man I might, perhaps, not have been indisposed to embark in the hazards ®f contests. Whilst upon this point, I may remark that Josiah Quincy, for whom I have heretofore had a great respect, says the Senator has not gone a hair’s breadth beyond the line of duty and truth. After my explanations here I hardly think he will say so. He is the only man of high respectability whom I have yet seen of heard make such a declaration. He made it, too, with a reproach I that I was sorry to see escape from such a man. I He said, alluding to the fracas in the Senate- I house, not in the Senate, that it is only a part of that tribe who carry bowie-knives and revolvers. I Sir, I never wore a secret weapon in my life. I | am not going to discuss the fact that I have used 1 open weapons; and that is the only way I choose to deal, but that is not the way we can get them, to deal with us, Unfortunately, I have had scenes of that kind which I have regretted all my life to some extent. I .am mortified to hear such a man as Quincy making a charge upon a whole section, when I question if there is a southern man in this House with a pistol or bowie-knife in his pocket. He -has gone out of the way gratuiW’j to say that
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