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the “street-fight," is also “twin" with these instances. It is constantly adopted or attempted by Slave-masters in Congress. But I shall not enter upon this catalogue. I content myself with showing the openness with which in debate it has been menaced, and without any call to order.
Mr. Foote, the same Slave-master already mentioned, in debate in the Senate, 26th of March, 1850, thus sought to provoke Mr. Benton. I take his words from the Congressional Globe, vol. 21, p. 6038:
“There are instances in the history of the Senator which might well relieve a man of honor from the obligation to recognize him as a fitting antagonist; yet it is 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 any thing which has fallen from me, he shall, on demanding it, have full redress accorded to 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 his desire known in the premises. At present he is shielded by his age, his open disavowal of the obligatory 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.
Here is 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. Le would have looked for it elsewhere. He now comes here not to ask redress in the only way he should have sought it."
There was no call to order.
Here is still another. In the debate of the bill for the improvement of Rivers and Harbors, 29th July, 1854, (Congressional Globe, vol. 29, appendix, page 1163,) 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
