57
saying: “If it came from another quarter, it would not be upon this floor that I should answer it."
And then, during the present session, the Senator from Mississippi, [Mr. Davis,] who speaks so often for Slavery, in a colloquy on this floor with the Senator from Vermont, [Mr. Collamer,] has maintained the Duel as a mode of settling personal differences, and vindicating what is called personal honor; as if personal honor did not depend absolutely upon what a man does,eand not what is done to him. “A gentleman," says the Senator, “has the right to give an insult, if he feels himself bound to answer for it;" and in reply to the Senator from Vermont, he declared, that in case of insult, taking another out and shooting him might be “satisfaction."
I do not dwell on this instance, nor on any of these instances, except to make a single comment. These declarations have all been made in open Senate, without any check from the Chair. Of course, they are clear violations of the first principles of Parliamentary Law, and tend directly to provoke a violation of the law of the land. All duels are prohibited by solemn act of Congress. (See Statutes at Large, vol. 5, page 318, February 20, 1839.) In case of death, the surviving parties are declared guilty of felony, to be punished by hard labor in the penitentiary; and, even where nothing has occurred beyond the challenge, all the parties to it, whether givers or receivers, are declared guilty of high crime and misdemeanor, also to be punished by hard labor in the penitentiary. Of course, every menace of a duel in Congress sets this law at defiance. And yet the Senators, who thus openly disregard a law sanctioned by the Constitution and commended by morality, presume to complain on this floor because other Senators disregard the Fugitive Slave Bill, a statute which, according to the profound convictions of large numbers, is as unconstitutional as it is offensive to the moral sense. Let Senators who are so clamorous for “the enforcement of laws," begin by enforcing the statute which declares the Duel to be a felony. At least, let the statute cease to be a dead letter in this Chamber. But this is too much to expect while Slavery prevails here, for the Duel is a part of that System of Violence which has its origin in Slavery.
But it is when aroused by the Slave question in Congress that Slave-masters have most truly shown themselves; and here
