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herald of that better day, near at hand, when Freedom shall be installed everywhere under the National Government; when the National Flag, wherever it floats, on sea or land, within the national jurisdiction, will not cover a single slave; and when the Declaration of Independence, now reviled in the name of Slavery, will once again be reverenced as the American Magna Charta of Human Rights. Nor is this all. Such an act will be the first stage in those triumphs by which the Republic — lifted in character so as to become an example to mankind — will enter at last upon its noble “prerogative of teaching the nations how to live."

Thus, sir, speaking for Freedom in Kansas, I have spoken for Freedom everywhere, and for Civilization; and, as the less is contained in the greater, so are all arts, all sciences, all economies, all refinements, all charities, all delights of life, embodied m this cause. You may reject it; but it will be only for to-day. The sacred animosity between Freedom and Slavery can end only with the triumph of Freedom. This same Question will be soon carried before that high tribunal, supreme over Senate and Court, where the judges will be counted by millions, and where the judgment rendered will be the solemn charge of an aroused people, instructing a new President, in the name of Freedom, to see that Civilization receives no detriment.

 

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When Mr. Sumner resumed his seat, Mr. Chesnut, of South-Carolina, spoke as follows:

Mr. President, after the extraordinary though characteristic speech just uttered in the Senate, it is proper that I assign the reason for the position we are now inclined to assume. After ranging over Europe, crawling through the back-doors to whine at the feet of British aristocracy, craving pity, and reaping a rich harvest of contempt, the slanderer of States and men reappears in the Senate. We had hoped to be relieved from the outpourings of such vulgar malice. We had hoped that one who had felt, though ignominiously he failed to meet, the consequences of a former insolence, would have become wiser, if not better, by experience. In this I am disappointed, and I regret it. Mr. President, in the heroic ages of the world, men were deified for the possession and the exercise of some virtues — wisdom, truth, justice, magnanimity, courage. In Egypt, also, we know they deified beasts and reptiles; but even that bestial people worshipped their idols on account of some supposed virtue. It has been left for this day, for this country, for the Abolitionists of Massachusetts, to deify the incarnation of malice, mendacity, and cowardice, Sir, we not intend to be guilty of aiding in the apotheosis of pusillanimity and meanness. We do not intend to contribute, by any conduct on our part, to increase the devotees at the shrine of this new idol. We know what is expected and what is desired. We are not inclined again to send forth the recipient of PUN-