Page:The Barbarism of Slavery - Sumner - 1863.pdf/66

This page needs to be proofread.

60 master, Mr. Marshall of Kentucky, insisted that he should be

Ominous word! full of suggestion to the bludgeonBut the great representative of Freedom stood firm. Meanwhile Slavery assumed more and more the port of the giant Maul in the Pilgrim's Progress, who continued with his club breaking the skulls of pilgrims, until he was slain by Mr. Great Heart, making way for the other Pilgrims, Mr. Valiant for Truth, Mr. Standfast, and Mr. Honest. Next to John Quincy Adams, no person in Congress has been more conspicuous for long-continued and patriotic services "silenced."

bearers of Slavery.

against Slavery, than Joshua

any such

R

Giddings, of Ohio

services received in higher degree that

nor have

homage which

found in the personal and most vindictive assaults of SlaveFor nearly twenty years he sat in the House of Representatives, bearing his testimony always loftily, and never shrinking, though exposed to the grossest brutality. In a recent public address at New- York, he has himself recounted is

masters.

some of

On

these instances.

the presentation

by him of

resolutions affirming that

Slavery was a local institution, and could not exist outside of the Slave States, Creole,

the

proposition

and applying

this principle to the case of the

A

House "caught" the South-Carolina fever. censuring him was introduced by Slave-masters and

pressed to a vote, under the operation of the previous question,

without giving him a glaring

moment

for explanation or reply.

outrage upon freedom of

This

debate was redressed at

once by the constituency of Mr. Giddings, who returned him From that time the rage of the Slave-masters again to his seat. Here is his own brief account against him was constant. " I will not speak of the time when Dawson, of Louisiana, drew a bowie-knife my assassination. I was afterward speaking with regard to a certain transaction in which negroes were concerned in Georgia, when Mr. Black, of Georgia, raising ' If you repeat that lanhis bludgeon, and standing in front of my seat, said to me guage again, I will knock you down.' It was a solemn moment for me. I had never been knocked down, and having some curiosity upon that subject, I repeated the language. Then Mr. Dawson, of Louisiana, the same who had drawn the bowieknife, placed his hand in his pocket and said, with an oath which I will not repeat, that he would shoot me, at the same time cocking the pistol, so that all around me could hear it click." for

Listening to these horrors, ancient stories of Barbarism seem and the " viper broth," which was a favorite all outdone

decoction in a barbarous age, seems to have become the daily