from the contest between the invading Grecian host and. Troy, almost ready to succumb to her surrounding foes, in consequence of the arrogance and overbearing selfishness of Agamemnon and those subjected to his sway, so shall we perhaps see the all-indomitable Douglas and his multitudinous friends in the North driven, in the sequel, to the assumption of an attitude of cold and murky neutrality, or to the indignant abandonment of a cause which had lost, to their view, so much of its pristine dignity, together with its claims to sympathy and support.

But there were other causes besides which were now operating against the interests of peace and true brotherhood, the malign influence of which was in no respect ascribable to "antagonisms imbedded in the very nature of our heterogeneous institutions," to which I shall now give a passing notice.

All unprejudiced men will admit that the indecorous and ruffianly assault which had been made, several years anterior to the period we have now under review, upon a member of the United States Senate from Massachusetts, Mr. Sumner, by a heady and indiscreet member of the House of Representatives from the State of South Carolina, under circumstances of an extremely aggravated character, exerted, as was to be anticipated, a most potential influence in alienating the minds of humane and enlightened men in the free states of the Union from a cause which it was now plainly asserted sought, in its desperation, to sustain itself and perpetuate its existence by means which even the untutored savages of the forest would have disdained to employ; and though this unnardonable outrage was alike disapproved by all men

ASSAULT UPON MR. SUMNER-DRED SCOTT DECISION. 253

of proper social refinement and of true manliness of sentiment alike in the South as in the North, yet was it plausibly attributed by excited orators and editors of sectional newspapers in the free states to the hated "institution" of slavery. Thus was the whole South made to suffer the penalties of an act of blood and violence for which nine tenths of her high-toned and chivalrous population would have disdained to assume the responsibility.

The celebrated judicial decision in the Dred Scott case, however sound may be both the conclusions to which a majority of the judges of the Supreme Court had, after full argument, arrived, as well as the reasoning by which those conclusions were supported, had been most deleterious in its influence upon the popular mind in both sections. Among the opponents of slavery in the North a suspicion had arisen that the case in which this important adjudication had been rendered had been adroitly gotten up for the occasion, and that the whole affair was, in fact, a mere political device of the pro-slavery zealots to bolster up a feeble and sinking system against the assaults which all Christendom was leveling at it. It must be confessed that this view of the matter, so well calculated to bring the highest judicial tribunal into contempt, and thus in some degree to discredit and subject to moral enfeeblement the whole frame of government of which the judiciary was so important an integral part, was strongly sustained by a portion of Mr. Buchanan's inaugural speech, which, though it did not attract any very special attention at the time of its delivery, yet, when the opinions of the judges had been given publicity, were supposed to indicate a secret understanding and arrange

ment between the judges and the incoming executive, to some extent justifying a fear that this "more than Amphictyonic Council" (to repeat the descriptive language which Mr. Pinckney on a memorable occasion applied to the Supreme Court of the Union) was about to become a mere ministerial chamber in which to register executive edicts. The words of the inaugural referred to were as follows:

"A difference of opinion has arisen in regard to the point of time when the people of a territory shall decide this question for themselves.

"This is, happily, a matter of but little practical importance. Besides, it is a judicial question, which legitimately belongs to the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is now pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and finally settled. To this decision, in common with all good citizens, I shall cheerfully submit."

While such was the state of feeling in the North in regard to the action of the Supreme Court of the United States, a very opposite one was unfortunately awakened among the pro-slavery devotees of the South, among whom a strong sentiment of exultation was apparent, as at the accomplishment of a signal triumph achieved over their abolition foes. With all three of the departments of government now apparently enlisted in the cause of maintaining and diffusing African slavery, while numerous Southern presses and innumerable local orators were rejoicing over this happy state of things, and anticipating the rapid spread of slavery into every part of the American continent where climate and soil were at all adapted to it, it is not at all surprising that certain enterprising

ATTEMPT TO REOPEN THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE. 255

and over-excited persons should have judged that a favorable opportunity had arisen for reopening the African slave-trade. Some of the leading men of the South, in point of fact, about this period became the open advocates of the revival of this nefarious traffic. Many newspapers, edited by the unscrupulous agents of party, in several of the slaveholding states, earnestly advocated this accursed policy. The Commercial Convention, which assembled in the city of Vicksburg in the month of May, 1859, and which contained representatives from nearly all the cotton-growing states of the Union, after a long and heated debate, adopted resolutions denouncing the law which prohibited the carrying on of this traffic as piracy, as alike unconstitutional and impolitic, and declared the wish of that body that this infernal trade should be renewed by the South, in despite of the constitutional obstacles which had before that time been supposed to exist thereto. The discussions in the Convention on this important question were of a most heated and violent character. I heard these debates, and took some part in them also, in warm and indignant opposition to the policy proposed, which is all that I shall now say of my own action on this occasion. The leading advocate for the policy mentioned was Mr. Spratt, of Charleston, South Carolina, whose fervid and ingenious oration in support of this radical innovation upon the existing regulations of the government, containing the startling proposition that it had become necessary that slavery should assume an aggressive attitude, was, a few days after the close of the Convention, a second time fulminated in the capital of the State.

Mississippi, in presence of an earnestly-approv

CHAPTER XIII.

Conspiracy of certain Senators to defeat the "Little Giant of the West" in his supposed presidential Aspirations.—Signal Triumph of this Gentleman as a Debater over all Opposition.—Opening of the senatorial Contest between Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln, of Illinois.-Extraordinary Efforts of Mr. Buchanan and other Individuals of the Democratic Party to effect Mr. Douglas's Defeat and secure the Election of his Opponent. Eventual Triumph of Mr. Douglas, who returns to the Senate to undergo Ostracism at the Hands of senatorial Democrats in Caucus under the direction of Mr. Buchanan.-Deep Injury done to the Southern Cause by the unjust Course pursued toward Mr. Douglas, which caused many of this Gentleman's political Supporters in the North to grow lukewarm in the support of Southern Rights.-Special Causes which now operated to produce sectional Excitement.-Indecent and ruffianly Assault upon Mr. Sumner.-Dred Scott Decision.-The South indiscreetly exultant over it, and the North indignant.-Attempt by certain Persons in the South to bring about the reopening of the African Slave-trade.-Important judicial Contest in Ohio touching the validity of the Fugitive Slave Law. -Ossawatomie Brown upon a Rampage in the Bosom of Virginia as a radical, political, and moral Reformer, ready to shed Oceans of Blood in defense of universal Freedom. Interesting Debate in the United States Senate on this Subject. -Impolitic Execution of Brown, by which he was unnecessarily made a Martyr.

All

THE excited struggle in Congress was now over. impartial men acknowledged that "the Little Giant of the West," as he was now popularly entitled, had prostrated all who had opposed the great eternal truths which he had labored to establish in the fierce and obstinately contested battles of principle which had been going on in