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allel; and yet there is an ancient instance, which may show at least the path of justice. In the terrible impeachment by which the great Roman orator has blasted through all time the name of Verres, amidst charges of robbery and sacrilege, the enormity which most aroused the indignant voice of his accuser, and which still stands forth with strongest distinctness, arresting the sympathetic indignation of all who read the story, is, that away in Sicily, he had scourged a citizen of Rome-that the cry, "I am a Roman citizen," had been interposed in vain against the lash of the tyrant governors. Other charges were, that he had carried away productions of art, and that he had violated the sacred shrines.

It was in the presence of the Roman Senate that this arraignment proceeded; in a temple of the Forum, amidst crowds-such as no orator had ever before drawn togetherthronging the porticos and colonnades, even clinging to the house-tops and neighboring slopes-and under the anxious gaze of witnesses summoned from the scene of crime. But an audience grander far-of higher dignity-of more various people, and of wider intelligence-the countless multitude of succeeding generations, in every land where eloquence has been studied or where the Roman name has been recognized -has listened to the accusation, and throbbed condemnation of the criminal.

Sir, speaking in an age of light, and in a land of constitutional liberty, where the safeguards of elections are justly · placed among the highest triumphs of civilization, I fearlessly assert that the wrongs of much abused Sicily, thus memorable in history, were small by the side of the wrongs of Kansas, where the very shrines of popular institutions, more sacred than any heathen altar, have been desecrated; where the ballot box, more precious than any work in ivory or marble, from the cunning hand of art, has been plundered; and where the cry, "I am an American citizen," has been interposed in vain against outrage of every kind, even upon life itself. Are you against sacrilege? I present it for your execration. Are you against robbery? I hold it up to your scorn. Are you for the protection of American citizens? I show you how their dearest rights have been cloven down, while a tyrannical usurpation has sought to install itself on their very necks!-Hon. Charles Sumner, 1856.

17

FANATICISM.

THE Senator from South Carolina* denounces opposition to the usurpation in Kansas as an uncalculating fanaticism. Sir, fanaticism is found in an enthusiasm or exaggeration of opinions, particularly on religious subjects; but there may be a fanaticism for evil as well as for good. Now, I will not deny that there are persons among us loving liberty too well for their personal good, in a selfish generation. Such there may be, and, for the sake of their example, would that there were more! In calling them "fanatics," you would cast contumely upon the noble army of martyrs, from the earliest. day down to this hour; upon the great tribunes of human rights, by whom life, liberty, and happiness on earth, have been secured; upon the long line of devoted patriots, who, throughout history, have truly loved their country; and upon all who, in noble aspirations for the general good, and in forgetfulness of self, have stood out before their age, and gathered into their generous bosoms the shafts of tyranny and wrong, in order to make a pathway for truth. You discredit Luther, when alone he nailed his articles to the door of the church at Wittenberg, and then, to the imperial demand that he should retract, firmly replied, "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God!" You discredit Hampden, when alone he refused to pay the few shillings of ship-money, and shook the throne of Charles I.; you discredit Milton, when, amidst the corruptions of a heartless court, he lived on, the lofty friend of liberty, above question or suspicion; you discredit Russell and Sidney, when, for the sake of their country, they calmly turned from family and friends, to tread the nar row steps of the scaffold; you discredit the early founders of American institutions, who preferred the hardships of a wil derness, surrounded by a savage foe, to injustice on beds of ease; you discredit our later fathers, who, few in numbers, and weak in resources, yet strong in their cause, did not hesi tate to brave the mighty power of England, already encir cling the globe with her morning drum-beats. Yes, sir, of such are the fanatics of history, according to the Senator. But I tell that Senator, that there are characters badly eminent, of whose fanaticism there can be no question. Such were the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped divinities in brutish forms; the Druids, who darkened the forests of oak in which they lived by sacrifices of blood; the Mexicans,

* Butler.

who surrendered countless victims to the propitiation of their obscene idols; the Spaniards, who, under Alva, sought to force the Inquisition upon Holland, by a tyranny kindred to that now employed to force slavery upon Kansas; and such were the Algerines, when, in solemn conclave, after listening to a speech not unlike that of the Senator from South Carolina, they resolved to continue the slavery of white Christians, and to extend it to the countrymen of Washington! Aye, sir, extend it! And in this same dreary catalogue, faithful history must record all who now, in an enlightened age, and in a land of boasted freedom, stand up, in perversion of the Constitution, and in denial of immortal truth, to fasten a new shackle upon their fellow-man. If the Senator wishes to see fanatics, let him look round among his own associates; let him look on himself.-Hon. Chas. Sumner, 1856.

SLAVERY'S CRIME AGAINST KANSAS.

THUS was the crime consummated. Slavery now stands erect clanking its chains on the territory of Kansas, surrounded by a code of death, and trampling upon all cherished liberties, whether of speech, the press, the bar, the trial by jury, or the electoral franchise. And, sir, all this has been done, not merely to introduce a wrong which in itself is a denial of all rights; not merely, as has been sometimes said, to protect slavery in Missouri, since it is futile for this State to complain of freedom on the side of Kansas, when freedom exists without complaint on the side of Iowa, and also on the side of Illinois; but it has been done for the sake of political power, in order to bring two new slaveholding senators upon this floor, and thus to fortify in the national government the desperate chances of a waning oligarchy. As the ship, voyaging on pleasant summer seas, is assailed by a pirate crew, and robbed for the sake of its doubloons and dollarsso is this beautiful Territory now assailed in its peace and prosperity, and robbed in order to wrest its political power to the side of slavery. Even now the black flag of the land pirates from Missouri waves at the mast head; in their laws you have the pirate yell, and see the flash of the pirate's knife; while, incredible to relate! the President, gathering the slave power at his back, testifies a pirate sympathy.

Sir, all this was done in the name of popular sovereignty. And this is the close of the tragedy. Popular sovereignty, which when truly understood, is a fountain of just power,

has ended in popular slavery; not merely in the subjection of the unhappy African race, but of this proud Caucassian blood, which you boast. The profession with which you began, of All by the people, has been lost in the wretched reality of Nothing for the people. Popular sovereignty in whose deceitful name plighted faith was broken, and an ancient landmark of freedom was overturned, now lifts itself before us like sin, in the terrible picture of Milton,

"That seemed a woman to the waist, and fair,
But ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast, a serpent armed
With mortal sting; about her middle round

A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing barked

With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung

A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb,

And kennel there, yet there still barked and howled
Within unseen."

The image is complete at all points; and, with this exposure, I take my leave of the crime against Kansas.-Hon. Chas. Sumner, 1856.

ORGANIZED EMIGRATION TO KANSAS.

THE Senator inveighs against the Native American party; but his own principle is narrower than any attributed to them. They object to the influence of emigrants from abroad; he objects to the influence of American citizens at home, when exerted in States or Territories where they were not born! The whole assumption is too audacious for respectful argument. But since a great right has been denied, the children of the free States, over whose cradles has shone the north star, owe it to themselves, to their ancestors, and to freedom itself, that this right should now be asserted to the fullest extent. By the blessing of God, and under the continued protection of the laws, they will go to Kansas, there to plant their homes, in the hope of elevating this Territory soon into the sisterhood of free States; and to such end they will not hesitate in the employment of all legitimate means, whether by companies of men or contributions of money, to swell a virtuous emigration, and they will justly scout any attempt to question this unquestionable right. Sir, if they failed to do this, they would be fit only for slaves themselves.

God be praised! Massachusetts, honored commonwealth that gives me the privilege to plead for Kansas on this floor, knows her rights and will maintain them firmly to the end. This is not the first time in history, that her public acts have been arraigned, and that her public men have been exposed to contumely. Thus it was when, in the olden time, she began the great battle whose fruits you all enjoy. But never yet has she occupied a position so lofty as at this hour. By the intelligence of her population-by the resources of her industry-by her commerce cleaving every wave-by her manufactures, various as human skill-by her institutions of education, various as human knowledge-by her institutions of benevolence, various as human suffering-by the pages of her scholars and historians-by the voices of her poets and orators, she is now exerting an influence more subtle and commanding than ever before-shooting her far-darting rays wherever ignorance, wretchedness, or wrong, prevail, and flashing light even upon those who travel far to persecute her. Such is Massachusetts, and, I am proud to believe that you may as well attempt, with puny arm, to topple down the earth-rooted, heaven-kissing granite which crowns the historic sod of Bunker Hill, as to change her fixed resolves for freedom everywhere, and especially now for freedom in Kansas. I exult, too, that in this battle, which curpasses far in moral grandeur the whole war of the Revointion, she is able to preserve her just eminence. To the first she contributed a larger number of troops than any other State in the Union, and larger than all the slave States together; and now to the second, which is not of contending armies, but of contending opinions, on whose issue hangs trembling the advancing civilization of the country, she contributes, through the manifold and endless intellectual activity of her children, more of that divine spark by which opinions are quickened into life, than is contributed by any other State, or by all the slave States together, while her annual productive industry excels in value three times the whole vaunted cotton crop of the whole South.

Sir, to men on earth it belongs only to deserve success; not to secure it; and I know not how soon the efforts of Massachusetts will wear the crown of triumph. But it cannot be that she acts wrong for herself or children, when in this cause she thus encounters reproach. No; by the gene rous souls who were exposed at Lexington; by those who stood arrayed at Bunker Hill; by the many from her bosom who, on all the fields of the first great struggle, lent their vigorous arms to the cause of all; by the children she has

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