my State and to a venerable friend, who is my State's representative, and who was absent at the time.

Not content with that, he published to the world, and circulated extensively, this uncalled-for libel on my State and my blood. Whatever insults my State insults me. Her history and character have commanded my pious veneration; and in her defence I hope I shall always be prepared, humbly and modestly, to perform the duty of a son. I should have forfeited my own self-respect, and perhaps the good opinion of my countrymen, if I had failed to resent such an injury by calling the offender in question to a personal account. It was a personal affair, and in taking redress into my own hands I meant no disrespect to the Senate of the United States or to this House. Nor, sir, did I design insult or disrespect to the State of Massachusetts. I was aware of the personal responsibilities I incurred, and was willing to meet them. I knew, too, that I was amenable to the laws of the country, which afford the same protection to all, whether they be members of Congress or private citizens. I did not, and do not now, believe that I could be properly punished, not only in a court of law, but here also, at the pleasure and discretion of the House. I did not then, and do not now, believe that the spirit of American freemen would tolerate slander in high places, and permit a member of Congress to publish and circulate a libel on another, and then call upon either House to protect him against the personal responsibilities which he had thus incurred.

But, if I had committed a breach of privilege, it was the privilege of the Senate, and not of this House, which was violated. I was answerable there, and not here. They had no right, as it seems to me, to prosecute me in these halls, nor have you the right in law or under the Constitution, as I respectfully submit, to take jurisdiction over offences committed against them. The Constitution does not justify them in making such a request, nor this House in granting it. If, unhappily, the day should ever come when sectional or party feeling should run so high as to control all other considerations of public duty or justice, how easy will it be to use such precedents for the excuse of arbitrary power, in either House, to expel members of the minority who may have rendered themselves obnoxious to the prevailing spirit in the House to which they belong.

This House, however, it would seem, from the unmistakable tendency of its proceedings, takes a different view from that which I deliberately entertain in common with many others.

So far as public interests or constitutional rights are in

volved, I have now exhausted my means of defence. I may, then, be allowed to take a more personal view of the question at issue. The further prosecution of this subject, in the shape it has now assumed, may not only involve my friends, but the House itself in agitations which might be unhappy in their consequences to the country. If these consequences could be confined to myself individually, I think I am prepared and ready to meet them, here or elsewhere; and, when I use this language, I mean what I say. But others must not suffer for me. I have felt more on account of my two friends who have been implicated than for myself. I will not constrain gentlemen to assume a responsibility on my account which, possibly, they would not on their own.

Sir, I cannot, on my own account, assume the responsibility, in the face of the American people, of commencing a line of conduct which, in my heart of hearts, I believe would result in subverting the foundations of this Government and in drenching this hall in blood. No act of mine, and on my personal account, shall inaugurate revolution; but when you, Mr. Speaker, return to your own home and hear the people of the great North-and they are a great people-speak of me as a bad man, you will do me the justice to say that a blow struck by me at this time would be followed by revolution-and this I know. [Applause and hisses in the gallery.]

The Speaker announced that, if any such demonstrations were repeated the galleries should be cleared.

MR. BROOKS (turning to the gentlemen's gallery).—If I have any friends in the gallery I appeal to them to be quiet.

At the same time, Mr. Speaker, I am not willing to see the Constitution wounded through me; nor will I submit voluntarily to a wrong if I can avoid it. I will not voluntarily give my name to countenance parliamentary misrule or constitutional aggression. If I am to be tried again for the matter now before us I will choose my own tribunal. I will appeal from this House to my own constituents. From that verdict I will not appeal. The temper of the times is not favorable for a calm and dispassionate judgment of the case; and if, by any act of mine, I can save the majority of this House from the consequences of a rash decision, the time may come when the good men who are pursuing me and I believe there are such in the oppositionwill admit that I deserve their thanks for the deed. The axe that is uplifted to strike me may fall upon others, and fall upon them after they have parted with the shield of the Constitution to protect them.

For myself I have only to say that, if I cannot preserve my self-respect and constitutional rights, together with a seat in this body, I must renounce the last rather than the former.

I have no desire, sir, to continue an argument which my friends have exhausted. The determination of the majority is fixed, and it is in vain to resist it. I will make no appeal to a packed jury, but I protest against its inconsistencies and its usurpations. During this session the charge was openly made by a member from the State of Pennsylvania on this floor that another [John J. Pearce], who is his colleague, had been guilty of an attempt to bribe, and no proceedings were instituted in the case. Do the majority of this House propose to instruct the American people, from their high position, that bribery is excusable, and simple assault and battery a crime? That is the lesson, and you are the teachers.

And in whose behalf is this extraordinary stretch of constitutional power invoked? Sir, I do not intend to violate any rule of this House, or of parliamentary courtesy, but it cannot be denied that he is, par excellence, the representative of a sovereignty which is at this instant in open, statutory rebellionnot to a simple rule of a single House, but to the Constitution and laws of the United States of America. Massachusetts sits in judgment upon me without a hearing, and presents me for a breach of privilege! Sir, is it not strange that it did not occur to that sage legislature that its demand upon the Congress of the United States, relative to a member, was a greater breach of privilege in them than that complained of the member himself? What right, sir, has the legislature of Massachusetts to make any demand upon this House? She has not the right of even instructing the most insignificant member from the State, and has, by her resolutions, but given additional proof that she neither comprehends the theory of our Government nor is loyal to its authority.

I have said, sir, that, if I have committed a breach of privilege, it was the privilege of the Senate. If I have, in any particular, violated the privileges or proprieties of this House, I am unconscious of it, and I challenge every member to specify a single disorderly or improper act.

And yet, sir, the vote which has just been taken transmits me to posterity as a man unworthy, in the judgment of a majority of my peers, of a seat in this Hall. And for what? The member from New Jersey [Mr. Pennington]-the prosecuting member-the thumb-paper member [laughter]-the Falstaffian member, who, like his prototype, was born about four

o'clock in the morning and, if he has not the bald head, is graced with the corporeal rotundity [great laughter] of his predecessor upon his advent into this sublunary world-he says it was for making a "murderous" assault with a "bludgeon"; and he, forsooth, would have this House and the country believe, with an intent to kill.

If I desired to kill the Senator, why did not I do it? You all admit that I had him in my power. Let me tell the member from New Jersey that it was expressly to avoid taking life that I used an ordinary cane, presented to me by a friend in Baltimore nearly three months before its application to the "bare head' of the Massachusetts Senator. I went to work very deliberately, as I am charged-and this is admitted-and speculated somewhat as to whether I should employ a horsewhip or a cowhide; but, knowing that the Senator was my superior in strength, it occurred to me that he might wrest it from my hand, and then-for I never attempt anything I do not perform—I might have been compelled to do that which I would have regretted the balance of my natural life.

The question has been asked in certain newspapers why did I not invite the Senator to personal combat in the mode usually adopted. Well, sir, as I desire the whole truth to be known about the matter, I will, for once, notice a newspaper article on the floor of the House and answer here.

My answer is that I knew that the Senator would not accept a message; and, having formed the unalterable determination to punish him, I believed that the offence of "sending a hostile message," superadded to the indictment for assault and battery, would subject me to legal penalties more severe than would be imposed for a simple assault and battery.

For this act, which the Senate, with a solitary exception of a distinguished gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Toombs] have pronounced me guilty of a breach of its privileges-for this act I am complained of by that body to this House. Your committee have declared, and this House has now concurred in the opinion, that my offence is to the Senate, and that no rule or order of this body have I violated.

Now, sir, let me ask why the Senate did not protect its own rights? The argument has been made here that ex necessitate this House must have the power to protect itself. If that principle be true in its application here, why has not the Senate the same powers of protection? But what right has this House to punish me for offences committed out of its presence? They tell me that my responsibility to this House is because of the

general responsibility which attaches to every member. Where do you stop in this question of authority of the House over its members? If your authority goes into the Senate Chamber, and even when the Senate is not in session, why should it not go into the ante-rooms and down the steps of the Capitol? Why not pursue me into the avenue-into the steamboat-to my plantation? Why, sir, if I go to my home and find that one of my slaves has behaved badly in my absence and I direct him to be flogged, I may be charged with-to use the language which is familiar here "crime the blackest and most heinous"; and when I come back-and come back I will-may be punished myself for inflicting a chastisement which, by the common law and the constitutional laws of my country, I have the right to inflict upon my slave, who is my property.

Now, sir, let me inform the honorable members who have been pursuing me so fiercely that my present attitude was long since foreseen, and that I am altogether prepared for any of its emergencies. I knew with whom I had to deal, and my resignation has been for more than ten days in the hands of the Governor of South Carolina, to take effect the very instant that I announce my resignation upon this floor. But, before I make the announcement, I desire to say a word or two in reference to what has been said of me in debate and elsewhere.

Your amiable colleague [Chauncey L. Knapp], who was presented by his constituents with a revolver, intended for my particular benefit, yesterday declared that Massachusetts would "take her own time and place" to resent what he and she both pronounced to be an insult and an injury. I do not intend, Mr. Speaker, to utter an offensive, unkind, or even a rough word to that gentleman-for he is a gentleman, socially, I know-but I wish to say this to him, that I will never plead the statute of limitations in bar of the wrath of Massachusetts.

I now desire the attention of my quondam friend from Massachusetts [Linus B. Comins]. From his place in this House-in his representative character, and at the time armed to the teeth, he quoted the language and indorsed the sentiment of Chevalier Webb, of poor Jonathan Cilley notoriety, as follows:

"Looking at it solely as an insult to the country, a trampling upon the Constitution, and an outrage upon the sanctity of the Senate Chamber, it was an outrage which merited death on the spot from any patriot present who was in a position to inflict the punishment."

Now, sir, I say to that gentleman that no man has the right to wear arms who does not dare to use them. In my country