Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 3

[412] Columbia, took a manuscript from his desk and occupied an hour or more in reading it. All were amused when Jones of Tennessee treated Gillette's prepared speech as proof that the antislavery senators knew of the contest in advance, and had conspired to bring it on. Pettit declaimed with his habitual vulgarity on the inferiority of the African race. Wilson made his first antislavery speech in the Senate; and being the first senator elected by the Know Nothings, his remarks attracted unusual attention, and he was closely questioned by the Compromise senators. Thus the evening went on. It was eleven when Seward rose. He spoke in his characteristic style, and made the most impressive speech in the debate. With great emphasis he disavowed all connection with the secret order and all sympathy with its principles and methods.¹ Then followed Bayard, and at last Sumner, who denounced the bill as ‘an effort to bolster up the Fugitive Slave Act,’—a measure which was ‘conceived in defiance of the Constitution,’ and was ‘a barefaced subversion of every principle of humanity and justice;’ and he closed his speech with a motion for its repeal, which obtained nine votes.² Butler could not refrain from renewing to Sumner his old questions about constitutional obligations, and being baffled, said he would ‘not take advantage of the infirmity of a man who did not know half his time what he was about.’ As Sumner was scrupulously correct in his habits, and as Butler often and at the very time appeared to have been drinking to excess, the remark provoked general merriment. Sumner's answers were to the effect that he would not himself recommend, or take part in. any State action for the rendition of fugitive slaves. The debate ended at midnight, and the Senate then adjourned after a continuous session of thirteen hours.³