Chapter 16: Fremont.—1856.
The pro-slavery atrocities in Kansas do not cause Garrison to regard the border-ruffian otherwise than as a fellow-man, or to view the newly formed Republican Party as an abolition organization. But, as between Fr6mont and Buchanan or Fillmore, he wishes success to the Republican candidate for President.The election of N. P. Banks to the Speakership of1 the lower house of Congress, after a two months struggle, over a South Carolinian slaveholder, was, in Mr. Garrison's hope, “the first gun at Lexington of the new Revolution.” Lib. 26.23. The victory of the Slave Power in the2 election of James Buchanan—a typical Northern doughface3 —to the Presidency in November, over John C. Fremont, with three parties in the field and only one issue, was in fact the Bunker Hill of that Revolution. Between these events, of the first political importance, occurred the beating of Charles Sumner in his seat in the Senate Chamber4 of the United States by the nephew of one of his colleagues, a Representative from South Carolina, Preston S. Brooks. The speech which drew down upon the Massachusetts Senator this murderous assault, was entitled ‘The Crime against Kansas’; and the assault itself was merely a part of that crime. Jefferson Davis, Pierce's Secretary of War, wielding all the power of the5 Administration in support of the pro-slavery invaders of Kansas, publicly approved Brooks's action. Senator Douglas, the6 arch-contriver of the Kansas iniquity, witnessed without emotion and without interfering (“lest his motives might be misconstrued” Lib. 26.91, 103.) the plying of the dragoon strokes which Brooks had learnt in the Mexican War; and7 afterwards took the stump with the South Carolinian in behalf8 of Buchanan. The Southern press spoke but one language. The Richmond Enquirer held, as to Sumner's treatment,9 that it was the right discipline for him and the other
