[257]
LVII.
Mr. Burlingame, afterwards Plenipotentiary to China, and from China to the Western nations, spoke of the assault with boldness, eloquence and force. ‘I denounce it,’ he said, ‘in the name of the Constitution it violates. I denounce it in the name of the sovereignty of Massachusetts, which was stricken down by the blow. I denounce it in the name of humanity. I denounce it in the name of civilization, which it outraged. I denounce it in the name of that fair play which bullies and prize-fighters respect. The Senator from Massachusetts sat in the silence of the Senate Chamber, engaged in the employments appertaining to his office, when a member from the House, who had taken an oath to sustain the Constitution, stole into the Senate, a place which had hitherto been held sacred against violence, and smote him, as Cain smote his brother.’ Keitt exclaimed: ‘That is false.’ Burlingame replied: ‘I will not bandy epithets with the gentleman. I am responsible for my own language; doubtless he is responsible for his.’ ‘I am,’ said Keitt. ‘I shall stand by mine,’ replied Burlingame. Mr. Comins, the other Representative from Boston, said the murderous blow that smote down Mr. Sumner was ‘the representative of a power that, having failed to sustain itself in intellectual conflict, resolves itself into brute force, stalks into the Senate Chamber, and there, with bludgeon in hand, beats freedom over the head.’ ‘In your arrogance,’ he said, ‘you assume to be the sole and rightful judges of parliamentary decorum and parliamentary law. We tell you plainly, we will no longer submit to these things.’ This language gave no little offence to Brooks and his friends, but they took no action concerning it. Brooks felt compelled, however, to notice Burlingame's speech. Several days after its delivery, William W. Boyce of South Carolina and Thomas S. Bocock of Virginia, acting for Brooks, met in consultation with Speaker Banks and George Ashmun, who were friends of Burlingame, with a view of arranging the matter either amicably or otherwise. Burlingame was present, and during the consultation expressed his personal regard for Brooks, but condemned the act committed by him. This nice discrimination between the actor and [258] the act was seized upon by the friends of both parties, and it was at once agreed that the affair could be settled upon that declaration. Though the parties and their immediate friends were satisfied, others were not. The arrangement was soon the subject of public comment and unfavorable criticism. Mr. Burlingame having left Washington to enter the Presidential canvass in the West, Mr. Wilson telegraphed him to return immediately, and he did so. On his return, a copy of the Boston Courier of July 18, containing the terms of settlement, and an article severely criticising Mr. Burlingame's action, was placed in his hands by his colleague, Timothy Davis. He immediately declared to Mr. Davis that he would withdraw the whole of his part of the settlement, and he published a card in the National Intelligencer of July 22, in which he placed himself upon his speech, yielding nothing and retracting nothing. Of course, Brooks took action at once, and sent a challenge by Gen. Joseph Lane of Oregon. It was promptly accepted, and the arrangements and details were referred to Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio. Burlingame absented himself from the House, remaining the most of the day in the room of one of his colleagues. Early in the evening he met and walked with Mr. Wilson in the grounds east of the Capitol. He then expected to meet Brooks outside of the District the next morning. He spoke of his wife, his children and friends at home; and, on parting, said: ‘My friend, you know my position; I want you to explain my conduct to my friends, and to defend my memory if anything happens to me.’ Late in the evening he met Mr. Davis and walked with him in the park near the City Hall. He then, at that hour, supposed he should meet Brooks early the next morning; and he confided to his colleague some matters to be used in case he should fall. At parting he remarked: ‘I do not hate Brooks, but I shall kill him.’ Mr. Campbell, who wrote the reply to the challenge, decided that the meeting should be held near the Clifton House in Canada, and sent Mr. Burlingame, late in the night, to take the cars, at the junction in Maryland, for that place. But Brooks declined to meet Burlingame at the place designated, on the alleged ground that, in the then excited state of public feeling at the North, it would not be safe for him to undertake the journey. [259] The friends of freedom generally regretted the course of Mr. Burlingame, though they were not unmindful of the salutary influence which such a response was calculated to exert upon men who had depended largely upon the unwillingness of Northern men to adopt their self-styled ‘code of honor.’ Indeed, he himself did not fully indorse the course he felt constrained to adopt. At a public reception, given him in Boston on the 12th of September, he said: ‘My errors, if errors they were, sprang from the dim light in which I stood and out of a sincere love for the old Bay State. To my mind, a conflict which under other circumstances would have been merely personal and disgraceful, from the standpoint from which I viewed it, rose to the dignity of a great transaction—as a defence of freedom of speech. I should have been wiser, I am certain, if I had followed the noble example set by one now near me, who has ever been my leader, and whom I am proud so to acknowledge—one who represents Massachusetts in her loftiest mood, on her highest plane of action—one whose reason was never dimmed by passion. I pay my full homage to that position here. It is the right position unquestionably.’
