“Mr. Sumner was stricken down on this floor by a brutal, murderous, and cowardly assault.”
At this point he was interrupted by Hon. A. P. Butler, of South Carolina, according to the unamended report of the newspapers, by the exclamation from his seat,--
“Mr. Butler, in his seat, impulsively uttered words which Senators around advised him were not parliamentary, and he subsequently, at the instance of Senators, requested that the words might be withdrawn.”
Hon. Lafayette S. Foster, of Connecticut, followed.
“As I understood the honorable Senator from Georgia to remark that he approved of striking forcibly down in this Chamber a member of the Senate, I think it incumbent on me, recently a member of this body, and not having participated in its debates, to say a word.”
Mr. Foster then proceeded to vindicate liberty of speech.
Shortly afterwards, in another speech, Senator Butler said of Mr. Sumner:--
“Though his friends have invested him with the dress of Achilles and offered him his armor, he has shown that he is only able to fight with the weapons of Thersites, _and deserved what that brawler received from the hands of the gallant Ulysses_.”[146]
The declaration of Mr. Wilson, that the attack upon Mr. Sumner was “a brutal, murderous, and cowardly assault,” incensed the friends of Mr. Brooks, and many threats of personal violence were made. General Lane, of Oregon, afterward Democratic candidate for Vice-President, called upon Mr. Wilson, and placed a challenge from Mr. Brooks in his hands. Mr. Wilson promptly placed in General Lane’s hands, contrary to the urgent advice of Mr. Giddings and other friends, who thought his reply might bring on a personal conflict, an answer to his hostile note, in which he said:--
“I characterized, on the floor of the Senate, the assault upon my colleague as ‘brutal, murderous, and cowardly.’ I thought so then: I think so now: I have no qualification whatever to make in regard to those words. I have never entertained, in the Senate or elsewhere, the idea of personal responsibility, in the sense of the duellist. I have always regarded duelling as the lingering relic of a barbarous civilization, which the law of the country has branded as crime. While, therefore, I religiously believe in the right of self-defence in its broadest sense, the law of my country and the matured convictions of my whole life alike forbid me to meet you for the purpose indicated in your letter.”