"I will say it," replied Sumner. "No person with the upright form of man can be allowed, without violation of all decency, to switch out from his tongue the perpetual stench of offensive personality.
Sir, that is not a proper weapon of debate, at least on this floor.
The noisome, squat and nameless animal to which I now refer is not a proper model for an American Senator. Will the Senator from Illinois take notice?""I will," answered Douglas, "and therefore will not imitate you in that capacity, recognizing the force of the illustration.""Again," replied Sumner, "the Senator has switched his tongue and again he fills the Senate with its offensive odor."Two days after the speech, Preston H. Brooks, a relative of Butler, who represented a district of South Carolina in the House, entered the Senate Chamber after adjournment and, finding Sumner in his seat writing, approached him and struck him down with a heavy cane. There was a brief struggle in which Sumner was stunned and severely injured.
When the assault occurred Douglas was in the reception room adjoining the Senate Chamber conversing with friends. A messenger ran in shouting that someone was beating Mr. Sumner. He rose intending to interfere in the fray, but, recalling their unpleasant relations, returned to his seat. When the violence was ended he went to the Chamber to see the result. Sumner, dazed, bruised and bleeding, had been helped to his feet and was leaning against a chair. Douglas cast a momentary glance at the victim of this brutal and cowardly outrage, then passed on without comment.
On the day before the assault, the Missouri ruffians had sacked the town of Lawrence. On the day following, John Brown's Pottawotamie adventure occurred. A crisis was at hand imperiously demanding more effective action on the part of Congress. The country was aroused, alarmed and horrified. The Conventions were to be held in June and it was necessary that the Democrats bestir themselves and make some disposition of the harassing problem of Kansas.
The existing condition in the hag-ridden Territory was directly chargeable to a measure whose authorship Douglas had boasted. There was danger that the tragic failure of his masterpiece of state-craft would wreck his party and load his own name with odium which even his rugged vitality could not throw off. Such uncontrollable passion had been stirred by his pending bill that it seemed prudent to quietly drop it.
On the 24th of June, Toombs introduced a bill providing for the taking of a census, the holding of an election of delegates to a Constitutional Convention, and the orderly organization of a State.
It was referred to Douglas' Committee, which promptly reported back an amended bill so infinitely better than the measures thus far attempted that it seemed comparatively just. It provided for the appointment of commissioners to prepare lists of all citizens over twenty-one years old resident in the Territory since the 4th of July, who were to vote at the election; also for the holding of a Convention, the drafting of a Constitution and the admission of the State.
