Republican (nationalist) Charles Sumner, of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, concludes a two-day speech on the floor of the Senate, in which he condemned slavery, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and its two chief sponsors Democratic (constitutionalist) Senators Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, and Andrew Pickens Butler, of South Carolina.  The attack on Butler was personal; Sumner accused Butler of miscegenation and mocked him for his physical frailties following a stroke:

       The [S]enator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage.  Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean the harlot, slavery.  For her his tongue is always profuse in words.  Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this [S]enator.

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       [He] touches nothing which he does not disfigure with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact.  He cannot open his mouth, but out there flies a blunder.

       Postscript: Two days later Democratic Representative Preston S. Brooks (a nephew of Butler) assaulted Sumner with his cane, beating him so severely that he was unable to return to the Senate for three years.

       [restored 2/21/2022]