If ever a high-minded man can be justified in promptly resenting insult and injury, surely Col. Brooks will receive from the people of his own State, at least, the mead of a most cordial approval. The South certainly has become generally convinced that it is by hard blows, and not by loud blustering and insulting denunciation, that the sectional quarrel is to be settled. The remarks made by Mr. Sumner, which provoked this assault, were malignant and insulting beyond anything ever uttered in coolness upon the floor of the Senate. As there have been political crimes in all ages, so there have been in all ages Doughfaces to defend them. We believe there are some kinds of slander and abuse, for the perpetration of which, no office or station should protect a man from deserved punishment.
Madness rules the hour, in nullification-ridden Massachusetts.
Slavery shows its paternity of the deed by its thorough ratification. A community of Abolitionists could only be governed by a penitentiary system. They are as unfit for liberty as maniacs, criminals, or wild beasts. The course of a portion of the Southern press is no less reprehensible in applauding the brutal and deadly assault of Brooks upon the person of a United States Senator upon the floor of the Senate chamber. The fault was not with our citizens, but with those who directly and indirectly lent their countenance to the ruffianly conduct of Brooks.