Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1856-07-16

stained State, fifty designating the leading
perpetrators and their shameful work and if
violence shall be fully inaugurated, think you
the recollection of these will calm excited
passions, and cause more forbearance to a rua
nous and hated institution. l have never
before trespassed for one moment upon the
time of the House. but with unanimous,
enlightened, and patriotic constituency, look
with deep anxiety for action on these resolu-
tons. For myself, l wish to have it practi-
caly decided, whether parliamentary law aud
the Constitution are any longer to be enforced
and maintained on the floor of Congress, or
whether we have already and inevitably come
to the law of the bludgeon. court no dis
turbance, but the privileges of debate shall
not, so far as l am concerned, be infringed.
With an endeavor and a design always to cul-
tivate courtesy, l shall not hesitate here in my
| place or elsewhere, to freely characterize as
they deserve, any lofty assumptions of arro-
| gance, or any mean achievements of coward
ice. | say again, let the vote come, and if
honorable gentlemen cannot wholly rid them
selves of an unwelcome presence, they can at
least show their appreciation of an action
wanting few of the elements of the most
! dacious crime, and Of spirit equal TO deeds
| that will not name. l hold in my hand Mr..
| Speaker, the resolutions of the Legislature of
| Connecticut, which was in session at the time
this outrage occurred, which will read
| Whereas. A Senator of the United States has
| been assailed with brutal and cowardly violence
| on the floor of the Senate Chamber in the Ma
uonal Capitol, and gross injuries inflicted upon
his person, avowedly as punishment for words
| spoken IN the ordinary course OF debate therefore
| ReSotoed By the assembly, That the outrage
thus committed is at once crime against law,
| hagrant violation of the Constitution, a breach
OF the privileges OF Congress, and disgrace to
the national reputation.
| ReSotoe6, That the perpetrator thereof should
| Immediately be expelled from his seat in the
House of Representatives in the present Con-
| gress, and the members thereof from this State
are requested to use their most earnest efforts to
accomplish that result.
| HeSotUed That on this occasion Connecticut
| SENDS to Massachusetts traternal greeting. AS
our fathers stood side by side at Bunker's HILL
| when the great conflict for Civil and Political
| Liberty began, will their sons stand in the
assertion and defense of Freedom for Thought
| and Speech.
| ReSotoed, That his Excellency the Governor
| De requested to transmit Immediately copy of
the foregoing preamble and resolutions to the
| Governor of Massachusetts to be laid before the
| Legislature Of that State. now in session, and
| ike copy to each of our Senators and Represent
| atlves in Congress.
These resolutions, which l fully endorse,
are expressive of the feelings of the people of
the State which l have the honor in part to
represent; of the State Sir, which furnished
more men than any other State of the Union,
save Massachusetts, to fight the battles of the
Revolution. Her gallant sons left their plows'
IN the burrows, and their hocks and herds in
the field, and gathered in their work day gar
ments to seek redress tor the wrongs infict.
ed on them by the naughty monarch of Eng
land. They dyed their garments in their own
blood, and left their bones to bleach on the
plains of South Carolina, and upon the soil of
nearly every battle field of the Revolution
They were true men, and though badly equip.
ped, and poorly paid. they did what they went
out to do-they conquered. The names of
her heroes are household words at every pa
triotic hearthstone in the land, and are but
other names for Liberty or Death. And let
me tell you, Mr.. Speaker, that the spirit of
true courage in Connecticut STILL LIVES. Her
sons have not forgotten that they fought on
Southern as well as Northern soil they have
fulfilled all their obligations to their Southern
brethren. They have done more; they have
borne reproach and insult; they have seen a
Massachusetts senator stricken down in his
seat IN the Senate Chamber by the hand of vi.
olence That hand was the hand of South
Carolina. Her people have endorsed the act
and make 1t their own and it is now for
Massachusetts to determine how and when
she will return the blow. only wish to say
that when that blow comes, Connecticut, as
in the days when she stood " side by side and
shoulder to shoulder" in the Revolution, will
strike with her.
Now for the sequel. When Mr.. w. con-
Guided, Mr.. Brooks, who sat in the next seat
facing him, looked sternly at Mr.. Woodruff,
and, bowling his head with great indignation,
uttered sentence which Mr.. w. did not hear,
About ten minutes afterwards, Col. Savage of
tennessee, waited upon Mr.. Woodruff, and
informed him that he accosted him as the
''friend of Col Brooks, and desired to know
if he (Woodruff) recognized the "code of
honor" Mr. Woodruff replied, recognise
no code opposed to the laws of my country