point."[562]

Douglas paid dearly for some of these personal shots. He had never
forgiven Sumner for his share in "the Appeal of the Independent
Democrats." He lost no opportunity to attribute unworthy motives to
this man, whose radical views on slavery he never could comprehend.
More than once he insinuated that the Senator from Massachusetts and
other Black Republicans were fabricating testimony relating to Kansas
for political purposes. When Sumner, many weeks later, rose to address
the Senate on "the Crime against Kansas," he labored under the double
weight of personal wrongs and the wrongs of a people. The veteran Cass
pronounced his speech "the most un-American and unpatriotic that ever
grated on the ears of the members of this high body."[563] Even
Sumner's friends listened to him with surprise and regret. Of Douglas
he had this to say:

"As the Senator from South Carolina is the Don Quixote, the Senator
from Illinois is the squire of slavery, its very Sancho Panza, ready
to do all its humiliating offices. This Senator in his labored
address, vindicating his labored report--piling one mass of elaborate
error upon another mass--constrained himself, as you will remember, to
unfamiliar decencies of speech.... I will not stop to repel the
imputations which he cast upon myself.... Standing on this floor, the
Senator issued his rescript, requiring submission to the Usurped Power
of Kansas; and this was accompanied by a manner--all his own--such as
befits the tyrannical threat.... He is bold. He shrinks from nothing.
Like Danton, he may cry, _'l'audace! l'audace! tonjours l'audace!'_
but even his audacity cannot compass this work. The Senator copies the
British officer, who, with boastful swagger, said that with the hilt
of his sword he would cram the 'stamps' down the throats of the