Meanwhile, both houses of Congress became the scenes of very warm debates, growing out of circumstances connected with our case.  In the Senate, Mr. Hale, agreeably to the notice he had given, asked leave to introduce a bill for the protection of property in the District of Columbia against the violence of mobs.  This bill, as was stated in the debate, was copied, almost word for word, from a law in force in the State of Maryland (and many other states have—­and all ought to have—­a similar law), making the cities and towns liable for any property which might be destroyed in them by mob violence.  In the House the subject came up on a question of privilege, raised by Mr. Palfrey, of Massachusetts, who offered a resolution for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the currently-reported facts that a lawless mob had assembled during the two previous nights, setting at defiance the constituted authorities of the United States, and menacing members of Congress and other persons.  In both those bodies the debate was very warm, as any one interested in it will find, by reading it in the columns of the Congressional Globe.

It was upon this occasion, during the debate in the Senate, that Mr. Foote, then a senator from Mississippi, and now governor of that state, whose speech on the French revolution has been already quoted, threatened to join in lynching Mr. Hale, if he ever set foot in Mississippi, whither he invited him to come for that purpose.  This part of the debate was so peculiar and so characteristic, showing so well the spirit with which the District of Columbia was then blazing against me, that I cannot help giving the following extract from Mr. Foote’s speech, as contained in the official report: 

“All must see that the course of the senator from New Hampshire is calculated to embroil the confederacy—­to put in peril our free institutions—­to jeopardize that Union which our forefathers established, and which every pure patriot throughout the country desires shall be perpetuated.  Can any man be a patriot who pursues such a course?  Is he an enlightened friend of freedom, or even a judicious friend of those with whom he affects to sympathize, who adopts such a course?  Who does not know that such men are, practically, the worst enemies of the slaves?  I do not beseech the gentleman to stop; but, if he perseveres, he will awaken indignation everywhere, and it cannot be that enlightened men, who conscientiously belong to the faction at the north of which he is understood to be the head, can sanction or approve everything that he may do, under the influence of excitement, in this body.  I will close by saying that, if he really wishes glory, and to be regarded as the great liberator of the blacks,—­if he wishes to be particularly distinguished in this cause of emancipation, as it is called,—­let him, instead of remaining here in the Senate of the United States, or instead of secreting himself