Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1882 — A Scene in the Senate. [ARTICLE]

A Scene in the Senate.

There is no man on the Democratic side who is more respected than Senator Butler, of South Carolina. He is conservative, broad-minded and at the head of advanced public opinion in his State. Some years ago slanderers indentified him as one of the principals in the celebrated Hamburg massacre. It has been Shown over and over again that Mr. Butler was absent from the scene of the massacre when it began, that he went there as a peacemaker, and that had it not been for his presence, much more blood would have been shed. He is one of the most admirable men of the best typ9 of Southern representatives in Congress. He has none of the passion or rant of the extreme Southerners. He is always cool and self-possessed, with the air and manner of the most polished gentleman. His record as an officer in the Confederate service' daring the war was one of the most brilliant. Since the war he has recognized the fact that it was over, and has done all in his power to bring his own people up to the level of the civilization of the North. He understands only too well that every outrage committed in his State is a blow at its material interests, and no one has worked harder than he to maintain law and order at home. Yesterday a new member from Pennsylvania, named Miller, sought notoriety by reviving the slauders heaped upon Mr. Butler at the tune of this Hamburg massacre. This WM in direct violation of ail parliament*

ary rules, as the members of Congress are forbidden to attack or cast reflections upon members of the branch to which they do not belong. Mr. Batler rose this morning, when the Senate was called to order, to a question of privilege, with The Record in his hand. He stood in the middle of the Democratic side. * His t&ll manly figure and clear-cut face wearing a look of intense gravity, at once attracted the attention of every one. In a clear, even voice, without a vibration of passion, he said: Mb. President : I observe in the Record this morning that a person in another place made a wanton attack on my character, and committed a breach of the privileges of this body, for which he was not called to order, in discussing a contested-election case. I shall not, at this late day, be betrayed into a controversy with this individual, whose acquaintance I have never bad the misfortune to make, but shall, rather, leave him to the judgment and contempt of all honorable men for attacking another in a forum where he (under cover of the privileges of that for um) could not be answered for declining to allow the correction of the falsehoods he was uttering, garbling of the evidence, perversion of the truth, and falsification of the record, and for refusing to give the person attacked the benefit of his own statement- I have withstood the mastiffs of the radical party in the past, fcnd can afford to dismiss with this brief notioe the yelping of this cur of low degree. The name of this creature, I believe, is Samuel H. Miller. Daring the delivery of Senator Butler’s reply to Mr. Miller ±he Senate was as quiet as the tomb. The silence wai almost awful, and the attack and reply seemed to be received as Qipinous of proceedings more serious than a mere political contest. All through this little speech there was most absolute silence. Every eye was turned toward the Senator. When he had concluded he turned easily and walked back, where several Senators of both parties congratulated him upon the clear and direct stand that he had taken, first in asserting the rights of the Senate as against the criticism of a member of the House, and, second, his very proper denunciation of this miserable slander.— Washington telegram to Chicago Times.