stealing slaves, our bail being fixed at a thousand dollars for each
slave, or seventy-six thousand dollars for each of us.

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: