I think the point of the speech was slavery=not gentlemanly so no matter how courteous their Southern manners were the slave industry shills in Congress were not gentleman.
I think that’s a good point.
Even if it’s not it’s not license for violent assault in the halls of Congress.
As for the slaves, we should have repatriated them to Africa (no matter the cost or whether they wanted to go or not, in the long run it would have been for the best).
“Well you wouldn’t want them living by you”, is not a valid defense of the institution of slavery.
I think this was a moot point by the 1850s. The slave trade had been abolished in 1808 and the vast majority of slaves living in the United States at the time were not only born there, but had lived there for generations. One of the reasons Liberia failed so miserably is that the country was created entirely by American born blacks being "returned" to Africa when they had absolutely no concept of life in Africa or African culture.
The general consensus of Republicans after the civil war was that the former slaves should be integrated into American society and made full citizens of this country. That was probably the wisest course of action but in reality it took another century to achieve thanks to racist RATs fighting it tooth and nail.
I think the feelings were mutual on both sides as to which were lacking in gentlemanly traits.
Repatriation of slaves to Africa was impractical by that point, other than for those who had memories of Africa and were taken across the ocean in their lifetime. As pointed out, those that went back to Liberia were so thoroughly Americanized that they were outright aliens and both groups never formally were able to assimilate into a single nationality to this day.
The comment I made wasn’t a defense of slavery, but an expose of the hypocrisy of many Northern Abolitionists. It’s quite similar to the Democrats today wanting to import illegals and Mohammadans en masse, but they’d never have them living in their homes and neighborhoods. Many Northern politicians quietly enacted laws post-Civil War to make sure few to no Blacks were permitted to move into their communities. Good enough to free so long as they stayed far away in the South.