CONTENTS OF VOLUME V.
THE ANTISLAVERY ENTERPRISE:
ITS NECESSITY, PRACTICABILITY, AND DIGNITY;
WITH GLANCES AT
THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF THE NORTH.
Address before the People of New York, at the Metropolitan Theatre, May 9, 1855.
The principles of true politics are those of morality enlarged; and I neither now do nor ever will admit of any other.—Burke, Letter to the Bishop of Chester: Correspondence, Vol. I. p. 332.
True politics I look on as a part of moral philosophy, which is nothing but the art of conducting men right in society, and supporting a community amongst its neighbors.—John Locke, Letter to the Earl of Peterborough: Life, by Lord King, Vol. I. p. 9.
Malus usus abolendus est.—Law Maxim.
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.—Matthew, viii. 12.
You have among you many a purchased slave,
Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts,
Because you bought them.
Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice.
From Guinea’s coast pursue the lessening sail,
And catch the sounds that sadden every gale.
Tell, if thou canst, the sum of sorrows there;
Mark the fixed gaze, the wild and frenzied glare,
The racks of thought, and freezings of despair!
But pause not then,—beyond the western wave,
Go, view the captive bartered as a slave!
Rogers, Pleasures of Memory.
Through the influence of the late Dr. James W. Stone, an indefatigable Republican, a course of lectures was organized in Boston especially for the discussion of Slavery. This course marks the breaking of the seal on the platform. Mr. Sumner undertook to open this course, which was to begin in the week after his address before the Mercantile Library Association; but he was prevented by sudden disability from a cold. His excuse was contained in the following letter.
“Hancock Street, 23d November, 1854.
“My dear Sir,—An unkindly current of air is often more penetrating than an arrow. From such a shaft I suffered on the night of my address to the Mercantile Library Association, more than a week ago, and no care or skill has been efficacious to relieve me. I am admonished alike by painful consciousness and by the good physician into whose hands I have fallen, that I am not equal to the service I have undertaken on Thursday evening.
“Fitly to inaugurate that course of lectures would task the best powers in best health of any man. Most reluctantly, but necessarily, I must lose sight of the inspiring company there assembled in the name of Freedom to sit in judgment on Slavery, and postpone till some other opportunity what I had hoped to say. You, who know the effort I have made to rally for this occasion, will appreciate my personal disappointment.
“It is my habit to keep my engagements. Not for a single day have I been absent from my seat in the Senate during the three sessions in which duty has called me there; and never before, in the course of numerous undertakings to address public bodies, at different times and in different places, has there been any failure through remissness or disability on my part.
“Pardon these allusions, which I make that you may better understand my feelings, now that I am compelled to depart for the moment from a cherished rule of fidelity.
“Ever faithfully yours,
“Charles Sumner.
“Dr. Stone.”
Failing to open the course, Mr. Sumner closed it, on his return from Washington in the spring, with the following address, which he was called to repeat in the same hall a few days later. Yielding to friendly pressure, he consented to repeat it at several places in New York, among which was Auburn, the residence of Mr. Seward, by whom he was introduced to the audience in the following words.
“Fellow-Citizens,—A dozen years ago I was honored by being chosen to bring my neighbors residing here to the acquaintance of a statesman of Massachusetts who was then directing the last energies of an illustrious life to the removal of the crime of Human Slavery from the soil of our beloved country,—a statesman whose course I had chosen for my own guidance,—John Quincy Adams, ‘the old man eloquent.’
“He has ascended to heaven: you and I yet remain here, in the field of toil and duty. And now, by a rare felicity, I have your instructions to present to you another statesman of Massachusetts, him on whose shoulders the mantle of the departed one has fallen, and who more than any other of the many great and virtuous citizens of his native Commonwealth illustrates the spirit of the teacher whom, like us, he venerated and loved so much,—a companion and friend of my own public labors,—the young ‘man eloquent,’—Charles Sumner.”
In the city of New York the same address formed the last of an Antislavery course. It was delivered in the Metropolitan Theatre, before a crowded audience, May 9, 1855. Mr. Sumner had never before spoken in New York. He was introduced by Hon. William Jay, in the following words.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,—I have been requested, on the part of the Society, to perform the pleasing, but unnecessary, office of introducing to you the honored and well-known advocate of Justice, Humanity, and Freedom, Charles Sumner. It is not for his learning and eloquence that I commend him to your respectful attention; for learning, eloquence, and even theology itself, have been prostituted in the service of an institution well described by John Wesley as the sum of all villanies. I introduce him to you as a Northern Senator on whom Nature has conferred the unusual gift of a backbone,—a man who, standing erect on the floor of Congress, amid creeping things from the North, with Christian fidelity denounces the stupendous wickedness of the Fugitive Law and the Nebraska Perfidy, and in the name of Liberty, Humanity, and Religion demands the repeal of those most atrocious enactments. May the words he is about to utter be impressed on your consciences and influence your conduct.”
The reception of the address attested the change in the public mind. Frederick Douglass, who was present, wrote:—
“Metropolitan Theatre was literally packed, and, for two hours and a half, the vast audience, with attention unwearied, and with interest rising with every sentence which dropped from the speaker, indorsed sentiments which many of the same parties would five years ago have stoned any one for uttering.”
The Tribune said:—
“Mr. Sumner’s speech last night was the greatest oratorical and logical success of the year, and was most enthusiastically praised by the largest audience yet gathered in New York to hear a lecture.”
The interest was such, that he was constrained, much against his own disposition, to repeat it in Brooklyn, where he was introduced by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and then again at Niblo’s Theatre, New York, where he was introduced by Joseph Blunt, Esq. The concluding words of Mr. Beecher were as follows.
“I am to introduce to you a statesman who follows a long train of representatives and statesmen who were false to the North, false to Liberty; and then they made a complaint that there was no North! It was because the North lost faith in her recreant children. It lost faith in its traitors, and not in Liberty. But now, if the haughty Southerners wish to engage in any more conflicts of this kind, I think they will have to find some other than the speaker to-night with whom to break a lance. [Loud cheers.] I do not wish merely to introduce to you the ‘honorable gentleman’ sent from Massachusetts as a United States Senator; my wish is to do better than that; I wish to introduce to you the MAN,—Charles Sumner. [Loud applause.]”
The Tribune spoke thus of these meetings:—
“That a lecture should be repeated in New York is a rare occurrence. That a lecture on Antislavery should be repeated in New York, even before a few despised ‘fanatics,’ is an unparalleled occurrence. But that an Antislavery lecture should be repeated night after night to successive multitudes, each more enthusiastic than the last, marks the epoch of a revolution in popular feeling; it is an era in the history of Liberty. Niblo’s Theatre was crowded last evening long before the hour of commencement. Hundreds stood through the three hours’ lecture. We give a full report of the words, but only of the words.”
Other newspapers were enthusiastic in their comments.
The National Era, at Washington, in printing the address, said of its delivery in Metropolitan Hall:—
“Mr. Sumner closed, as he had continued, amid loud and protracted applause. Especially at the point when he said that the Fugitive Slave Bill must be made a dead letter, the audience seemed wild with enthusiasm. Handkerchiefs waved from fair hands, and reporters almost forgot their stolid unconcern.”
Such extracts might be multiplied. Beyond these was the testimony of individuals gratified at the hearing obtained for cherished sentiments. One wrote from Philadelphia as follows.
“I cannot forbear, not for your gratification, but for my own, to testify my unbounded sympathy and satisfaction in the Three Days’ Ovation of May that you have enjoyed in New York, in reward of your faithful sentinelship on the ramparts of Liberty in that sin-beleaguered fortress, the Capitol at Washington, faithfully supporting the cause of the weak against insolence and haughty vulgarity.… You have gloriously and faithfully withstood obloquy and reproach: the hour of triumph is now well assured.”
Another wrote from Albany:—
“I have never read anything so magnificent as your Lecture in the Independent. How I wish I could have heard it! Letters from judges in such matters inform me that no speech in New York for many years has produced such a sensation.”
Count Gurowski, writing from Brattleboro’, Vermont, expressed his enthusiastic sympathy, and at the same time predicted the adverse feeling among slave-masters.
“I have just finished the reading of your admirable Oration. I am en extase. I was near to cry.… But you have thrown the gauntlet once more to the ‘gentlemen from the South,’ bravely, decidedly, and pitilessly. Do not be astonished, if they shall send you, covered with laurels as you are, to Coventry. This undoubtedly they will do.”
These extracts show something of public sentiment at this stage of the great contest with Slavery. From this time forward the discussion broadened and deepened.