III.
It remains to show, in the third place, that the Antislavery Enterprise, which stands before you at once necessary and practicable, is commended by inherent Dignity. Here reasons are obvious and unanswerable.
Its object is benevolent; nor is there in the dreary annals of the Past a single enterprise more clearly and indisputably entitled to this character. With unsurpassed and touching magnanimity, it seeks to benefit the lowly whom your eyes have not seen, and who are ignorant even of your labors, while it demands and receives a self-sacrifice calculated to ennoble an enterprise of even questionable merit. Its true rank is among works properly called philanthropic,—the title of highest honor on earth. “I take goodness in this sense,” says Lord Bacon in his Essays, “the affecting of the weal of men, which is that the Grecians call Philanthropia, … of all virtues and dignities of the mind the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin.”[16] Lord Bacon was right, and perhaps unconsciously followed a higher authority; for, when Moses asked the Lord to show him his glory, the Lord said, “I will make all my goodness pass before thee.”[17] Ah! Sir, Peace has trophies fairer and more perennial than any snatched from fields of blood, but, among all these, the fairest and most perennial are the trophies of beneficence. Scholarship, literature, jurisprudence, art, may wear their well-deserved honors; but an enterprise of goodness deserves, and will yet receive, a higher palm than these.
In other aspects its dignity is apparent. It concerns the cause of Human Freedom, which from earliest days has been the darling of History. By all the memories of the Past, by the stories of childhood and the studies of youth, by every example of magnanimous virtue, by every aspiration for the good and true, by the fame of martyrs swelling through all time, by the renown of patriots whose lives are landmarks of progress, by the praise lavished upon our fathers, are you summoned to this work. Unless Freedom be an illusion, and Benevolence an error, you cannot resist the appeal. Who can doubt that our cause is nobler even than that of our fathers? for is it not more exalted to struggle for the freedom of others than for our own?
Its practical importance at this moment gives to it additional eminence. Whether measured by the number of beings it seeks to benefit, by the magnitude of the wrongs it hopes to relieve, by the difficulties with which it is beset, by the political relations which it affects, or by the ability and character it enlists, the cause of the slave now assumes proportions of grandeur which dwarf all other interests in our broad country. In its presence the machinations of politicians, the aspirations of office-seekers, and the subterfuges of party, all sink below even their ordinary insignificance. For myself, Sir, I see among us at this time little else by which an honest man, wishing to leave the world better than he found it, can be tempted out upon the exposed steeps of public life. I see little else which can afford any of those satisfactions an honest man should covet. Nor is there any cause so surely promising final success:—
“Oh! a fair cause stands firm and will abide;
Legions of angels fight upon her side!”[18]
It is written that in the last days there shall be scoffers, and even this Enterprise, thus philanthropic, does not escape their aspersions. As the objections to its Necessity were twofold, and the objections to its Practicability twofold, so also are the aspersions twofold,—first, in the form of hard words, and, secondly, by personal disparagement of those engaged in it.
1. The hard words are manifold as the passions and prejudices of men; but they generally end in the imputation of “fanaticism.” In such a cause I am willing to be called “fanatic,” or what you will; I care not for aspersions, nor shall I shrink before hard words, either here or elsewhere. They do not hurt. “My dear Doctor,” said Johnson to Goldsmith, “what harm does it do any man to call him Holofernes?” From that great Englishman, Oliver Cromwell, I have learned that one cannot be trusted “who is afraid of a paper pellet”; and I am too familiar with history not to know that every movement for reform, in Church or State, every endeavor for Human Liberty or Human Rights, has been thus assailed. I do not forget with what facility and frequency hard words are employed: how that grandest character of many generations, the precursor of our own Washington, without whose example our Republic might have failed, the great William, Prince of Orange, founder of the Dutch Republic, the United States of Holland,—I do not forget how he was publicly branded as “a perjurer and a pest of society”; and, not to dwell on general instances, how the enterprise for the abolition of the slave-trade was characterized on the floor of Parliament, by one eminent speaker as “mischievous,” and by another as “visionary and delusive”; and how the exalted characters which it enlisted were arraigned by still another eminent speaker,—none other than that Tarleton, so conspicuous as commander of the British horse in the Southern campaigns of our Revolution, but more conspicuous in politics at home,—“as a junto of sectaries, sophists, enthusiasts, and fanatics”; and yet again were arraigned by no less a person than a prince of the blood, the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William the Fourth of England, as “either fanatics or hypocrites,” in one of which categories he openly placed William Wilberforce.[19] Impartial History, with immortal pen, has redressed these impassioned judgments; nor has the voice of the poet been wanting:—
“Thy country, Wilberforce, with just disdain,
Hears thee by cruel men and impious called
Fanatic, for thy zeal to loose the inthralled
From exile, public sale, and slavery’s chain.”[20]
But the same impartial History will yet re-judge the impassioned judgments of this hour.
2. Hard words have been followed by personal disparagement, and the sneer is often raised that our Enterprise lacks the authority of names eminent in Church and State. If this be so, the more is the pity on their account; for our cause is needful to them more than they are needful to our cause. Alas! it is only according to example of history that it should be so. It is not the eminent in Church and State, the rich and powerful, the favorites of fortune and of place, who most promptly welcome Truth, when she heralds change in the existing order of things. It is others in poorer condition who open hospitable hearts to the unattended stranger. This is a sad story, beginning with the Saviour, whose disciples were fishermen, and ending only in our own day. Each generation has its instances. But the cause cannot be judged by any such indifference. Strong in essential truth, it awaits the day, surely at hand, when all will flock to its support. As the rights of man are at last recognized, the scoffers, now so heartless, will forget to scoff.
And now, Sir, I present to you the Antislavery Enterprise vindicated, in Necessity, Practicability, and Dignity, against all objection. If there be any which I have not answered, it is because I am not aware of its existence. It remains that I should give a practical conclusion to this whole matter, by showing, though in glimpses only, your Special Duties as Freemen of the North. And, thank God! at last there is a North.
Mr. President, it is not uncommon to hear persons among us at the North confess the wrong of Slavery, and then, folding the hands in absolute listlessness, ejaculate, “What can we do about it?” Such we encounter daily. You all know them. Among them are men in every department of human activity,—who perpetually buy, build, and plan,—who shrink from no labor,—who are daunted by no peril of commercial adventure, by no hardihood of industrial enterprise,—who, reaching in their undertakings across ocean and continent, would promise to “put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes”; and yet, disheartened, they can join in no effort against Slavery. Others there are, especially among the youthful and enthusiastic, who vainly sigh because they were not born in the age of Chivalry, or at least in the days of the Revolution, not thinking that in this Enterprise there is opportunity for lofty endeavor such as no Paladin of Chivalry or chief of the Revolution enjoyed. Others there are who freely bestow means and time upon distant, inaccessible heathen of another hemisphere, in islands of the sea; and yet they can do nothing to mitigate our graver heathenism here at home. While confessing that it ought to disappear from the earth, they forego, renounce, and abandon all effort to this end. Others there are still (such is human inconsistency!) who plant the tree in whose full-grown shade they can never expect to sit,—who hopefully drop the acorn in the earth, trusting that the oak which it sends upward to the skies will shelter their children beneath its shade; but they do nothing to plant or nurture the great tree of Liberty, that it may shield with its arms unborn generations of men.
Others still there are, particularly in large cities, who content themselves with occasional contribution to the redemption of a slave. To this object they give out of ample riches, and thus seek to silence the monitions of conscience. I would not discountenance any activity by which Human Freedom, even in a single case, may be secured; but I desire to say that such an act—too often accompanied by pharisaical pretension, in contrast with the petty performance—cannot be considered essential aid to the Antislavery Enterprise. Not in this way can impression be made on an evil so vast as Slavery,—so widely scattered, and so exhaustless in its unnatural supply. The god Thor, of Scandinavian mythology, whose power surpassed that of Hercules, was once challenged to drain dry a simple cup. He applied it to his lips, and with superhuman capacity drank, but the water did not recede even from the rim, and at last the god abandoned the trial. The failure of even his extraordinary prowess was explained, when he learned that the cup communicated, by invisible connection, with the whole vast ocean behind, out of which it was perpetually supplied, and which remained absolutely unaffected by the effort. And just so will these occasions of charity, though encountered by the largest private means, be constantly renewed; for they communicate with the whole Black Sea of Slavery behind, out of which they are perpetually supplied, and which remains absolutely unaffected by the effort. Sir, private means may cope with individual necessities, but they are powerless to redress the evils of a wicked institution. Charity is limited and local; the evils of Slavery are infinite and everywhere. Besides, a wrong organized and upheld by law can be removed only through change of the law. Not, then, by occasional contribution to ransom a slave can your duty be done in this great cause, but only by earnest, constant, valiant effort against the institution, against the law, which makes slaves.
I am not insensible to the difficulties of this work. Full well I know the power of Slavery. Full well I know all its various intrenchments in the Church, the politics, and the prejudices of the country. Full well I know the wakeful interests of property, amounting to many hundred millions of dollars, which are said to be at stake. But these things can furnish no motive or apology for indifference, or any folding of the hands. Surely the wrong is not less wrong because gigantic; the evil is not less evil because immeasurable; nor can the duty of perpetual warfare with wrong and evil be in this instance suspended. Nay, because Slavery is powerful, because the Enterprise is difficult, therefore is the duty of all more exigent. The well-tempered soul does not yield to difficulties, but presses onward forever with increased resolution.
But the question recurs, so often pressed in argument, or in taunt, What have we at the North to do with Slavery? In answer, I might content myself by saying, that, as members of the human family, bound together by cords of common manhood, there is no human wrong to which we can be insensible, nor is there any human sorrow which we should not seek to relieve; but I prefer to say, on this occasion, that, as citizens of the United States, anxious for the good name, the repose, and the prosperity of the Republic, that it may be a blessing and not a curse to mankind, there is nothing among all its diversified interests, under the National Constitution, with which, at this moment, we have so much to do; nor is there anything with regard to which our duties are so irresistibly clear. I do not dwell on the scandal of Slavery in the national capital, of Slavery in the national territories, of the coastwise slave-trade on the high seas beneath the national flag,—all of which are outside State limits, and within the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, where you and I, Sir, and every freeman of the North, are compelled to share the giant sin and help to bind its chain. To dislodge Slavery from these usurped footholds, and thus at once relieve ourselves from grievous responsibility, and begin the great work of Emancipation, were an object worthy an exalted ambition. But before even this can be commenced, there is a great work, more than any other important and urgent, which must be consummated in the domain of national politics, and also here at home in the Free States. The National Government itself must be emancipated, so that it shall no longer wear the yoke of servitude; and Slavery in all its pretensions must be dislodged from a usurped foothold in the Free States themselves, thus relieving ourselves from serious responsibility at our own door, and emancipating the North. Emancipation, even within the national jurisdiction, can be achieved only through emancipation of the Free States, accompanied by complete emancipation of the National Government. Ay, Sir, emancipation at the South can be reached only through emancipation of the North. And this is my answer to the interrogatory, What have we at the North to do with Slavery?
But the answer may be made yet more irresistible, while, with mingled sorrow and shame, I portray the tyrannical power which holds us in thraldom. Notwithstanding all its excess of numbers, wealth, and intelligence, the North is now the vassal of an OLIGARCHY, whose single inspiration comes from Slavery. According to official tables of our recent census, the slave-masters, all told, are only THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVEN THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE;[21] and yet this small company now dominates over the Republic, determines its national policy, disposes of its offices, and sways all to its absolute will. With a watchfulness that never sleeps and an activity that never tires, the SLAVE OLIGARCHY asserts its perpetual and insatiate masterdom,—now seizing a broad territory once covered by a time-honored ordinance of Freedom,—now threatening to wrest Cuba from Spain by violent war, or hardly less violent purchase,—now hankering for another slice of Mexico, merely to find new scope for Slavery,—now proposing once more to open the hideous, Heaven-defying Slave-Trade, thus replenishing its shambles with human flesh,—and now, by the lips of an eminent Senator, asserting an audacious claim to the whole group of the West Indies, whether held by Holland, Spain, France, or England, as “our Southern islands,”[22] while it assails the independence of Hayti, and extends its treacherous ambition even to the distant valley of the Amazon.
For all this tyranny there must be tools, and these are found through a new test for office, where Slavery is the shibboleth. Nobody, throughout this Republic, who cannot repeat the hateful word, is taken,—nobody, unless faithful to Slavery, is accepted for any post under the National Government. Yes, let it be proclaimed, that now at last, not honesty, not capacity, not fidelity to the Constitution is the test for office, but unhesitating support of Slavery. This is fidelity, this is loyalty, according to the new dispensation. And thus the strength of the whole people is transfused into this oligarchy. The Constitution, the flag itself, and everything we call our own, is degraded to this wicked rule.
And this giant strength is used with giant heartlessness. By cruel enactment, which has no source in the Constitution, which defies justice, tramples on humanity, and rebels against God, the Free States are made the hunting-ground for slaves, and you and I and all good citizens are pressed to join in the loathsome and abhorred work. Your hearts and judgments, swift to feel and to condemn, will not require me to expose here the abomination of the Fugitive Slave Bill, or its unconstitutionality. Elsewhere I have done this, and never been answered. Nor will you expect that an enactment so entirely devoid of all just sanction should be called by the sacred name of law. History still repeats the language in which our fathers persevered, when they denounced the last emanation of British tyranny which heralded the Revolution, as the Boston Port Bill; and I am content with this precedent. I have said, that, if any man finds in the Gospel any support of Slavery, it is because Slavery is already in himself; so do I now say, if any man finds in the Constitution of our country any support of the Fugitive Slave Bill, it is because that bill is already in himself. One of our ancient masters—Aristotle, I think—tells us that every man has a beast in his bosom; but the Northern citizen who has the Fugitive Slave Bill there has worse than a beast,—a devil! And yet in this bill, more even than in the ostracism at which you rebel, does the Slave Oligarchy stand confessed,—heartless, grasping, tyrannical,—careless of humanity, right, or the Constitution,—whose foundation is a coalition of wrong-doers, without even the semblance of decency,—while it degrades the Free States to the condition of a slave plantation, under the lash of a vulgar, despised, and revolting overseer.
Surely, fellow-citizens, without hesitation or postponement, you will insist that this Oligarchy shall be overthrown; and here is the foremost among the special duties of the North, now required for the honor of the Republic, for our own defence, and in obedience to God.
In urging this comprehensive duty, I ought to have hours rather than minutes; but in a few words you shall see its comprehensive importance. With the disappearance of the Slave Oligarchy, the wickedness of the Fugitive Slave Bill will drop from the statute-book,—Slavery will cease at the national capital,—Freedom will become the universal law of the national territory,—the Slave-Trade will no longer skulk along our coast beneath the national flag,—the Slave-marriage of the nation will be dissolved,—the rule of our country will be Freedom instead of Slavery,—the North will no longer be trampled on by the South,—the North will at last be allowed its just proportion of office and honor. Let all this be done, and much more will follow. With the disappearance of the Slave Oligarchy, you will possess the master-key to unlock the whole house of bondage. Oh, Sir! prostrate the Slave Oligarchy, and the gates of Emancipation will be open at the South.
Without waiting for this consummation, there is another special duty here at home, on our own soil, which must be made free in reality, as in name. And here I shall speak frankly, though not without a proper sense of the responsibility of my words. I know that I cannot address you entirely as a private citizen; but I shall say nothing here which I have not said elsewhere, and which I shall not be proud to vindicate everywhere. “A lie,” it has been declared, “should be trampled out and extinguished forever”; and surely you will do nothing less with a tyrannical and wicked enactment. The Fugitive Slave Bill, while it continues unrepealed, must be made a dead letter,—not by violence, not by any unconstitutional activity or intervention, not even by hasty conflict between jurisdictions,—but by an aroused Public Opinion, which, in its irresistible might, shall blast with contempt, indignation, and abhorrence all who consent to be its agents. Thus did our fathers blast all who became agents of the Stamp Act; and surely their motive was small, compared with ours. The Slave-Hunter who drags his victim from Africa is loathed as a monster; but I defy any acuteness of reason to indicate the moral difference between his act and that of the Slave-Hunter who drags his victim from our Northern free soil. A few puny persons, calling themselves Congress, with titles of Representatives and Senators, cannot turn wrong into right, cannot change a man into a thing, cannot reverse the irreversible law of God, cannot make him wicked who hunts a slave on the burning sands of Congo or Guinea, and make him virtuous who hunts a slave over the pavements of Boston or New York. Nor can any acuteness of reason distinguish between the original bill of sale from the kidnapper, by which the unhappy African was transferred in Congo or Guinea, and the certificate of the Commissioner, by which, when once again in Freedom, he is reduced anew to bondage. The acts are kindred, and should share a kindred condemnation.
One man’s virtue becomes a standard of excellence for all; and there is now in Boston a simple citizen whose example may be a lesson to Commissioners, Marshals, Magistrates, while it fills all with the beauty of a generous act. I refer to Mr. Hayes, who resigned his place in the city police rather than take part in the pack of the Slave-Hunter. He is now the door-keeper of the public edifice honored this winter by the triumphant lectures on Slavery. Better be a door-keeper in the house of the Lord than a dweller in the tents of the ungodly. Has he not chosen well? Little think those now doing the work of Slavery that the time is near when all this will be dishonor and sadness. For myself, long ago my mind was made up. Nothing will I have to do with it. How can I help to make a slave? The idea alone is painful. To do this thing would plant in my soul a remorse which no time could remove or mitigate. His chains would clank in my ears. His cries would strike upon my heart. His voice would be my terrible accuser. Mr. President, may no such voice fall on your soul or mine!
Yes, Sir, here our duty is plain and paramount. While the Slave Oligarchy, through its unrepealed Slave Bill, undertakes to enslave our free soil, we can only turn for protection to a Public Opinion worthy of a humane, just, and religious people, which shall keep perpetual guard over the liberties of all within our borders. On this from the beginning I have relied. On this I now rely. Wherever it is already strong, I would keep it so; wherever it is weak, I would strengthen it, until of itself it is an all-sufficient protection, with watch and ward surrounding the fugitive, surrounding all. And this Public Opinion, with Freedom as its countersign, must proclaim not only the overthrow of the Slave Bill, but also the overthrow of the Slave Oligarchy behind,—the two pressing duties of the North, essential to our own emancipation; and believe me, Sir, while they remain undone, nothing is done.
Mr. President, far already have I trespassed upon your generous patience; but there are other things pressing for utterance. Something would I say of the arguments by which our Enterprise is commended; something also of the appeal it makes to people of every condition; and something, too, of union, as a vital necessity, among all who love Freedom.
I know not if our work will be soon accomplished. I know not, Sir, if you or I shall live to see in our Republic the vows of the Fathers at length fulfilled, as the last fetter falls from the last slave. But one thing I do know, beyond all doubt or question: that this Enterprise must go on; that, in its irresistible current, it will sweep schools, colleges, churches, the intelligence, the conscience, and the religious aspiration of the land, while all who stand in its way or speak evil of it are laying up sorrow and shame for their children, if not for themselves. Better strive in this cause, even unsuccessfully, than never strive at all. The penalty of indifference is akin to the penalty of opposition,—as is well pictured by the great Italian poet, when, among the saddest on the banks of Acheron, rending the air with outcries of torment, shrieks of anger, and smiting of hands, he finds the troop of dreary souls who had been ciphers in the great conflicts of life:—
“Mingled with whom, of their disgrace the proof,
Are the vile angels, who did not rebel,
Nor kept their faith to God, but stood aloof.”[23]
There is no weapon in the celestial armory of Truth, no sweet influence from the skies, no generous word from human lips, which may not be employed. Ours, too, is the argument alike of the Conservative and the Reformer; for our cause stands on the truest conservatism and the truest reform. It seeks the conservation of Freedom itself, and of kindred historic principles; it seeks also the reform of Slavery, and of the kindred tyranny by which it is upheld. Religion, morals, justice, economy, the Constitution, each and all, may be invoked; and one person is touched by one argument, while another person is touched by another. You do not forget how Christopher Columbus won Isabella of Spain to his enterprise of discovery. He began with the temptation of extending her dominions; but she hearkened not. Next he promised the dazzling wealth of the Indies; and still she hearkened not. When, at last, to her pious imagination were pictured poor heathen with souls to be saved, then the youthful Queen poured her royal jewels into the lap of the Genoese adventurer, and at her expense went forth that small fleet which gave to Spain and to mankind a New World.
As in this Enterprise there is a place for every argument, so also is there a place for every man. Even as on the broad shield of Achilles, sculptured by divine art, was wrought every form of human activity, so in this cause, which is the very shield of Freedom, whatever man can do by deed or speech will find its place. One may act in one way, and another in another way; but all must act. Providence is felt through individuals; the dropping of water wears away the rock; and no man can be too humble or poor for this work, while to all the happy in genius, fortune, or fame it makes a special appeal. Here is room for the strength of Luther and the sweetness of Melancthon, for the wisdom of age and the ardor of youth, for the judgment of the statesman and the eloquence of the orator, for the grace of the scholar and the aspiration of the poet, for the learning of the professor and the skill of the lawyer, for the exhortation of the preacher and the persuasion of the press, for the various energy of man and the abounding sympathy of woman.
And still one thing more is needed, without which Liberty-loving men, and their arguments, will fail in power,—even as without charity all graces of knowledge, speech, and faith are said to profit nothing. I mean that Unity of Spirit—in itself a fountain of strength—which, filling the people of the North, shall make them tread under foot past antipathies, decayed dissensions, and those irritating names which now exist only as tattered ensigns of ancient strife. It is right to be taught by the enemy; and with their example before us, and their power brandished in our very faces, we cannot hesitate. With them Slavery is the mainspring of political life, and the absorbing centre of political activity; with them all differences are swallowed up by this one idea, as all other rods were swallowed up by the rod of Aaron; with them all unite to keep the National Government under the control of slave-masters: and surely we should not do less for Freedom than they do for Slavery. We, too, must be united. Among us at last mutual criticism, crimination, and feud must give place to mutual sympathy, trust, and alliance. Face to face against the Slave Oligarchy must be rallied the UNITED MASSES of the North, in compact political association,—planted on the everlasting base of justice,—knit together by instincts of a common danger and holy sympathies of humanity,—enkindled by love of Freedom, not only for themselves, but for others,—determined to enfranchise the National Government from degrading thraldom,—and constituting the BACKBONE PARTY, powerful in numbers, wealth, and intelligence, but more powerful still in an inspiring cause. Let this be done, and victory will be ours.
NEW OUTRAGE FOR THE SAKE OF SLAVERY.
Letter to Passmore Williamson, in Moyamensing Prison, August 11, 1855.
Mr. Sumner occupied several weeks of this summer in a tour to the West, ascending the Mississippi to St. Paul, and then, from Detroit, visiting Lake Superior. While on board a steamer in Lake Superior, he learned by the newspapers that Passmore Williamson, an excellent citizen of Philadelphia, had been flung into prison for the offence of reminding a person claimed as slave, that, being brought to Philadelphia voluntarily by her pretended master, she was free, according to well-known principles of jurisprudence. The indignation of Mr. Sumner found expression in the following letter, which he addressed to the new victim of Slavery.
This remarkable case will be found in a volume published at Philadelphia, in 1856, with the following title: “Case of Passmore Williamson. Report of the Proceedings on the Writ of Habeas Corpus issued by the Hon. John K. Kane, Judge of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in the Case of the United States of America ex rel. John H. Wheeler vs. Passmore Williamson, including the several Opinions delivered, and the Arguments of Counsel, reported by Arthur Cannon, Esq., Phonographer.” From this it appears that John H. Wheeler, of Virginia, in a petition to Hon. John K. Kane, Judge of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, dated July 18, 1855, sets forth, that he is “the owner of three persons held to service or labor by the laws of the State of Virginia, said persons being respectively named Jane, aged about thirty-five years, Daniel, aged about twelve years, and Isaiah, aged about seven years, persons of color, and that they are detained from the possession of your petitioner by one Passmore Williamson, resident of the city of Philadelphia, and that they are not detained for any criminal or supposed criminal matter,” and asks a writ of Habeas Corpus commanding Mr. Williamson to bring before the Judge the bodies of the said Jane, Daniel, and Isaiah. The writ was at once allowed, and the next day followed by another, to which Mr. Williamson made return, that “the within named Jane, Daniel, and Isaiah, or by whatsoever names they may be called, nor either of them, are not now, nor was at the time of the issuing of said writ or the original writ, or at any other time, in the custody, power, or possession of, nor confined nor restrained their liberty by him, the said Passmore Williamson. Therefore he cannot have the bodies of the said Jane, Daniel, and Isaiah, or either of them, before your Honor, as by the said writ he is commanded.”
In the course of the proceedings, Mr. Williamson, who was Secretary to the Acting Committee of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, testified as follows.
“I was informed that three slaves were at Bloodgood’s Hotel, who wished to assert their right to freedom; I went to the hotel, and saw a yellow boy on the steps fronting on Walnut Street; I made inquiry of him, and he stated that such was the case, but referred me up stairs to one of the waiters for further information; the latter informed me that the slaves, with their master, had just gone on board the steamboat at the end of Walnut Street wharf, for the purpose of going to New York in the five o’clock line. I went on board the boat, looked through the cabin, and then went up on the promenade deck; I saw that man” (pointing to Mr. Wheeler) “sitting sideways on the bench on the farther side; Jane was sitting next to and three or four feet from him; the two children were sitting close to her. I approached her and said, ‘You are the person I am looking for, I presume’; Wheeler turned towards me and asked what I wanted with him; I replied, Nothing, that my business was entirely with this woman; he said, ‘She is my slave, and anything you have to say to her you can say to me.’ I then said to her, ‘You may have been his slave, but you are now free; he brought you here into Pennsylvania, and you are now as free as either of us; you cannot be compelled to go with him, unless you choose; if you wish your liberty, all you have to do is to walk ashore with your children.’ Some five minutes were consumed in conversation with Wheeler, Jane, and a stranger, when the bell rang, and I told her, if she wished to be free, she would have to act at once, as the boat was about starting. She took one of her children by the hand and attempted to rise from her seat; Wheeler placed his hands upon her shoulders and prevented her; I then, for the first time, took hold of her arm and assisted her to rise; the colored people who had collected around us seized hold of the two children, and the whole party commenced a movement towards the head of the stairs leading to the lower deck, Mr. Wheeler having at the start clinched Jane, and during the progress repeatedly and earnestly entreated her to say she wished to stay with him; at the head of the stairway I took Wheeler by the collar and held him to one side. The whole company passed down and left the boat, proceeding peacefully and quietly to Dock and Front Streets, where Jane and her children, with some of her friends, entered a carriage and were driven down Front Street; I returned to my office. After the colored people left Dock Street in the carriage, I saw no more of them, have had no control of them, and do not know where they are. My whole connection with the affair was this.”
At the conclusion of Mr. Williamson’s cross-examination, he declared to the Court “that in the proceedings he had not designed to do violence to any law, but supposed that he had acted throughout in accordance with the law, and the legal rights of the respective parties.”
On his return to the writ of Habeas Corpus, Mr. Williamson was held to bail in the sum of $5,000 for perjury, and subsequently committed, without bail, for contempt,—the alleged contempt being the declaration that the parties were never in his custody. In the course of the hearing, the Judge remarked that “the conduct of those who interfered with Mr. Wheeler’s rights was a criminal, wanton, and cruel outrage.” His final decree, July 27, 1855, was as follows: “Let Mr. Williamson, the respondent, be committed to the custody of the marshal without bail or mainprise, as for a contempt of the Court in refusing to answer to the writ of Habeas Corpus, heretofore awarded against him at the relation of Mr. Wheeler.” On the motion looking to a committal for perjury the Judge “withheld an expression of opinion,” observing, that, “Mr. Williamson being under arrest, he may be charged at any time by the grand jury.”
The respondent attempted to regain his freedom by an application to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. After solemn hearing, the application was refused, the Hon. J. S. Black, afterwards a member of President Buchanan’s cabinet, giving the opinion of the Court. The State Court was in obvious sympathy with the National Court, and both were sympathetic with Slavery. Meanwhile Mr. Williamson continued a prisoner, until, at last, November 3, 1855, his case was again presented to the Judge who committed him, when, in reply to formal interrogatories, he declared: “I did not seek to obey the writ by producing the persons therein mentioned before the Court, because I had not, at the time of the service of the writ, the power over, the custody, or control of them, and therefore it was impossible for me to do so.… I sought to obey the writ by answering it truly; the parties not being in my possession or control, it was impossible for me to obey the writ by producing them.” The Judge announced the contempt purged and the party released from custody.
While the immediate object of this proceeding was to compel Mr. Williamson to produce the bodies of Jane, Daniel, and Isaiah, claimed as slaves in Philadelphia by a person who had voluntarily brought them there, it is impossible to explain the action of the Judge except by his desire to establish the protection of the National Government over slave-masters travelling with their slaves in Free States. The claimant, at the discharge of Mr. Williamson, stated by his counsel that he “sought an adjudication, by the highest judicial tribunal of the country, of the questions, whether Mr. Wheeler was entitled to pass over the soil of Pennsylvania with his property? and whether or not a wrong had been committed in the forcible abduction thereof?”[24]
Mr. Williamson was in the Moyamensing Prison from July 27th to November 3, 1855.
Lake Superior, On Board the North Star,
Saturday, August 11, 1855.
MY DEAR SIR,—With astonishment and indignation I have learned the story of your imprisonment; and now, from this distant retreat, where I am for the moment, make haste to send you my sympathy.
From beginning to end, from side to side, and in every aspect, this transaction can be regarded only as a clear, indubitable, and utterly unmitigated outrage. The new-fangled doctrine, that a slave-master can voluntarily import his alleged slave—of course with all the revolting incidents of Slavery—into the Free States, is not more odious than preposterous. It is scouted by reason, and disowned by universal jurisprudence. You were right in disregarding it. In stepping forward to remind persons claimed as slaves on this pretext that all such claim is baseless, you did a good work. It was this knowledge which filled them with confidence to regain their God-given liberty. And for this it appears that you have been brought before a man, “dressed in a little brief authority,” who has cast you into prison.
This outrage is rendered more outrageous by the way in which it was done. It was perpetrated through perversion of the great writ of Habeas Corpus. This writ of freedom and deliverance, which in England is often styled the Palladium of the Constitution, which is recognized as a distinctive feature of Constitutional Government, which finds no place in despotism, and which is the very master-key appointed to unlock prison-doors and let the oppressed go free, has been made in your case, by a hocus-pocus without precedent, the instrument of imprisonment and oppression.
Strange and disgraceful as all this is, it must be considered the natural fruit of Slavery. Any person, whosoever he may be, whether simple citizen or magistrate, who undertakes to uphold this wrong, seems forthwith to lose his reason. He may be just, humane, and decent in other things, but in the support of Slavery he becomes unjust, inhuman, and indecent,—often in obvious unconsciousness of his degradation. The blindness which makes him insensible to wrong so transcendent naturally makes him insensible to the lesser wrong by which it is maintained. What is the writ of Habeas Corpus, the trial by jury, the privilege of debate, or your liberty or mine, in the estimation of a person who has already screwed himself to the pitch of injustice necessary for the vindication of an institution which separates parent and child, which stamps woman as a concubine, which shuts the gates of knowledge, and which snatches from the weak all the hard-earned fruits of incessant toil?
But there must be an end to these things; and as Shakespeare found a jewel in the toad’s head, so do I find a cheering omen even in the injustice which has made you its victim. There is an old saying, handed down from distant antiquity, that “whoso the gods wish to destroy they first make mad”; and I have often of late been impressed by its truth. The Slave Oligarchy is mad, and their overflowing madness runs through every agent and tool. In all that they do—especially in the Fugitive Slave Bill and its cruel enforcement, the Nebraska Bill and its felonious administration, and now in the imprisonment of an unoffending citizen—I rejoice to believe that there is unmistakable evidence of that madness which precedes a fall. Verily the day is at hand when returning justice will once more bear sway; then, among the triumphs of Freedom, will be a reckoning with unjust judges.
Meanwhile accept my congratulations on the portion of responsibility and dignity which is yours. It is a privilege to suffer for truth; and I envy not the meanness of that soul which would hesitate to prefer your place within the stone walls of a prison to the cushioned bench of the magistrate by whose irrational and tyrannical edict you have been condemned.
Believe me, my dear Sir, with much regard,
Very faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
Passmore Williamson, Esq., Moyamensing Prison, Philadelphia.
THE PEN BETTER THAN THE SWORD.
Letter to Committee of Publishers in New York, September 26, 1855.
Boston, 26th September, 1855.
MY DEAR SIR,—Constrained by other things, I renounce with much reluctance the opportunity which you offer me of partaking in the splendid hospitality prepared by the Publishers for the Authors of our country.
The occasion will be of special interest. It would be pleasant to sit at feast with so many, who, as Authors, adorn our national name. And it would be pleasant also to be the guest of those active, enlightened, and generous Publishers who do so much for Authors. But I must forego this luxury. Only in “bare imagination” can I enjoy it.
At your table there will be an aggregation of various genius and talent constituting a true Witenagemote, which may justly gratify an honest pride of country. Grateful as this may be as a token of power, it will be more grateful still as a token of that concord growing among men in all the relations of life. The traditional feud between Authors and Publishers promises to lose itself in your Festival, even as the traditional feud between England and France is absorbed in the welcome of Victoria by Louis Napoleon. This is beautiful. And the whole scene, where differing Authors commingle under auspices of differing Publishers, will be an augury of that permanent coöperation and harmony which will secure to the pen its mightiest triumphs.
It is in honor of the pen that the company will be gathered together. If any word of mine be expected, please let me offer the following sentiment.
The Pen of the Author,—Exposing error, defending truth, instructing the ignorant, cheering the unhappy, while charming and animating all, it can do better than the Sword, and will yet receive from the world a higher praise.
Believe me, dear Sir,
Very faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
G. P. Putnam, Esq.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN NEW YORK.
Letter to a New York Committee, October 7, 1855.
Boston, October 7, 1855.
GENTLEMEN,—Your summons addressed to me at Newport was forwarded to me at this place.
I wish I could be at your proposed meeting, but I cannot. Accept my best wishes for the Republican party of New York, which you represent. Among the multitudes already rallying spontaneously in this bodyguard of Freedom my presence cannot be needed.
The infant Hercules strangled the serpents in his cradle, and the new party, just born, gives token of a like precocious strength.
Believe me, Gentlemen, very respectfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
E. D. Morgan, Luman Sherwood, Charles W. Elliott, Esqrs., Committee, &c.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OFFSPRING OF THE
AROUSED CONSCIENCE OF THE COUNTRY.
Letter to a Boston Committee, October 8, 1855.
Hancock Street, 8th October, 1855.
MY DEAR SIR,—Your invitation for to-night, after a journey to Newport and back, reached me only yesterday. It finds me already engaged, so that I cannot join my fellow-citizens in the proposed ratification at Faneuil Hall of the nominations lately made by the Republican Party of Massachusetts.
In my heart I have already ratified those nominations. On some other occasion I hope for an opportunity at Faneuil Hall to do the same by public speech.
Meanwhile accept my Godspeed for the good cause which we seek to promote, and for the Republican Party which is its organ. The cause is blessed alike in itself and in its influence on all who espouse it. No man can exert himself for Freedom without feeling better than before. The party is so entirely in harmony with prevailing opinion, it is such a natural and inevitable expression of the existing state of things, it is so clearly the offspring of the aroused conscience of the country, that it begins with auguries of success. Already it draws into its ranks good men from all sides, who, forgetting the things that are behind, press on to the things that are before.
Believe me, dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
William Brigham, Esq.
POLITICAL PARTIES AND OUR FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION.
Speech at a Republican Rally in Faneuil Hall, November 2, 1855.
Immediately before the election there was a Republican Rally at Faneuil Hall, with the following officers: Richard H. Dana, Jr., Esq., President; Dr. Edward Reynolds, Ezra Lincoln, William Pope, Josiah W. Butler, Aaron Bancroft, Samuel Johnson, James P. Whitney, Prince Hawes, Daniel Kimball, Charles M. Ellis, N. Davies Cotton, Frederick A. Sumner, John G. Webster, George S. Winslow, Henry W. Farley, of East Boston, William P. Houston, of South Boston, Henry Slade, of Chelsea, Francis B. Fay, of Chelsea, and James L. Jones, of Chelsea, Vice-Presidents; John D. W. Joy, E. Baker Welch, Franklin W. Smith, Samuel W. Lane, Secretaries.
On taking the chair, Mr. Dana made an able speech especially in reply to one recently made by Mr. Choate, in the course of which he said that the Republicans repudiated the charge of ignoring the Constitution or menacing the Union.
Mr. Sumner was then introduced, and spoke for two hours and a quarter, with the marked attention of a very large audience. This speech was reported at length in the papers, and was afterwards printed in a pamphlet. It particularly discussed the Slave Oligarchy and its usurpations,—the outrages in Kansas,—the different political parties,—the rights of our foreign-born population,—and the Republican party. Several of these topics, being treated in other speeches, are omitted here. The part relating to our foreign-born population attracted attention at the time, and has been often quoted since. Among the audience were many persons of the Know-Nothing party, pledged against the foreign-born, who were there to create difficulty; but Mr. Sumner was allowed to proceed uninterrupted. The papers speak of “rapturous applause.” In this vindication of our foreign-born population, he acted only according to his convictions and all his votes in the Senate. Although the Know-Nothing party prevailed in Massachusetts, Mr. Sumner refused all association with it; and yet, such was the recklessness of misrepresentation, that the Richmond Enquirer announced him as “the head of the Northern Know-Nothing party.” The following speech is sufficient answer to this assertion.
In the course of this speech Mr. Sumner gives his personal testimony as to Slavery, founded on what he saw in a short journey he had made through Kentucky as far as Nashville in Tennessee.
Fellow-citizens of Boston:—
Are you for Freedom, or are you for Slavery? This is the question which you are to answer at the coming election. Above all other questions, national or local, it lifts itself directly in the path of every voter. There it is. It cannot be avoided. It cannot be banished away. It cannot be silenced. Forever sounding in our ears, it has a mood for every hour,—stirring us at times as with the blast of a trumpet, then visiting us in solemn tones, like the bell which calls to prayer, and then again awaking us to unmistakable duty, like the same bell, when at midnight it summons all to stay the raging conflagration.
And yet there are persons among us who seek to put this great question aside. Some clamor for financial reform, and hold up a tax-bill; others clamor for a modification of the elective franchise, and they hold up the Pope; some speak in the name of old parties, calling themselves Democrats or Whigs; others in the name of a new party, which shall be nameless at present. Surely the people of Massachusetts will not be diverted from the true issue, involving Freedom for broad territories and Freedom for themselves, by holding up a tax-bill or by holding up the Pope. The people of Massachusetts are intelligent and humane.
…
But above all these is heard the great question, which will not be postponed, Are you for Freedom, or are you for Slavery? “Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!” Are you for Freedom, with its priceless blessings, or are you for Slavery, with its countless wrongs and woes? Are you for God, or are you for the Devil?
Fellow-Citizens, I speak plainly; nor can words exhibiting the enormity of Slavery be too plain, whether it be regarded simply in the legislative and judicial decisions by which it is upheld, or in the unquestionable facts by which its character is revealed. It has been my fortune latterly to see Slavery face to face in its own home, in the Slave States; and I take this early opportunity to offer my testimony to the open barbarism which it sanctions. I have seen a human being knocked off at auction on the steps of a court-house, and, as the sale went on, compelled to open his mouth and show his teeth, like a horse; I have been detained in a stage-coach, that our driver might, in the phrase of the country, “help lick a nigger”; and I have been constrained, at public table, to witness the revolting spectacle of a poor slave, yet a child, almost felled to the floor by a blow on the head from a clenched fist. Such incidents were not calculated to shake my original convictions. The distant slaveholder, who, in generous solicitude for that truth which makes for Freedom, feared, that, like a certain Doctor of Divinity, I might, under influence of personal kindness, be hastily swayed from these convictions, may be assured that I saw nothing to change them one tittle, but much to confirm them,—while I was entirely satisfied that here in Massachusetts, where all read, the true character of Slavery is better known than in the Slave States themselves, where ignorance and prejudice close the avenues of knowledge.
And now, grateful for the attention with which you honor me, I venture to hope that you are assembled honestly to hear the truth,—not to gratify prejudice, to appease personal antipathies, or to indulge a morbid appetite for excitement, but with candor and your best discrimination to weigh facts and arguments in order to determine the course of duty. I address myself particularly to the friends of Freedom, Republicans, on whose invitation I appear to-night; but I make bold to ask you of other parties, who now listen, to divest yourselves, for the time, of partisan constraint,—to forget, for the moment, that you are Whigs or Democrats, or however called, and to remember only that you are men, with hearts to feel, with heads to understand, and with consciences to guide. Then only will you be in condition to receive the truth. “If men are not aware of the probable influence of party over them, they are so much the more likely to be blindly governed by it.” Such is the wise remark of Wilberforce.[25] And I fear that among us there are too many unconsciously governed by such bias. There are men, who, while professing candor, yet show that the bitterness of party has entered into their whole character and lives, as the bitterness of the soil in Sardinia is said to appear even in its honey.
…
There are honorable responsibilities belonging to Massachusetts, as an early and constant vindicator of Freedom, which she cannot renounce. “If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” The distant emigrant, the whole country, awaits the voice of our beloved Commonwealth in answer to the question, Are you for Freedom, or are you for Slavery? So transcendent, so exclusive, so all-absorbing at the present juncture is this question, that it is vain to speak of the position of candidates on other things. To be doubtful on this is to be wrong, and to be wrong on this is to be wholly wrong. Passing strange it is that here in Massachusetts, in this nineteenth century, we should be constrained to put this question; passing strange, that, when it is put, there should be any hesitation to answer it, by voice and vote, in such way as to speak the loudest for Freedom.
…
But, without exposing the game of political sweepstakes which the Slave Oligarchy has perpetually played,—interesting as it would be,—I prefer to hold up for one moment the assumptions, aggressions, and usurpations by which, in defiance of the Constitution, it has made Slavery national, when it is in reality sectional. Here is a brief catalogue.
…
Fellow-citizens, I have said enough to stir you; but this humiliating tale is not yet finished. An oligarchy seeking to maintain an outrage like Slavery, and drawing its inspirations from this fountain of wickedness, is naturally base, false, and heedless of justice. It is vain to expect that men who have brought themselves to become propagandists of this enormity will be constrained by any compromise, compact, bargain, or plighted faith. As the less is contained in the greater, so there is no vileness of dishonesty, no denial of human rights, that is not plainly involved in the support of an enormity which begins by changing man, created in the image of God, into a chattel, and consigns little children to the auction-block. A power which Heaven never gave can be maintained only by means which Heaven can never sanction. And this conclusion of reason is confirmed by late experience.
And here I approach the special question under which the country now shakes from side to side. The protracted struggle of 1820, known as the Missouri Question, ended with the admission of Missouri as a slaveholding State, and the prohibition of Slavery in all the remaining territory west of the Mississippi and north of 36° 30´. Here was a solemn act of legislation, called at the time a compromise, a covenant, a compact, first brought forward by the Slave Oligarchy, vindicated by it in debate, finally sanctioned by its votes,—also upheld at the time by a slaveholding President, James Monroe, and his cabinet, of whom a majority were slaveholders, including Mr. Calhoun himself,—and made the condition of the admission of Missouri, without which that State could not have been received into the Union. Suddenly, during the last year, without any notice in the public press or the prayer of a single petition, after an acquiescence of thirty-four years, and the irreclaimable possession by the Slave Oligarchy of its special share in the provisions of this Compromise, in violation of every obligation of honor, compact, and good neighborhood, and in contemptuous disregard of the outgushing sentiments of an aroused North, this time-honored Prohibition, in itself a Landmark of Freedom, was overturned, and the vast region now known as Kansas and Nebraska was opened to Slavery: and this was done under the disgraceful lead of Northern politicians, and with the undisguised complicity of a Northern President, forgetful of Freedom, forgetful also of his reiterated pledges that during his administration the repose of the country should receive no shock.
And all this was perpetrated under pretences of popular rights. Freedom was betrayed by a kiss. In defiance of uninterrupted prescription down to our day, early sustained at the South as well as the North, leaning at once on Jefferson and Washington, sanctioned by all the authoritative names of our history, and beginning with the great Ordinance by which Slavery was prohibited in the Northwest,—it was pretended that the people of the United States, who are the proprietors of the national domain, and who, according to the Constitution, may “make all needful rules and regulations” for its government, nevertheless were not its sovereigns, that they had no power to interdict Slavery there, but that this eminent dominion resided in the few settlers, called squatters, whom chance or a desire to better their fortunes first hurried into these places. To this precarious handful, sprinkled over immense spaces, it was left, without any constraint from Congress, to decide whether into these vast unsettled lands, as into the veins of an infant, should be poured the festering poison of Slavery, destined, as time advances, to show itself in cancers and leprous disease, or whether they should be filled with all the glowing life of Freedom. And this great power, transferred from Congress to these few settlers, was hailed by the new-fangled name of Squatter Sovereignty.
It was fit that the original outrage perpetrated under such pretences should be followed by other outrages perpetrated in defiance of these pretences. In the race of emigration the Freedom-loving citizens of the North promised to obtain the ascendency, and, in the exercise of the conceded sovereignty of the settlers, to prohibit Slavery. The Slave Oligarchy was aroused to other efforts. Of course it stuck at nothing. On the day of election, when this vaunted popular sovereignty was first invoked, hirelings from Missouri, having no home in the Territory, entered it in bands of fifties and hundreds, and, assuming an electoral franchise to which they had no claim, trampled under foot the Constitution and laws. Violently, ruthlessly, the polls were possessed by these invaders. The same Northern President, who did not shrink from unblushing complicity in the original outrage, now assumed another complicity. Though prompt to lavish the Treasury, the Army, and the Navy of the Republic in hunting a single slave through the streets of Boston, he could see the Constitution and laws which he was sworn to protect, and those popular rights which he had affected to promote, all struck down in Kansas,—and then give new scope to these invaders by the removal of the faithful Governor, who had become obnoxious to the Slave Oligarchy because he would not become its tool, and the substitution of another, who vindicated the dishonest choice by making haste, on his first arrival there, to embrace the partisans of Slavery. The Legislature, which was constituted by the overthrow of the electoral franchise, proceeded to overthrow every safeguard of Freedom. At one swoop it adopted all the legislation of Missouri, including its Slave Code; by another act it imposed unprecedented conditions upon the exercise of the electoral franchise; and by still another act it denounced the punishment of death no less than five times against as many different forms of interference with the alleged property in human flesh, while all who but write or speak against Slavery are adjudged to be felons. Yes, fellow-citizens, should any person there presume to print or circulate the speech in which I now express my abhorrence of Slavery, and deny its constitutional existence anywhere within the national jurisdiction, he would become liable under this act as a felon. And this overthrow of all popular rights is done in the name of Popular Sovereignty. Surely its authors follow well the example of the earliest Squatter Sovereign,—none other than Satan,—who, stealing into Eden, was there discovered by the celestial messengers just beginning his work: as Milton tells us,—
“Him there they found
Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve.”
Would you know the secret of this unprecedented endeavor, beginning with the repeal of the Prohibition of Slavery, down to the latest atrocity? The answer is at hand. It is not merely to provide new markets for slaves, or even to guard Slavery in Missouri, but to build another Slave State, and thus, by the presence of two additional Slaveholding Senators, to give increased preponderance to the Slave Oligarchy in the National Government. As men are murdered for the sake of their money, so is this Territory blasted in peace and prosperity in order to wrest its political influence to the side of Slavery.
But a single usurpation is not enough to employ the rapacious energies of our Oligarchy. At this moment, while the country is pained by the heartless conspiracy against Freedom in Kansas, we are startled by another effort, which contemplates not merely the political subjugation of the National Government, but the actual introduction of Slavery into the Free States. The vaunt is made that slaves will yet be counted in the shadow of the monument on Bunker Hill, and more than one step has been taken towards this effrontery. A person of Virginia has asserted his right to hold slaves in New York on the way to Texas; and this claim is still pending before the highest judicial tribunal of the land. A similar claim has been asserted in Pennsylvania, and thus far been sustained by the court. A blameless citizen, who, in obedience to generous impulses, and in harmony with received law, merely gave notice to a person held as a slave in a Free State that she was in reality free, has been thrust into jail, and now, after the lapse of months, still languishes there, the victim of this pretension; while—that no excess might be wanting in the madness of this tyranny—the great writ of Habeas Corpus, proudly known as the writ of deliverance, has been made the instrument of his imprisonment.[26] Outrage treads upon outrage, and great rights pass away to perish. Alas! the needful tool for such work is too easily found in places low and high,—in the lanes and cellars of Boston, on the bench of the judge, in the chair of the President. But it is the power behind which I impeach. The Slave Oligarchy does it; the Slave Oligarchy does it all.
To the prostration of this Oligarchy we are bound by a threefold cord of duty: first, as we would secure Freedom for ourselves; secondly, as we would uphold Freedom in distant Kansas; and, thirdly, as we would preserve the Union in its early strength and integrity. The people of Kansas are, many of them, from Massachusetts,—bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh; but as fellow-citizens under the Constitution they are bound to us by ties which we cannot disown; nay, more,—by the subtile cord which connects this embryo settlement with the Republic, they are made part of us. The outrage which touches them touches us. What galls them galls us. The fetter which binds the slave in Kansas binds every citizen in Massachusetts. Thus are we prompted to their rescue, not only to save them, but also to save ourselves. The tyranny which now treads them down has already trampled on us, and only awaits an opportunity to do it again. In its complete overthrow is the only way of safety. Indeed, this must be done before anything else can be done.
…
In the choice of men we are driven to the organization of parties; and here occurs the practical question on which hinges immediate duty,—By what political party can our desire be accomplished? There are individuals in all parties, even the Democratic, who hate Slavery, and say so; but a political party cannot be judged by the private opinions of some of its members. Something else, more solid and tangible, must appear. The party that we select to bear the burden and honor of our great controversy should be adapted to the work. It must be a perfect machine. Wedded to Freedom for better or for worse, and clinging to it with a grasp never to be unloosed, it must be clear, open, and unequivocal in its declarations, and should admit no other question to divert its energies. It must be all for Freedom, and, like Cæsar’s wife, above suspicion. But besides this character which it should sustain in Massachusetts, it must be prepared to take its place in close phalanx with the united masses of the North, now organizing through all the Free States, junctæque umbone phalanges, for the protection of Freedom and the overthrow of the Slave Oligarchy.
Bearing these conditions in mind, there are three parties which we may dismiss, one by one, as they pass in review. Men do not gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles; nor do they expect patriotism from Benedict Arnold. A party which sustains the tyrannies and perfidies of the Slave Oligarchy, and is represented by the President, through whom has come so much of all our woe, need not occupy our time; and such is the Democratic party. If there be within the sound of my voice a single person, professing sympathy with Freedom, who still votes with this party, to him I would say: The name of Democrat is a tower of strength; let it not be the bulwark of Slavery; for the sake of a name do not sacrifice the thing; for the sake of party do not surrender Freedom.
According to familiar rule, handed down from distant antiquity, we are to say nothing but good of the dead. How, then, shall I speak of the late powerful Whig party, by whose giant contests the whole country was once upheaved, but which has now ceased to exist, except as the shadow of a name? Here in Massachusetts, a few who do not yet know that it is dead have met together and proffered the old allegiance. They are the Rip Van Winkles of our politics. This respectable character, falling asleep in the mountains, drowsed undisturbed throughout the war of the Revolution, and then, returning to his native village, ignorant of all that had passed, made haste to declare himself “a loyal subject of the King, God bless him!” But our Whigs are less tolerant and urbane than this awakened sleeper. In petulant and irrational assumption they are like the unfortunate judge, who, being aroused from slumber on the bench by a sudden crash of thunder, exclaimed, “Mr. Crier, stop the noise in Court!” The thunder would not be hushed; nor will the voice of Freedom, now reverberating throughout the land. Some there are among these who openly espouse the part of Slavery, while others, by indifference, place themselves in the same unhappy company. If their position at this moment were of sufficient importance to justify grave remark, they should be exhibited as kindred in spirit and isolation to the Tories of our Revolution, or at least as the Bourbons of Massachusetts,—always claiming everything, learning nothing, forgetting nothing, and at last condemned by an aroused people for disloyalty to Freedom. Let no person who truly loves Freedom join this company, tempted by its name and old associations.
There is still another party claiming your votes, but permit me to say, at this crisis, with little reason. I am at a loss to determine the name by which it may be called. It is sometimes styled the Know Nothing party, sometimes the American party; but it cannot be entitled to these designations,—if they be of any value,—for it does not claim to belong to the organization which first assumed and still retains them. It is an isolated combination, peculiar to Massachusetts, which, while professing certain political sentiments, is bound together by the support of one of the candidates for Governor.[27] At this moment this is its controlling idea. It is therefore a personal party; and I trust that I shall not be considered as departing from that courtesy which is with me a law, if I say, that, in the absence of any appropriate name, expressive of principles, it may properly take its designation from the candidate it supports.
Of course such a party wants the first essential condition of the organization which we seek. It is a personal party, whose controlling idea is predilection for a man, and not a principle. Whatever may be the private sentiments of some of its members, clearly it is not a party wedded to Freedom for better and for worse, and clinging to it with a grasp never to be unloosed. While professing opposition to Slavery, it also arraigns Catholics and foreigners, and allows the question of their privileges to disturb its energies. It is not all for Freedom; nor is it, like Cæsar’s wife, above suspicion. Besides, even as party of Freedom, it is powerless from its isolation; for it stands by itself, and is in no way associated with that great phalanx now rallying throughout the North. In this condition should it continue to exist, it will, in the coming Presidential contest, from natural affinity, lapse back into the American party of the country, which is ranged on the side of Slavery. Of course, as a separate party, it is necessarily short-lived. Cut off from the main body, it may show a brief vitality, as the head of a tortoise still bites for some days after it is severed from the neck; but it can have no permanent existence. Surely this is not the party of Freedom which we seek.
The incompetency of this party, as organ of our cause, is enhanced by the uncongenial secrecy in which it had its origin and yet shrouds itself. For myself let me say, that on the floor of the Senate I have striven by vote and speech, in conjunction with my distinguished friend Mr. Chase, to limit the secret sessions of that body, under shelter of which so much of the public business is transacted; and I have there presented, as the fit model for American institutions, the example of that ancient Roman who bade his architect so construct his house that all that he did might be seen by the world.[28] What I urged there I now urge here. But the special aims which this party proposes are in harmony with the darkness in which it begins. Even if justifiable on any ground of public policy, they should not be associated with our cause: but I am unwilling to allude to them without expressing my frank dissent.
It is proposed to attaint men for religion, and also for birth. If this object can prevail, vain are the triumphs of Civil Freedom in its many hard-fought fields, vain is that religious toleration which we profess. The fires of Smithfield, the tortures of the Inquisition, the proscriptions of Non-Conformists may all be revived. Mainly to escape these outrages, dictated by a dominant religious sect, was our country early settled: in one place by Pilgrims, who sought independence; in another by Puritans, who disowned bishops; in another by Episcopalians, who take their name from bishops; in another by Quakers, who set at nought all forms; and in yet another by Catholics, who look to the Pope as spiritual father. Slowly among the struggling sects was evolved that great idea of the equality of all men before the law without regard to religious belief; nor can any party now organize a proscription merely for religious belief, without calling in question this well-established principle.
But Catholics are mostly foreigners, and on this account are condemned. Let us see if there be any reason in this; and here indulge me with one word on foreigners.
With the ancient Greeks a foreigner was a barbarian, and with the ancient Romans he was an enemy. In early modern times the austerity of this judgment was relaxed; but, under the influence of feudalism, different sovereignties, whether provinces or nations, were kept in a condition of isolation, from which they have gradually passed, until now provinces are merged in nations, and nations are giving signs that they too will yet combine in one. In our country a new example is already displayed. From all nations people commingle here. As in ancient Corinth, by accidental fusion of all metals, accumulated in the sacred temples, a peculiar metal was produced, better than any individual metal, even silver or gold,—so, perhaps, in the order of Providence, by fusion of all races here, there will be a better race than any individual race, even Saxon or Celt. Originally settled from England, the Republic has been strengthened and enriched by generous contributions of population from Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, France, and Germany; and the cry is, Still they come! At no time since the discovery of the New World has the army of emigrants pressed so strongly upon us. More than one quarter of a million are annually landed on our shores. The manner in which they shall be received is a problem of national policy.
All will admit that any influence which they bring, hostile to our institutions, calculated to substitute priestcraft for religion and bigotry for Christianity, must be deprecated and opposed. All will admit, too, that there must be some assurance of their purpose to become not merely consumers of the fruits of our soil, but useful, loyal, and permanent members of our community, upholders of the general welfare. With this simple explanation, I cannot place any check upon the welcome to foreigners. There are our broad lands, stretching towards the setting sun; let them come and take them. Ourselves children of the Pilgrims of a former generation, let us not turn from the Pilgrims of the present. Let the home founded by our emigrant fathers continue open in its many mansions to the emigrants of to-day.
The history of our country, in its humblest as well as most exalted spheres, testifies to the merit of foreigners. Their strong arms have helped furrow our broad territory with canals, and stretch in every direction the iron rail. They fill our workshops, navigate our ships, and even till our fields. Go where you will among the hardy sons of toil on land or sea, and there you find industrious and faithful foreigners bending their muscles to the work. At the bar and in the high places of commerce you find them. Enter the retreats of learning, and there too you find them, shedding upon our country the glory of science.[29] Nor can any reflection be cast upon foreigners, coming for hospitality now, which will not glance at once upon the distinguished living and the illustrious dead,—upon the Irish Montgomery, who perished for us at the gates of Quebec,—upon Pulaski the Pole, who perished for us at Savannah,—upon De Kalb and Steuben, the generous Germans, who aided our weakness by their military experience,—upon Paul Jones, the Scotchman, who lent his unsurpassed courage to the infant thunders of our navy,—also upon those great European liberators, Kosciusko of Poland, and Lafayette of France, each of whom paid his earliest vows to Liberty in our cause. Nor should this list be confined to military characters, so long as we gratefully cherish the name of Alexander Hamilton, who was born in the West Indies, and the name of Albert Gallatin, who was born in Switzerland, and never, to the close of his octogenarian career, lost the French accent of his boyhood,—both of whom rendered civic services to be commemorated among the victories of peace.
Nor is the experience of our Republic peculiar. Where is the country or power which does not inscribe the names of foreigners on its historic scroll? It was Christopher Columbus, of Genoa, who disclosed to Spain the New World; it was Magellan, of Portugal, sailing in the service of Spain, who first passed with adventurous keel through those distant Southern straits which now bear his name, and opened the way to the vast Pacific Sea; and it was Cabot, the Venetian, who first conducted English enterprise to this North American continent. As in triumphs of discovery, so also in other fields have foreigners excelled, while serving states to which they were bound by no tie of birth. The Dutch Grotius, author of the great work, “Laws of War and Peace,” an exile from his own country, became Ambassador of Sweden; and, in our own day, the Italian Pozzo di Borgo, turning his back upon his own country, reached the most exalted diplomatic trust in the jealous service of Russia. In the list of monarchs on the throne of England, not one has been more truly English than the Dutch William. In Holland no ruler has equalled in renown the German William, Prince of Orange. In Russia the German Catharine the Second takes place among the most commanding sovereigns. And who of Swedish monarchs was a better Swede than Bernadotte, the Frenchman? and what Frenchman was ever filled with aspiration for France more than the Italian Napoleon Bonaparte?
I pass from these things, which have occupied me too long. A party, which, beginning in secrecy, interferes with religious belief, and founds a discrimination on the accident of birth, is not the party for us.
“Where Liberty is, there is my country,” was the sentiment of that great Apostle of Freedom, Benjamin Franklin, uttered during the trials of the Revolution. In similar strain, I would say, “Where Liberty is, there is my party.” Such an organization is now happily constituted here in Massachusetts, and in all the Free States, under the name of Republican Party.
In assuming our place as a distinct party, we simply give form and direction, in harmony with the usage and genius of popular governments, to a movement which stirs the whole country, and does not find adequate and constant organ in either of the other existing parties. The early opposition to Slavery was simply a sentiment, outgushing from the hearts of the sensitive and humane. In the lapse of time it became a determined principle, inspiring larger numbers, and showing itself first in an organized endeavor to resist the annexation of slaveholding Texas; next, to prohibit Slavery in newly acquired territories; and now, alarmed by the overthrow of all rights in Kansas, and the domination of the Slave Oligarchy throughout the Republic, it breaks forth in a stronger effort, a wider union, and a deeper channel, inspiring yet larger numbers and firmer resolves, while opposite quarters contribute to its power,—even as the fountain, first outgushing from the weeping sides of its pure mountain home, trickles in the rill, leaps in the torrent, and flows in the river, till, at last, swollen with accumulated waters, it presses onward, in irresistible, beneficent current, fertilizing and uniting the spaces which it traverses, washing the feet of cities, and wooing states to repose upon its banks.
…
Our party has its origin in the exigencies of the hour. Vowing ourselves against Slavery, wherever it exists, whether enforced by Russian knout, Turkish bastinado, or lash of Carolina planter, we do not seek to interfere with it at Petersburg, Constantinople, or Charleston; nor does any such grave duty rest upon us. Political duties are properly limited by political responsibilities; and we are in no just sense responsible for the local law or usage by which human bondage in these places is upheld. But wherever we are responsible for the wrong, there our duty begins. The object to which, as a party, we are pledged, is all contained in acceptance of the issue which the Slave Oligarchy tenders. To its repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and its imperious demand that Kansas shall be surrendered to Slavery, we reply, that Freedom shall be made the universal law of all the national domain, without compromise, and that hereafter no Slave State shall be admitted into the Union. To its tyrannical assumption of supremacy in the National Government we reply, that the Slave Oligarchy shall be overthrown. Such is the practical purpose of the Republican Party.
ORIGINATION OF APPROPRIATION BILLS.
Speech in the Senate, on the Usurpation of the Senate in the Origination of Appropriation Bills, February 7, 1856.
On the 11th of December, 1855, Mr. Brodhead, of Pennsylvania, introduced a resolution directing the Committee on Finance to consider the expediency of reporting the appropriation bills for the support of the Government. The resolution was allowed to lie on the table till January 7, 1856, when it was called up for consideration, and adopted. On the 4th of February, Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, Chairman of the Committee on Finance, reported to the Senate the following resolution:—
“Resolved, That the Committee on Finance be instructed to prepare and report such of the general appropriation bills as they may deem expedient.”
The resolution was adopted by the Senate, February 7, but this was all. Nothing was done under it.
This attempt was prompted by the protracted contest in the organization of the House of Representatives, when, after one hundred and thirty-three ballotings, Mr. Banks was chosen Speaker, February 2, and the Slave Power received its first check.
In the course of the debate, February 7, Mr. Sumner spoke as follows.
MR. PRESIDENT,—Whatever the Senator from New York [Mr. Seward] touches he handles with a completeness to render anything superfluous from one who follows on the same side; but the opposition which his views have encountered from the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Hunter], and also from the Senator from Georgia [Mr. Toombs], as well as the intrinsic importance of the question, may justify the attempt to state the argument anew.
We are carried first to the words of the Constitution, which are as follows:—
“All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments, as on other bills.”
Under this provision, the annual appropriation bills for the Army, Navy, Post-Office, and civil and diplomatic service, from the beginning of the Government, have originated in the House of Representatives; and this has always been so, I believe, without question. It is now proposed to reverse the standing policy, and to originate such bills in the Senate; and this proposition has the sanction of the Committee on Finance.
The proposition is a clear departure from usage, and on this account must be regarded with suspicion. A slight examination will demonstrate that it tends to subvert well-established landmarks.
By looking at the debates in the Convention which framed the National Constitution, it will be found that this clause was not hastily or carelessly adopted,—that it was the subject of much discussion, and was viewed as essentially important in establishing the system of checks and balances peculiar to our Republic. It was, indeed, part of the compromise between the small States and the large States.
After much consideration, the equality of the States was recognized in the Constitution of the Senate, and small States, like Delaware and Rhode Island, were allowed, in this body, equal power with large States, like Virginia and Massachusetts. But this great concession to the small States was coupled at the time with a condition that “money bills” should originate in the House of Representatives, where the people were represented according to numbers. The language finally employed was, “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.” This was adopted, as compensation to the large and populous States for their comparative weakness in the Senate.
That I do not go too far, when I call it part of the compromise between the great States and small States, I proceed to show, from the debates in the National Convention, as reported by Mr. Madison, how it was regarded there.
The provision owes its authoritative introduction to Dr. Franklin, who moved it in the committee which subsequently reported it.[30] Afterwards, in Convention, when the clause relating to equality of votes was under consideration, we have this report of what he said.
“Dr. Franklin observed, that this question could not be properly put by itself, the Committee having reported several propositions as mutual conditions of each other. He could not vote for it, if separately taken, but should vote for the whole together.”[31]
Colonel Mason, of Virginia, was of the same opinion, and desired “that the whole might be brought into one view.”[32]
Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, followed up the idea of the mutual dependence of the two propositions, remarking,—
“He would not say that the concession was a sufficient one on the part of the small States; but he could not but regard it in the light of a concession. It would make it a constitutional principle, that the second branch were not possessed of the confidence of the people in money matters,”—
Please, Sir, to mark the breadth of this expression.
—“which would lessen their weight and influence.”[33]
Mr. Pinckney, of South Carolina, followed, saying,—
“He thought it evident that the concession was wholly on one side, that of the large States; the privilege of originating money bills being of no account.”[34]
At a later stage of the debates the subject was resumed, and the two propositions still appear together.
“Mr. Rutledge [of South Carolina] proposed to reconsider the two propositions touching the originating of money bills in the first, and the equality of votes in the second branch.”
“Mr. Sherman [of Connecticut] was for the question on the whole at once. It was, he said, a conciliatory plan. It had been considered in all its parts.”
“Mr. Luther Martin [of Maryland] urged the question on the whole. He did not like many parts of it.… He was willing, however, to make trial of the plan, rather than do nothing.”
“Mr. Gerry [of Massachusetts] did not approve of a reconsideration of the clause relating to money bills. It was of great consequence. It was the corner-stone of the accommodation.”[35]
At a still later stage Mr. Pinckney moved to strike out the section on money bills, “as giving no peculiar advantage to the House of Representatives, and as clogging the Government.” Mr. Gorham “was against allowing the Senate to originate, but was for allowing it only to amend.” Mr. Gouverneur Morris urged, that it was “particularly proper that the Senate should have the right of originating money bills. They will sit constantly, will consist of a smaller number, and will be able to prepare such bills with due correctness, and so as to prevent delay of business in the other House.” To all this Colonel Mason replied, in the strong language which seems to have been natural to him, that he “was unwilling to travel over this ground again. To strike out the section was to unhinge the compromise of which it made a part.”[36]
I might adduce other authorities; but here surely is enough to show that the provision was in reality one of the important compromises of the Constitution.
This brings me, Sir, to the precise meaning of the provision. The seeming indefiniteness of the term, “bills for raising revenue,” may alone furnish apology for the present debate. It may be argued, that, while the Senate is placed under certain restrictions, it may nevertheless originate “appropriation bills.” This, of course, is a question of interpretation. Does this interdict upon the Senate extend to bills by which money is appropriated to the support of Government, as well as to bills by which it is directly obtained? Are appropriation bills included under the term, “bills for raising revenue”? Now I cannot accord with opinions so confidently expressed by the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Hunter], and the Senator from Georgia [Mr. Toombs], that it was clearly the intention of the Constitution to concede to the Senate the power of originating all appropriation bills; nor, on the other hand, do I assert that such exercise of power is in the strict sense unconstitutional. I approach the question as an inquirer anxious to find the real purpose.
Several considerations seem to shed light on the path to our conclusion.
First. The compromise between the small States and large States can be made completely effective, according to obvious intent of the authors of the Constitution, only by interdicting the Senate from originating the great appropriation bills. If this interdict is restricted simply to tariff bills, which occur only at rare intervals, it becomes a very inadequate compensation for the surrender by the large States to the small States in the constitution of the Senate. According to the reason of the rule, the great appropriation bills must be equally within its intendment. The reason is as strong in one case as in the other.
In the debates of the Convention, Dr. Franklin said:—
“As it had been asked what would be the use of restraining the second branch from meddling with money bills, he could not but remark, that it was always of importance that the people should know who had disposed of their money, and how it had been disposed of.”
Please, Sir, to mark these words.
“It was a maxim, that those who feel can best judge. This end would, he thought, be best attained, if money affairs were to be confined to the immediate representatives of the people.”[37]
Mr. Gerry, in urging the restraint upon the Senate, said:—
“The other branch was more immediately the representatives of the people, and it was a maxim that the people ought to hold the purse-strings.”[38]
How, Sir, can the people hold the purse-strings, unless they hold the bills by which the purse is appropriated?
And Colonel Mason broke forth in language clearly revealing his sense of danger against which to guard.
“If the Senate can originate, they will, in the recess of the legislative sessions, hatch their mischievous projects for their own purposes, and have their money bills cut and dried (to use a common phrase) for the meeting of the House of Representatives.”[39]
I repeat, then, according to the reason of the rule, the great appropriation bills must be embraced by the prohibition.
Secondly. There is a further consideration, founded on the familiar use of the term money bills throughout the debates in the Convention, as applicable to bills which the Senate cannot originate. I need not occupy time by reference to instances; but whoever takes the trouble to investigate the matter in Mr. Madison’s report of the debates, and also in the report of the Virginia Convention, will find that this term is universally employed,—unless, indeed, where Mr. Gouverneur Morris uses the broader term “money plans,”[40] and Mr. Gerry “money matters.”[41] Now all these phrases are clearly applicable to “appropriation bills,” by which the Government is carried on; and the inference seems irresistible, that the parties who used them must have had such bills in mind.
In the Virginia Convention objection was made by Mr. Grayson “to the power of the Senate to propose or concur with amendments to money bills.” The objection is even to “amendments.” He pronounced this “a departure from that great principle which required that the immediate representatives of the people only should interfere with money bills.… The Lords in England had never been allowed to intermeddle with money bills. He knew not why the Senate should.”[42]
Thirdly. This brings me to another consideration, founded on the example of England, which was obviously present to the framers of the Constitution. The Senator from Virginia [Mr. Hunter] is clearly mistaken on this point. It was often adduced in debate in the National Convention, and, as we have just seen, in the Virginia Convention also. In England the rule is explicit, and of ancient date. As early as July 3, 1678, the Commons resolved:—
“That all aids and supplies, and aids to his Majesty in Parliament, are the sole gift of the Commons; and all bills for the granting of any such aids and supplies ought to begin with the Commons; and that it is the undoubted and sole right of the Commons to direct, limit, and appoint, in such bills, the ends, purposes, considerations, conditions, limitations, and qualifications of such grants, which ought not to be changed or altered by the House of Lords.”[43]
In pursuance of this rule, estimates for the annual expenditure are submitted by the Ministry to the House of Commons, sitting as a Committee of Supply. This process is explained as follows.
“The member of the Administration representing the department for which the supplies are required first explains to the Committee such matters as may satisfy them of the correctness and propriety of the estimates, and then proceeds to propose each grant in succession, which is put from the Chair in these words: ‘That a sum not exceeding —— be granted to her Majesty, for the object specified in the estimate.’ … The Committee of Supply votes every sum which is granted annually for the public service,—the army, the navy, the ordnance, and the several civil departments.”[44]
At the close of the session all the grants are embodied in a bill, which is known as “Appropriation Bill,” and, as it is kindred in character to that under our system, doubtless has given its name to ours. This bill is thus described:—
“It enumerates every grant made during the whole session, and authorizes the several sums, as voted by the Committee of Supply, to be issued and applied to each service.”[45]
Thus, on three grounds,—first, by the reason of the thing,—secondly, by the familiar use in all the debates of the descriptive term, “money bills,”—and, thirdly, by the example of England,—the conclusion is inevitable, that “appropriation bills,” by which the Government is carried on, are within the spirit of the interdict upon the Senate, and that this body cannot originate such bills without violation of a well-established principle inherited from English jurisprudence, and also without unhinging, according to the language of Colonel Mason, that compromise by virtue of which the small States are admitted to equality of representation on this floor.
I am not unmindful of the fact, on which the Senator from Virginia has dwelt so emphatically, that the Senate is in the habit of originating pension bills, also bills for payment of private claims, and kindred measures. I was glad, to-day, to vote for the bill originating in this body for the relief of our late distinguished Minister at Constantinople.[46] But against this usage, which is exceptional in character, and has probably attracted little attention, from its considerable convenience and little importance, may be opposed the uniform practice by which the great bills providing for the necessities of the Government have always originated in the House of Representatives. And you will bear in mind, Sir, that the question is now on these bills.
Mr. President, it is a received maxim, that it is the part of a good judge to amplify his jurisdiction; but it will hardly be accepted, that it is the part of the American Senate to amplify its powers, particularly in derogation of the popular branch. And it surely cannot escape observation, that the present effort is launched at a moment when the popular branch promises to differ from the Senate on important questions of national policy. I am not insensible to the public convenience, which has been pressed in this debate; but permit me to say, Sir, that, should this convenience require the proposed departure from our standing policy, we shall be wise, if we hearken to the counsels of the Senator from New York, and refrain from any innovation, unless assured of the consent and coöperation of the other House.
RELIEF OF VESSELS IN DISTRESS ON THE COAST.
Letter to the Director of the Exchange News-Room, Boston, February 18, 1856.
Senate Chamber, February 18, 1856.
DEAR SIR,—I have pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of the memorial, forwarded by you from the underwriters and merchants of Boston, and addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury, asking the despatch of immediate relief to the large fleet of vessels now distressed by the rigors of this severe winter on our northern coast. It reached me Sunday morning; but its charitable object did not allow delay, and on that day I placed the memorial in the hands of the Secretary.
I have his verbal answer to-day, expressing great interest in the object of the memorial, but saying, that, beyond the revenue cutter, the Treasury Department has no vessel at Boston which can be detached on this service, and that the cutter was directed some weeks ago to do what it could for the relief of distressed vessels.
Though the memorial was addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury, I felt it my duty to apply to the Secretary of the Navy. He entered into the plan with much benevolence, and expressed a desire to do all that the means at his command would permit. The only vessel at Boston in readiness is the steam-frigate Merrimack, which is about to start on a “trial-trip” of one week, previous to a cruise of six months. This vessel has already been ordered to make the week’s voyage direct from Boston to Norfolk; but the Secretary will give directions that she shall proceed to the Great Banks as far as can be judiciously done, under the circumstances, in order to afford relief to vessels in distress. He would extend the cruise to a longer term at once, but the contractors who have furnished her engines have certain rights which he is bound to respect.
The Secretary authorizes me to say also that he will send further relief, if possible.
I beg you to assure the memorialists that it will give me pleasure to promote the objects of the memorial to the full extent of my power.
Believe me, dear Sir, faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
John T. Smith, Esq., Exchange News-Room.
THE EXAMPLE OF WASHINGTON AGAINST SLAVERY NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN NOW.
Letter to a Committee of the Boston Mercantile Library Association, February 19, 1856.
Washington, February 19, 1856.
DEAR SIR,—I have been honored by your invitation to be with the Mercantile Library Association on the 22d instant. You know well the happiness I find in any coöperation with the young men of that Association, and I need not assure you of the gratification with which I should participate in any services calculated to exalt the example of Washington.
Particularly at this moment should it be invoked, when the Republic, which he helped to found, seems to shake with the first throes of civil war, engendered by an interest which was condemned by him during life and formally abjured by him at his death. His great name should now be employed for the suppression of that Slave Power which is the fruitful mother of so much wretchedness. It will not be enough to quote his paternal words for Union: his example must be arrayed against the gigantic wrong which now disturbs this Union to its centre, and, in the madness of its tyranny, destroys the very objects of Union.
The play of Othello without the part of Othello would be a barren spectacle; and the example of Washington, without his testimony against the malevolent force which disturbs the Republic, would be hardly less barren. Let the young men of Boston be encouraged to dwell on those sentiments and acts which, while they elevate his name, apply with prevailing power to the existing state of things among us. Let them bear in mind that he declared it to be “among his first wishes to see some plan adopted by which Slavery in this country may be abolished by law,”—that, to promote this purpose, he expressed a desire, in a recorded interview with a distinguished foreigner, for the formation of an Antislavery Society,—that on many occasions he condemned Slavery,—that, in congratulations to Lafayette on his purchase of a plantation with a view of emancipating the slaves on it, he exclaimed, “Would to God a like spirit might diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country!”—and that, finally, by his last will and testament, written within six months of his death, he bore his practical testimony to those ideas and aspirations, by the emancipation of his slaves. With these things taken to heart, the example of Washington will exert its just conservative influence over the country, holding it back from the extension of that evil against which he set himself, and arousing the general sentiment to repulse the aggressions which now threaten civil war. Then, indeed, will the Father of his Country have a new birth and influence.
Believe me, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
Charles G. Chase, Esq., &c., &c., &c.
CONSTANT EXERTION AND UNION AMONG GOOD MEN.
Letter to a Massachusetts Committee, February 25, 1856.
The papers announce, that the following letter, when read, was received with six rousing cheers.
Senate Chamber, February 25, 1856.
MY DEAR SIR,—I cannot be present at the festival in commemoration of the election of Mr. Banks as Speaker. My duties will keep me here.
But with you I rejoice in this triumph of Freedom, which is the first achieved in the National Government, since the recognition, by the earliest Congress under Washington, of the Ordinance prohibiting Slavery in the Northwestern Territory. To advance this victory, and to obtain its just fruits, there must be no relaxation of efforts, but constant exertion, with union among good men, and a determination to yield no jot in the conflict.
To Massachusetts belongs an honorable place at the head of the battle. May no treason or hesitation of any of her sons deprive her of this post!
Yours, faithfully,
Charles Sumner.
F. H. Underwood, Secretary, &c., &c.
THE ABROGATION OF TREATIES.
Speeches in the Senate, March 6 and May 8, 1856.
The effort to obtain for the Senate the power to abrogate treaties had peculiar interest at this time, from the known desire of certain Senators to terminate the stipulation between the United States and Great Britain, requiring a naval force on the coast of Africa for the suppression of the slave-trade. In 1854 Mr. Slidell brought forward a proposition to this effect in Executive Session, assuming that the stipulation could be terminated by a simple vote of the Senate. Mr. Sumner insisted that the prerogative belonged to the law-making power, and could be exercised only by Act of Congress. By his effort the proposition was defeated.
The power of the Senate over the abrogation of treaties was brought forward in Legislative Session, on the motion of Mr. Sumner, in connection with the Danish Sound dues, being the tax at Elsinore laid by Denmark upon the cargoes of vessels passing through the Sound into and out from the Baltic Sea. In 1841, Mr. Webster, as Secretary of State, traced the origin of this tax to the treaty of 1645 between Denmark and Holland, embracing a tariff of the principal articles then known in commerce; which treaty was the basis of our own concluded with Denmark in 1826, and limited to continue ten years from date, and further until the end of one year after notice by either party of an intention to terminate it; but he contented himself with recommending friendly negotiations, “with a view of securing to the commerce of the United States a full participation in any reduction of these duties, or the benefits resulting from any new arrangements respecting them which may be granted to the commerce of other states.”[47] In 1848, Mr. Buchanan, as Secretary of State, instructed our Minister at Copenhagen, that, “under the public law of nations, it cannot be pretended that Denmark has any right to levy duties on vessels passing through the Sound from the North Sea to the Baltic.” President Pierce, in his annual message of 1854, proposed to terminate the treaty of 1826; the Senate, by simple resolution in Executive Session, March 3, 1855, undertook to terminate it; and the President, in his annual message of 1855, announced that the proper notice had been given to Denmark.[48]
Mr. Sumner, impressed with the conviction that this notice was a bad precedent, and in the interest of the Slave Power, which controlled the Senate, besides being inadequate under the Constitution, brought forward the following resolution:—
“Resolved, That the Committee on Foreign Relations be directed to consider the expediency of some act of legislation, having the concurrence of both Houses of Congress, by which the treaty with Denmark regulating the payment of Sound dues may be effectively abrogated, in conformity with the requirements of the Constitution, under which every treaty is a part of ‘the supreme law of the land,’ and in conformity with the practice of the Government in such cases,—and especially to consider if such legislation be not necessary forthwith, in order to supply a defect in the notice of the purpose of the United States to abrogate the said treaty, which the President has undertaken to give to Denmark without the authority of an Act of Congress, and in disregard of the function of the House of Representatives in the abrogation of all existing laws.”
On his motion the Senate proceeded to its consideration, March 6, when he spoke as follows.
MR. PRESIDENT,—If I can have the attention of the Senate for a brief time, I will explain the object of this inquiry. The subject may be dry, but it is important, and, at this moment, of direct practical interest.
The President in his annual message named three different questions, arising out of our relations with foreign nations. Two of these, concerning England, have been discussed in the Senate; the other, which concerns the payment of the Sound dues to Denmark, has not yet been mentioned here. Introducing it now, I have no purpose to say anything on the character of these dues, or to arrest the efforts of the Government for the relief of our commerce from foreign exactions. That is a broad field of history and of public law, which for the present there is no occasion to enter. My desire is simply to open a question of domestic interest under our own Constitution, with which, of course, Denmark has no concern, but which is necessarily involved in the determination of our course on this matter.
The President, in his annual message, announces:—
“In pursuance of the authority conferred by a resolution of the Senate of the United States, passed on the 3d of March last, notice was given to Denmark, on the 14th day of April, of the intention of this Government to avail itself of the stipulation of the subsisting convention of friendship, commerce, and navigation, between that kingdom and the United States, whereby either party might, after ten years, terminate the same at the expiration of one year from the date of notice for that purpose.”[49]
The treaty, it will be noted, reserves to either party—that is, to either of the Governments between whom it is made—the privilege of terminating it by notice; and the President, without the sanction of an Act of Congress, but simply in pursuance of a resolution of the Senate, passed in Executive Session, has constituted himself the Government, so far as to give such notice, and by such notice to abrogate the treaty. Acting under his instructions, our Minister at Copenhagen, on the 14th of April, 1855, notified the Danish Government, that,—
“After the expiration of one year from the date of this communication, the United States will regard the general convention of ‘friendship, commerce, and navigation,’ agreed upon by Denmark and themselves on the 26th of April, 1826, as finally abrogated, and that after that period its provisions will not be binding upon our Government.”[50]
Thus undertaking, merely with the consent of the Senate, and without the concurrence of the House of Representatives, to abrogate a treaty, the President has assumed a power inconsistent with the Constitution, and disowned by the practice of the Government, adopted, after debate, on leading occasions. Such a usurpation cannot be justified by the good that is sought; for that good might have been sought, and may still be sought, by another course, in entire harmony with the Constitution and the practice of the Government. Nor will any temporary purpose justify the removal of constitutional safeguards.
The Constitution declares that the President “shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur”; but it does not declare that the President, by and with the consent of the Senate, shall have power to abrogate treaties. The absence of all language conferring this extraordinary power is itself an unanswerable argument against the existence of the power. But we are not left to found our conclusion even on irresistible inference. There are explicit words of the Constitution, which determine it beyond doubt. It is declared, that—
“This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, AND ALL TREATIES MADE or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, SHALL BE THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND.”
Thus declaring treaties to be “the supreme law of the land,” the Constitution not only gives to them the highest authority, but places them under the highest safeguard known to our institutions. When once made, they are obligatory on our side as laws, and can be abrogated by no power less than that which may abrogate existing laws. Not the President alone, not the President and Senate, can set them aside; but for this purpose the whole power of the Government must be invoked, in its most solemn form, by Act of Congress. In conformity with this requirement, the power to declare war, involving, of course, the abrogation of treaties, is expressly lodged with Congress. The President, with the consent of the Senate, cannot declare war; and it is difficult to see what greater power he possesses in the abrogation of a treaty, involving possibly the rupture of friendly intercourse with a foreign nation, and involving certainly the overthrow of what the Constitution declares to be the supreme law.
Thus placing treaties under all the sanctions of law, I follow the best authorities. The eminent commentator, Mr. Justice Story, in speaking of them, gives them this character. Expounding this very clause, he says:—
“It is therefore indispensable that they should have the obligation and force of a law, that they may be executed by the judicial power, and be obeyed like other laws. This will not prevent them from being cancelled or abrogated by the nation, upon grave and suitable occasions; for it will not be disputed that they are subject to the legislative power, and may be repealed, like other laws, at its pleasure.”[51]
And the Supreme Court of the United States affirm the same principle.
“A treaty is in its nature a contract between two nations, not a legislative act.… In the United States a different principle is established. Our Constitution declares a treaty to be the law of the land. It is consequently to be regarded in courts of justice as equivalent to an Act of the Legislature, whenever it operates of itself, without the aid of any legislative provision.”[52]
This is a decision comparatively recent. But early in our history the authority of treaties was much considered by the Supreme Court, in the famous case of Ware v. Hylton et al., 3 Dallas, 199-285, and we find judges from opposite sections of the country arriving at the same conclusion. Mr. Justice Gushing, of Massachusetts, said:—
“The treaty … is of equal force with the Constitution itself, and certainly with any law whatsoever.”[53]
Mr. Justice Iredell, of North Carolina, passed directly upon the power of Congress, asserting that to this body alone was given the power to abrogate a treaty under our Constitution. These are his words:—
“It is a part of the Law of Nations, that, if a treaty be violated by one party, it is at the option of the other party, if innocent, to declare, in consequence of the breach, that the treaty is void. If Congress, therefore, who, I conceive, alone have such authority under our Government, shall make such a declaration in any case like the present, I shall deem it my duty to regard the treaty as void.”[54]
In practical illustration of the legal character attributed to treaties, it will be observed that they are published with the Laws of the United States, and constitute part of this collection, being bound between the same covers; and I submit that the President and Senate might undertake to tear out a leaf from the Statutes at Large with as much propriety as to tear out an existing treaty.
Such is the rule of the Constitution, in conformity with which is the practice of the country. Never before has the President assumed to act without the House of Representatives in the performance of this duty.
This question arose early after the adoption of the Constitution, in our relations with France; and you will find, Sir, on our statute-book the evidence of the way in which it was regarded. In 1798, the existing treaties with France were abrogated by Act of Congress, which, after a preamble, proceeded as follows:—
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the United States are of right freed and exonerated from the stipulations of the treaties and of the consular convention heretofore concluded between the United States and France, and that the same shall not henceforth be regarded as legally obligatory on the Government or citizens of the United States.”[55]
This very Act of Congress originated in the Senate, which at that day undertook to exercise no such power as is now claimed. It was not passed hastily, or without debate. The subject of our relations with France was referred to a committee of that body on the 29th of November, 1797. After the lapse of months, on the 21st of June, 1798, Mr. Goodhue, from that committee, reported a bill to abrogate existing treaties with that nation, which passed the Senate on the 23d of June, by a vote of thirteen yeas to five nays. On the 25th it was carried to the House of Representatives, where it was referred to the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, fully debated, and finally passed on the 6th of July. In the course of the debate, treaties were recognized as laws, to be abrogated only by Act of Congress. A Representative from Massachusetts, afterwards an eminent judicial character, Mr. Sewall, put this point in these words:—
“It is certainly a novel doctrine to pass a law declaring a treaty void; but the necessity arose from the peculiar situation of this country. In most countries it is in the power of the Chief Magistrate to suspend a treaty, whenever he thinks proper. Here Congress only has that power.”[56]
This view was in no respect controverted or questioned. On the contrary, it was recognized by the whole debate. Mr. Dana, of Connecticut, said:—
“France has violated the faith pledged by her treaties with America. This, by the Law of Nations, puts it within the option of the Legislature to decide, as a question of expediency, whether the United States shall any longer continue to observe their stipulations.”[57]
Mr. Gallatin, whose position in our public affairs was afterwards so justly distinguished, employed the very language applicable to laws, when he spoke of the proposed abrogation of the treaty as a repeal.
“He knew of no precedent of a Legislature repealing a treaty. It is therefore an act of a peculiar kind, and it appeared to him necessary that Congress should justify it by a declaration of their reasons.… It is not sufficient to say, that, because a treaty has been violated, we will repeal it.”[58]
Such is the first and leading precedent in our history. The next is more recent, and of hardly less importance. It was the notice to Great Britain of the termination of the convention of 1827, relating to the joint occupancy of certain parts of Oregon. This was not done by the President, with the advice of the Senate in secret session, but by Act of Congress. President Polk, in his annual message of 2d December, 1845, called upon Congress to act. These are his words:—
“Under that convention, a year’s notice is required to be given by either party to the other, before the joint occupancy shall terminate, and before either can rightfully assert or exercise exclusive jurisdiction over any portion of the territory. This notice it would, in my judgment, be proper to give; and I recommend that provision be made by law for giving it accordingly, and terminating in this manner the convention of the 6th of August, 1827.”[59]
In pursuance of this recommendation, provision was made by law for this notice. You will remember, Sir, the debate which for months occupied both Houses of Congress, and was closed by the passage of a joint resolution, approved 27th April, 1846, which, after a preamble, proceeds as follows.
“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States be, and he is hereby, authorized, at his discretion, to give to the Government of Great Britain the notice required by the second article of the said convention of the sixth of August, 1827, for the abrogation of the same.”[60]
This instance is particularly in point; for the treaty was terminated, in accordance with its stipulations, by notice from the United States,—precisely as it is now proposed to terminate the treaty with Denmark. And the notice given to Great Britain with regard to the treaty is declared to be “for the abrogation of the same.”
Such, Sir, is the rule of the Constitution, sustained by authoritative precedents, in the abrogation of successive treaties with two powerful nations, France and Great Britain. Surely there cannot be one rule for large nations and another for small nations; nor will any one argue that a treaty with France or Great Britain can be abrogated only by Act of Congress, but a treaty with Denmark may be abrogated by the President without an Act of Congress. And yet, in apparent harmony with this fallacious distinction, the Executive, merely with the consent of the Senate, obtained in secret session, assumes to abrogate a treaty with weaker Denmark, and has given notice that this abrogation will take effect on the ensuing 14th of April. Not content with the treaty-making power which it possesses under the Constitution, it assumes the treaty-abrogating power, which it does not possess. And this assumption becomes more objectionable, when it is considered how completely it excludes the House of Representatives from an important function in the Government. Louis the Fourteenth, in the pride of conscious power, exclaimed, “I am the State”; and permit me to say, that our own Executive, undertaking to act in this matter without the sanction of Congress, effectively makes the same declaration. To the Senate is justly accorded large powers; but it now assumes more. Only lately it authorized the origination of the great appropriation bills, constituting the mainspring of the Government, in defiance of uninterrupted usage, and, as I submit, the spirit of the Constitution. What next, Sir? “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor!” And where, Sir, in this career of aggrandizement, will you stop?
Whatever may be the merits of the existing controversy with Denmark, I trust that the President will not clutch so eagerly at the promised fruits as to disregard the requirement of the Constitution, and the voice of the popular branch, in the repeal of an existing law. In vain you will urge the good accomplished. To do even a great right, it is not safe to do even a little wrong. At all events, I call attention to this extraordinary assumption, that it may not be recorded for a precedent. I call attention to it, also, that the needful steps may be taken forthwith, in order to make effective the notice which has been given, without due authority under the Constitution. The treaty with Denmark is at this moment part of the supreme law of the land, and can be abrogated only by Act of Congress.
A debate ensued, in which the conclusions of Mr. Sumner were maintained by Mr. Seward, of New York, Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, and Mr. Stuart, of Michigan,—and controverted by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, Mr. Toucey, of Connecticut, and Mr. Cass, of Michigan. Mr. Mason proposed to amend the pending resolution by striking out the second clause, which amendment Mr. Sumner at once accepted, and closed the debate as follows.
Mr. President,—My desire is simply to bring the question before the Committee, and, to accomplish this, I shall not stand on the form of the resolution. I am aware that it is argumentative, and involves, perhaps, a reflection upon the course of the Executive; but I adopted this form purposely, from a desire that the resolution should tell the whole story on its face, and speak for itself. The ample debate that has occurred supersedes all such desire. The subject is fully before the Senate, and I doubt not will receive the attention of the Committee.
In introducing this question, I remarked that it was of domestic concern under our own Constitution, with which, of course, Denmark has nothing to do. All references, therefore, to that power have been superfluous, if not illogical. Her consent is not sought in the proposed termination of the treaty. On the contrary, it will be terminated against her desires. We must look for our rule of conduct to our own Constitution. This I assume as an undeniable postulate.
The discussion, though protracted, has not been unprofitable; but at each stage we have been brought back to the clear and unmistakable distinction between the power to make treaties and the power to abrogate them, under the Constitution. The President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, may make treaties; but there is nothing in our Constitution conferring upon them the power to abrogate treaties. To attribute to them any such power is to go beyond the Constitution. Nor has any Senator distinctly, and in terms, claimed for them this power. On the contrary, I think that Senators on the other side—both the Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Connecticut—admit that a treaty cannot be abrogated, except by virtue of an Act of Congress. I understood the Senator from Connecticut to make this admission, and I believe the Senator from Virginia did also.
Mr. Mason nodded assent.
Mr. Toucey. I mean, except by Act of Congress or a new treaty.
Mr. Sumner. I put aside the whole idea of a new treaty, constituting in itself a new transaction, and involving the concurrence of the foreign power. The President and Senate, with the concurrence of a foreign power, may, of course, make a new treaty; but we are now dealing with the case where the whole proceeding is without any such concurrence. The question does not turn on the treaty-making power, but on the treaty-abrogating power. And I come back again to the admission of both Senators, that a treaty can be abrogated only by Act of Congress. This admission is important, and, as it seems to me, conclusive.
But here a distinction is made by these Senators between treaties which contain no provision for their termination and treaties which contain such provision. And I understand the Senator from Virginia to maintain that a treaty terminated in pursuance of such a provision is not abrogated. This is strange; for in both cases the treaty is brought to an end by our special intervention, and this is done without the concurrence of the other contracting party. If this is not the abrogation of a treaty, I do not see what can be. You may, if you choose, call it by a softer term, but still it is the same thing. The treaty is invalidated, or made to cease. But I will not argue this question. I submit to Senators opposite, who have maintained their views with so much constancy, that their position is not tenable; I say this frankly, but with entire respect for their learning and ability. The same power must be invoked to terminate a treaty containing a provision for its termination, on notice from either party, as to terminate a treaty containing no such provision; and in both cases the treaty may properly be said to be abrogated. The single distinction between the two cases is, that the treaty in one case is abrogated in defiance of the other party, and perhaps on hostile ground, while in the other case it is abrogated in pursuance of a power specially reserved, and therefore without any just cause of offence; but in both cases the life of the treaty is destroyed by our act. Permit me to add, that the distinction made between these two classes is a distinction without a difference, and the admission that a treaty can be abrogated only by Act of Congress is as applicable to one class as to the other: it settles the question.
I rest, then, confidently in the conclusion, that a treaty is part of the supreme law of the land, and cannot be set aside, terminated, superseded, disclaimed, repealed, or abrogated, except by the exercise of the highest power known to the Constitution, embodying the collected will of the whole people in a legislative act, under the sanction of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled.
The resolution, as modified, was adopted.
On the 7th of April, Mr. Mason, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, reported the following resolution.
“Resolved, That the notice which has been given by the President to Denmark, pursuant to the resolution of the Senate of the 3d of March, 1855, to terminate the treaty with that power of the 26th of April in the year 1826, is sufficient to cause such treaty to terminate and be annulled to all intents whatsoever, pursuant to the eleventh article thereof, and that no other or further act of legislation is necessary to put an end to said treaty, as part of the law of the land.”
This was considered May 8th, 1856, when Mr. Sumner spoke as follows.
Mr. President,—As this subject was originally brought before the Senate on my motion, I hope to be indulged while I state briefly what seems to be the true state of the question.
By the usage of most countries, the war-making power, the treaty-making power, and the treaty-abrogating power are all lodged in one and the same body. For instance, in England, the Queen in council declares war, makes treaties, and also abrogates treaties: so also do the other sovereigns of Europe. This is the growth of custom, and has become European constitutional law. But it is otherwise in the United States, where, according to the Constitution, the war-making power is expressly lodged in Congress, while the treaty-making power is expressly lodged in the President, acting with the advice of two thirds of the Senate. Nothing express appears in the Constitution with regard to the treaty-abrogating power. We are left to argument and inference, in order to ascertain whether this great attribute belongs with the war-making power to Congress, or with the treaty-making power to the President and Senate.
To me there are three considerations, each of which seems to be decisive, while the three combined compel us irresistibly to the true conclusion.
First. In the absence of any express words in the Constitution, the power to abrogate treaties should not be attributed to any mere fraction of the Government, as to the President, or to the President and Senate, nor to any branches short of the whole Government embodied in an Act of Congress. In view of the magnitude of the power, I am at a loss to see how any other conclusion can be adopted on this point.
Secondly. The Constitution has expressly lodged the war-making power in Congress, and, in doing so, seems by implication to have placed the treaty-abrogating power in the same body; for the latter seems to be an incident of the former. The abrogation of a treaty may be the prelude of war; indeed, it may practically amount to a declaration of war. The powers, though differing in degree, are kindred in character, and should go together.
Thirdly. The Constitution has stepped forward, and expressly declared that treaties shall be “the supreme law of the land”; and I know no way in which these words can have complete efficacy, unless they are held to impress upon treaties the character of law, so that they will not only be recognized as such by the courts, but also be irrepealable except by Act of Congress.
And this conclusion is confirmed by the practice of the Government on two important occasions, in abrogating all subsisting treaties with France in 1798, and in abrogating the convention with England relating to Oregon as late as 1846. I do not dwell on these instances, or their authoritative character; for I went over them at length on a former occasion. Now, for the first time in our history, an opposite practice is adopted, contrary to precedents, and also, as it seems to me, contrary to reason. It is proposed to terminate a subsisting treaty with Denmark, establishing reciprocal privileges of trade, and especially regulating the payment of Sound dues, without any Act of Congress, but simply by virtue of a resolution of the Senate. The novelty of this course creates an impression against it. But this is vindicated by the Committee on Foreign Relations, in an elaborate report, on the ground of a peculiar provision in the treaty, as follows.
“The present convention shall be in force for ten years from the date hereof, and further until the end of one year after either of the contracting parties shall have given notice to the other of its intention to terminate the same,—each of the contracting parties reserving to itself the right of giving such notice to the other at the end of the said term of ten years; and it is hereby agreed between them, that, on the expiration of one year after such notice shall have been received by either from the other party, this convention and all the provisions thereof shall altogether cease and determine.”
It is admitted, as I understand, that, without this provision, the treaty could not be terminated, except by Act of Congress; but it is said, that, under this provision, no such Act is required. It is difficult to understand the ground of this distinction; for there is nothing in this provision to take power from Congress and confer it upon the Senate alone. Point out the words, if they exist. They are not there. How, then, can you infer them? The treaty is to be terminated on notice from either party; and this notice must proceed from the same power which, in the absence of such provision, would be competent to act. The mode of action is different, but the acting power is the same in both cases.
This treaty may be terminated on notice from “either of the contracting parties.” In other treaties, having a similar provision, other equivalent terms are employed: as in the treaty with Greece in 1837, and with Sardinia in 1838, where the term “high contracting parties” is employed; the treaty with Hanover in 1840, and with the Hanseatic Republics in 1852, where the term “Government of the United States on the one part” is employed; and, again, in the treaty with New Granada in 1844, where the term “one of the two Governments” is employed. These terms are all identical in meaning; and they signify that the notice in all cases must be an act of the Government.
Who, then, for this purpose, is the Government, under the Constitution of the United States? Surely, the power that can abrogate a treaty, and nothing short of this; and this power, we have already seen, is represented by an Act of Congress alone.
The Committee in their report, undertake to set forth the difference between treaties which contain no provision for their termination and those which do contain such provision, as follows.
“The distinction in the character of the acts, in the one class of treaties and in the other, consists in this: that in the first class, as in the treaties with France in 1798, they were annulled as to the other party, se invito; in the second, in the case with England, they became null with the assent of that power previously given.”
Permit me to say that this does not seem to be a correct statement of the difference between the two classes; for in both cases the treaties were annulled contrary to the desire of the opposite party; and it is notorious that the pending proceedings to annul the treaty with Denmark are contrary to the desire of that power. No, Sir: the difference between the two cases must be found in something else, which seems to me palpable and unmistakable. It is this.
By the Law of Nations, in the absence of any express stipulation, a treaty is of perpetual obligation on both parties,—to be abrogated only by a new treaty having the assent of both parties, or by the act of one party, alleging bad faith or hostile intent in the other, and on this account declaring before the civilized world a release from all its obligations. Such an act not only operates upon the other party in invitum, but it is also offensive in character. But if any express stipulation is introduced, authorizing the termination of the treaty on notice from either party, then it may be abrogated in conformity to the stipulation, even contrary to the desire of the opposite party, without giving cause of offence; and this will be found to be the sole practical distinction between the two cases. In both, the same power must be invoked; but it acts in different ways.
The question in the present case is of importance in two aspects: first, as it involves the determination of a question of political power under our Constitution; and, secondly, as it may affect the interest of private individuals.
In the first aspect, the question would not be unimportant, constitutionally, if the treaty with Denmark were the only one affected by it; but the frequency of the provision in recent treaties adds to its interest. Unknown in early days, it makes its first appearance as late as 1822 in a treaty with France, and then in 1826 in this very treaty with Denmark; but it has been repeated constantly since. Here is a list, now in my hand, of no less than forty-six different treaties of the United States with thirty-two different foreign powers, in which this provision will be found. Among these is the important stipulation with Great Britain, under which a squadron is kept on the coast of Africa for the suppression of the slave-trade; and you are now to determine whether the Senate will assume to itself the extraordinary power now claimed over all these treaties, or will leave it in the hands of Congress. And, still further, if this power is assumed by the Senate, can it be exercised by a mere majority, or will a vote of two thirds be required? How shall this question be decided? This very difficulty of detail helps point to the true conclusion. But here is the list.
Memorandum of Treaties containing provision for their termination.
| With what country made. | Date. | Article | Vol. of Laws. | Pages. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| France | 24 June, 1822 | 7 | 8 | 280 |
| ” | 9 Nov., 1843 | 6 | 8 | 582 |
| ” | 23 Feb., 1853 | 13 | 10 | 999 |
| Denmark | 26 April, 1826 | 11 | 8 | 342 |
| Sweden and Norway | 4 July, 1827 | 19 | 8 | 356 |
| Great Britain | 6 August, 1827 | 2 | 8 | 360 |
| ” | 6 August, 1827 | 2 | 8 | 362 |
| ” | 9 August, 1842 | 11 | 8 | 577 |
| ” | 15 Dec., 1848 | 22 | 9 | 970 |
| ” | 5 June, 1854 | 5 | 10 | 1092 |
| Hanseatic Republics | 20 Dec., 1827 | 10 | 8 | 370 |
| ” | 30 April, 1852 | 2 | 10 | 962 |
| Prussia | 1 May, 1828 | 15 | 8 | 386 |
| ” | 16 June, 1852 | 5 | 10 | 967 |
| Brazil | 12 Dec., 1828 | 33 | 8 | 397 |
| Austria | 27 August, 1829 | 12 | 8 | 401 |
| ” | 8 May, 1848 | 5 | 9 | 947 |
| Mexico | 5 April, 1831 | 34 | 8 | 426 |
| ” | 2 Feb., 1848 | 17 | 9 | 935 |
| Chile | 16 May, 1832 | 31 | 8 | 440 |
| Russia | 6-18 Dec., 1832 | 12 | 8 | 450 |
| Venezuela | 20 Jan., 1836 | 34 | 8 | 482 |
| Morocco | 16 Sept., 1836 | 25 | 8 | 487 |
| Peru-Bolivian Confed’n | 30 Nov., 1836 | 30 | 8 | 495 |
| Greece | 10-22 Dec., 1837 | 17 | 8 | 506 |
| Sardinia | 26 Nov., 1838 | 19 | 8 | 520 |
| Netherlands | 19 Jan., 1839 | 6 | 8 | 526 |
| ” | 26 August, 1852 | 6 | 10 | 985 |
| ” | 22 Jan., 1855 | 15 | 10 | 1156 |
| Ecuador | 13 June, 1839 | 35 | 8 | 550 |
| Hanover | 20 May, 1840 | 9 | 8 | 558 |
| ” | 10 June, 1846 | 11 | 9 | 866 |
| ” | 18 Jan., 1855 | 5 | 10 | 1141 |
| Portugal | 26 August, 1840 | 14 | 8 | 568 |
| New Granada | 6 March, 1844 | 11 | 8 | 586 |
| ” | 12 Dec., 1846 | 35 | 9 | 899 |
| Belgium | 10 Nov., 1845 | 19 | 8 | 612 |
| Two Sicilies | 1 Dec., 1845 | 12 | 9 | 841 |
| Swiss Confederation | 18 May, 1847 | 3 | 9 | 903 |
| Mecklenburg-Schwerin | 9 Dec., 1847 | 11 | 9 | 920 |
| Guatemala | 3 March, 1849 | 33 | 10 | 888 |
| Hawaiian Islands | 20 Dec., 1849 | 16 | 9 | 982 |
| San Salvador | 2 Jan., 1850 | 35 | 10 | 898 |
| Costa Rica | 10 July, 1851 | 13 | 10 | 924 |
| Peru | 26 July, 1851 | 40 | 10 | 946 |
| Bavaria | 12 Sept., 1853 | 5 | 10 | 1025 |
Are you aware, Sir, of the extent to which the abrogation of this treaty may affect private interests, and therefore directly raise for the judgment of the courts the question of the validity of your proceeding? By this treaty Danish ships and cargoes are put upon the footing of those of the most favored nations, and exempted from discriminating duties; but these privileges must, of course, cease with the treaty. Now, if a Danish vessel should arrive in the coming month at New York, from St. Thomas, or at San Francisco, on her way from Manila, as has latterly happened, the question would at once be presented, whether the treaty had been legally abrogated, so as to expose the vessel and cargo to the discriminating duties and fees? That I may not seem to imagine a case, I call your attention to a list of these duties and fees.
[Here Mr. Sumner went into details which are omitted. At this stage he was interrupted by a question from a Senator.]
Mr. Clayton. I wish to ask the Senator, whether, in his judgment, supposing the treaty to be abrogated, our Act of Congress of 1828 would not authorize the executive department of the Government to admit free of duty any articles from Denmark?
Mr. Sumner. The Senator is, perhaps, right. The President may remit these discriminating duties; but I believe he can do it only after information from Denmark as to her course. He cannot do it at once; and I now refer to these duties simply to show that at this moment, while I speak, a practical question may arise in our courts, or at our custom-houses, as to the validity of the act of abrogation.
These things will at least make you hesitate before you assert a power which is without precedent, and which at a former day was disowned in this very case. By referring to the published diplomatic correspondence, it appears that Mr. Buchanan, when Secretary of State, in a letter to our representative at Copenhagen, dated 14th October, 1848, twice over recognized this power in Congress. “Congress may, therefore, at any moment, authorize the President to terminate this convention.” Mark, Sir, he did not say the Senate, but Congress. And then again he says: “It is probable that two years might elapse before the existing convention could be terminated, as an act must first pass Congress to enable the President to give the required notice, after which a year must expire before it could be rendered effectual.”[61] It appears, also, that the House of Representatives, proceeding on this understanding, had already initiated a joint resolution on this subject, and therefore were in some measure seized of it, when the Senate undertook to act alone. It seems to me that the course you have commenced should be retraced, and that a joint resolution, or Act of Congress, for the abrogation of the treaty, should be introduced at once, if it is considered, in the present state of negotiations on this question among the European nations, that the abrogation of the treaty should be pressed immediately.
I desire the opinion of the Senate simply on the necessity of present action by joint resolution,—leaving to another time, or to the Committee, the question, whether the joint resolution shall be prospective in its operation, or retroactive, so as to take advantage of the notice already given? In order to have a decision of this single point, I move to strike out all of the resolution now pending after the word “Resolved,” and insert as follows:—
“That the Committee on Foreign Relations be instructed to report a joint resolution of Congress, providing for the effectual termination of the convention with Denmark of the 26th of April, 1826.”
The subject was debated by Mr. Stuart, Mr. Clayton, Mr. Hale, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Toombs, Mr. Collamer, Mr. Benjamin, and Mr. Crittenden, when the Senate adjourned without a vote. It rested for a long time, when, on July 22d, while Mr. Sumner was absent from the Senate, disabled by injuries, Mr. Mason moved it again. The Senate refused to consider it by a vote of sixteen ayes to twenty noes, and from that time it was abandoned. Since then treaties have been abrogated by Act of Congress, and this may be considered the established rule.
The question of the Sound Dues, out of which this debate arose, was settled by “friendly negotiation,” according to the original suggestion of Mr. Webster. An arrangement was made by the different powers of Europe, March 14, 1857, capitalizing the tax levied by Denmark, and assuming in ratable proportions the payment of the full sum on condition that the tax should cease. The United States kept aloof from this arrangement, but by separate treaty, April 11, 1857, obtained the same immunity by paying 717,829 rix dollars, with the further recognition of the treaty of 1826, except the article on the Sound Dues.[62]
REPLY TO ASSAULTS ON EMIGRATION IN KANSAS.
Speech in the Senate, on the Report of the Committee on Territories, March 12, 1856.
The terrible strife which began with the Kansas and Nebraska Bill was at its height during the winter. Freedom and Slavery were at a death-grapple in the Territory. Organized bands proceeded from the South, which were encountered by peaceful emigration from the North. The whole country was aroused. South and North were in a flame. On the one side there was a persistent effort to subject the Territory to Slavery; on the other side an equally persistent effort to save it to Freedom. At this stage, Mr. Douglas, from the Committee on Territories, presented a very long Report, purporting to be on the affairs of Kansas, where everything was represented unfavorably to the Northern emigrants, and especially to the Emigrant Aid Society of Massachusetts. This Report was read at the desk by its author, a course to which the Senate was not accustomed. Mr. Collamer presented a Minority Report, which he read at the desk also. As soon as the reading was over, Mr. Sumner took the floor and made the following remarks.
MR. PRESIDENT,—In those two reports the whole subject is presented characteristically on both sides. In the report of the majority the true issue is smothered; in that of the minority the true issue stands forth as a pillar of fire to guide the country. The first proceeds from four Senators; but against it I fearlessly put that report signed by a single Senator [Mr. Collamer], to whom I offer my thanks for this service. Let the two go abroad together. Error is harmless, while reason is left free to combat it.
I have no desire to precipitate the debate on this important question, under which the country already shakes from side to side, and which threatens to scatter from its folds civil war. Nor, indeed, am I disposed to enter upon it, until I have the opportunity of seeing in print the elaborate documents which have been read to-day. But I cannot allow the subject to pass away, even for this hour, without repelling at once, distinctly and unequivocally, the assault which has been made upon the Emigrant Aid Company of Massachusetts. That Company has done nothing for which it can be condemned under the laws and Constitution of the land. These it has not offended in letter or spirit,—not in the slightest letter, nor in the remotest spirit. It is true, it has sent men to Kansas; and had it not a right to send them? It is true, I trust, that its agents love Freedom and hate Slavery; and have they not a right to do so? Their offence has this extent, and no more. Sir, to the whole arraignment of that Company, in the report of the Committee on Territories, I now for them plead, “Not guilty!” and confidently appeal to the country for that honorable acquittal which is due to their patriot services.
The outrages in Kansas are vindicated or extenuated by the alleged misconduct of the Emigrant Aid Company. Very well, Sir; a bad cause is naturally staked on untenable ground. You cannot show the misconduct. Any such allegation will fail. And you now begin your game with loaded dice.
UNION TO SAVE KANSAS, AND UNION TO SAVE OURSELVES.
Letter to a New York Committee, April 28, 1856.
Senate Chamber, April 28, 1856.
DEAR SIR,—I cannot be at your proposed meeting, where are to assemble the patriotism, intelligence, and wealth of the metropolis; but I recognize its importance, and cry to it God-speed!
The work before us is plain. Kansas must be saved from a tyrannical usurpation, under which Slavery has been forcibly established on Free Soil. This is the special object of labor to which we are summoned by every consideration of regard for that distant Territory, and also by every sentiment of love for our common country. But this can be done only by her immediate welcome into the Union, under her present Constitution, as a Free State,—of course without recognition of the usurping Tyranny. Upon this we must insist, as the means essential to the end.
In achieving this result, an incidental good will be accomplished, which of itself should impel us to any exertion. The Slave Oligarchy has staked its power in the National Government upon the support of this usurpation. In the madness of its despotism, it has selected a position the least tenable of all its assumptions. To dislodge it from this position, and at the same time from its disgusting supremacy in the National Government, will be one and the same work. And all this will be easy to do, if the good people of the populous North, forgetting past differences, will but rally together. Union to save Kansas, and Union to save ourselves, should be the watchword.
Believe me, dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
E. D. Morgan, Esq., Chairman, &c.
THE CRIME AGAINST KANSAS:
THE APOLOGIES FOR THE CRIME; THE TRUE REMEDY.
Speech in the Senate, May 19 and 20, 1856.
Such busy multitudes I fain would see
Stand upon Free Soil with a people free.
Goethe, Faust, Part II. Act V.
Nihil autem gloriosius libertate præter virtutem, si tamen libertas recte a virtute sejungitur.—John of Salisbury, Polycraticus, Lib. VII. cap. 25.
On the 17th of March, 1856, Mr. Douglas introduced “A Bill to authorize the People of the Territory of Kansas to form a Constitution and State Government, preparatory to their Admission into the Union, when they have the requisite Population.” Subsequently, Mr. Seward moved, by way of substitute, another bill, providing for immediate action, and entitled “A Bill for the Admission of the State of Kansas into the Union.” Debate ensued, and was continued by adjournment from time to time. In the course of this debate, on the 19th and 20th of May, Mr. Sumner made the following speech.
This speech found unexpected audience from an incident which followed its delivery. It became a campaign document in the Presidential election then at hand, and was circulated by the hundred thousand. Besides reprint in newspapers, there were large pamphlet editions in Washington, New York, Boston, and San Francisco. Editions appeared in German and Welsh. It was reprinted in London, in a publication by Nassau W. Senior, the eminent publicist and economist, entitled “American Slavery: A Reprint of an Article on ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ and of Mr. Sumner’s Speech of the 19th and 20th of May, 1856.”
At the period of its delivery an intense excitement prevailed throughout the country. At the North there was a deep sense of wrong, with indignation at the pretensions of the Slave Power, yearning for a voice in Congress that should speak out the general sentiment. These influences reached Mr. Sumner before he spoke, in numerous letters.
Hon. William Jay, of New York, the able and eminent Abolitionist, being on the point of sailing for Europe, wrote thus:—
“It is with heavy forebodings in regard to Kansas that I leave the country. I have long been convinced that the great obstacle to the cause of human rights and the ultimate prosperity and freedom of our native land is the corruption of the moral sense of our nation. We are very religious as a people, so far as religion is convenient, and consistent with money-getting, office, and power; but so far as it interferes with those pursuits, we are a nation of infidels. To me it seems the Democratic party is utterly and ostentatiously profligate, the unblushing advocates of human slavery and piratical warfare, the most God-defying party which ever cursed our country. As to Slavery, the Church is exerting a most corrupting influence. Our cotton parsons preach to please the rich pew-holders, and are becoming more and more bold in defending Slavery, while —— keeps watch and ward over the press of the Tract Society as the guardian of human bondage, and decent men are not ashamed to give their hands to this shameless renegade, this reproach to Christianity. The violence, insolence, cruelty, and injustice springing from Slavery are gradually drifting into anarchy,—and anarchy leads first to civil war, and then to military usurpation.
“But duty is ours, and events belong to Providence. I think all honest men must now be convinced that nothing is gained to Freedom by compromises. Had Webster been a true man, there would have been no trouble about Kansas. I never see his portrait or bust without a shudder. I am for bold deeds and bold language.
‘Fear admitted into public councils
Betrays like treason.’
“May God direct and bless you!”
Another friend wrote from Massachusetts as follows.
“Pardon me for the expression of an earnest wish to hear from you soon on the Kansas Freedom Question. However ably —— and others have treated it, and they have done noble things, I am persuaded that you can impress the public mind with the magnitude of the momentous issue more than any other man.
“Excuse me again for suggesting, that, as Douglas charges as a reason, or pretence, for calling the Freedom party ‘Black Republicans,’ because, as he says, their platform all relates to ‘the Nigger Question,’ it may with the greatest force be retorted, that the party in power should justly be named Black Democrats, because their whole foreign and domestic policy is dictated by the slaveholding oligarchy, and basely surrenders every other interest of the country to it, if it interfere.
“Especially, I know that it would exceedingly gratify the friends of Freedom, if the arrogance and bullyism of Douglas could be signally rebuked, and his faithlessness to the honor and welfare of his native land be conspicuously exhibited.”
Eli Thayer, of Worcester, who, more than any other person, was author of the system of emigration which was redeeming Kansas, addressed Mr. Sumner as follows, under date of May 8.
“I am happy to learn that you intend to speak next Monday. In my judgment that speech has a very important mission to perform, and I rejoice that it is soon to be before the people. But there will be gnashing of teeth among the defenders of Slavery. Be prepared, therefore, for the worst of their endeavors.
“Your shafts will fall among them as did those of the far-shooting god among the Greeks before the walls of Troy, when he punished them for enslaving the daughter of his priest:—
Δεινὴ δὲ κλαγγὴ γένετ’ ἀργυρέοιο βιοῖο.
“My friend Mr. Williams will be present to hear you. I envy him the pleasure of the occasion.
“May good fortune attend you!”
Dr. Le Baron Russell, of Boston, an active member of the Emigration Society, wrote, under date of May 11:—
“We have had enough of truckling in Northern men. It is time for us to show that we mean to submit to the Southern bravado no longer. I have always felt humiliated by the tone our men have taken in Congress, yielding everything, and never daring to assert their rights or to exercise their true power to crush these fellows into submission.”
Such was the prompting under which Mr. Sumner spoke, while the whole country watched the debate. The response to the speech was in harmony with the prompting.
The correspondent of the New York Tribune thus by telegraph described the speech immediately after its delivery:—
“Senator Sumner’s Kansas speech is the most masterly, striking, and scathing production of the session. The galleries were crowded with intellect, beauty, and fashion, and the anterooms were also thronged. His excoriation of Douglas was scornfully withering and scorching. He designated Senator Butler as the Don Quixote of Slavery, and Douglas as its Sancho Panza. Mr. Sumner never before made such an impression in force, manner, and emphatic style. He was animated and glowing throughout, hurling defiance among the opposition, and bravely denouncing the Kansas swindle from first to last. Some passages quite electrified the Chamber, and gave a new conception of the man. Finer effect has rarely been produced.”
The scene was sketched by a correspondent of the Missouri Democrat, at St. Louis, as follows.
“It may be rash to publish in Missouri a just estimate of the abilities of an Abolitionist. Sectional opinion demands caricatures, and not portraits. It views the leading men of the other section through the medium of its fear, its hatred, or its contempt, and can recognize no likeness, unless the features are distorted and the canvas is darkened, unless the countenance is wicked and the figure hideous.
“Sumner had an audience calculated to arouse all his faculties, and to remind him that his position was in many respects similar to that of Burke, when he impeached Warren Hastings. His brother Senators were mostly in their seats,—by no means a common occurrence. The lobbies were crowded with the great outside politicians, of whom Senators and Members are frequently the instruments, who originate and guide political movements by means of the press. Francis P. Blair, and Thurlow Weed, and Robert J. Walker, and bevies of Southern delegates to the Cincinnati Convention were there; and the young orators of the House were also there,—Stephens, the keenest blade in the Proslavery ranks, looking as if his face was the battle-ground of boyhood and old age, and Keitt, measuring himself silently with Sumner, and doubtless thinking that the speech to which he was listening so attentively was like a Burmese idol, a monster covered with jewels. The ladies’ gallery was crowded to excess, and the fair ones overflowed into the anteroom of the Senate. The letter-writers in double file occupied their own gallery (for which their best thanks are due to John P. Hale), and passed upon the speech as it gradually came forth. The people in compact mass occupied the background.
“That Sumner displayed great ability, and showed that in oratorical talent he was no unworthy successor of Adams, Webster, and Everett, no one who heard him will deny. In vigor and richness of diction, in felicity and fecundity of illustration, in breadth and completeness of view, he stands unsurpassed. He laid the classics, the Gothic mythology, the imaginative literature of Europe, and the Bible under tribute for imagery or quotation. That he had the great speech of Cicero and the greater speech of Burke in his mind’s eye, there can be no doubt.
“In his reply to Cass, Douglas, and Mason, who stung him into excitement, he was more successful than at any other time. The collision knocked fire from him; and well it might, for he was abused and insulted as grossly as any man could be; but he replied successfully to the unmeasured vituperation of Douglas, and the aristocratic and withering hauteur of Mason.”
The able correspondent of the Evening Post at New York, William S. Thayer, afterwards Consul-General at Alexandria, furnished this description.
“There is but one opinion among all competent judges as to the unexampled feast of eloquence which has been enjoyed in the Senate for the past two days, from the lips of Senator Sumner. In a speech of five hours in length, he has exhibited the most signal combination of oratorical splendors which, in the opinion of a veteran Senator, has ever been witnessed in that Hall. Indeed, for the union of clear statement, close and well-put reasoning, piquant personality and satire, freighted with a wealth of learned and apposite illustrations, every one of which was subsidiary to the main purpose of the argument, it may safely challenge comparison with the great speeches of Burke, to whom the Massachusetts Senator, in the ripened vigor of his abilities, and in his varied accomplishments, bears no small similitude.… But Mr. Sumner was more fortunate than Burke in drawing and detaining his audience.… From the beginning to the end of each session, not only were the galleries thronged to their utmost capacities with ladies and gentlemen, but all the doorways were completely blocked up with listeners who hung in breathless suspense upon his eloquence. It seemed even as if the members of the other House had adjourned to crowd the lobbies of the Senate. No such scene has been witnessed since the days of Webster.”
A writer in the Liberator thus recorded his impressions on reading the speech:—
“Never, I think, from anything did I receive an impression of greater power and grandeur. It came over me like the sound of many waters. I laid down the paper, and still there seemed to press around me a solemn, majestic anthem from a mighty organ. I can almost imagine that around that sick-bed the invisible angels gather, and that on that bruised and mangled head the rays of a divine halo gleam between the blossoms of an imperishable wreath.”
Another writer, in a country journal of Massachusetts, expresses himself thus:—
“It were the merest commonplace to say that Massachusetts may well be proud of her son. She owes him a debt which she can never fitly discharge. I would avoid estimating him too highly; but it seems to me that it may be said without extravagance, that to much of the firmly knit strength and unassailable logic of a Webster he unites all the fire and fervor of an Otis, with the grace and classic elegance of an Everett. But underlying, interpenetrating, and informing all this brilliancy of genius is the earnest philanthropy of the man,—a philanthropy which gives an effect to all his productions, which the cold-blooded politician, or statesman, even, can never hope to attain. His words go straight to the popular heart, and find there an earnest and immediate response.”
The Rev. Gilbert Haven, in a published sermon at Westfield, Massachusetts, spoke thus:—
“Read the great speech which excited such rage, and won for its author the crown of a martyr. For, before he uttered a word, he knew its probable effect; he measured the danger before he struck the blow. But three or four in all history are its equals in beauty and strength of thought and language,—Demosthenes against the Philipizing Douglas of Athens, the keen, ready, insolent tool of her tyrants,—Cicero against the Atchison Catiline of the Roman Republic,—Burke against the wholesale enslaver of India, Hastings,—Webster against the South Carolinian traducer of Freedom and its fruits: with these four, this stands, and will always stand, equal to the highest in all the literary qualities of an oration, higher than the highest in the sweep of his theme,—the preservation of the liberty, culture, and religion of a great Christian nation.”
The testimony of the press was followed by that of correspondents, who vied in grateful felicitations. Of these a few examples are given.
John G. Whittier, the poet, wrote:—
“I have read and re-read thy speech, and I look upon it as thy best. A grand and terrible philippic, worthy of the great occasion; the severe and awful truth which the sharp agony of the national crisis demanded. It is enough for immortality. So far as thy own reputation is concerned, nothing more is needed. But this is of small importance. We cannot see as yet the entire results of that speech, but everything now indicates that it has saved the country.”
Joseph E. Worcester, the distinguished lexicographer, wrote:—
“I take my pen in hand to express to you—shall I say my sympathy or congratulation, or something of both, for the scene through which you have recently passed? No one would wish to be the victim of ‘border-ruffianism,’ which has broken out in so disgraceful a manner at Washington; yet I am happy to be able to congratulate you on standing so honorably as you do in relation to this affair before the public, and that such public feeling is manifested in relation to the transaction. I cannot but hope that the recent occurrence will have a powerful influence in advancing the good cause which you have so zealously and ably defended.”
The Count Gurowski wrote from New York:—
“That is grand and beautiful, what you uttered again, and hurled against traitors,—grand and beautiful in thought (der Idee), which is principal with an old German pupil, but not less so in form, for which likewise I have appreciation. I wish I could find new words to communicate to you the impression full of charm and joy, reading your speech this morning. You still ascend in higher regions with every one of your oratorical efforts.”
George P. Putnam, of New York, the eminent publisher, wrote:—
“May so small an item as myself, among the millions who are electrified by this bold and masterly exposition of the great curse of the land, be permitted to join in the expression of hearty admiration of the consummate ability and unflinching fearlessness of the man who thus stands up in the front ranks of the battle for Freedom and Humanity!
“Be assured, dear Sir, that you have gained a great many repenting sinners from the ranks of the timid cotton-bound apologists of Southern tyranny. Scarcely a man of intelligence and standing within my range of observation will now hesitate to indorse heartily your position on this question, which was so recently in advance of the age. ‘There is a good time coming.’”
Simeon Draper, of New York, active and eminent as a political leader, wrote:—
“I sincerely regret that you have received from the hand of an assassin so serious a blow. I pray you may be saved from pain, and soon be brought to your seat in the Senate, and be long spared to defend the right and tell the truth. In this great city of money-worshippers, thank God, there are none to defend this act of cowardice and meanness. Your sufferings may be great and even prolonged by this scoundrelism, but the life of Slavery will be much shortened.”
Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, famous for his early and constant warfare with Slavery, afterwards Minister of the United States at Petersburg, wrote:—
“I think your speech is far the best one delivered this session, and will confer upon you immortality as a parliamentary debater,—not merely a ‘maker of addresses,’ as your enemies would have it. I think it will stand right alongside with Webster’s reply to Hayne on the Foot resolution, which was his greatest effort in my judgment, and will be considered equal to it in apt classical allusion, strength of argument, bitter irony, and lofty patriotism. Perhaps the only drawback in the comparison is the studied arrangement of your speech, which, although assisting the memory in the public mind, savors too much of the pulpit, and ‘smells too much of the lamp.’ My dear Sir, I have said thus much of your speech because I think every orator would like to hear a candid criticism from any source, however humble.
“The effect of your speech will be tremendous,—all the more effective on account of the sequel.”
George W. Curtis, of New York, the elegant writer and speaker, wrote to George Sumner:—
“While the whole free country is testifying its respect for the statesman, and its honor for the brave defender of the only great cause in human politics, it is a privilege upon which I congratulate myself, that I may send my love to your brother.
“Tell him that those of us whose pursuits are not political postpone them to the commanding interest of the time, and stand ready to prove our sympathy.
“I am writing an oration, to be delivered before the societies of the Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut,—unfortunately not until August; my theme is naturally the duty of the American scholar to politics; and as I remember the scholar John Milton, who was the great orator of Liberty in those days, I shall not forget, nor allow my audience to forget, the scholar who in later days—these very summer months, that will not then have passed by—stood in the same way, splendid, not only by the glory of his cause, but by the powers he consecrated to it, and by the wrongs he suffered for it.”
Hon. E. Rockwood Hoar, afterwards Attorney-General, wrote from Concord, Massachusetts:—
“Courage and good cheer, my noble friend! We will stand by you in everything that head can devise or hand can execute.
“If you had been killed, no man could desire a nobler epitaph than your speech; and you will live to say again, in many a form, and on many a fit occasion, the stinging home truths to which no reply could be found but this.”
Edwin P. Whipple, of Boston, admired as a writer, wrote with the warmth of personal friendship:—
“You have been constantly in my mind and heart since the attempt at your assassination, and I must tell you how much I sympathize with the sentiments of your speech, how I glory in its genius, and how impossible it is for me to find words to express my rage and abhorrence in regard to the outrage that followed it. I cannot account for the course of Senator Butler, and of South Carolina, except on the supposition, that, fearing certain charitable persons might think you were too severe in your comments on them, they hastened to prove they were worse than it had ever entered your imagination to conceive them to be.
“Your speech is more than a speech: it is an event. It would have been an event, had not your opponents answered it in the only way they were capable of answering it. It is much more so now. But your position, though more glorious than that of any other living man, has great responsibilities attached to it.”
Chauncey Clark, an earnest constituent, of Northampton, Mass., wrote:—
“I have carefully read your speech; I have read the concluding retort, which some of your friends wish had not been made; and I most fervently thank God for enabling you to say just what you said, and to say it in the very manner you did. And, Sir, you may well thank God, too. It required no ordinary power. It was not the work of a day nor of a night, nor of successive nights with lamps and ‘nigger boys.’ Douglas knows little of the requisites necessary for bringing up through this crooked world, and establishing the heart and mind, in such a place as the Senate Chamber, of an honest man.
“Had not God separated you early in life, and guided and guarded and instructed you through many years, with special reference to this very exigency, that concentration of clear and just conception, of indignant hatred of tyranny, and of confidence in the final triumph of justice, could not have been called up at pleasure by you, merely to grace a speech.”
Rev. Francis Wayland, of Providence, the able author of works on Moral Philosophy and Political Economy, wrote:—
“I will not say that I, the whole nation, or the free portion of it, sympathize with you,—and, what is far better, I believe them to be solemnly moved. At least I have seen nothing like it before. With us the wave has reached an elevation which it never before touched. Our ablest, best, and most influential men, men who have been highly conservative, as it is called, have made up their minds on this subject. They are calm, considerate, constitutional; but they mean what they say, and they will never go back.…
“I thank you for your speech, as I do for all the others you have sent me. I hope you will deliver many such, and I think you will do it henceforth without peril. Do not, however, go out, or use your mind actively, until you are perfectly well.”
Rev. Convers Francis, of Harvard University, wrote:—
“I remember you told me last November, just before your departure for Washington, that you were looking forward to fearful trials in the approaching session, but that the path of duty was plain before you, and that you should walk therein. Nobly, most nobly, have you redeemed that pledge. But the apprehension with which the first part of your remark filled me at the time included nothing like this scene of murderous guilt. How could it? How could any one, who had not measured all the length and breadth of slaveholding depravity, as I had not, have brought such a thing within the range of imagination or prophecy?”
Thomas Sherwin, Head Master of the Boston High School, wrote:—
“To-day we have had a public Declamation, and in the preparation my chief difficulty was to determine how many lads should be allowed to make selections from your speech. I send you a programme, from which you will see that there is a good sprinkling of the true spirit. To you, intrusted with the momentous interests of our whole country, not to say those of the world, these boyish affairs may seem trifling.”
Dr. Joseph Sargent, the eminent surgeon, of Worcester, wrote:—
“You have not said one word that we would have unsaid; and when you shall have opportunity again to speak those words of truth which are words of fire, we only wish to be at hand to take the blows ourselves, while you shall have the glory of having aroused a nation as it has not been aroused before, since the days which preceded the Revolution. Shame on the country which needed such a wrong to move it to the right!”
Mrs. Lydia Maria Child wrote thus:—
“My chief motive in writing is to thank you for your magnificent speech, which met the requirements of the time with so much intellectual strength and moral heroism. Some ‘patriots’ called it ‘Un-American.’ It recalled to my mind the words of Aristophanes:—
“‘Sparta shall find
An honest chronicler, though Fear may try
The prize with Truth. Yes, I have fears, and those
In no small brood. I know the people well,
Their temper’s edge and humor. Does some tongue
Link cunning commendation with their own
And country’s name? Their joy o’erflows the measure;
It matters not the praise be wrong, nor that
Their freedom pays the tickling of their ears.’
“Your political adversaries made such an outcry about your imprudent severity and unjustifiable personalities, that I cautiously examined whether there was any ground for such an allegation. Few persons have stronger aversion to harsh epithets and personal vituperation than I have, but I confess I could find nothing in your Kansas Speech which offended either my taste or my judgment. You rebuked States and individuals merely as the representatives of that ever-encroaching Slave Power, whose characteristic artifice, arrogance, and despotism it was necessary for you to portray in connection with the subject under debate.”
These testimonies, which reveal the feelings of the time, might be multiplied indefinitely. The “sequel,” to which Mr. Clay refers, and to which allusion is made by other correspondents, will be found at the end of the speech in an Appendix.