Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 06 (of 20)

by Charles Sumner

APPENDIX.

The speech on the Barbarism of Slavery was followed by outbursts of opinion which exhibit the state of the public mind at the time. There was approval and opposition, and there was also menace of violence. As this was promptly encountered, it could never be known to what extent the plot had proceeded.

Mr. Sumner was at his lodgings, alone, on the fourth day after the speech, when, about six o’clock, p. m., he received a visit from a stranger, who opened conversation by saying that he was one of the class recently slandered, being a Southern man and a slaveholder, and that he had called for an explanation of the speech, and to hold its author responsible. A few words ensued, in which the visitor became still more offensive, when Mr. Sumner ordered him out of the room. After some delay, he left, saying, in violent tone, that he was one of four who had come from Virginia for the express purpose of holding Mr. Sumner responsible, and that he would call upon him again with his friends. Mr. Sumner sent at once to his colleague, Mr. Wilson, who quickly joined him. While they were together, a person came to the door who asked particularly to see Mr. Sumner alone, and when told that he was not alone, declined to enter. About nine o’clock in the evening three other persons came to the door, who asked to see Mr. Sumner alone, and receiving the same answer, they sent word by the domestic who opened the door, that Mr. —— and two friends had called, but, not finding him alone, they would call again in the morning, for a private interview, and if they could not have it, they would cut his d——d throat before the next night. Such a message, with the attendant circumstances, put the friends of Mr. Sumner on their guard, and it was determined, contrary to his desire, that one or more should sleep in the house that night. Accordingly Hon. Anson Burlingame and Hon. John Sherman, both Representatives, slept in the room opening into his bedroom. In the morning other circumstances increased the suspicion that personal injury was intended.

It was the desire of Mr. Sumner that this incident should be kept out of the newspapers; but it became known, and caused no small excitement at Washington, and through the country. It was the subject of telegrams and of letters. The anxiety in Boston was shown in a letter, under date of June 9, from his friend Hon. Edward L. Pierce, saying:—

“We have just heard of the threat of violence made to you last evening. Dr. Howe and others meditate leaving for Washington forthwith. I wish I could be there; but I feel assured that there are enough to protect you, if you will only let them. Do be careful, very careful. You will not be safe, until you have arrived in the Free States on your way home.”

Messrs. Thayer and Eldridge, booksellers, wrote at once from Boston:—

“If you need assistance in defending yourself against the ruffians of the Slave Power, please telegraph us at once, or to some of your friends here who will notify us. There is a strong feeling here, and we can raise a small body of men, who will join with your Washington friends, or will alone defend you.”

Hon. Gershom B. Weston, a veteran, wrote from Duxbury, Massachusetts:—

“I am ready to shoulder my musket and march to the Capitol, and there sacrifice my life in defence of Free Speech and the Right.”

Hon. M. F. Conway, then in Washington, and afterwards Representative in Congress from Kansas, sent in to Mr. Sumner, while in his seat, this warning and tender of service:—

“You are not safe to be alone at any time. I will be glad to be with you all the time, if practicable. I ask the privilege especially of being one of your companions at night. I will accompany you from the Senate Chamber, when you leave this evening.”

In reply to an inquiry from home, Hon. James Buffinton, of the House of Representatives, wrote:—

“The Massachusetts delegation in Congress will stand by Mr. Sumner and his late speech. There will be no backing down by us, and I am in hopes our people at home will pursue the same course.”

The Mayor of Washington invited Mr. Sumner to make affidavit of the facts, or to lodge a complaint, which the latter declined to do, saying that he and his friends had no inducement from the past to rely upon Washington magistrates. At last the Mayor brought the original offender, being a well-known Washington office-holder of Virginia, to Mr. Sumner’s room, when he apologized for his conduct, and denied all knowledge of the visitors later in the evening who left the brutal message.

The friends of Mr. Sumner did not feel entirely relieved. Among these was his private secretary, A. B. Johnson, Esq., afterwards chief clerk of the Lighthouse Board, who, untiring in friendship and fidelity, without consulting him, arranged protection for the night, and a body-guard between his lodgings and the Senate. The latter service was generously assumed by citizens of Kansas, who, under the captaincy of Augustus Wattles, insisted upon testifying in this way their sense of his efforts for them. Apprised of Mr. Sumner’s habit of walking to and from the Capitol, they watched his door, and, as he came out, put themselves at covering distance behind, with revolvers in hand, and then, unknown to him, followed to the door of the Senate. In the same way they followed him home. This body-guard, especially in connection with the previous menace, illustrates the era of Slavery.

The personal incident just described was lost in the larger discussion caused by the speech itself, in the press and in correspondence.

THE PRESS.

The appearance of the Senate at the delivery of the speech was described by the correspondent of the New York Herald in his letter of the same date.

“During the delivery of this exasperating bill of charges, specifications, and denunciation of that ‘sum of all villanies,’ Slavery, a profound and most ominous silence prevailed on the floor of the Senate and in the galleries. We have no recollection in our experience here, running through a period of twenty years, of anything like this ominous silence during the delivery of a speech for Buncombe, on Slavery, by a Northern fanatic or a Southern fire-eater. We say ominous silence, because we can only recognize it as something fearfully ominous,—ominous of mischief,—ominous of the revival in this capital and throughout the country of the Slavery agitation, with a tenfold bitterness compared with any previous stirring up of the fountains of bitter waters.”

The correspondent of the New York Tribune of the same date wrote:—

“Mr. Sumner’s speech attracted a large audience to the Senate galleries, which continued well filled during the four hours of his scourging review of Slavery in all its relations, political, social, moral, and economical. There appeared to be a studied effort at indifference on the Democratic side; for only a dozen Senators were in their seats during the first hour or two. Afterward they gradually appeared, and leading Southern members from the House contributed to the general interest by their presence and attention.

“As a whole, this speech was regarded as being more offensive by the South than the one which created such a sensation before, and there is reason to believe, that, but for prudential considerations, it might have been attended with similar results. It was found quite difficult to restrain some decided exhibition of resentment in certain quarters. The only expression of indignation which found vent was in Mr. Chesnut’s brief and angry reply, from which the general temper of the South may be inferred, as he is regarded among the most discreet and considerate in his tone and bearing.”

The correspondent of the Chicago Press and Tribune, under date of June 5, wrote:—

“The speech of Charles Sumner yesterday was probably the most masterly and exhaustive argument against human bondage that has ever been made in this or any other country, since man first commenced to oppress his fellow-man. He took the floor at ten minutes past twelve, and spoke until a little after four. The tone of the speech was not vindictive, and yet there was a terrible severity running through it that literally awed the Southern side. There will, of course, be various opinions as to the policy of this awful arraignment of the Slave Power, yet there can be but one opinion as to its extraordinary logical completeness, and, however it may affect public opinion to-day, it is an effort that will live in history long after the ephemeral contest of this age shall have passed away. Indeed, while listening to it, I could not but feel—and the same feeling was, I know, experienced by others—that the eloquent and brave orator was speaking rather to future generations, and to the impartial audience of the whole civilized world, than to the men of to-day, with a view of effecting any result upon elements with which he was immediately surrounded.”

The correspondent of the New York Evening Post wrote, under date of June 5:—

“Mr. Sumner’s speech was a tremendous attack upon Slavery, and was utterly devoid of personalities. He attacked the institution, and not individuals, but his language was very severe. There was no let-up in the severity from beginning to end. Facts were quoted, and they were allowed to bear against States as well as individuals; but Mr. Sumner made no comment upon that class of facts. While he was exhibiting the barbarous character of Slave-Masters, there was a good deal of restlessness on the slaveholding side of the Senate Hall, as if it required great self-control to keep silence.”

The correspondent of the Boston Traveller wrote at length on the delivery, and the impression produced. Here is an extract:—

“So far as personal violence was to be apprehended, we think he was as unconcerned as a man could be. Anxiety on that account might have been felt by his friends, but not by him. He seemed to be all forgetful of himself, and to have his mind dwelling on the cause to which he was devoted, the race for which he was to plead, and on the responsibility under which he stood to his country and to generations to come.…

“There was something sublime in the ardor and boldness and majesty with which he spoke. At times we could not but forget the speech, and think only of the speaker,—the honorable emulation of his youth, the illustrious services of his manhood, the purity of his aims, the sufferings he had endured, and the merciful Providence which had preserved him. Nothing could surpass the effect of the concluding paragraphs, in which he predicted a Republican triumph in November next.

“The four hours during which we listened to him can never pass from our memory. It would be superfluous here even to enumerate the points of the speech, or to suggest its most powerful passages, for it will be universally read. An arraignment of Slavery so exhaustive has never before been made in our history, and it will supersede the necessity of another. Hereafter, when one desires to prove Slavery irrational and unconstitutional, he will go to that speech as to an arsenal. During a part of its delivery, the Southern Senators, as Toombs and Wigfall, were very uneasy, walking about the Senate, and conversing aloud. Keitt and other members of the House from South Carolina were also in the Senate Chamber, and were rather unquiet. Near Mr. Sumner, throughout his speech, sat his colleague, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Burlingame, and Owen Lovejoy; and had any Southern member attempted a repetition of the Brooks assault, he would have found in either of them a foeman worthy of his steel.

“The Republican Senators gave excellent attention to the speech. Some of them, who are understood to hold very moderate and conservative opinions, expressed a strong admiration of the speech. One of them called it ‘a mighty effort’; another said it was ‘the greatest speech of the age’; another said ‘it was an unanswerable refutation of the doctrines which Senators from Slave States had repeatedly advanced and debated in favor of the justice and policy of Slavery, and It was a good work.’ …

“Mr. Sumner was called upon last evening by some of the leading citizens of Kansas, some of whom are to hold official positions upon its admission, who thanked him for his speech, and assured him that their cause would rather be advanced than injured by it. Their course puts to shame the timidity of some persons who were opposed to its delivery, fearing lest it would defeat the admission of Kansas,—just as if the Proslavery Democracy, in their treatment of that question, are to be governed by any consideration except their own party interests and the demands of Slavery. It is time that the Republican party pursued its own course, without asking the counsel or permission of its adversaries.”

An occasional correspondent of the Chatauque Democrat, New York, gave a familiar sketch of the scene.

“Mr. Breckinridge remained all the time, and sat with an open book in his hands, pretending to read; but his eyes wandered from the page, and, with a frown upon his brow, he finally gazed at the speaker till he closed. Jeff Davis pretended to be reading the Globe, but it was plain to be seen by the heading of the paper that it was upside down. Wigfall seemed in torment. He listened respectfully awhile, and then glided silently around from one Senator to another, and conferred in whispers. He seemed to be hatching mischief; but the grave shake of the head of the older Senators doubtless kept this uneasy, restless desperado quiet. Hunter sat like a rock, immovable, and listened respectfully to the whole. Not a muscle moved upon his placid face to denote what was going on in his mind. Toombs heard the most of it quietly, and with as much of a don’t-care look as his evil passions would permit. Near the close, ‘Sheep’s-Gray’ Mason came in and took his seat, and commenced writing a letter. He evidently intended to show the galleries that Sumner was too small for him to notice. But he soon found a seat in a distant part of the Hall, and an easy position, where he sat gloomily scowling upon the orator till he sat down. When the speech was about half through, Keitt, the accomplice of Brooks in his attempted assassination of Mr. Sumner, came in and took a seat near Senator Hammond. For a while he sat gazing about the galleries, evidently to notice the dramatic effect of his presence upon the audience there. But few seemed to notice him. By degrees he began to pay attention to the speech.… Curry, of Alabama, and Lamar, of Mississippi, members of the other House, though Southerners of the straitest sect, could not conceal their delight at the oratory and classic and scholarly feast before them. They are scholars and orators themselves, and could appreciate an intellectual treat, though the sentiments were ever so obnoxious.

“On the Republican side breathless attention prevailed. Those who immediately surrounded the Senator were Mr. Wilson, Senator Bingham, John Hickman, Preston King, and Solomon Foot. Mr. Seward sat in his usual seat, and scarcely moved during the delivery of the great speech.”

As the speech was read, the conflict of opinion began to show itself. Democrats were all against it; Republicans were divided.

The New York Tribune, in an editorial notice, said:—

“We have said that Mr. Sumner’s was doubtless a strong and forcible speech; and yet we wish he had made it on some other bill than that providing for the admission of Kansas.”

A Boston paper, in a letter from Washington, contained the following reply to the New York Tribune.

“And speaking of Kansas, I may here say that a number of leading Kansas men have called on Mr. Sumner to assure him that the Tribune’s idea, that his speech injured the prospect of the admission of their State, never found lodgement in their minds. They thank him for it, and assure him, that, of their own knowledge, the fate of the bill was decided before he took the floor.”

The New York Evening Post, after observing that the speech was “elaborate, learned, eloquent, and exhaustive of every topic on which it touched,” said:—

“Though nominally relating to the bill for the admission of Kansas, his remarks took a wider range, and were a general arraignment of the system of Slavery, as it exists in the Southern States of this Union, in all its moral, political, and social aspects.…

“No one, we presume, can fail to admire the ability and cogency of this address; but whether the peculiar line of argument was called for at this time, or whether it will aid in the passage of the Kansas Admission Bill, may admit of doubt.”

The New York Times was as little sympathetic as the Tribune.

“From beginning to end it was a vehement denunciation of Slavery. The labor of four leisure years seems to have been devoted by Mr. Sumner to collecting every instance of cruelty, violence, passion, coarseness, and vulgarity recorded as having happened within the Slave States, or as having been committed by a slaveholder.… But, aside from its utter irrelevancy to the Kansas Question, what general good can be hoped for from such envenomed attacks upon the Slave States? Do they tend in any way to promote the public welfare? Do they aid in the least the solution of what every sensible man acknowledges to be the most delicate and difficult problem of this age?”

Then, in another number, the Times said:—

“Fortunately, it has commanded less attention than was anticipated, and has encountered silence in some quarters, and positive disapproval in others, usually disposed to judge speeches of this class with the utmost forbearance. Even the Tribune, while it has published the speech in its editions intended mainly for the country, has not deemed it judicious or wise to give it circulation among its city readers; and some of the most decided Republican papers in the country have protested against the injustice of holding the party responsible for its sentiments.”

The New York Herald took advantage of the speech to hold up the consequences of “Black Republicanism.” On the day after the delivery, it wrote thus:—

“Important from Washington.—The Great Republican Manifesto.—Opening of the Campaign in Earnest.—Charles Sumner’s Inflammatory Harangue in the Senate.—Appeal to the North against the South.—The Fivefold Wrong of Human Slavery.—Its Total Abolition in the United States the Sacred Duty of the Republican Party.—The Helper and Spooner Programmes fully and emphatically indorsed.—Mr. Sumner the Leading Light of the Black Republicans.

“We give elsewhere, to-day, in full, the speech of Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts, on the great question that is presented to the whole country for judgment in November next.

“Not only the argument it contains, but the place where it was uttered, and the position and character of the man who uttered it, should be taken into consideration, in measuring its bearing upon, and relation to, what may truthfully be called the greatest question of the present age.…

“In that Senate which has so often resounded with the sublimest utterances of human lips and human hopes, Mr. Sumner stands forth the personification of a great and a free State, and the representative man of a great and powerful political party in fifteen of the sovereign States of this Union. He possesses the philosophical acumen of Mr. Seward, without his cautious reserve as a politician,—the honesty of Lincoln, without the craft of a candidate in nomination,—and literary culture, political zeal, and the gift of eloquence, which place him in the very foremost rank as a leader and an exponent of the Black Republican ideas. All of these circumstances combine to give a more deep solemnity to his words, in this grave moment of their utterance.…

“Every man admits that our fraternal relations with the Southern States are productive of unmixed benefit to us and to ours; and yet Lincoln and Seward incite the North to an ‘irrepressible conflict’ with the South; and now comes another mighty leader among the Black Republicans, and proclaims it to be a ‘sacred animosity.’

“This is the burden of Mr. Sumner’s eloquence, and we need not enter upon its details. But there is one characteristic of this speech which is in perfect accordance with the policy of the Black Republican party in the present campaign. The bloody and terrible results which must ensue, if that party succeeds in getting possession of the Federal Government, are kept carefully out of view. John Brown’s practice is taught, but there is no word of John Brown. The social condition of fifteen populous, rich, and powerful States is to be revolutionized; but not a hint of the possibility of resistance on their part, or of the reactive effect of such resistance upon the aggressive North, is dropped.”

On the next day the Herald said:—

“Sumner’s Truthful Exposition of the Aims of Black Republicanism.—Its Teachings in the coming Conventions.

“The perfect platform of the Black Republican party has been laid down by Senator Sumner in his recent speech in the Senate, and it is now before the country for approval or rejection.”

In the same spirit, the Richmond Despatch recognized the speech as an authentic manifestation of Northern sentiment.

“The fact is, Sumner has spoken but too truly. His is the spirit in which the South is regarded by the party to which he belongs. He is its mouthpiece. His is the tongue to the Abolition lyre, giving it utterance, bringing out its genuine tones. Greeley and Raymond are afraid, just at this moment, to speak the whole truth. They dare not let the conservative portion of the people at the North know that it is the design of the party with which they are associated to make uncompromising war upon the South,—to destroy its institutions at any cost of blood, to hunt down its people even to the extremity of death, if it be necessary. The South ought to feel obliged to Sumner for betraying the designs of the party. His speech is a godsend.”

The Indianapolis Daily Journal wrote:—

“We have read as much of Senator Sumner’s speech on the Barbarism of Slavery as we have had time to read, and must bear witness that it is one of the ablest, most exasperating, and most useless speeches we ever read. It shows all through the genius, the learning, and the hate of its gifted and abused author. It is manifestly the revenge of the orator on the institution that through Brooks’s arm struck him down so brutally. It is intended less to check the growth of Slavery than to gall Slaveholders. It is a scalding, excoriating invective, almost without parallel in the annals of oratory.… As a vengeance for the orator’s own wrongs, it is ample and admirable. As an implement to aid the great work of repressing Slavery extension, it is simply worthless, or worse. Slavery is all that he charges. But slaveholders are not as barbarous as their system.”

The Boston Daily Advertiser begins by saying of the speech, that “its denunciation, although strong, is not hot; its profuse learning and reference to history show elaboration and study; and the whole mass of reasoning, of rhetoric, and of authority is brought together and wielded with such skill and power as the greatest masters of oratory might well envy”; and then the journal proceeds:—

“We confess that in our judgment the argument upon Slavery itself need be neither long nor elaborate. The Golden Rule has exhausted the subject, both upon principle and authority. The testimony of one enlightened slaveholder like Jefferson, who ‘trembled for his country, when he remembered that God was just,’ tells us as much of the actual workings of the institution as all the hideous narratives which its opponents have culled in such appalling profusion from its current history. The subject is one which is governed by principles which are essentially and peculiarly elementary, and we confess that we see not how any powers of eloquence or reasoning could turn him who is not convinced by the simple statement of these few original principles.…

“If the majority of the people are already right upon the main subject,—and we should otherwise despair of the Republic,—we must conclude that our efforts will be much more efficacious, if directed at those constitutional heresies by means of which this giant evil is at present carrying on its attack. It is in this way, chiefly, that, within those limits of duty which the Republican party is ever careful to affirm and observe, we can hope to act efficiently upon this great question.”

The tone of the Democratic papers appears in the Albany Atlas and Argus.

“No one can rise from a perusal of this speech without a contempt for the author, and a conviction of his unfitness for the place.”

Also in the Boston Post.

“Charles Sumner’s recent speech is a curiosity that has no parallel, at least in our Senatorial record. Pedantry, egotism, fortuitous hypothesis, malice, rhapsody, and verbosity stripe and emblazon it with disgusting conspicuousness.”

Other papers were grateful and enthusiastic, generally in proportion to their Antislavery character.

The Boston Traveller said:—

“No nobler specimen of American eloquence can be found than this logical, bold, spirited, clear, and learned exposition of the ‘Barbarism of Slavery.’ In it we have the views of the chivalrous antagonist of Wrong, expressed in the pointed and elegant language of the accomplished scholar, and guided by the intellect of the sagacious and benevolent statesman. We are the more pleased with the plain speaking of Mr. Sumner, because there has apparently been a falling off in the language of some leading Republicans since the beginning of the Presidential contest, as if they were fearful of offending the Oligarchy. Mr. Sumner, who has no idea of sacrificing the Right to the Expedient, has given utterance to vital truths in language full of vital energy,—‘Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.’”

The Boston Transcript said:—

“Many persons, who read this speech without having previously read a number of speeches made on the other side, may be likely to consider it too abstract in its character. But, as many Southern Senators, who assume to be the representative men of their section, have gravely lectured the Senate at great length in defence of the principles and practice of Slavery, have taken the bold ground that it is in accordance with the commands of God and the teachings of experience, have attempted to show that it elevates the white man and blesses the black, have even gone so far as to assert that labor, whether white or black, is happier when owned than when hired, and on the strength of these assumptions have eagerly argued for the extension of such a beneficent institution into territory now free, it is certainly proper that some man from the Northern States should make an attempt to save religion, conscience, reason, common sense, common sensibility, from being pressed into the service of the wickedest and most nonsensical paradoxes that ever entered the brain or came out of the mouth of educated men.”

The Boston Atlas and Bee said:—

“It is not too much to say that it is the boldest, most thorough, and most uncompromising speech that Mr. Sumner has ever delivered; and it is easy to see that it must prove the most offensive to the slaveholders of any of his speeches. It is a complete hand-book of their offences, and will excite in them great and perhaps irrepressible rage.…

“In vigor of thought and style, this speech will rank among the greatest, if not at the head, of Mr. Sumner’s productions. It is straightforward, direct, logical, proceeding directly to its mark and by the shortest line, striking the swiftest and hardest blows, and never for a moment leaving the reader in doubt as to its meaning, while it is enlivened by even more than the orator’s usual wealth of classical and historical lore. It is in every respect a remarkable speech, and will arrest the attention of the whole country.”

The Boston Journal said:—

“We trust that the length of Mr. Sumner’s speech will deter none from its perusal. It is what it professes to be, an examination of the institution of Slavery itself,—and we venture to say a more acute, comprehensive, exhaustive, and powerful exposition of the whole subject never was made. Whoever wants to understand what American Slavery is must read this speech; whoever wants to make headway against the ripening public feeling by defending Slavery must first try to answer the arguments of this speech. If he does not, he will be in danger of imitating the folly of Senator Chesnut, and, through an exhibition of passion and scurrility, of becoming a living illustration of its truths.… The nation has certainly been drifting into a too general acquiescence in the doctrine, upheld openly or insidiously by both factions of the Democratic party, that slaves are property, precisely like any other property known to the Common Law. Any utterance like this of Mr. Sumner’s, which shall call the American people from this disgraceful and dangerous conclusion, may well be generously criticised in other respects.”

The New Bedford Mercury had the following, in a letter from Boston.

“The chief event of interest, certainly to Bostonians, lately, is the astonishing speech delivered by Charles Sumner, in his place in the Senate, in which he takes up the Slavery Question precisely where he left it off, when stricken down by the cane of the deceased bully Brooks. Offensive as that speech proved to the Slave-Masters, this one is ten times worse. This speech, for the first time in the history of Congressional speeches, sets forth, without the slightest veil or mincing of the matter, the deformities, obliquities, and immoralities of the Slavery system.”

The Albany Evening Journal said:—

“On the 22d of May, four years ago, we were startled with the news that Charles Sumner had been struck down in the Senate Chamber and nearly killed. Yesterday, for the first time since that event, his eloquence again enchained the attention of the Senate. The speech which provoked the assault in 1856 has been more than matched in the one just delivered. The former speech was read by millions, and the last is undoubtedly destined to receive a still wider attention. The glowing eloquence and surpassing erudition of Mr. Sumner give to all his speeches an attraction difficult to resist, even by those who dislike the doctrines he proclaims. His last speech is characterized not only by his usual brilliancy of style, but contains a striking array of facts and statistics which must have cost much patient toil in collecting.”

The Hartford Evening Press said:—

“It is said in certain quarters that it would have been more politic to have left the speech unspoken. It is even urged by a leading journal that the admission of Kansas is endangered by it. The fact is, that the journal knows—none know better—that the Kansas Bill stands just as good a chance at the hands of Southern Senators to-day as if Charles Sumner had bent low and with bated breath begged the admission of that Territory as a favor, instead of demanding it as a right.… The speech is demanded by the progress of the assumptions of Slavery. It boldly sets itself up as divine in origin, Christian in practice, the best form of civilized society, and challenges our scrutiny and approbation. This, taken in connection with its extraordinary interpretation of the Constitution as a charter of Slavery, and not of Freedom, as we have all along supposed it to be, forces the discussion upon us. Let us thank Heaven that we have men bold enough to take up the gauntlet. Charles Sumner deserves well of the country and well of the age, for his calm and masterly exposition of the true character of that system we are urged to accept and extend, as divine in appointment, and adapted to the wants of our time.”

The New Yorker Abendzeitung, a German paper at New York, published an elaborate leader, translated by the Evening Post, of which this is an extract:—

“The oration made by Mr. Sumner is not a mere speech in the common meaning of the term, but rather a thoroughly digested treatise, carefully prepared, on the basis of a great number of facts and quotations. It unites the most thorough-going philosophical research, regardless of the conflict of its results with the nearest practical aims, to that variegated poetical coloring, which, appealing to the power of imagination, is an indispensable element of an efficient speech. Even to the best speeches of Senator Seward Sumner’s speech stands in proportion as an oil painting of richest coloring and most dramatic grouping of figures to a mere black crayon etching. If Mr. Sumner’s speech had been uttered before the meeting of the Chicago Convention, he would undoubtedly have occupied a prominent rank among the candidates of the radical portion of the Republican party.”

The Sunday Transcript, of Philadelphia, said:—

“The greatest speech of the season is certainly Charles Sumner’s magnificent philippic against ‘The Great Barbarism.’ The learning and research, the array of facts, the apt and eloquent quotations, the striking illustrations, and the vivid imagery of the oration are its least merits. The style and diction are as clear as crystal, as pure as water, and sonorously musical. The entire tone of the speech is dignified and lofty.…

“Indeed, we admire his courage, his unequalled moral pluck. In this day of compromise and timidity, of bated breath and base concession, when it is the loathsome fashion to say that the Slavery Question should be discussed only as a matter of profit and loss, it is refreshing to hear a Senator speak in the spirit of Jefferson and the Fathers. Besides, does not the South challenge us to discuss the abstract question? Do not Benjamin, Toombs, Stephens, Curry, Keitt, Lamar, Hunter, Slidell, Brown, Hammond, Chesnut, Mason, Pryor, Clingman, Fitzhugh, and all the Southern politicians, discuss the question of Slavery in the abstract? Do they not deliver long arguments to prove that Slavery is right, just, benign, civilizing, and necessary,—that it is the proper condition of the negro and the working-man? And is any free Northern man so poor a poltroon as to say that these men shall not be replied to? What! shall all the South be privileged to praise and applaud Human Slavery, and not even Charles Sumner be allowed to describe it as it really is?”

The Daily Democrat, of Chicago, said:—

“This is the great speech of the day. It paints American Slavery as it is, and as it has never been painted before. No Republican can look upon the picture which Charles Sumner draws of this Barbarism without feeling his heart swell with hatred against it, and without recording a new vow to labor unceasingly for its extinction.”

Early in the controversy Frederick Douglass’s Paper bore testimony as follows.

“At last the right word has been spoken in the Chamber of the American Senate. Long and sadly have we waited for an utterance like this, and were beginning at last to despair of getting anything of the sort from the present generation of Republican statesmen; but Senator Sumner has now exceeded all our hopes, and filled up the full measure of all that we have long desired in the Senatorial discussions of Slavery. He has dared to grapple directly with the Hell-born monster itself. It is not the unreasonableness of the demands of Slavery, not the aggressions nor the mere arrogance of the Slave Power, insufferable and unconstitutional as these have been, that have now so thoroughly aroused the soul and fired the tongue of the learned and eloquent Senator of Massachusetts, but the inherent and brutal barbarism of Slavery itself.… His manner of assault is, we think, faultless. It was calm, self-poised, earnest, brave, and yet completely guarded. The network of his argument, though wonderfully elaborate and various, is everywhere, and in all its parts, strong as iron. The whole slaveholding Propaganda of the Senate might dash themselves against it in a compact body, without breaking the smallest fibre of any of its various parts.”

The Liberator, in an editorial article by William Lloyd Garrison, said:—

“Throughout, its spirit was lofty, dignified, and bold, indicative of high moral intrepidity and a noble purpose. No attempts were made to interrupt him, though the smothered wrath of the Southern members must have been excessive.”

The correspondent of an Antislavery paper, with the initials W. P., in an article entitled “Mr. Sumner’s Last and Greatest Speech,” said:—

“The Massachusetts Senator has led a column into this fortress, which, in the name of God and Humanity, must eventually silence all its guns and level its last stone to the ground. Neither statesman nor philanthropist has ever, in like manner, rent asunder the veil and exposed to the view of an outraged people the Barbarism of Slavery. This Mr. Sumner has done, and no man can undo it. ‘What is written is written.’ Slaveholders may rave, Americans may ignore, Republicans may deplore, but the speech and the name of Charles Sumner will live and be praised when the death-pall of oblivion shall cover the last vestige of these unhappy men.”

The Independent, of New York, said:—

“The world will one day acknowledge the debt of gratitude it owes to the author of this masterly analysis. For four hours he held a crowded audience in attention, including large numbers of Southern people, members of Congress, and others.”

The Antislavery Standard, of New York, said:—

“Nothing like it, in elevation of tone and width of scope, had ever before been heard in that Chamber. It was worth, to the author, to the cause, and to the country, all that it cost to produce it. For Mr. Sumner it was a great triumph and a revenge. And yet there was nothing vindictive in its tone or spirit. The ‘bitterness’ which is ascribed to it was in its truth. No doubt it stirred the malignant passions of the Slave-Masters to the deepest depths; but the fault was theirs, not his. His facts were unquestionable, his logic beyond the reach of cavil, and his rhetoric eminently becoming and self-respectful.”

While newspapers were discussing the speech, and Republicans were differing, the Legislature of Massachusetts threw its weight into the scales by the adoption of resolutions, entitled “Resolves relating to Freedom of Speech,” containing the following support of Mr. Sumner.

“Resolved, That the thanks of the people of this Commonwealth are due and are hereby tendered to the Honorable Charles Sumner for his recent manly and earnest assertion of the right of free discussion on the floor of the United States Senate, and we repeat the well-considered words of our predecessors in these seats in approval of ‘Mr. Sumner’s manliness and courage in his fearless declaration of free principles and his defence of human rights and free institutions.’

“Resolved, That we approve the thorough, truthful, and comprehensive examination of the institution of Slavery embraced in Mr. Sumner’s recent speech; that the stern morality of that speech, its logic, and its power command our entire admiration; and that it expresses with fidelity the sentiments of Massachusetts upon the question therein discussed.”

The meaning of these resolutions was not left doubtful by the mover, J. Q. A. Griffin, who, after alluding to “certain Conservative Republican newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Courier and Enquirer, declaring that Mr. Sumner does not represent the Republican party in any degree,” said, “It is necessary that Massachusetts should uphold her Senator.”

---

The conflict of opinion in the American press showed itself abroad. The London Times took the lead in opposition. Its New York correspondent, entitled “Our own Correspondent,” in a letter dated June 6, said of the speech: “A more studied insult to Southern slaveholding members, who compose nearly one half of the body in which the speech was delivered, a more vituperative attack upon the institution, a more bitter, galling, personal assault, or one more calculated to excite the worst feelings, can hardly be imagined.” Then quoting certain passages without explanation or context, and asking the reader to “bear in mind that one half of the gentlemen who listened to him were slaveholders,” the New York correspondent adds, “These extracts are sample bricks of the whole structure.”

The Times itself followed in a leader of June, 18, where the tone of its New York correspondent was reproduced; and here is the beginning of those attacks on the Antislavery cause in our country for which this journal became so famous during the war. An extract will show its character.

“We must, in the name of English Abolitionism at least, protest against these foolish and vindictive harangues. Scarcely has the frenzy caused by John Brown’s outrage begun to die away than out comes Mr. Sumner with a speech which will set the whole South in a flame. We can well believe that the prospects of the Republican party have been already damaged by it. Mr. Sumner is one of that class of politicians who should be muzzled by their friends. The man who can in personal irritability so forget the interests of a great cause is its worst enemy. Slavery existed on the American Continent long before the assembly of which Mr. Sumner is a member. On it depends, or is supposed to depend, the prosperity of half the Union; the looms of Lancashire and Normandy, as well as those of Mr. Sumner’s own State, are supplied by slave-grown cotton, and hundreds of millions of Northern dollars are invested in slave-worked plantations. Slavery, with its roots thus deep in the soil, is not to be rooted up by any peevish effort of rhetoric; and we may predict that the man who first gains a victory for the cause of Abolition will be of very different temper to the Senator from Massachusetts.”

The London Morning Star, of June 20, replied at length, and with much feeling. Here is an extract:—

“Who invested the Times with the functions of the organ of English Abolitionists? Who authorized the hoary charlatan of Printing-House Square to speak authoritatively in the name of the advocates of negro emancipation, and, as their assumed representative, to bespatter with its venom one of the noblest champions of that holy cause? Assuredly not the men of whom, with the mendacious arrogance which has become to it a second nature, it now pretends to be the appointed spokesman. Let it canvass, if it will, the whole legion of British sympathizers with the groaning slaves in the Southern States of America; it will be puzzled to find one whom its coarse and unprincipled attack upon Mr. Sumner has not inspired with sentiments of mingled indignation and disgust.…

“We are convinced, that, throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, the noble speech of Mr. Sumner will awaken reverence for his valor, admiration for his eloquence, and sympathetic esteem for his genial sympathy for the down-trodden slave; at any rate, we believe that there is but one journal whose inveterate malignity would inspire it to heap censure upon conduct which cannot be rewarded by too abundant homage.”

The London Morning Advertiser also replied at length. Here is a specimen:—

“We are not satisfied with a contemporary who chooses to describe the noble oration of Senator Sumner as ‘a vituperative attack,’ as ‘a bitter, galling, personal assault.’ It is full of noble and manly thoughts, expressed in terms of becoming strength, but not too strongly, considering the magnitude of the evil against which it is directed, and the determination of the party by whom it is maintained.”

The London Daily News, of June 22, followed.

“The barbaric character of Slavery, and of its supporters, has been abundantly exhibited through the press of some Northern States, but it has never before been displayed in the Senate; and all criticism of it is excluded from the Southern press, and from most of the Northern. In the progress of the revolutionary conflict, the moment has arrived for the truth to be told in the Senate; and Mr. Sumner, as the representative of the most venerable State of the Union, was the man to utter it. He described the character of Slavery; he proved its operation upon the liberties of communities and the character of individuals; and he declared the resolution of the Free States to get rid of the evil of being implicated in such a barbarism, and to save every new community from being cursed with it against its will.”

Then came Punch, July 21st, which said:—

“Mr. Summer’s speech was chiefly characterized by its closeness of argument and lucidity of diction; but he occasionally introduced a passage of highly wrought eloquence, or an image of singular vividness; and in England, however the orator’s sentiments might have been objected to by a political antagonist, Mr. Sumner would have received the compliments of gentlemen of both sides upon so remarkable an exhibition of sustained power and intellectual skill.…

“Mr. Punch begs leave to offer his respectful congratulations to Mr. Sumner upon his magnificent speech, and even more earnestly upon the ample and perfect testimony that was instantly given by the besotted slave-owners to the truth of his assertion of the Barbarism of Slavery. It is not often that an orator’s enemies are in such a desperate hurry to prove his case for him. But here he was scarcely down, when the Slave party rushed together to proclaim themselves the ruffians he had painted them, and in the published copy of the oration Mr. Sumner has given at once the calmest and the deadliest blow to the system he denounces,—for he prints Mr. Chesnut’s speech. All the bludgeons in the hands of all the ‘chivalry of the South’ cannot beat that demonstration of Mr. Sumner’s case out of the heads of the public in and out of the States. The speech should be reprinted in England, and circulated in thousands. What is the Antislavery Society about?”

To these London articles may be added passages from Miss Martineau’s correspondence with the Antislavery Standard, of New York. In a letter under date of July 2, the eminent writer said:—

“I may just say that Senator Chesnut’s commentary on Mr. Sumner’s speech is very amusing here. He cannot know much of the English aristocracy, if he supposes that strangers can get at them by their back doors. Their back doors are well looked to; but in Mr. Sumner’s case there was no question of back door or front. Our aristocracy went out to seek him,—not he them. I need not say that we heartily rejoice in the full truth having been spoken in Congress. The occasion brings back vividly to my memory Mr. Calhoun’s countenance and voice, when he insisted to me, peremptorily putting down all argument, that that day would never come: there would be silence about Slavery in Congress world without end. This was in 1835. It must be also needless for me to say that no unprejudiced man or woman here really supposes that any terms can be kept with Slavery and Slaveholders. The crisis of your revolution may be precipitated by such open defiance in the Federal Legislature; but we see that it was the South which brought on the revolution and uttered the defiance, and that the only course for the Senator from Massachusetts is to take care that the revolution is steered straight by compass while there is such a fearful tampering with the helm. To speak gingerly of Barbarism, when his business was to set before his country the choice between Barbarism and Civilization, was, of course, impossible; and there could be no fidelity short of such a thorough exposure and denunciation as he has offered.”

Then, under date of July 16, Miss Martineau wrote again:—

“Since I wrote last, we have had the opportunity of reading Mr. Sumner’s speech entire. I know no instance in which it was so necessary to have read the whole in order to understand any part; and certainly I can recall no case in which careless and conceited critics have cut a more wretched figure in condemning a production before they understood it. They supposed themselves on safe ground, when they cited passages of denunciation, leaving (as such isolated passages must) an impression that the speaker had outraged the principles and spirit of legislative debate by personal imputation and provocation to passion. Mr. Sumner’s own friends here regretted what they saw, simply because personal accusation and insult can never do any good, and must, in a crisis like that of your polity, render a complete rupture inevitable. As soon as we got the whole speech, however, the aspect of the quoted paragraphs was entirely changed. Instead of a piece of stimulating invective, we find the speech to be a chapter of history, and an exposition, calm and rational, of the workings of a social institution which is brought forward for discussion, and so placed on its trial, by Mr. Sumner’s opponents. To me it appears a production of altogether incalculable importance, apart from its merits in detail. Till now, if we could have met with such a phenomenon in England as a person who was not convinced of the wickedness and folly of Slavery, we should not have known where to turn for a compact, reliable, serviceable statement of the modern case of slave and free labor.”

Another testimony, purporting to be “by a distinguished writer of England,” appeared in the American papers at the time.

“Thanks, many thanks, for Sumner’s noble speech. It has been read with swelling throats and tearful eyes. It is a mighty effort towards wiping out the monstrous blot that disfigures your fair country. I like well the way in which he takes head after head of the foul Hydra, and severs each as completely as ever Hercules did; yet his labor was child’s play in comparison.”

To this English list may be joined a poem prompted by this speech. The New York Independent, where it first appeared in our country, announced that the initials subscribed to it were those of Mrs. L. W. Fellowes, a daughter of Rowland Hill, originator of the cheap postage system in England.

“TO CHARLES SUMNER.

“As one who wandering lone is sudden stirred

With a wild gush of hidden woodland singing,

Doth picture to himself the beauteous bird

That with sweet concord sets the greenwood ringing,

And gazes eager round, and is full fain

To mark the warbler fair, yet gazes still in vain,—

“So I, being melted to my inmost soul

By this thy noble plaint for Freedom’s sake,

Do grieve that ocean-tides between us roll,

And that I ne’er can see thee strive to break

The shackles, e’en more harsh than those that bind

The slave-born limbs,—the shackles of the mind.

“Go on, brave heart! and faint not, though thy way

Be rough and rude, and torn with many a thorn:

All England would thee hail, if some white day

Thou, harassed by thy country’s bitter scorn,

Shouldst seek our friendly shore, and rest awhile

Thy wearied soul in this our happy Isle.

“L. W. F.

“Wolverhampton, England.”

This speech took its place in foreign bibliography. French writers who discussed American Slavery cited it, among whom was that excellent ally of our country, M. Édouard Laboulaye, who wrote always with equal knowledge and friendship. After quoting the famous words by which Wesley describes and blasts Slavery, he gives a definition from this speech.

“The Americans of the North, who calculate even to the beatings of the heart, have summed up this multifold crime in five axioms. It is, say they, man become the property of his fellow-man, marriage abolished, paternity destroyed, intelligence systematically stifled, labor forced and unpaid,—in other terms, tyranny, confiscation, and robbery. Such are the essential vices of Slavery, vices independent of the goodness or the wickedness of the master, vices irremediable,—for to correct them is to acknowledge that the Slave has some rights, it is to make a man of him, it is to commence emancipation. Such, without exaggeration and without declamation, is the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ as the eloquent Senator of Massachusetts has justly called it.”

The able Frenchman then adds in a note:—

“Mr. Sumner is the Senator who was struck down in the Senate Chamber by a colleague from the South, for which the assailant received a cane of honor, awarded by his admirers at the South. The welcome which Mr. Sumner in turn received in England and France, where he came to reëstablish his health, must have proved to him how much on the Old Continent are still esteemed courage and talent put forth in the service of humanity.”[140]

CORRESPONDENCE.

The testimony of correspondents was in harmony with the Antislavery press. Both in character and number, their letters were of singular authority. They show the sentiments of good men, and the extent to which the country was absorbed by the question of Slavery, although politicians sought to put it out of sight. And since this discussion, culminated in war, they throw light on the origin of that terrible conflict, and therefore belong to history. Brief extracts are given from a portion of the letters within reach.

There can be no better name for the beginning than John G. Whittier, the poet, who wrote from his home at Amesbury, Massachusetts:—

“I have just finished reading the speech. It is all that I could wish for. It takes the dreadful question out of the region of party and expediency, and holds it up in the clear sun-blaze of truth and reason, in all its deformity, and with the blackness of the pit clinging about it. In the light of that speech the civilized world will now see American Slavery as it is. There is something really awful in its Rhadamanthine severity of justice; but it was needed.

“It especially rejoices thy personal friends to see in the speech such confirmation of thy complete restoration to health and strength of body and mind. It was the task of a giant.”

Frederick Douglass, once a slave, wrote from Rochester, New York:—

“I wish I could tell you how deeply grateful I am to you, and to God, for the speech you have now been able to make in the United States Senate. You spoke to the Senate and the nation, but you have a nobler and a mightier audience. The civilized world will hear you, and rejoice at the tremendous exposure of the meanness, brutality, blood-guiltiness, hell-black iniquity, and barbarism of American Slavery. As one who has felt the horrors of this stupendous violation of all human rights, I venture thus far to trespass upon your time and attention. My heart is full, Sir, and I could pour out my feelings at length, but I know how precious is your time. I shall print every word of your speech.”

Hon. S. P. Chase, afterwards Chief Justice of the United States, wrote from Columbus, Ohio:—

“Your great speech came to me, under your frank, this morning. I had read it all—in the Bulletin of Philadelphia, in the Times of New York, and in the Globe—before I received the pamphlet copy. It is gratifying to know that the New York Herald also prints it, and that, through various channels of publication, it will reach every corner of the land, ‘cogens omnes ante thronum.’ ‘C’est presqu’un discours antique,’ said a French gentleman to me last Saturday. I say, ‘C’est bien plus.’”

Hon. Francis Gillette, an Abolitionist, and formerly Senator of the United States from Connecticut, wrote from Hartford:—

“I cannot tell you how pleased I am with your late speech on the ‘Barbarism of Slavery.’ It makes a lustrum in the Senate, and an era in the history of the Antislavery cause. But I am afraid the bloodthirsty barbarians are intent on assassinating you. Look out for them, and when they apologize to you with the pretension of drunkenness, understand them to mean they are drunk with rage. Do not believe them.”

Hon. Carl Schurz, the German orator, afterwards Senator of the United States from Missouri, wrote from Milwaukee, Wisconsin:—

“Allow me to congratulate you on the success of your great speech. It did me good to hear again the true ring of the moral Antislavery sentiment. If we want to demolish the Slave Power, we must educate the hearts of the people no less than their heads.”

Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, so long a champion of Freedom in Congress, wrote from his home at Jefferson, Ohio:—

“Permit me to congratulate you. My heart swells with gratitude to God that you are again permitted to stand in the Senate and maintain the honor of a nation and of mankind. I dared not say to you how much I feared the effect of that excitement which I knew must attend you while speaking in the Senate. But now you have passed the most trying point, I hope no evil effects will result to your health; but, however health or life may be affected, you have again spoken.”

Then again the veteran champion wrote:—

“Of all the subjects before you, no one was so well adapted to the occasion as the ‘Barbarism of Slavery.’ And no man was so well adapted to the subject as yourself. I was profoundly grateful that you succeeded in pronouncing the speech,—and still more so, when I read it. It is worthy of yourself. Thus far my desires and prayers in regard to you have been fully met. May your services to your country and mankind continue so long as life continues!”

Hon. George W. Julian, another champion in Congress, wrote from his home at Centreville, Indiana:—

“I am exceedingly rejoiced that you have made your great speech, and said just what I understand you have said about the whole question of Slavery. But I grow sick, indignant, and nervous, on reading the cowardly notices of the speech by windy Republican journals.”

Hon. John Jay, afterwards Minister to Austria, wrote from New York:—

“I wrote you hastily my congratulations and thanks on your last powerful effort, the effect of which I think will be stupendous and permanent, giving a vigor to the cause, and a definiteness to the opinion of the North, and an example of pluck more powerful in its persuasive influence than a thousand essays.”

Hon. Gerrit Smith, always champion of the slave, wrote from his home at Peterborough, New York:—

“I have this day read your speech as it appeared in the New York Times of the 5th. God be praised for the proof it affords that you are yourself again,—ay, more than yourself! I say more,—for, though the ‘Crime against Kansas’ was the speech of your life, this is the speech of your life. This eclipses that. It is far more instructive, and will be far more useful, and it is not at all inferior to the other in vigor or rhetoric.

“The slaveholders will all read this speech, and will all be profited by its clear, certain, and convincing truths. The candid among them will not dislike you for it; not a few of them will, at least in their hearts, thank and honor you for it. Would that they all might see that there is no wrong, no malice whatever, in your heart! Would that they all might see that you do not hate the slaveholder, but pity him as the victim of a false education!…

“I have read the editorial of the Times on your speech. It is more than unjust, it is wicked. Nor has the Tribune, so far as I have seen, any praises for you. But this is their way, or rather one of their ways, for promoting the interests of your Republican party.”

Mr. Smith added in a subsequent letter:—

“I am scattering through my county the great speech of your life: I mean your speech on the Barbarism of Slavery. It is just to the taste of Republicans here,—for the Republicans here are nearly all Abolitionists.”

Rev. John Pierpont, lifelong Abolitionist, and poet, wrote from the home of Gerrit Smith, whose guest he was:—

“I finished the reading of your great speech in the car on my way hither, and, permit me to say, thank you for it with my whole soul,—notwithstanding the qualified commendations of it that may have found their way into some of the Republican papers.”

Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, another lifelong Abolitionist, and able lawyer, wrote from Boston:—

“I rejoice that you have had the courage to exhibit in a systematic manner the essential barbarism of the institution. Everywhere I hear your speech spoken of in the highest terms of admiration. Even the most desperate conservatives are compelled to acknowledge your eloquence and ability. Nor do they deny the justice of your attack on the system of Slavery. But they say the time you chose for making this assault was inopportune and ill-judged, that it could only retard the admission of Kansas, that it is likely to have a bad effect on slaveholders, etc., etc., etc. It seems to me, however, that no occasion for denouncing an institution which is the ruin and disgrace of our nation can be inopportune.”

William Lloyd Garrison, who gave his name to a school of Abolitionists, and was himself a host in constancy and lofty principle, wrote from Boston:—

“Allow me warmly to congratulate you upon your complete restoration to health, and upon the successful delivery of your great speech in Congress, the potency of which is seen in the writhings and denunciations of the slaveholding oligarchy and their base Northern allies, quite as much as in the commendations and rejoicings of your numerous friends and admirers.”

Wendell Phillips, the orator of Freedom, and early friend, wrote:—

“I rejoice with a full heart, not only, not so much perhaps, in your glorious speech, as in what we so longed for and hoped, that you are again on your feet, again in harness,—it is so heart-stirring and cheering to hear your voice once more along the lines, and just now, too, when you and a very few others seem to embody all the real Antislavery there is in politics. Those were ‘four’ nobly used hours. ’Twas a blast of the old well-known bugle, and fell on welcoming ears, and thankful ones.”

Edmund Quincy, the accomplished writer and determined Abolitionist, wrote from Dedham:—

“The spirit moveth me to tell you how much I admired your speech of last Monday, the rather that I see that the dishes of skim-milk that you are trying to stir to an honorable action are turning sour to your word. The fact is, the leading Republicans not only don’t know enough to go in when it rains, but they quarrel with the man that offers them an umbrella.… I beg you to believe that the editors do not express the real feeling of the Republicans about your speech, as far as I have talked with them. The common people received it gladly; and its great power, eloquence, and exhaustive and unanswerable quality everybody acknowledges, even the enemy. You have done a good service to the country, and a great one to your party, if they have the sense to make use of it.”

Lewis Tappan, the ancient and leading Abolitionist, wrote from New York:—

“The speech is timely and valuable. Everywhere I have heard it highly commended. Still some Republicans dislike it, at this crisis. But the party needs having their attention directed to the moral aspects of the question. May the good Lord protect and bless you, and enable you to feel a consciousness of his presence and inspiration!”

J. Miller M’Kim, an active Abolitionist, who did much for the cause, wrote from Philadelphia:—

“The speech is in great demand here. Twenty-five cents a copy have been offered for the Herald or Bulletin containing it. I am disgusted with the notices of it which have appeared in some of the leading Republican prints. Maugre them all, I say, and all right-minded men will say, it was judicious, well-timed, and german to the question before the country.”

Rev. Parker Pillsbury, the Garrisonian Abolitionist, who thought the Republican party too feeble, wrote from Cumington, Massachusetts:—

“Amid the profusion of epistolary plaudits you will doubtless receive for your late powerful protest against Slavery, a voice humble as mine can be to you only of slight account. And yet I cannot forbear my congratulations at your so far recovered vigor and health, and the cause of Freedom and Humanity, that it still receives the powerful aid and advocacy of your voice and influence. I only regret that a speech of such power as your last must be laid on the altar of Republicanism, while to the leaders of the party your utterances are distasteful, if not absolutely terrific.”

Mrs. Maria Weston Chapman, the courageous Abolitionist, always faithful and intelligent, wrote from Boston:—

“Will you accept my hearty thanks for your speech? Exciting, as it must, a rage of hatred in some, proportionate to the love and gratitude it secures from others, I am sure your life is in danger; but with you, the greater the danger, the greater the courage,—and courage is preservative. No need to bid you be of good cheer: one in your place cannot help being so.”

Rev. George B. Cheever, whose soul was in the Antislavery cause, wrote from New York:—

“I bless you from the bottom of my heart, and praise God for his goodness in sparing you and returning you to your place in the Senate for that great work. It is a mighty blow, struck just at the right time, with a severity, pungency, and hearty earnestness that it does one’s very soul good to witness. God bless you, and keep you, my dear friend and brother!—for you must allow me to use this language, since you have endeared yourself to every lover of freedom and justice, of truth and righteousness, and to every friend of the slave, more than ever; and your noble course might justify even a personal stranger in addressing you thus. You are very dear to us all.”

Rev. William H. Furness, the Unitarian preacher, whose gentle nature was always aroused by Slavery, wrote from Philadelphia:—

“I have just read the telegram of your speech, and I must tell you that I have no words to express my admiration, gratitude, love. It is a grand justification of your non-resignation of your seat. The grace of God is on you,—his special favor, in that you have had the will and the opportunity for so faithful, so noble an utterance. It is a planetary space beyond and above the Republican party.”

In another letter he wrote further:

“I have no words to describe the blessed work you have done. Never for one instant mind the ‘cold-shoulderism’ of the Tribune, or the heartlessness around you; but rest assured that you have sent the truth into the inmost being of the Southern men who heard you. They may affect contempt by their silence, or they may rail and foam like Chesnut, but they know that you have spoken the bitter and biting truth without bitterness and without fear, as became a Christian gentleman. I declare to you that I consider that you are paid for the inaction and suffering of the last four years, and so are we. You cannot, no one can, begin to estimate the substantial work that you have done, both in regard to the essential truth, which you have demonstrated, and more to the perfect spirit and manner of the work.”

Rev. O. B. Frothingham, the courageous clergyman and reformer, wrote from New York:—

“Expressing my satisfaction and delight with your recent speech in the Senate, I do not know which most to be thankful for,—the complete restoration of your physical and mental power indicated by it, or the unabated courage it manifests, or the undazzled moral vision it displays in every sentence. To read it is like inhaling a draught of air in midsummer from the cliffs of Nahant or the hills of New Hampshire. It gives a conscience to legislation, and sets us all back upon the everlasting truth and rectitude.”

Rev. Nathaniel Hall, an excellent clergyman, beloved by all who knew him, wrote from Dorchester, Massachusetts:—

“Nobly you have dared to speak the truth, where to speak the truth, as you well knew, was to imperil life: I do not know in our day a nobler instance of moral bravery. And the speech itself, so clear, so strong, so impregnable in its arguments, so unanswerable in its facts, so unexceptionable in its tone, so free from personalities (save where for truth’s sake and the cause they must have been), so comprehensive, so conclusive, so great, so good, so Christian, so worthy,—yes, of a Christian statesman,—so lifted in tone and character above the utterances of that place,—my soul thanks you for it,—thanks God with added fervor, that he spared your life, and brought you back to your honored seat, and enabled you to such fidelity. It richly pays for these years of waiting.… Whatever a partisan press may say, whatever political opponents and political friends may say, whatever of coolness and mistrust may be expressed, where you had a right to expect sympathy and support, be assured that deep in the hearts of multitudes of all parties you are honored, and will be by increasing numbers. I know it from what I know of human nature in myself. I know that my feelings must be shared. I know that the secret reverence not only of the true-hearted, but of all who have not sunk below the mark where appreciation of true-heartedness is impossible, must be given to him who has stood forth in the intrepidity of a Christian manliness, to declare, in the face and beneath the power of its violators, strong in power and reckless in deed, the eternal law of rectitude and mercy.”

Rev. Convers Francis, the learned professor and stanch Abolitionist, wrote from Harvard University:—

“Thanks, many and most hearty thanks, for that great, very great speech, and for your kindness in sending it to me. What a portraiture of the Barbarism of Slavery! And what a master hand to draw it! Such a picture none but an artist of the highest order could paint. I must tell you, Mr. Sumner, that nothing on this great and fearful subject has ever so filled and satisfied my whole soul. ‘Too severe,’ say some; ‘not good policy to irritate the South.’ I tell them, Not an iota too strong. I would not have a single sentence or word less pungent or forcible, if I could; because every sentence and every word are loaded deep with truth, such truth as I rejoice that somebody is found in our Congress to give utterance to.… You have done great and excellent things before, Mr. Sumner, but this, I must say, seems to me the greatest and most excellent of all. The abundance of facts from the most unquestionable sources, the admirable arrangement, the keen and searching application of the argument, the masterly logic, and the manly eloquence of the speech will make it a document of truth and righteousness for all coming time.”[141]

Rev. John T. Sargent, Abolitionist and faithful reformer, wrote from Boston:—

“Every column of the paper, as I took it up, seemed to gleam on me like the golden lamps of the Apocalypse. How irresistible are your arguments! How pungent, and yet how Christian, your rebuke of this sore iniquity of our time! How sharp and clear goes the sword of your spirit through all the sophistry of your opponents! My soul has been in a glow all through the reading, and over the pathos of parts I have cried as if my heart would break.”

Rev. Frederick Hinckley, Free-Soiler from the start, wrote from Lowell:—

“I write this hasty note to tell you how much I thank you (and I think the heart of New England thanks you, too) for your recent speech on the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ in its moral tone and outspoken truthfulness so far above all other Republican speeches in Congress or Convention, carrying us back to the remembrance of the old Free-Soil times, when the party had more moral than political power, and, not expecting success, could speak right out.”

Rev. Beriah Green, one of the most devoted among Abolitionists, wrote from Whitesborough, New York:—

“Such massive, enduring truth! uttered so clearly, definitely, fully! The argument so perspicuous, compact, conclusive! The illustrations so apt, so fresh, so sparkling! The conclusions so weighty, grand, impressive! Every paragraph pervaded, radiant, with scholarly beauty. When did literature, our own or other, ever more willingly, more generously, come, all vigorous and graceful, to the aid of any of her sons?

“I bless God, and thank you, for the deep-toned, comprehensive humanity which pervades, which consecrates and hallows your paragraphs. I found myself, as I moved on step by step through your trains of thought, quickened and encouraged, inspired and refreshed. The impression which the speech as a whole made upon my innermost spirit it is my privilege to cherish and retain. I shall, I trust, be more fraternal in my regards for all my fellows forever, for your brave, manly utterances. Blessings on your head, heart, and estate!”

Rev. Thomas C. Upham, author, professor, and devoted friend of Peace, wrote from Bowdoin College, in Maine:—

“Your history in Congress has been a providential one. I do most fully believe that the hand of God has been in it from the beginning. I thought that the blow which struck you down in the Senate was destined, through the overrulings of Providence, to break the chains of the slave, and I think so still. Allow me to congratulate you, in connection with multitudes of others, on your return to the country and the Senate, and on the utterance of great and true and kind words which will have an influence on the hearts of thinking men throughout the nation.”

Rev. Henry M. Dexter, religious editor, and zealous historian of the Plymouth Pilgrims, wrote:—

“I cannot help feeling, my dear Sir, that you have made the most effective argument which the country has yet listened to on the general subject of the evils of that horrible system under which our nation is reeling like a giant poisoned by an adder. God bless you for your faithfulness, so calm, so dignified, so just, so overwhelming in its logical results, and grant that in ‘the good time coming’ your voice may often be lifted in that Senate House to more appreciative and coöperative auditors!”

Rev. Joseph P. Thompson, the eminent divine and eloquent preacher, wrote from New York:—

“My first duty as a Christian is to thank God that he has restored you to the Senate with physical and mental vigor equal to the great debate in which you have just borne so noble a part. My first duty as a patriot is to thank you for a speech which meets fully, squarely, ably, eloquently, conclusively, the one issue upon which our national welfare now depends. My first duty as a friend is to express the high satisfaction with which I have read the speech throughout, every line and letter of it, and the peculiar pleasure with which I have observed your self-control and avoidance of personalities under provocation, and your fearless and searching exposure of the barbarism and criminality of Slavery under the very eye of its bullying champions and in the very place where you had suffered its deadly malice. I am ashamed of the timid comments, almost deprecating indeed, of the Tribune and Post upon the only speech in the Senate which has reached the core of the question. If the Republican party is to seek success by blinking the real issue of the right or wrong of Slavery, I am prepared to witness its defeat without regret.”

Rev. Thomas T. Stone, the persuasive preacher, and student of Plato, wrote from Bolton, Massachusetts:—

“It is scarcely necessary that I should tell you how much I thank you for your public deeds. I was one who wished your seat in the Senate empty, till either you filled it, or the inevitable doom removed you from the possibility of doing it. May the words which have ennobled it go forth as thunders, arousing souls now deadened by the barbarisms of our country and our age!

“‘Quo bruta tellus et vaga flumina,

Quo Styx et invisi horrida Tænari

Sedes, Atlanteusque finis

Concutitur.’”[142]

Rev. Caleb Stetson, the Liberal clergyman, and early foe of Slavery, wrote from Lexington, Massachusetts:—

“It is the best and completest word that has yet gone forth on the subject. If another as good can be made, it must be by yourself.”

Rev. Rufus P. Stebbins, the Unitarian divine, wrote from Woburn, Massachusetts:—

“I have read your last speech in the Senate on ‘The Barbarism of Slavery’ with admiration and gratitude. As a citizen, a constituent, I thank you from my heart’s core. It was a glorious triumph, such as no Roman consul or general ever won, to stand in your place, after such a long absence, for such a cause, and through four long hours proclaim such holy truth in such distinct language as was never before heard on that floor. It is glory enough for one life.”

Rev. William C. Whitcomb, an earnest clergyman and Abolitionist, wrote from Lynnfield Centre, Massachusetts:—

“A thousand thanks to you for your speech in Congress this week. ’Tis the most thorough, satisfactory, and powerful speech I have ever read on the subject of Slavery, or any subject. ’Twill secure millions of readers, and I trust open the eyes of the nation to the ‘Barbarism of Slavery.’ Ever think of me, and the people to whom I preach, as among your warmest admirers, lovers, and sympathizers.”

Rev. David Root, retired clergyman and Abolitionist, wrote from Cheshire, Connecticut:—

“Though approaching seventy, such is my heartfelt interest in the cause you advocate, that I could cry with joy over the thought that there is at least one member in Congress who is able, and who has the moral courage, to do justice to that great enormity, that atrocious wickedness, that deep and damning crime of Slaveholding. You seem to have embraced in your speech the whole subject, in all its important departments, and with a plainness, directness, pith, force, and pungency worthy of the highest commendation. It should be a permanent and standard document on that subject, and be perpetuated through all coming time, that other generations may look at it and learn to hate Slavery and love Liberty.… Mind not what some timid croakers may say about being ill-timed or calculated to injure our Republican campaign. It is not so. You have given us just the document we needed, going down to the foundation.”

Rev. Edgar Buckingham, an early schoolmate of Mr. Sumner, wrote from his parish at Troy, New York:—

“I congratulate you upon the fidelity and the courage which you have manifested; and though I do not rejoice in all severity, I rejoice always in the severity of truth, and I trust that the leaders of the Republican party will unanimously decide, that, not their expediencies, but God’s opportunity, is always the test of the time in which truth is to be spoken.”

Rev. J. S. Berry wrote from New York:—

“Allow me, though a stranger, to thank you in the name of Humanity for the noble speech on the ‘Barbarism of Slavery’ just delivered by you in the Senate, so just, so truthful, and so timely. I bless God that he has so far restored you, and brought you to ‘this hour.’ Thousands of hearts thrill with intense hatred of Slavery, as they read your startling disclosures of its workings; and the prayers of these same thousands, nay, millions, ascend to the Father of us all, that you may be long spared to show up the wickedness and inhumanity of the institution. I rejoice that not alone on political grounds do you attack the system.”

Rev. Daniel Foster, pastor, Abolitionist, and pioneer in Kansas, wrote from the town of Sumner there:—

“I rise from the perusal of your speech on the ‘Barbarism of Slavery’ with such feelings of affection and reverence for you that I must give my feelings and emotion vent by a word of thanks to you. I was grievously disappointed in ——’s speech. Yours fully satisfies me, it is so thorough, exhaustive, forcible, and withal so lofty and noble and patriotic in its spirit.”

T. Dwight Thacher, journalist, and Kansas pioneer, wrote from Lawrence:—

“Allow me, though an entire stranger, to express my thanks for the delivery of your recent great speech in the Senate of the United States. You may rest assured that the true, radical, Free State men of Kansas have no kind of sympathy with those who are so solicitous lest that speech should have injured our prospects for admission. We have learned the Slave Power well enough to know that its schemes of injustice toward us are not the offspring of sudden and transient excitements, but are the deep and well-settled purpose of years. And for one I would rather that we should remain out of the Union forever than that a single utterance in favor of Freedom should be suppressed in the Senate.”

H. R. Helper, of North Carolina, afterwards Consul at Buenos Ayres, author of the work entitled “The Impending Crisis,” wrote from New York:—

“I am in ecstasies with your speech of yesterday. Every word is put just where it was most needed. One such speech at intervals of even four years is worth incomparably more than a Globe of ordinary debate every day.”

Theodore Tilton, the eloquent lecturer and journalist, sent this good word from New York:—

“I hasten to offer you my congratulations, not merely as a personal friend, but as a citizen, for your vindication of Liberty. Since the Senate began its sessions, no speech has been made on the floor which has satisfied me except this. I am glad that you have been neither intimidated to silence nor hallucinated by ‘expediency’ into speaking only half the truth.”

Francis H. Upton, lawyer, and author of the work on “The Law of Nations affecting Commerce during War,” wrote from New York:—

“Thank God that you are yet stanch and strong, and in all things fit for the fight that is before us. I have no sympathy with those who prate of the impolicy of your present utterance, and also suggest the possibility of its influencing Senators to obstruct or postpone the admission of Kansas. It seems to me that he is but an ill observer of the signs of the times, and has not his finger upon the nation’s pulse, who fails to perceive that the day of soft words and bated breath and candy-tongued conciliation is gone, and gone forever. Slavery has seen its last triumph, and henceforth should receive no quarter.”

Hon. William Curtis Noyes, the eminent lawyer and exemplary citizen, wrote from New York:—

“I thank you cordially for your speech on the ‘Barbarism of Slavery’; and I thank you still more for having delivered it in the Senate, where you had a right to speak, and were bound to speak upon that subject first of all upon your restoration to health. Allow me also to congratulate you on that event, so auspicious to yourself and your country.”

Hon. John Bigelow, the able journalist, and afterwards Minister to France, wrote from New York:—

“I have not found an opportunity until to-day of reading your speech about the Barbarism of Slavery. It is the best arranged and by far the most complete exposure of the horrid rite of Slavery to be found within the same compass in any language, so far as known.”

Hon. Hiram Barney, for many years an Abolitionist, Collector of the Port of New York under President Lincoln, wrote from New York:—

“I was mortified to see in some of our Republican papers unkind criticisms on the expediency of such a speech at this time. In my judgment it is the best speech you have ever made. It was made at the best moment practicable to make it, and it would have been a wrong to the country and the cause to have withheld it. Moreover, it was made by the right man in the right place. It is the most valuable Antislavery document that I have ever seen.”

Thomas Hicks, the artist, wrote from New York:—

“I have just read your speech. It is solid with fact, eloquence, and courage,—right in matter, place, and time.”

Alfred Willard, a strong Republican, wrote from New York:—

“The South Carolina Senator spoke truly, in saying your speech was ‘characteristic.’ It was so indeed, not only of yourself, but glorious old Massachusetts, whose happy fortune it is that her Senators dare speak boldly for Truth and Freedom. Sir, you spoke yesterday not for yourself alone; thousands, ay, millions, of American citizens will sympathize to their hearts’ core with every word so fearlessly spoken. As your speech was ‘characteristic,’ so also was the brief South Carolina response.… Your speech will serve admirably, not only as a powerful and able argument for Freedom, but as a campaign document in the coming contest.”

Professor Charles D. Cleveland, the accomplished teacher and early Abolitionist, wrote from Philadelphia:—

“Many, many heartfelt thanks to you, my dear friend, for your noble speech. It takes the only true ground,—the essential barbarism and sinfulness of Slavery. The few lines in reply to the infamous remarks of Chesnut were admirable, just the thing, and I hope his remarks and yours will go with the speech in its pamphlet form. What would I have given to hear it!”

E. M. Davis, merchant and constant Abolitionist, wrote from Philadelphia:—

“So many people will thank you for your timely, noble, and courageous speech that my thanks will hardly reach your ear; yet I must thank you for my own sake. Our family here spent the last three evenings in reading it out aloud, my son Henry being the reader, and you ought to know how sure we are now that you are well, and how thankful we are for it, and how much good this greatest of all your efforts will do.”

Daniel L. Eaton, journalist, wrote from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania:—

“You must permit me, a perfect stranger, to express my cordial thanks to you for the noble, scathing speech on the ‘sum of villanies’ with which you enriched our literature on Monday last in the Senate. This contest is no holiday battle, but the irrepressible conflict between Right and Wrong. I thank my God that he has spared your life to tell the world that the bludgeon of Barbarism did not silence your tongue nor subdue your spirit. ‘Let the Heathen rage.’ Behind you stand a million of your fellow-citizens in whose hearts your speech finds an echo. After reading it through with scrupulous care, I could not resist the impulse to tell you what I have.”

Thomas MacConnell, lawyer, wrote from Pittsburg:—

“I hold Slavery to be a curse and a disgrace to our country and to mankind; and I rejoice to know that we have one man who is not afraid to denounce it as such, in plain Anglo-Saxon, on the floor of the Senate, and in the face of the Slaveholders.”

C. B. M. Smith, another lawyer, wrote from Pittsburg:—

“Will you permit a private in the Republican ranks to thank you for your great speech on the Barbarism of Slavery? I do not believe that it was ill-timed, or too severe. It was just what the occasion and the times called for.”

Rev. N. Warren Everett wrote from Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania:—

“I have just been reading your masterly and unanswerable speech of the fourth instant with thrills of delight. Massachusetts can afford to let one of her Senatorial chairs remain vacant, if we can have such a speech as that once in four years. I feel like thanking God from the bottom of my heart that you have been restored to health, and have the nerve, or, as you once expressed yourself, the ‘backbone,’ to stand as one of God’s noblemen and give utterance to truth.”

Edward Corner wrote from Columbus, Ohio:—

“It is worth its bulk in gold. I honor the heart and give large credit to the head that combined to send forth such a document. If it could but reach the eyes and ears of the South generally, it would tell upon even that dark and ignorant people; but it cannot; a few may see it. There is not brass enough, nor yet iron, nor steel, in the Southern Senators to ward off such a blow. They will never forget it. There are some weak-kneed Republicans who wish the speech had been less severe. I believe in the entire speech. As you undertook to give the truth, why not tell the whole truth? It is time they were exposed; it is time to hold up Slavery’s mirror, not only to the South, but before the world.”

Alanson St. Clair wrote from Muskegon, Michigan:—

“And if my memory is not greatly at fault, you are the first Member of Congress who has entered the penetralia of the Pandemonium, and fully exposed the diabolical character of the system, and the true character of its supporters. Such efforts are telling.

“The efforts of many noble patriots have been manly, self-denying, and praiseworthy, and should not be disparaged; and yet I know of no one who has taken the high moral ground on this subject which you have from the first. This, during your whole Senatorial career, has made you the hope of the reliable Antislavery men in America; and your last effort will increase not a little their reliance on and their affection for you. It is a godlike effort, a stunning blow, a blow in the right direction and upon the right spot, which has inflicted a fearful, if not a deadly wound.… I pray God that you may live, and retain your place, to pronounce the funeral oration of Slavery, and to receive the exultant blessings of the millions to be set free.”

Nathan C. Meeker wrote from Dongola, Illinois:—

“Notwithstanding what Mr. Greeley said as to its not being proper at this time, I think it timely, and that Mr. Greeley is not aware of the great prevalence of Antislavery sentiment, although he as much as any one has contributed to create it. I thank you for the bold words, and also for the pleasure I have received in reading a correct performance, since there are so many which are hard for me to read. I think your speech will long be referred to, as embracing all that has been and well can be said on this question, and forever cause men to wonder why it was listened to in silence.”

Horace White, the able journalist, afterwards editor of the Chicago Tribune, wrote from Chicago:—

“I take pleasure in saying that in my opinion your recent effort ranks with Demosthenes on the Crown, and with Burke on Warren Hastings.”

John H. Rolfe wrote from Chicago:—

“Nobly and well have you met the expectations of those who, like myself, have waited through four years of silence for your next utterance on the great sin of our times. Highly as I prize the speech, I think your brief and pointed reply to Senator Chesnut fully doubles its value, for all practical purposes.”

W. H. Herndon, the able lawyer, associated in business with Abraham Lincoln, wrote from Springfield, Illinois:—

“I have received and read your most philosophic, logical, and classical speech, made in the Senate of the United States. The speech is a withering one to Slavery. It is worthy of you, and you of it. I thank you very, very much for it.… We feel well out here; are confident of success. We hope the East will do as well as the West.”

S. M. Booth, journalist, who, spurning the Fugitive Slave Act, helped fugitive slaves, and was sentenced to imprisonment, wrote from “U. S. Custom-House Prison” at Milwaukee:—

“I bless God for the utterance. It is timely and needed at this juncture. I have no sympathy with that craven policy which would suppress such a speech, lest it might prejudice the rights of Kansas or endanger the election of Lincoln.… Your portrait of Slavery is true; its character and effects are all you describe it; and the nation needs to have its own sin and shame mirrored as you have done it. I see, too, the assassins have since sought your life.… You have struck a mighty blow at the very existence of Slavery. You have laid the axe at the root of the tree. We never can reach the evil as long as we fight on the defensive. But if the doctrines of your speech are true, it is no longer a question where or how far Slavery shall go, but whether it shall be allowed to go or to be anywhere.… In God’s name let it perish, and the sooner the better.”

Hon. A. A. Sargent, delegate from California to the Chicago Convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln as President, and afterwards Representative in Congress from California, wrote from Newburyport, Massachusetts:—

“You go back of mere political distinctions to lay bare the sin and barbarousness of a hoary iniquity, falsely assuming to be a form of Civilization. You have taken up a train of thought, and pursued it well, which I have long wished to have developed, and filled a void in the system of declared truths upon which Republicanism is based, too long neglected. Your speech stirred my heart with feelings of pride for the representative of my native State.”

Hon. Neal Dow, eminent in the cause of Temperance, and afterwards a general in the War, wrote from Portland, Maine:—

“You will be glad to know that among all thoughtful men of our side your speech is commended without a qualification. There is no sympathy with the cowardice of the mere politicians, in the fear that it may excite the bad passions of the South, and provoke them to do some dreadful thing. I think the general wish is that the whole truth should be boldly spoken, and that the crisis, whatever it may be, may come soon. The indications now are that the South will have an opportunity to make up its mind what it will do about it.”

John Neal, the veteran of American literature, wrote from the same city:—

“I have just finished the reading of your great and conclusive speech upon the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ and I have only to say that I go with you heart and soul, and that I concur entirely in the opinion expressed by the venerable Josiah Quincy of your argument.

“Your manliness, your Christian forbearance, your plainness of speech, and your unexaggerating truthfulness are all of a piece, and I desire to thank you in the name of this whole generation for what you have done and suffered and said.”

Hon. James S. Pike, also of Maine, for many years a journalist, afterwards Minister of the United States at The Hague, wrote from Cape May:—

“I think you have got hold of a heavy sledge, and hit between the horns at every lick. The style of treatment will do as much towards bringing the beast upon his knees as any other, and the duty is peculiarly appropriate at your hands. I am very sure you are right, and feel prompted to say so.”

Hon. John Appleton, the learned jurist, and Chief Justice of Maine, wrote from Bangor:—

“I owe you thanks for your able and unanswerable speech, which came in my absence. More truth was never condensed in one speech. But woe to those by whom it so becomes the truth!”

Hon. Moses Emery, an eminent citizen, wrote from Saco, Maine:—

“Permit me to say I have read it through twice, and parts of it many times, and that I consider it the most glorious and most needed speech ever made in the United States. I rejoice that you have been spared to make it. But be on your guard. The Demon of Slavery will be revenged, if possible.”

Thomas H. Talbot, a lawyer, who argued well against the Fugitive Slave Act, wrote from Portland, Maine:—

“I rejoice at your determination to tell the whole truth, so much needed now, when many acting with you either do not perceive it or are willing to withhold it, for reasons of false, fleeting policy. So far you seem not seriously to have been molested; and yet that you have really achieved freedom of speech in Washington upon that subject, and to the extent of your speech, seems almost too much to hope for at present.”

Hon. Woodbury Davis, an earnest Republican, afterwards Justice of the Supreme Court of Maine, wrote from Portland:—

“Your friends here were alarmed on Sunday evening by a rumor that you had been attacked again by Southern ruffians. I felt thankful yesterday morning, when the despatches were published, to learn that it was no worse. I do not believe there is another man in the world for whose personal safety so much real prayer ascends to Heaven.…

“Allow me, as one of the people, though not one of your immediate constituents, to thank you for your great speech. In these times, when there is a tendency to let down the great principles of Universal Liberty in order to gain a temporary triumph, it was so refreshing to have them so nobly and faithfully advocated in the great forum of the nation, that I felt truly grateful to you, and to Him who has preserved you for such a service. If Slavery is to be restricted, it is because of its own inherent wrong, wheresoever and upon whomsoever it rests. And if wrong, we are bound not only to resist its extension, but by whatever powers we have to seek its extinction.”

Professor Benjamin Silliman, distinguished in science and venerable in years, wrote from Yale College:—

“It is a terrible indictment, and supported by such an array of facts, that, having now gone to the jury, there can be no doubt as to the verdict, and a verdict without appeal, except to violence,—against which, as regards yourself personally, I trust you will exercise a ceaseless, although not a timid vigilance.”

Cyrus R. Sanborn wrote from Rochester, New Hampshire:—

“After the many anxious inquiries during your long absence in a foreign land, your return to the Senate has been a topic of not much less interest. Upon the question often being asked, ‘Shall we again hear from Mr. Sumner on the question of Slavery?’ as often it would be answered either in the affirmative or negative. Not too late, just at the time, you have answered the whole question in your recent elaborate speech. Happy and delighted are freemen that the bludgeon and threats have not daunted your courage and freedom of speech upon the great question of Slavery.”

John A. Andrew, afterwards the great Governor of Massachusetts, wrote from Boston:—

“Among the numerous congratulatory letters which your recent brilliant Senatorial effort is doubtless bringing to you, I doubt not you will derive some pleasure in being remembered at No. 4, Court Street.

“‘The Philosopher’[143] and myself, as you know, always read you promptly and carefully. In this recent triumphant success I recognize the ‘wonted fires’ which have now these dozen years illumined our heavens. And I rejoice at the evidence of confirmed physical vigor which is assured by your encounter of the fatigues and excitement of such an intellectual exercise. May you live a thousand years!”

Hon. Francis W. Bird, one of the ablest and honestest politicians in Massachusetts, for many years an Abolitionist, and of peculiar influence, wrote from East Walpole:—

“You do not need that I should thank you for your speech. I confess I considered the risk to your health and life so great that I hoped you would keep silent. But I thank God you have gone through it, for now we may rest assured your health is established. But how I dreaded the test! I rejoice especially that you have placed yourself where the next step logically is, Slavery has no rights, no recognition (except as an existing fact), and no political existence under the Constitution. Then comes the end. And you are to be the leader in that final fight.”

George L. Stearns, so faithful as Abolitionist, who did so much for the organization of colored troops during the War, wrote from Boston:—

“I cannot wait until I have finished your speech to tell you how perfectly it meets my most sanguine expectations. It is the morning star that heralds the coming day when the vile institution shall only live in the history of the Past. Your word will become the battle-cry in the coming conflict, showing that it is indeed irrepressible, and will not be put down, even when the leaders in the fight fall back in terror.”

Hon. James M. Stone, afterwards Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and a reformer, wrote from Charlestown:—

“I am delighted with your admirable speech on the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ and I desire to unite with the millions of the freemen of the country in tendering you thanks for this effort to arouse the attention of the people to the terrible evils of Slavery. The power of your facts and logic is unanswerable and irresistible. The speech comes just at the right time, too; for there was great danger of too much forgetfulness of the great fundamental principle of Human Freedom, without which the Republican party would never have obtained its present power and prospects for the future, and without which it will surely and speedily go to destruction.”

William I. Bowditch, the well-known conveyancer, and among the strictest of Abolitionists, wrote from Boston:—

“As to the speech, the more I think of it, the heavier I think the blow was which you have given. And I am glad to find you yourself again.”

Nathaniel I. Bowditch, author, as well as eminent conveyancer, remarkable also for goodness and moral principle, wrote from Brookline:—

“I had not the least conception of the immense differences effected by Freedom and Slavery. Your statistics were truly astonishing. Some of my visitors, friendly in the main to the Republican cause, have expressed their doubts as to the expediency of your speech,—considering that its effect must be to exasperate the slaveholders; but when I find that Bell, nominated by the Union party, actually eulogized Slavery as the corner-stone of the material prosperity of the country, I think that it is well that the true picture should be held up to their inspection, however repulsive it may be. As in some homely picture of the Dutch school, such as that of The Dentist pulling out a Tooth, the subject may be distasteful, but all must acknowledge the skill of the artist, so I think no one can deny the thoroughness of your researches or the ability with which you have presented their results. Even your opponents cannot fail to acknowledge the manly and fearless tone of your remarks.”

George Livermore, a Boston merchant, who loved books, and was always true to his convictions, wrote from Boston:—

“I have waited almost a fortnight since the first reading of your speech, and have read it again and again, before saying anything about it. I have heard the various remarks of many persons whom I have met, and have read the contradictory criticisms of politicians, philanthropists, and religionists. But the first thoughts and the first impressions on reading the speech have been strengthened by reflection. I could then find no words of my own so suitable to express my views respecting it as the words of the wise man of Israel, and I said more than once to my nearest friends, ‘Here are apples of gold in pictures of silver.’ For if ever words were fitly spoken, it was when you so bravely, truly, and eloquently lifted up your voice in the Senate, and shamed the ‘Barbarism of Slavery.’ I thank you for it.”

Charles W. Slack, able editor, and ever earnest against Slavery, wrote from Boston:—

“If the truth must be suppressed, if every honest aspiration must be crushed, if everything manly and heroic is to be tamed down, to win a Presidential contest, better be without the success, I say, than purchase it at such a sacrifice. Again I thank you, over and over again.

“Let me say that I know the newspapers don’t represent the current tone of the Republicans in this community, even where bold and brave utterances heretofore have not been popular.”

William S. Robinson, for many years Clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and able journalist, who uttered what he thought, wrote from Boston:—

“I suppose that you are not disappointed that timid Republicanism in some quarters objects to the time and occasion of your speech. Of course its real objection is to the speech itself. But I assure you that the Antislavery men gladly welcome it. I regard it as your best speech, and as calculated to do immense good.”

J. P. Blanchard, clear-headed, and vowed against Slavery and War, wrote from Boston:—

“I need hardly say that I share in the high admiration and satisfaction with which it is received by all intelligent persons here, except those few who have sold their souls for office, or who have not yet awoke from the political sleep of half a century. I esteem it especially, not so much for its great research and ability, which were expected, as because it discusses the true fundamental question of the wrong as well as evil of holding property in man, which, though the real issue between the parties, has hitherto been too much slurred over on both sides.”

Seth Webb, Jr., appointed by President Lincoln Consul at Port-au-Prince, Hayti, a Republican of the best quality, and always Antislavery, wrote from his home in Scituate, Massachusetts:—

“I have read it with care. It is magnificent, and I am glad on every account that it was made. It was all needed,—needed now and from you. It not only expresses my own opinions fully, but in it you have written on the walls of Eternity the adamantine convictions of Massachusetts.

“That there are some timeserving and tremulous men and presses in our ranks who treat the speech coolly only shows that Republican leaders do not understand Republicanism, and that it is a mighty work to regenerate a nation.

“The strength of the Republican party lies in the fearless utterance of its opinions; its weakness, in the suppression of them. A timid policy will be our ruin; a bold one wins friends and awes enemies.”

Hon. Amasa Walker, afterwards Representative in Congress, writer on Currency and Political Economy, and enlisted against Slavery and War, wrote from his home at North Brookfield, Massachusetts:—

“I do think it excellent and well-timed, just what you ought to say, and no more,—but what no other man in the Senate would have dared to say.”

Hon. Willard Phillips, for many years Judge of Probate in Boston, and author of the excellent work on the Law of Insurance, wrote from Boston:—

“I was not a little chagrined and mortified by ——’s notice of it, as I expressed to him in a note the moment I had read his leader respecting it. Brutality, no less than vice, is a monster, and whoever paints it fair, or wishes others to, by the false character he gives betrays his own true character. I have great faith in plain-spoken truth; and the railing and gnashing of teeth in anger by the Southern preservers of the Union, and what John Randolph denominated as the white slaves of the North, who second them, is a plain confession of the truth as you have spoken it.”

Hon. Albert G. Browne, prominent in the politics of Massachusetts, and ever foe to Slavery, wrote from Boston:—

“No poor words of mine can convey to you my admiration and hearty approbation of your speech. I greatly err in judgment, if it is not by universal consent considered your best effort in this direction. To my mind it is exhaustive of the subject.”

Daniel Henshaw, a venerable citizen, once a journalist and always a reformer, wrote from Boston:—

“I have read your speech on the Barbarism of Slavery attentively, having devoted seven hours thereto yesterday, and I cannot refrain from offering you my humble thanks, although words cannot express my feelings on the subject. You know something of my views on Slavery. For thirty years I have considered it the leading and most important subject before the nation.”

Charles M. Ellis, the lawyer, and always against Slavery, wrote from Boston:—

“Especially allow me to thank you for the discourse of the Barbarism of Slavery; for it shows you well again, and leading on the good fight. It is needed now, when men at the South seek to justify the thing,—needed, I think, more than anything,—and leaves little to be done in that direction.”

Warren Sawyer, a merchant and active Republican, wrote from Boston:—

“I have looked over the newspaper reports, and have thanked God your life was spared to prepare such a masterly production, so full of facts, so happily arranged, so glowingly knit together, and that you were able in strength to stand up in the Senate and deliver it.

“To my mind, the speech will do much good; it was needed. The great mass of the people have become, or are becoming, what is now called conservative on the Slavery Question; they forget, amid their business and their many calls, the horrors, the crime, and the Barbarism of Slavery.”

C. J. Higginson, a merchant, wrote from Boston:—

“Notwithstanding all that has been said and written on Slavery, I think you have first perceived and expressed this ‘unconsciousness’ of slaveholders; and the additional fact of this unconsciousness being nearly as general at the North as South explains the necessity of proving at this late day, even to us of the North, the Barbarism of Slavery. We thought their wealth and leisure led them to be generous; nobody has ever so plainly shown their accepted necessity of meanness. We have been unconscious of their influence in lowering our standing.… I only wish to express my satisfaction at finding Massachusetts again represented by a man with a constitution, so valuable in the latitude of Washington, capable of standing the burning heat of the South and the chilliness of the North.”

Hon. J. Q. A. Griffin, the lawyer and earnest Republican, too early removed from life, wrote from Charlestown:—

“I must thank you for the great gratification I felt in the perusal of your great speech. Twice I have read the whole of it, and many times more various parts. It is small praise to say, what is here on all lips, that it evinces marvellous scholarship, and embraces a sternly logical statement of the whole question between Freedom and Slavery. Its amazing courage and justice will commend it yet more to the thinking men of this and all other countries.”

George Baty Blake, the banker, wrote from Boston:—

“Its unanswerable arguments will stand forever as monuments of manly effort in behalf of an oppressed race,—defending principles, too, which ought to be approved by every Christian man.”

A practical Republican, very active in the party, wrote from Boston:—

“I have read your splendid speech, and find that I cannot express in words or with pen my admiration of it. It is one of your efforts, the results of which will undoubtedly place our great party one more pace onward, as in every case of the past you have done. In my opinion it was needed at this time; and as I have been something of a prophet in days past, perhaps my sanction may give you courage.”

A considerable number of constituents at Boston, among whom were James Redpath, Richard J. Hinton, and Loring Moody, friends of Kansas, and Abolitionists, forwarded the following address, signed by them:—

“Jointly and severally, as men and as citizens, we say, God bless you, Charles Sumner! Thank God for one man whom no Barbarism frightens, whom no pusillanimous policy deters from uttering the truth! Thank Heaven that in our modern Sodom one just man and fearless was found, who, in the face of despots, has dared to plead the cause of their victims, and to brand their tyranny with the titles it has won!

“Go on,—with God, and the slave, and all good men applauding you. Victory is inevitable, and near at hand.

“With gratitude and love and admiration, your friends, constituents, and fellow-citizens.”

Dr. Joseph Sargent, the eminent surgeon and strong Republican, wrote from Worcester, Massachusetts:—

“When I first read your speech, as I did immediately after its delivery, my blood boiled anew, as after the outrage which our country’s Barbarism inflicted on you four years ago. God has punished that crime, in the persons of its more immediate perpetrators, in his own way. Your speech is the apt and condign punishment of that portion of the community who supported them. In its learning, its truth, and its eloquence, it is worthy of you; while in its comprehensiveness, its compactness, and its completeness, it has exhausted the whole subject. If you never say a word more, your record will be right, and may God bless you!”

Hon. James H. Morton, holding a judicial situation, wrote from Springfield, Massachusetts:—

“I have long been expecting to hear from you in your regaining health, and my expectation has been fully realized in the noble, scorching, withering expression of the true sentiment of Massachusetts on this subject. Would to God that every man who entertains the sentiments contained in your speech, whether of the North or South, had the moral courage boldly to express them! We should soon see an end of that accursed thing, Slavery.”

Hon. D. W. Alvord, lawyer and warm Republican, wrote from Greenfield, Massachusetts:—

“I write to thank you for your recent speech. There is not elsewhere in the English language so powerful an argument on the Barbarism of Slavery. In my opinion it is just such a speech as you were bound to make,—just such a speech as the honor of Massachusetts required from you. It is such a speech as few men living but you could make. Hurt the Republican party, will it? If it will, then the party does not deserve success.”

Humphrey Stevens, Register of Deeds for Franklin County, Massachusetts, wrote from Greenfield:—

“I have just read your speech on the Barbarism of Slavery. God be praised that you did not compromise, and that the prayers of the good have been answered! Some Republicans may condemn, but hosts will rejoice that you regard the cause more than Republicanism.”

Rev. William S. Tyler, the learned Greek Professor, wrote from Amherst:—

“I cannot refrain from expressing to you the deep, though in some respects painful, interest with which I have read your late speech in the United States Senate.

“That your life has been spared, your health in such a measure restored, and that you were able to begin ‘where you left off,’ and finish such a faithful and complete exposition of the monstrous Barbarism—that is the word—of American Slavery, is just matter of congratulation to the country, and of thanksgiving to God. The enemies of Freedom and Humanity will of course gnash their teeth upon you, and timid friends will question the expediency of such a speech; but when the passions and prejudices of the hour have passed away, it will be remembered and honored as one of the truest, greatest, best utterances of our age.”

Hon. Henry Hubbard, the agent of Massachusetts to visit New Orleans in behalf of colored seamen imprisoned there, wrote from Pittsfield:—

“I cannot, even at the hazard of offending you, refrain from expressing the sense of honor and gratitude I feel for your sending me your immortal and all-conquering speech on the Kansas Question, showing and proving the unmitigated atrocity and monstrous deformity of Slavery, maintained in many States of this confederacy, and threatening all the rest. Boldly, manfully, faithfully you have ‘done the austere work,’ not letting, by your laches, ‘Freedom fling away any of her weapons.’ Oh, no! Freedom stood in all her majesty, and used all her weapons.”

Henry D. Thoreau, author and man of genius, wrote from Concord, Massachusetts:—

“Especially I wish to thank you for your speech on the Barbarism of Slavery, which I hope and suspect commences a new era in the history of our Congress, when questions of national importance have come to be considered from a broadly ethical, and not from a narrowly political point of view alone. It is refreshing to hear some naked truth, moral or otherwise, uttered there, which can always take care of itself, when uttered, and of course belongs to no party. (That was the whole value of Gerrit Smith’s presence there, methinks, though he did go to bed early.) Whereas this has only been employed occasionally to perfume the wheel-grease of party or national politics.”

Frank B. Sanborn, teacher and earnest man, afterwards an able journalist, wrote from Concord:—

“Whatever politicians and editors may say, or even think, you have more endeared yourself to the popular heart by your labors in the last Session than by all that you have previously done. Neither the North nor the South can soon forget the faithful picture held up before us in your speeches.”

Miles Pratt, a business man and active Republican, of Watertown, Massachusetts, wrote:—

“I am sure I express the sentiments of nine tenths of the Republicans of this town, when I say that your speech is received with joy by us all. Strange that such papers as the Tribune can wish that it had been made at some other time! We don’t want victory, if at such sacrifice as the Tribune proposes. Let me assure you that such sentiments as you have uttered are what keep very many men in the Republican ranks.”

E. P. Hill, of Haverhill, Massachusetts, wrote:—

“Allow me to congratulate you upon the delivery of one of the most effective speeches upon the great question of the age that have ever been given to the American people. I rejoice most heartily that the facts and sentiments it contains have found a timely utterance, and it is safe to predict for it a decided effect upon the moral sense of the whole world.”

P. L. Page wrote from Pittsfield, Massachusetts:—

“I have just read your speech, ‘The Barbarism of Slavery,’ and, notwithstanding the opinions of some politicians, am glad you have delivered it just as it is. It is terrible, but truthful. I think it will do good. While there is immense sympathy for the Republican party, as a party, there is too little sympathy for the Slave, and too little indignation against that abominable system by which he is held in bondage. The tendency of that speech is to show that it is not this or that measure merely we have to contend with, but the monster Slavery.”

Andrew L. Russell, an excellent citizen, of Pilgrim stock, and an early Abolitionist, wrote from Plymouth, Massachusetts:—

“I have just read your speech with great interest, and thank you for it. It is just the thing, manly and conclusive. I hope in all the copies of your speech Mr. Chesnut’s beautiful specimen of Southern Chivalry manners will be printed, with your rejoinder.

“We must be bold and determined now, and the victory is sure. The ravings of the Oligarchy show that they are wounded.”

Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, of beautiful genius, and equal devotion to the cause, wrote from Wayland, Massachusetts:—

“I presume you were not disappointed that so many Republican editors pronounced your speech injudicious, ill-timed, etc. I was not surprised, though I confess I did expect something better from the New York Evening Post. Honest utterance generally frightens or offends the wise and prudent; but it gains the popular heart, and thus renders political parties the greatest service, though it is one they least know how to appreciate. They themselves are also carried onward by such agencies, as certainly as cars follow the engine.”

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From representative colored men similar testimony proceeded. That of Frederick Douglass has been given already. Robert Morris, the colored lawyer, wrote from Boston:—

“In behalf of the colored young men of Boston, and following the dictates of my own heart, I write to thank you for the speech you have just made in exposition of the Barbarism of Slavery.…

“In battle, when a bombshell is thrown into the camp of the enemy, if it creates consternation and surprise, rest assured it has been thrown successfully, and done good service. So your speech, every word of which is truthful, fearlessly spoken to the guilty parties in the iniquitous system of Slavery, was properly directed, and has done good service, as is fully demonstrated by the renewed attempts on the part of the Southerners to assault you again and silence your voice.”

John S. Rock, also a colored lawyer, afterwards, on motion of Mr. Sumner, admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, wrote from Boston:—

“Your immortal speech has sent a thrill of joy to all the lovers of Freedom everywhere, and especially so to the down-trodden. We feel the value of it the more since the Republican party appears determined to treat us in the spirit of the Dred Scott decision.”

J. B. Smith, colored, of New Bedford, wrote from Boston:—

“Permit me, as a citizen of your native State, and especially as a colored man, who has faithfully devoted more than twenty years of his brief life to the elevation of his race, most sincerely and heartily to thank you for your very masterly speech in exposition of the monstrous iniquity of American Slavery. I can assure you that the gratitude of the colored people of this country towards you, who so eminently deserve it, is incalculable.”

Ebenezer D. Bassett, a colored professor, afterwards Minister at Hayti, wrote from Philadelphia:—

“The speech, which I read in the Herald, is, it seems to me, unequalled by anything in the oratory of modern times, and I venture to predict that future ages will place it, as a work of art, side by side with the matchless De Corona of Demosthenes. It is certainly beyond all praise.”

William Still, colored, and with the natural sentiments of his race, wrote from Philadelphia:—

“In my humble opinion, you have so effectually laid the axe at the root of the tree that thousands and tens of thousands who have been indifferent or Proslavery will henceforth work for the deliverance of the bondman,—will labor to help cut the tree down. Thus I am greatly encouraged, and devoutly hope and pray for a better day for my race soon.”

Robert Purvis, an accomplished gentleman, connected by blood with the colored race, wrote from his home at Byberry, near Philadelphia:—

“Permit me, out of the fulness of my heart, to make to you my grateful acknowledgments for the most powerfully effective speech, in my humble opinion, against the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ ever made in this or any other country. Its timeliness, as well as its vital power, stirs within me the deepest emotions, which, indeed, are poorly expressed in subscribing myself as being your grateful and admiring friend and obedient servant.”

H. O. Wagoner testifies to the sentiments of the colored people of Illinois, in a letter from Chicago:—

“For the great words you have spoken, and the ever-memorable services which you have just rendered in the Senate of the United States to the cause of my enslaved and down-trodden fellow-countrymen, I return you not only my own individual heartfelt thanks, but I venture to speak in the name and in the behalf of the seven or eight thousand colored people of the State of Illinois.… Could the poor slave but know the substance of that speech, the circumstances under which it was given, in the very face of the Slave Power,—I say could the slaves be made to comprehend fully all this, it would thrill their very souls with emotions of joy unspeakable.”

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This collection, which might be extended, is concluded with a voice from the Land of Slavery. J. R. S. Van Vleet wrote from Richmond:—

“As a citizen of the ‘Old Dominion,’ and a hater of Slavery, I hereby send to you my unqualified approbation of your manly, bold, eloquent, and truthful exposition of the great crime of our common country; and let this come to you as from the slave-pens of Richmond, in the midst of which these lines are secretly written, and within which hundreds of human hearts this moment feel the crushing weight of the ‘Barbarism’ you have so faithfully illustrated. If these poor slaves were permitted to give you thanks, their dark and gloomy prisons for once would be made vocal with praise, and their tears of sorrowing and bitterness be changed to tears of joy.

“If you knew the deep and secret interest which these people take in the great battle now waging, you would be stimulated in your efforts to hasten the day when we white men of Virginia could unite with the colored slave to celebrate our common emancipation.…

“Some of the Northern Republicans affect to think that your speech was ill-timed; but I think it was just in time, and not a moment too soon. The Southern party demand that the area of Slavery shall be extended,—that the system shall be protected by Congressional legislation backed by the whole power of the Government; is it not, therefore, right and proper that the people of the Free States should know what that system is which they are required to perpetuate and protect? You have torn off its mask and exhibited to them its hideous features, and now let them say whether they will crush it beneath their feet, or foster, caress, and protect it.”

William Rabé, Secretary of the Republican Central Committee of California, wrote from San Francisco:—

“We have republished your speech.… I have the honor to hail from Mr. Chesnut’s State, but am extremely sorry to be obliged to disagree with him, and to be obliged to indorse the reasoning of your speech, notwithstanding, or, in fact, in consequence of, my having been a planter in South Carolina for years.… It may not be for me to eulogize you and your speeches; but that you have created an enthusiasm and opened the door for free talk on the subject of Slavery no one will deny, and the effect has already been electric.”

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From the press, and from correspondence, it is plain, that, whatever the efforts or desires of politicians, the question of Slavery had reached a crisis. Nothing touched the universal heart so strongly, and the interest extended abroad. For years the South had been growing passionate for this Barbarism, and determined on its extension. It now appeared that in the North there was a passion the other way. The Presidential election turned on Slavery, and nothing else. The precise point in issue was its limitation by preventing its spread into the Territories; but this issue, even in its moderate form, involved the whole character of Slavery, and the supremacy of the Slave Power in the National Government.

The speeches during the canvass were on this issue. Politicians were swept into the irresistible current. This appeared in the pressure upon Mr. Sumner to speak. At the close of the session of Congress, only a brief period after his exposure of the Barbarism of Slavery, on the invitation of the Young Men’s Republican Union of New York, he delivered an address at Cooper Institute, on “The Origin, Necessity, and Permanence of the Republican Party,” where he presented anew the argument against Slavery. This was followed by urgent requests to speak in other places. Hon. Hannibal Hamlin, the Republican candidate for Vice-President, wrote from Maine: “We want you much, very much.… Will you come? Don’t say, No.” Hon. William P. Fessenden, learning that he was coming, wrote: “The news has rejoiced all our hearts.” Hon. Neal Dow urged: “You may say all that is in your heart, relying fully upon the entire sympathy of the people.” And John A. Andrew, who was visiting there, reported: “Your name will draw like a thousand elephants.” There were other States where there was similar urgency. A private letter from Thurlow Weed, at Albany, hoping it would be in Mr. Sumner’s power to visit New York, was followed by a formal letter from the New York State Republican Central Committee, pressing him to address the electors of this State, and saying: “The Committee are very urgent in this request, and hope you will consent to speak for us as much as possible”; and this was followed by a special appeal from Simeon Draper, Chairman of the State Committee. A similar call, with the same urgency, came from Illinois,—and here the agents were Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, of the Republican Congressional Committee at Washington, and Hon. N. B. Judd, Chairman of the Illinois Republican State Committee. In pressing the invitation, the latter said: “We can promise you such welcome as Western Republicans can give to laborers in the cause of Freedom”; and then again, in another letter: “The people expect you, and know that no personal motive or interest induces you to come,—only a deep conviction of the necessity for the election of Mr. Lincoln, and the triumph of the principles of which he is the representative.” Another ardent Republican wrote from Chicago: “A glorious reception is awaiting you.”

During the canvass, Mr. Sumner spoke several times in Massachusetts, treating different heads of the Great Question, as will appear in the course of this volume; but after his address at New York, he did not speak out of his own State. The appeals from other States attest that his method was not discarded by the people. As the Rebellion began to show itself, the Barbarism of Slavery was more and more recognized.

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A VICTORY OF PRINCIPLE IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

Letter to a Public Meeting at Middleborough, Massachusetts, June 11, 1860.

Senate Chamber, June 11, 1860.

DEAR SIR,—It would give me pleasure to mingle with my fellow-citizens at Middleborough in pledges of earnest support to our candidates recently nominated at Chicago, but duties here will keep me away.

Be assured, however, of the sympathy, which I offer more freely because I find in the Platform declarations full of glorious promise. Our victory will be worth having, only as it is a victory of principle; but such a victory I expect.

Because I believe that our candidates hate the five-headed Barbarism of Slavery, and will set their faces against all its irrational and unconstitutional pretensions, I am earnest for their success.

Accept my thanks for the honor of your invitation, and believe me, dear Sir,

Faithfully yours,

Charles Sumner.

F. M. Vaughan, Esq., Secretary, &c., &c.

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REFUSAL TO COLORED PERSONS OF RIGHT OF PETITION.

Notes of undelivered Speech in the Senate, on Resolution refusing to receive Petition from Citizens of Massachusetts of African Descent, June 15, 1860.

June 5, 1860, Mr. Sumner presented a petition of citizens of Massachusetts, of African descent, praying the Senate to suspend the labors of the Select Committee appointed to investigate the facts of the late invasion and seizure of public property at Harper’s Ferry, and that all persons now in custody under the proceedings of such Committee be discharged, which was duly referred to the Select Committee.

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June 15, Mr. Mason submitted a report from the Committee, accompanied by the following resolution:—

“Resolved, That the paper purporting to be a petition from ‘citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, of African descent,’ presented to the Senate by Charles Sumner, a Senator of Massachusetts, on the 5th of June, instant, and on his motion referred to a Select Committee of the Senate, be returned by the Secretary to the Senator who presented it.”

This resolution was never called up for consideration, but it stands on the Journal of the Senate in perpetual testimony of the assumption of the Slave Power and its tyrannical hardihood. Anticipating its discussion, Mr. Sumner prepared the notes of a speech upon it, which are here preserved precisely as sketched at the time.

It is difficult to treat this proposition, proceeding from a Committee of the Senate, except as you would treat a direct proposition of Atheism. “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God”; but it was only in his heart; the fool in Scripture did not openly declare it. Had he openly declared it, he would have been in a position hardly more offensive than your Committee.

There is a saying of antiquity, which has the confirming voice of all intervening time, that “whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.” And now, Sir, while humbled for my country that such a proposition should be introduced into the Senate, I accept it as the omen of that madness which precedes the fall of its authors.

At this moment the number of free persons, African by descent, in the United States, is almost half a million,—being a population two thirds larger than the white population in South Carolina, more than one third larger than the white population in Mississippi, and six times larger than the white population in Florida. I mention these facts in order to show at the outset the number of persons whose rights are now assailed.

Already, in several States, free negroes are threatened with expulsion, under the terrible penalty of being sold into Slavery. The Supreme Court of the United States has stepped forward, and by cruel decree declared that they are not citizens, and therefore are not entitled to sue in the courts of the United States. And now, to complete their degradation and exclusion from all rights, it is proposed to declare that their petitions cannot be received by the Senate.

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The right of petition is not political, but personal,—born with Humanity, and confirmed by Christianity,—belonging to all, but peculiar to the humble, the weak, and the oppressed. It belongs even to the criminal; for it is simply the right to pray.

There is no country, professing civilization, where this right is not sacred. In Mahometan countries it is revered. One of the most touching stories of the East is where a petitioner in affliction came before the Sultan, crying out,—

“‘My sorrow is my right,

And I will see the Sultan, and to-night.’

‘Sorrow,’ said Mahmoud, ‘is a reverend thing;

I recognize its right, as king with king:

Speak on.’”[144]

To take this right away from any portion of our fellow-subjects—even if you say they are not fellow-citizens—will be barbarous. And when I consider under what influence this proposition is brought forward, I present it as a fresh illustration of the Barbarism of Slavery,—most barbarous in the unconsciousness of its Barbarism.

The outrage is apparent from a simple statement.

In all the States—even in the Slave States—a free colored man may hold property of all kinds, personal or real,—even land, in which citizenship strikes its strongest root; but you will not allow him the poor right of petition.

He may own stocks of the United States, Treasury notes, and in other ways be the creditor of the Government; but you will not allow him the poor right of petition.

He is strictly bound by every enactment upon our statute-book; and yet you will not allow him to appear before you with a prayer to modify or soften this statute-book.

He is rigidly held to pay his quota of taxes; but you will not allow him to ask for their reduction.

And still further, under all your pension laws for Revolutionary services, and for services in other wars, whether on land or sea, he is entitled to a pension precisely as if he were white; but you will not allow him to solicit aid under these laws.

Such is a simple statement of the injustice you are about to do. On this statement alone, without one word of argument or illustration, you will surely recoil.

But this proposition proceeds on two assumptions, each of which is radically false: first, that a free person of African descent is not a citizen of the United States; and, secondly, that none other than a citizen is entitled to petition Congress.

In support of the first assumption is the recent decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott. But against that decision—so unfortunate for the character of the tribunal from which it proceeded,—which has degraded that tribunal hardly less than it sought to degrade the African race—I oppose the actual fact in at least six of the original thirteen States at the adoption of the Constitution.

First, in Massachusetts, where the present petitioners reside, all persons, without distinction of color, are treated as citizens by its Constitution adopted in 1780.

Secondly, in Virginia, the State represented by the Senator [Mr. Mason] who brings forward this decree of disfranchisement, the same principle prevailed at the same time. And here I call attention to the 11th volume of Hening’s Virginia Statutes, where, on page 322, may be found the law of October, 1783, which repeals that of 1779, limiting citizenship to whites, and enacts, “that all free persons born within the territory of this Commonwealth … shall be deemed citizens of this Commonwealth,” without one word referring to descent or color.

Thirdly, in New Hampshire, whose Constitution conferred the elective franchise upon “every inhabitant of the State having the proper qualifications,”—of which descent or color was not one.

Fourthly, in New York, where the Constitution conferred the elective franchise upon “every male inhabitant of full age who shall have personally resided,” &c., “if during the time aforesaid he shall have been a freeholder,” &c.,—without any discrimination of descent or color.

Fifthly, in New Jersey, by whose Constitution the elective franchise was conferred upon “all inhabitants of this colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds, proclamation money, clear estate,”—also without any discrimination of descent or color.

Sixthly, in North Carolina, where Mr. Justice Gaston, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court of the State in the case of The State v. Manuel, declared that “the Constitution extended the elective franchise to every freeman who had arrived at the age of twenty-one and paid a public tax; and it is a matter of universal notoriety, that, under it, free persons, without regard to color, claimed and exercised the franchise, until it was taken from free men of color a few years since by our amended Constitution.”[145]

To these authoritative precedents, drawn from the very epoch of the National Constitution, I might add other illustrations. I content myself with referring to the Constitution of Missouri, which, in speaking of “every free white male citizen,”[146] admits by implication that colored persons may be citizens, and to the Code of Alabama, which declares that certain sections “do not apply to or affect any free person of color who by the Treaty between the United States and Spain became a citizen of the United States, or the descendants of such.”[147]

But not only in six of the old thirteen States all freemen without distinction of color were citizens, but also under the Articles of Confederation they were citizens. By the fourth article it was expressly declared that “the free inhabitants of each of these States (paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted) shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States.” The meaning of this clause, which is clear on its face, becomes clearer still, when it is known, that, while it was under discussion, on the 25th of June, 1778, the delegates from South Carolina moved to amend it by inserting between the words “free inhabitants” the word “white,” so that the character of a citizen should be restricted to white persons. This proposition was rejected,—two States only voting for it, eight States against it, and the vote of one State being divided; so that the term “free inhabitants” was left in its full significance, without any distinction of descent or color.

The Constitution of the United States next followed. And it contains not a sentence, phrase, or word of disfranchisement on account of descent or color, any more than on account of religion.

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If the present question depended upon citizenship, you could not refuse to receive the petition. But it does not depend upon citizenship. The right to petition Congress is not an incident of the elective franchise. It exists where the elective franchise does not exist. The Constitution expressly secures it, not simply to citizens, but broadly and completely to THE PEOPLE, declaring, in the first article of its Amendments, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The term people here naturally means all, without distinction of class, who owe allegiance to the Government. It is the American equivalent for subjects. If there were any doubt on this point, it would be removed by the clear and irresistible meaning of the term in other parts of the Constitution. Thus, in the clause constituting the House of Representatives, it is declared that it “shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.” Here is an obvious difference between the “people” and “electors.” The former is broader than the latter. It is the former that constitutes the basis of representation, and the Constitution then proceeds to declare that this basis “shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.” Whatever may be the position of the fractional class, nothing can be clearer than that all free persons, without distinction of color or descent, belong to the people, and, so belonging, they are solemnly and expressly protected by the Constitution in the right of petition.

The Constitution next provides for the “enumeration” of the people, and under this provision there is a decennial census of the whole people, without distinction of color or descent; and yet, while including all of African descent in your population, you refuse to receive their petitions.

The present proposition is aggravated by well-attested facts in our history. A colored man, Crispus Attucks, was the first martyr of our Revolutionary struggle. Throughout the long war of seven years, while national independence was still doubtful, colored men fought sometimes in the same ranks with the whites, and sometimes in separate companies, but always with patriotic courage, and often under the eye of Washington. The blood of the two races mingled, and, dying on the same field, they were buried beneath the same sod. And this same association was continued throughout the War of 1812, in all our naval contests, and especially in the Battle of Lake Erie under Perry, and of Lake Champlain under Macdonough, where colored men performed a conspicuous part. But no better testimony can be presented than the eloquent proclamation of General Jackson, before the Battle of New Orleans, where he calls upon the “free colored inhabitants of Louisiana” to take part in the contest as American soldiers, and speaks of them by implication as “fellow-citizens.”[148] “American soldiers” and “fellow-citizens”: such is the language of Andrew Jackson, when speaking of those whom you would despoil of a venerable right.

Thus, Sir, throughout our history, you have used these men for defence of the country, you have coined their blood into your own liberties; but you deny them now the smallest liberty of all,—the last which is left to the miserable,—the liberty to pray. In the history of misfortune or of tyranny nothing can surpass this final act of robbery. The words of the classic poet are fulfilled:—

“‘The wretch, in short, had nothing.’ You say true:

And yet the wretch must lose that nothing too.”[149]

There is a story of General Washington which illustrates by contrast the wrong of the present proposition. On a certain occasion, being engaged late at the quarters of his aid, Colonel Pickering, of Massachusetts, he proposed to pass the night, if the colored servant, Primus Hall, whom I remember at Boston in my childhood, could find straw and a blanket. Of course they were found; but it was by the surrender of the servant’s own blanket. In the course of the night, the General, becoming aware of the sacrifice, most authoritatively required the servant to share the blanket, saying, “There is room for both, and I insist upon it”; and on the same straw, beneath the same blanket, the General and the faithful African slept till morning sun.[150] You not only refuse to share your liberties with the colored man, but you now propose to take from him his last blanket.

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This is not the time to dwell on the character of the colored race; for the right of petition can never depend on the character of the petitioner, while in criminal cases liberty and life even may. But I mention two facts which speak for this much injured people. The first, Sir, is the official census, by which it appears that throughout the Free States among the colored population a much larger proportion attend school than among the whites of the Slave States, and this contrast becomes still more apparent when we consider the small attendance upon school by the whites in South Carolina. The other fact appears in the last will and testament of Mr. Upshur, of Virginia, Secretary of State under President Tyler, where he thus speaks:—

“I emancipate and set free my servant, David Rich, and direct my executors to give him one hundred dollars. I recommend him in the strongest manner to the respect, esteem, and confidence of any community in which he may happen to live. He has been my slave for twenty-four years, during which time he has been trusted to every extent and in every respect. My confidence in him has been unbounded; his relation to myself and family has always been such as to afford him daily opportunities to deceive and injure us, and yet he has never been detected in a serious fault, nor even in an intentional breach of the decorums of his station. His intelligence is of a high order, his integrity above all suspicion, and his sense of right and propriety always correct and even delicate and refined. I feel that he is justly entitled to carry this certificate from me into the new relations which he now must form. It is due to his long and most faithful services, and to the sincere and steady friendship which I bear him. In the uninterrupted and confidential intercourse of twenty-four years, I have never given nor had occasion to give him an unpleasant word. I know no man who has fewer faults or more excellencies than he.

A. P. Upshur.”[151]

I do not dwell on precedents; for Senators willing to entertain this proposition can have little regard for any precedents in favor of Human Rights. I content myself with saying, that never before has this assault on Human Rights been made,—that petitions from colored persons have been often presented and refused, precisely as other petitions. Here, for example, is an instance on the Journals of the Senate:—

“Mr. Seward presented a petition of citizens of Ontario County, New York, praying that the army may be disbanded, and its services hereafter dispensed with; a petition of male and female colored inhabitants of Boston, Massachusetts, praying that colored men may be employed in transporting the mails, and enrolled in the militia; and a petition of male and female colored inhabitants of Boston, Massachusetts, protesting against the enactment of a law for the recovery of fugitive slaves.”[152]

But I have said enough. Most earnestly and sincerely do I protest against this attempt, on three grounds: first, because, being essentially barbarous in character, it must be utterly shameful to a government boasting Christianity and professing Civilization; secondly, because it is a flagrant violation of the constitutional rights of more than half a million of American people; and, thirdly, because, in the present case, it is an insult to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where these petitioners reside in the free enjoyment of all the rights of citizens,—among others, of voting for Members of Congress. I am unwilling to weaken this argument for Human Rights by any appeal to State Rights; but I cannot fail to observe that this proposition, which tramples down State Rights in order to assail Human Rights, proceeds from a Senator [Mr. Mason] who always avows himself the defender of State Rights.

For myself, Sir, my course is plain. Whatever may be the action of the Senate, I shall continue to present such petitions. And permit me to say, that I should be little worthy of the place I now hold, if, at any time hereafter, receiving such petitions, I hesitate in the discharge of this sacred duty.

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THE LATE HONORABLE JOHN SCHWARTZ, OF PENNSYLVANIA.

Speech in the Senate, on the Resolutions in Tribute to him, June 21, 1860.

MR. PRESIDENT,—Some men make themselves felt at once by their simple presence, and Mr. Schwartz was of this number. No person could set eyes on him without being moved to inquire who he was, or, if the occasion presented, to form his acquaintance. His look was that of goodness, and he acted in a way to confirm the charm of his appearance. Entering tardily into public life, he followed the prompting of duty, and not of ambition. At this call he severed friendships, personal and political, believing that principle was of higher worth than party or politician or President. Thus, when already reverend with age, he became a Representative in Congress.

His presence in the other House was a protest. All who saw him there knew that he came from a constituency which had always been represented by an unhesitating member of the Democratic party, while he openly denounced that party,[153] and associated himself cordially and completely with those who, founding themselves on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, sought to bring the National Government to the ancient ways. I mention this circumstance, because it is an essential part of his too brief public life, while it illustrates his character, and proclaims his title to honor. The powerful party leader, “with a Senate at his heels,” is less worthy of love and consideration than the simple citizen, who, scorning party ties, dares to be true and just.

But never did man, who had broken down a party at home, and taken his seat as representative of Opposition, wear his signal success more gently. Though decided and firm in conduct, he was winning and sweet in manner, and by beautiful example showed how to unite two qualities which are not always found together. Winter was not sterner, summer was not softer.

In character he did honor to the brave and pure German stock, which, even from that early day when first revealed to history in the sharp and clean-cut style of Tacitus, has preserved its original peculiarities untouched by change, showing, that, though the individual is mortal, the race is immortal. American by birth, and American in a generous patriotism, he was German in his clear blue eye, in his physical frame, in the warmth of his affections, and in the simplicity of his life. To him alone our tribute is now due; but, in pronouncing the name of John Schwartz, we cannot forget the “fatherland” of his ancestors, which out of its abundance has given to our Republic so many good heads, so many strong arms, with so much of virtue and intelligence, rejoicing in freedom, and calling no man master.

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UNHESITATING ASSERTION OF OUR PRINCIPLES.

Letter to the Republicans of New York City, June 27, 1860.

An enthusiastic meeting of the Old Men’s and Young Men’s Republican Central Committees of the City of New York was held on the evening of June 28, for the purpose of extending a welcome to the Republican Senators of the Eastern States, on their return from Congress. D. D. Conover, of the Old Men’s Committee, presided, assisted by Charles S. Spencer, of the Young Men’s Committee. The following letter from Mr. Sumner, in answer to an invitation, was read by Edgar Ketchum.

Senate Chamber, June 27, 1860.

MY DEAR SIR,—I must renounce the opportunity of meeting the Republicans of New York to-morrow evening, asking them to accept my thanks for the invitation with which they have honored me.

Let me congratulate them on the good omens which cheer us on every side.

It only remains, that, by unhesitating assertion of our principles, we continue to deserve victory.

Believe me, my dear Sir,

Very faithfully yours,

Charles Sumner.

Edgar Ketchum, Esq.

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THE REPUBLICAN PARTY:
ITS ORIGIN, NECESSITY, AND PERMANENCE.

Speech before the Young Men’s Republican Union of New York, at Cooper Institute, July 11, 1860.

This early speech in the Presidential campaign which ended in the election of Abraham Lincoln was made by Mr. Sumner while on his way home from Washington. It was reported and noticed by the New York press. A journal having little sympathy with it describes the magnificence and enthusiasm of the auditory, and thus abridges the speech in flaming capitals: “The Presidential Contest; Great Convulsion in the Republican Camp; Charles Sumner on the Stump; A Strong Plea for Old Abe; Another Attack upon Slaveholders; The Fivefold Wrong of Human Slavery.”

The meeting is mentioned in all the journals as one of the largest ever assembled within the walls of Cooper Institute, and also remarkable for respectability of appearance. One of them says it seemed more like an audience of some great concert or festival than a political meeting. As soon as the doors were opened every available position was occupied, and in half an hour afterwards it was impossible to find accommodation. More than one third of the vast hall had been reserved for ladies, and it was completely filled. The windows of the upper floor opening upon the basement were crammed with people. On the stage were many distinguished persons, judges and ex-judges. The welcome of the speaker is thus noticed by another:—

“Mr. Sumner appeared on the rostrum precisely at eight o’clock, and was received with an outburst of excited enthusiasm which defies all description. The applause was unanimous and intense. Cheer after cheer arose, loud and vociferous; men stood up and waved their handkerchiefs and their hats till scarcely anything else could be seen.”

The scene at this time was chronicled by the Independent.

“The orator’s return to the people, after his long and enforced retirement from the platform, was celebrated at Cooper Institute with such a welcome as we have rarely seen given to any man. On coming forward, he was greeted with cheer after cheer, the audience rising and prolonging their salutations through many minutes, with continuous shouting and waving of handkerchiefs.”

Mr. Rogers, the President of the Young Men’s Republican Union, nominated for chairman of the meeting Hon. Abijah Mann, Jr., which nomination was unanimously accepted. Mr. Mann, on taking the chair, said that they had now to listen to the voice of one who had stood up manfully for freedom of speech, not only against open foes, but even against the opposition of some of his colleagues. [Applause.] He was here to-night to maintain this same right to free speech, and to express his views of the political condition of the country. It gave him pleasure to introduce to the audience Hon. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts.

Mr. Sumner, on taking the stand, was again greeted with loud and prolonged cheers. After tendering acknowledgments for the generous and cordial reception, and regretting his inability to express all he felt, he proceeded with his speech, which was thus described by the Evening Post:—

“Mr. Sumner was as happy in the manner as he was forcible in the matter of his speech. His commanding person, his distinct utterance, and his graceful elocution combined with the eloquence of his words in keeping the immense auditory to their seats for two hours, without a movement, and almost without a breath, save when the applause broke forth. It is the first time that Mr. Sumner has spoken in public since he was laid low in the Senate House, and New York, by this grand demonstration, has shown its eagerness to welcome him to the field of so many former triumphs.”

In this speech Mr. Sumner sought to popularize his argument in the Senate on the Barbarism of Slavery, with an application to the Presidential election, and at the same time to reassert the positions he had there taken. Its influence was increased by the circulation it enjoyed. Besides the Tribune, Times, Herald, and World, which printed it in full, there was a pamphlet edition of more than fifty thousand copies circulated by the Young Men’s Republican Union. The Secretary of the Republican Central Committee of California wrote, that this Committee, after publishing a large edition of the “Barbarism of Slavery,” published ten thousand copies of the New York speech, which was “read with that attention which the subject elucidated by you readily commands.” Among letters with regard to it, two are preserved as friendly voices.

Hon. W. H. Seward wrote from Auburn:—

“Your speech, in every part, is noble and great. Even you never spoke so well.”

Another friend, who had not agreed with Mr. Sumner at an earlier period, George Livermore, the intelligent merchant of Boston, devoted to books as well as business, being in New York at the time, heard the speech, and, in a letter dated at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, wrote:—

“I can say in all sincerity, that, of all the political addresses I have ever heard,—and for thirty years past I have heard a great many, and from the most distinguished men in the country,—I have never listened to one that would begin to compare with this as a whole. The high and broad ground on which you based your views, the clearness and force with which you presented the subject, the dignity and grace of your manner, and the honest and hearty tone in which you uttered your thoughts, all together make your speech the best one that was ever delivered, as far as my knowledge and experience go.”

These testimonies will at least explain the effect of this speech at the time.

Fellow-Citizens of New York:—

Of all men in our history, there are two whose influence at this moment is peculiar. Though dead, they yet live, speak, and act in the conflict of principle which divides the country,—standing face to face, like two well-matched champions. When I add that one was from South Carolina and the other from Massachusetts, you cannot fail to see that I mean John C. Calhoun and John Quincy Adams.

Statesmen, both, of long career, marked ability, and unblemished integrity,—acting together at first,—sitting in the same Cabinet, from which they passed, one to become Vice-President, and the other President,—then, for the remainder of their days, battling in Congress, and dying there,—each was a leader in life, but each is now in death a greater leader still.

Mr. Calhoun possessed an intellect of much originality and boldness, and, though wanting the culture of a scholar, made himself felt in council and in debate. To native powers unlike, but not inferior, Mr. Adams added the well-ripened fruits of long experience in foreign lands and of studies more various and complete than those of any other public man in our history, besides an indomitable will, and that spirit of freedom which inspired his father, when, in the Continental Congress, he so eloquently maintained the Declaration of Independence, making himself its Colossus on that floor.

Sitting together in the Cabinet of Mr. Monroe, they concurred in sanctioning the Missouri Prohibition of Slavery as constitutional, and so advised the President. But here divergence probably began, though for a long time not made manifest. The diary of Mr. Adams shows that at that early day, when Slavery had been little discussed, he saw its enormity with instinctive quickness, and described it with corresponding force. The record is less full with regard to Mr. Calhoun; but when they reappeared, one in the Senate, and the other in the House of Representatives, each openly assumed the position by which he will be known in history,—one as chief in all the pretensions of Slavery and Slave-Masters, the other as champion of Freedom.

Mr. Calhoun regarded Slavery as a permanent institution; Mr. Adams regarded it as something transitory. Mr. Calhoun vaunted it as a form of civilization; Mr. Adams scorned it as an unquestionable barbarism. Mr. Calhoun did not hesitate to call it the most stable basis of free government; Mr. Adams vehemently denounced it as a curse, full of weakness and mockery, doubly offensive in a boastful Republic. Mr. Calhoun, not content with exalting Slavery, proceeded to condemn the early opinions of Washington and Jefferson as “folly and delusion,” to assail the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence as “absurd,” and then to proclaim that human beings are “property” under the Constitution, and, as such, may be transported into the Territories and there held in Slavery; while Mr. Adams added to the glory of his long and diversified career by persistent efforts which are better for his fame than having been President,—upholding the great rights of petition and of speech,—vindicating the early opinions of the Fathers, and the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence,—exposing the odious character of Slavery,—insisting upon its prohibition in the Territories,—denying the asserted property in man,—and especially, and often, exhibiting the unjust power in the National Government usurped by what he called “the little cluster” of Slave-Masters, whose yoke was to him intolerable.

Such, most briefly told, were antagonist opinions of these two chiefs. Never was great conflict destined to involve a great country more distinctly foreshadowed. All that the Republican party now opposes may be found in John C. Calhoun; all that the Republican party now maintains may be found in John Quincy Adams. Choose ye, fellow-citizens, between the two.

The rule of “Principles and not Men” is hardly applicable to a man whose name, bearing the sacred seal of death, has become the synonym of Principle; yet I do not hesitate to say that our cause is best appreciated in its precise objects and aims. Proud as we are to tread where John Quincy Adams leads the way, there is a guide of more commanding authority—found in the eternal law of Right, and the concurring mandate of the Constitution itself, when properly interpreted—that teaches the duties of a good citizen. Such is the guide of the Republican party, which, I say fearlessly, where most known, will be most trusted, and, when understood in its origin, will be seen to be no accidental or fugitive organization, merely for an election, but an irresistible necessity, which in the nature of things must be permanent as the pretensions, moral and political, which it seeks to constrain and counteract.

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All must admit, too, that, if no Republican party existed now,—even if that halcyon day had come, so often promised by cajoling politicians, when the Slavery Question was settled,—still there would be a political necessity for a great party of Opposition to act as check on the Administration. A kindred necessity was once expressed by an eminent British statesman, who gave as a toast, “A strong Administration and a strong Opposition.” Parties are unknown in despotic countries. They belong to the machinery of free governments. Through parties public opinion is concentrated and directed; through parties principles are maintained above men; and through parties men in power are held to a just responsibility. If ever there was occasion for such a party, it is now, when the corruptions of the Administration are dragged to light by Committees of Congress. On this ground alone good men might be summoned to rescue the government of our country.

It is an attested fact that Mr. Buchanan became President through corruption. Money, familiarly known as a “corruption fund,” first distilled in small drippings from clerks and petty officials, was swollen by larger contributions of merchants and contractors, and with this accumulation votes were purchased in Philadelphia, enough to turn the election in that great metropolis, and in the chain of cause and effect to assure the triumph of the Democratic candidate. I speak now only what is proved. Fraudulent naturalization papers in blank, by which this was perpetrated, were produced before a Committee of Congress. It was natural that an Administration thus corrupt in origin should continue to exercise power through the same corruption by which power was gained; but nothing else than that insensibility to acts of shame produced by familiarity can explain how all this has been done with such absolute indecency of exposure, so as to recall the words of the poet,—

“How use doth breed a habit in a man!”

A letter from a local politician, addressed to the President himself, urging without disguise the giving of a large contract for machinery to a particular house in Philadelphia, employing four hundred and fifty mechanics, with a view to the approaching election, was sent to the Secretary of the Navy, with this indorsement, in a well-known handwriting, signed by well-known initials: “Sept. 15, 1858. The enclosed letter from Colonel Patterson, of Philadelphia, is submitted to the attention of the Secretary of the Navy. J. B.” Thus did the President of the United States, in formal written words, now of record in the history of the country, recommend the employment of the public money, set apart for the public service, to influence an election. Here was criminality as positive as when his supporters purchased votes in the streets. From one learn all; and from such a characteristic instance learn the character of the Administration. But there are other well-known instances; and the testimony before the Congressional Committees discloses the President on Sundays in secret conclave with one of his corrupt agents, piously occupied discussing the chances of an election, and how its expenses were to be met, while, at the same time, like another Joseph Surface, he was uttering in public “fine sentiments” of political morality, and lamenting the prevalence of the very indecencies in which he was engaged.

It was natural that a President, who, with professions of purity on the lips, made himself the pander of such vulgar corruption, should stick at nothing needful to carry his purposes. I shall not dwell on the Lecompton Constitution; but it belongs to this chapter. You all know its wickedness. Concocted originally at Washington, with the single purpose of fastening Slavery upon the people of Kansas, it was by execrable contrivance so arranged as to prevent the people, when about to become a State, from voting on that question. Next sanctioned by a convention of usurpers, who in no respect represented the people of Kansas, then fraudulently submitted to the people for their votes, it was fraudulently adopted by stuffing ballot-boxes on a scale never before known. Thus, at the Delaware Crossing, where there were but forty-three legal voters, four hundred were returned; at Oxford, where there were but forty-two legal voters, a thousand were returned; and at Shawnee, where there were but forty legal voters, twelve hundred were returned. And yet this Constitution, disowned by the very Governor who had gone to Kansas as agent of the President,—rotten with corruption, gaping with falsehood, and steaming with iniquity,—was at once recognized by the President, urged upon Congress in a special message, and pressed for adoption by all the appliances of unprincipled power. If the words of Jugurtha, turning his back upon Rome, cannot be repeated, that the Republic is for sale, and soon to perish, if it shall find a purchaser,[154] nor the sharper saying of Walpole, that every man has his price, it was not from any forbearance in the President. A single editor was offered the printing of Post-Office blanks worth at least eighty thousand dollars, if by an article no larger than a man’s hand he would show submission to the Administration. Bribes of office were added to bribes of money. As the votes of electors had been purchased to make Mr. Buchanan President, the votes of Representatives were now solicited to carry out his scheme of corruption, and the Halls of Congress were changed into a political market-house, where men were bought by the head. Is not all this enough to arouse the indignation of the people?

It is true that the President, whose power began in corruption, and who is responsible author of the corruption by which his administration has been debased, is no longer a candidate for office. Already judgment begins. His own political party discards him. The first avenging blow is struck. Incorruptible history will do the rest. The tablet conspicuously erected in Genoa to expose the crimes of certain Doges, branding one as Fur Magnus and another as Maximus Latronum, will not be needed here. The exposed corrupter, the tyrant enslaver, and the robber of Human Freedom cannot be forgotten. Unhappy President! after a long career of public service, not only tossed aside, but tossed over to perpetual memory as an example to be shunned! Better for him the oblivion of common life than the bad fame he has won!

But, though not himself a candidate for office, his peculiar supporters, animated by his spirit, linked with him in misrule, are embodied as a party, and ask your votes. Simply to resist this combination, and to save the Republic from its degrading influence, would justify the formation of the Republican party; and I doubt not that there are many who will be content to unite with us on this ground alone, anxious to put the National Government once again in pure hands. To all such, welcome!

While this consummation necessarily enters into the present purposes of the Republican party, while we naturally begin by insisting upon purity in the Government, and make this one of our urgent demands, it is obvious that the quickening impulse of the party is to be found in other purposes, which cannot pass away in a single election. The Republican party seeks to overthrow the Slave Oligarchy in the National Government, and especially at this moment to stay its aggressions in the Territories, which, through a corrupt interpretation of the Constitution, it threatens to barbarize with Slavery. But all who seek purity in the National Government must unite in this purpose; for only by the overthrow of this base Oligarchy, which, beginning in the denial of all human rights, necessarily shows itself in barbarism and villany of all kinds, can a better order prevail. It is out of Slavery that all our griefs proceed; nor can the offences of the present Administration be fully comprehended without considering the nature of this Evil, and its chronic influence over our Government, reaching everywhere by subtle agencies, or more subtle, far-reaching example, but still in itself the original and all-sufficient activity. As well attempt to explain the Gulf Stream without the Gulf of Mexico, or the Origin of Evil without the human heart, as attempt to explain the present degraded character of the National Government without Slavery. As well attempt the play of “Othello” without the Moor. And permit me to say that our warfare with these iniquities will be feeble, unless we attack them in their origin.

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At the beginning of our history Slavery was universally admitted to be an Evil. Nobody then so hardy as to vindicate it. In the Convention which framed the Constitution it was branded as “a nefarious institution,” or more mildly called “wrong”; and these generous voices came from the South as well as from the North. Out of the Convention there was a similar accord. I shall not quote the words of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, or Jay, for they are familiar to all. Even as they spoke others spoke, and I might occupy the whole evening simply reciting this testimony. Nor were these declarations confined to public life. The Colleges all, by definite action, arrayed themselves against Slavery, especially the University of William and Mary, in Virginia, which conferred upon Granville Sharp, the acknowledged chief of British Abolitionists, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. The Literature of the land, such as it was, agreed with the Colleges. The Church, too, added its powerful voice; and here, amid diversities of religious faith, we hail that unity of spirit which animated all. Quakers, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists seemed to vie with each other in this pious testimony.

The Constitution was adopted, but the word Slave was not allowed to pollute its text; and this was in declared deference to the prevailing opinion, which regarded Slavery as temporary, destined soon to pass away. All looked to the glad day as almost at hand. In harmony with this expectation, Slavery was prohibited in all existing territories of the Union, so that, when Washington, as first President of the United States, at his inauguration here in New York took his first oath to support the Constitution, the flag of the Republic nowhere on the land within the jurisdiction of Congress covered a single slave. Little then did the Fathers dream that the Evil which they regarded with shame and exerted themselves to prohibit would elevate its obscene crest as it now does, and flaunt its monstrous pretensions before the world. Little did they dream that the Constitution, from which they had carefully excluded the very word, would be held, in defiance of reason and common sense, to protect the thing, so exceptionally that it could not be reached by Congressional prohibition, even within Congressional jurisdiction. Little did they dream that the text, which they left so pure and healthful, would, through corrupt interpretation, be swollen into such an offensive Elephantiasis.

Two circumstances, civilizing in themselves, exercised an unexpected influence for American Slavery: first, the abolition of the slave-trade, which by taking away the supply increased the value of slaves; and, secondly, the increased cultivation of cotton, stimulated by the invention of new machinery. The latter has been of especial moment. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that out of this slender cotton fibre are formed the manacles of the slave. Thus, through sinister activity, and the wickedness of men, is good made the minister of wrong. Next after Christopher Columbus, who by sublime enterprise opened a pathway to the New World, Eli Whitney, who discovered the cotton gin, has been indirectly and unconsciously a chief agent in the bondage of the African race on the North American continent; and surely proper gratitude for the advantages we enjoy in such large store from these two discoveries must prompt us to increased activity for the welfare of those who, alas! have been such losers, where we have been such gainers.

The change of opinion, so disastrous in result, was gradual. Though in its successive stages easily detected by the careful inquirer, it did not become manifest to the whole country till 1820, when it burst forth in the Missouri Question. Then, for the first time, Slavery showed itself openly violent, insolent, belligerent. Freedom was checked, but saved something by a compromise,—announced, at the moment of its adoption, by Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, as a triumph of the South,—where, in consideration of the admission of Missouri as a Slave State, thus securing additional preponderance to the Slave Power, it was stipulated that Slavery should be prohibited in certain outlying territory, at that time trodden only by savages. Then came a lull, during which the change was still at work, until, contemporaneously with the abolition of Slavery in the British West Indies, the discussion was lighted anew. Meanwhile slaves augmented in price, and slave-masters became more decided. In timid deference to the world, they at first ventured no defence of Slavery in the abstract; but at last, bolder grown under the lead of Mr. Calhoun, they threw aside all reserve, openly assailed the opinions of the Fathers, audaciously denied the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence, and by formal resolution asserted the new dogma of Slavery in the Territories. This was as late as 1847. A letter of that day, from Mr. Calhoun, addressed to a member of the Alabama Legislature, shows that there was an element of policy in this exaggeration. His desire was “to force the Slavery issue” on the North, believing that delay was dangerous, as the Slave-Masters were then relatively stronger, both morally and politically, than they would ever be again.

At last the end has come. Slavery is openly pronounced, at one time, the black marble keystone of our National Arch,—at another time, the corner-stone of our Republican edifice; then it is vaunted as the highest type of civilization,—then as a blessing to the master as well as the slave,—and then again as ennobling to the master, if not to the slave. It is only the first step which costs, and therefore the authors of these opinions, so shocking to the moral sense, do not hesitate at other opinions equally shocking to the reason, even to the extent of finding impossible sanctions for Slavery in the Constitution. Listening to these extravagances, who would not exclaim, with Ben Jonson in the play?—

“Grave fathers, he’s possessed; again I say,

Possessed: nay, if there be possession and

Obsession, he has both.”[155]

And now, fellow-citizens, what is Slavery? This is no question of curiosity or philanthropy merely; for when the National Government, which you and I at the North help to constitute, is degraded to be its instrument, and all the National Territories are proclaimed open to its Barbarism, and the Constitution itself is perverted to its support, the whole subject naturally, logically, and necessarily enters into our discussion. It cannot be avoided; it cannot be blinked out of sight. Nay, you must pass upon it by your votes at the coming election. Futile is the plea that we at the North have nothing to do with Slavery. Granted that we have nothing to do with it in the States, we have much to do with all its irrational assumptions under the Constitution, and just so long as these are urged must Slavery be discussed. It must be laid bare in its enormity, precisely as though it were proposed to plant it here in the streets of New York. Nor can such a wrong—foul in itself, and fouler still in pretensions—be dealt with tamely. Tameness is surrender. And charity, too, may be misapplied. Forgiving those who trespass against us, I know not if we are called to forgive those who trespass against others,—to forgive those who trespass against the Republic,—to forgive those who trespass against Civilization,—to forgive those who trespass against a whole race,—to forgive those who trespass against the universal Human Family,—finally, to forgive those who trespass against God. Such trespassers exist among us, possessing the organization of party, holding the control of the National Government, constituting a colossal Power, and

“what seems its head

The likeness of a President has on.”

Surely, if ever there was a moment when every faculty should be bent to the service, and all invigorated by an inspiring zeal, it is now, while the battle between Civilization and Barbarism is still undecided, and you are summoned to resist the last desperate shock. To this work I am not equal; but I do not shrink from the duties of my post. Alas! human language is gentle, and the human voice is weak. Words only are mine, when I ought to command thunderbolts. Voice only is mine, when, like the ancient Athenian, I ought to carry the weapons of Zeus on the tongue. Nor would I transcend any just rule of moderation, or urge this warfare too far among persons. Humbly do I recognize the authority of Him, who, when reviled, reviled not again; but this divine example teaches me to expose crime, and not to hesitate, though the Scribes and Pharisees, chief-priests and money-changers, cry out. And it shows how words of invective may come from lips of peace. “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.” Thus spake the Saviour in Jerusalem; and he still speaks, not in Jerusalem only, but wherever men are won from truth, wherever crime exists to be exposed and denounced.

What, then, I repeat, is Slavery? The occasion forbids detail; but enough must be presented to place this outrage in its true light,—as something worse even than a constant state of war, where the master is constant aggressor. Here I put aside for the moment all the tales which reach us from the house of bondage,—all the cumulative, crushing testimony, from slaves and masters alike,—all the barbarous incidents which help to arouse a yet too feeble indignation,—in short, all the glimpses which come to us from this mighty Bluebeard’s chamber. All these I put aside, not because they are of little moment in exhibiting the true character of Slavery, but because I desire to arraign Slavery on grounds above all controversy, impeachment, or suspicion, even from Slave-Masters themselves. Not on wonderful story, where the genius of woman has prevailed, not even on indisputable facts, do I now accuse Slavery, but on its character as revealed in its own simple definition of itself. Out of its own mouth do I condemn it.

By the Law of Slavery, man, created in the image of God, fearfully and wonderfully made, with sensibilities of pleasure and pain, with sentiments of love, with aspirations for improvement, with a sense of property, and with a soul like ourselves, is despoiled of his human character, and declared to be a mere chattel, “to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever.” I do not stop to give at length all its odious words; you are doubtless familiar with them. The heathen idea of Aristotle is repeated,—“a tool with a soul.”[156] But in this simple definition is contained the whole incalculable wrong of Slavery; for out of it, as from an inexhaustible fountain, are derived all the unrighteous prerogatives of the master. These are five in number, and I know not which is most revolting.

First, there is the pretension that man can hold property in man,—forgetful, that, by a law older than all human law, foremost stands the indefeasible right of every man to himself.

Secondly, the absolute nullification of the relation of husband and wife, so that all who are called slaves are delivered over to concubinage or prostitution, it may be with each other, or it may be with their masters; but with whomsoever it may be, it is the same, for with slaves marriage is impossible, as they are merely “coupled,” never married.

Thirdly, the utter rejection of the relation of parent and child; for the infant legally belongs, not to the mother who bore it, but to the master who bought it.

Fourthly, the complete, denial of instruction; for the master may always, at his own rude discretion, prevent his victim from learning to read, and thus shut against him those gates of knowledge which open such vistas on earth and in heaven.

Fifthly, the wholesale robbery of the labor of another, and of all its fruits,—forgetful, that, by the same original law under which every man has a title to himself, he has also a title to the fruits of his own labor, amounting in itself to a sacred property, which no person, howsoever called, whether despot or master, can righteously appropriate.

Such are the five essential elements of Slavery. Look at them, and you will confess that this institution stands forth as a hateful assemblage of unquestionable wrongs under sanction of existing law. Take away any one of these, and just to that extent Slavery ceases to exist. Take away all, and the Slavery Question will be settled. But this assemblage becomes more hateful still, when its unmistakable single motive is detected, which is simply to compel labor without wages. Incredible as it may be, it cannot be denied that the right of a man to himself, the right of a husband to his wife, the right of a parent to his child, the right of a man to instruction, the right of a man to the fruits of his own labor, all these supreme rights, by the side of which other rights seem petty, are trampled down in order to organize that five-headed selfishness, practically maintained by the lash, which, look at it as you will, has for its single object COMPULSORY LABOR WITHOUT WAGES.

Obviously and unquestionably the good of all is against such a system; nor, except for the pretended property of the master, and his selfish interest, could there be any color for it. That Slavery thus constituted can be good for the master is one of the hallucinations of the system,—something like the hallucination of the opium-eater. Fascinating, possibly, it may be for a time, but debasing and destructive it must be in the end. “I agree with Mr. Boswell,” said Dr. Johnson, “that there must be high satisfaction in being a feudal lord”; but the moralist did not consider this a good reason for such a power at the expense of others.[157] That Slave-Masters should be violent and tyrannical, that they should be regardless of all rights, especially where Slavery is concerned, and that the higher virtues of character should fail in them,—all this might be inferred, even in the absence of evidence, according to irresistible law of cause and effect. No man can do injustice with impunity. He may not suffer in worldly condition, but he must suffer in his own nature. And the very unconsciousness in which he lives aggravates the unhappy influence. Nor can familiarity with Slavery fail to harden the heart.

Persons become accustomed to scenes of brutality, till they witness them with indifference. Hogarth, that master of human nature, portrayed this tendency in his picture of a dissection at a medical college, where the president maintains the dignity of insensibility over a corpse, which he regards simply as the subject of a lecture. And Horace Walpole, who admired the satire of this picture, finds in it illustration of the idea, that “the legal habitude of viewing shocking scenes hardens the human mind, and renders it unfeeling.”[158] This simple truth, in its most general application, exhibits the condition of the Slave-Master. How can he show sensibility for the common rights of fellow-citizens who sacrifices daily the most sacred rights of others merely to secure labor without wages? With him a false standard is necessarily established, bringing with it a blunted moral sense and clouded perceptions, so that, when he does something intrinsically barbarous or mean, he does not blush at the recital.

Here, again, I forbear all detail. The reason of the intellect blending with the reason of the heart, the testimony of history fortified by the testimony of good men, an array of unerring figures linked with an array of unerring facts,—these all I might employ. And I might proceed to show how this barbarous influence, beginning on the plantation, diffuses itself throughout society, enters into official conduct, and even mounts into Congress, where for a long time it has exercised a vulgar domination, trampling not only on all the amenities of debate, but absolutely on Parliamentary Law. I shall not open this chapter.

There is one frightful circumstance, unhappily of frequent occurrence, which proclaims so clearly the character of the social system bred by Slavery, that I shall be pardoned for adducing it. I refer to the roasting of slaves alive at the stake. One was roasted very recently,—not after public trial, according to the forms of law, as at the fires of Smithfield, but by a lawless crowd, suddenly assembled, who in this way made themselves ministers of a cruel vengeance. This Barbarism, which seems to have become part of the customary Law of Slavery, may well cover us all with humiliation, when we reflect that it is already renounced by the copper-colored savages of our continent, while during the present century more instances of it have occurred among our Slave-Masters than we know among the former since that early day when Captain Smith was saved from sacrifice by the tenderness of Pocahontas. Perhaps no other usage reveals with such fearful distinctness the deep-seated, pervading influence of Slavery, offensive to Civilization, hostile to Law itself, by virtue of which it pretends to live, insulting to humanity, shocking to decency, and utterly heedless of all rights, forms, or observances, in the maintenance of its wicked power. Here I add, that the proportion of slave to free is not without influence in determining treatment. Fear is a constant tyrant, with an inhumanity which does not tire or sleep, and nothing can quicken its cruelty more than the dread of vengeance for the multitudinous wrong done to the slave.

I would not be unjust to Slave-Masters. Some there are, I doubt not, of happy natures, uncorrupted by the possession of tyrannical power, who render the condition of their slaves endurable, and in private virtues emulate the graces of Civilization; but the good in these cases comes from the masters, notwithstanding Slavery. And, besides, there are the great examples of the Fathers, who, looking down upon Slavery and regarding it as an Evil, were saved from its contamination. To all these I render heartfelt homage. But their exceptional virtues cannot save the essential wrong which I expose. Nor am I blinded by the blandishments of that wealth which is the fruit of Slavery. With abhorrence we read of the scandalous man-traffic by which a Hessian prince of Germany sold his subjects to be used by George the Third against our fathers; and we share the contempt expressed by Frederick, surnamed the Great, when he levied on these victims, passing through his dominions, the customary toll for so many head of cattle, since, as he said, they had been sold as such; and even now the traveller turns with disgust from the pleasant slopes of the ducal garden which was adorned by these unholy gains.[159] But all this, and more, must be renewed in our minds, when we think of American Slavery, with the houses and gardens decorated by its sweat.

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Such, fellow-citizens, is Slavery, as manifest in its law, and also in its influence on society. Bad as it is, if it modestly kept at home, if it did not stalk into the National jurisdiction and enter into the National Government, within reach of our votes, I should not summon you on this occasion to unite against it; for, whatever the promptings of sympathy and of godlike philanthropy, nothing is clearer than that our political duties depend simply upon our political responsibilities; and since we are not politically responsible for Slavery in Charleston, or in Constantinople, so in neither place have we any political duties in regard to it. Lament it, wherever it exists, we must, and surround its victims with our prayers; but our action, while inspired by these sentiments, must rest within the bounds of Law and Constitution.

Here the field is ample. Indeed, if Slavery existed nowhere within the national jurisdiction, our duty would still be urgent to grapple with that pernicious influence, which, through an Oligarchical Combination of Slave-Masters, unknown to the Constitution, never anticipated by its founders, and in defiance of their example, has entered into and possessed the National Government, like an Evil Spirit. This influence, which, wielding at will all the powers of the National Government, even those of the Judiciary, has become formidable to Freedom everywhere, clutching violently at the Territories, and menacing the Free States,—as witness the claim, still undecided in the court of the last resort, so audaciously presented by a citizen of Virginia, to hold slaves in New York on the way to Texas; this influence, now so vaulting, was for a long time unobserved, even while exercising a controlling power. At first timid and shy, from undoubted sense of guilt, it avoided discussion, yet was determined in its policy. The Southern Senator who boasted that for sixty years the Slave States had governed the country knew well their constant inferiority to the Free States in population, wealth, manufactures, commerce, schools, churches, libraries, and all the activities of a true Civilization,—knew well that they had contributed nothing to the literature of the country, even in Political Economy and the science of Government, which they have so vehemently professed, except the now forgotten “forty bale theory,”[160]—knew well that by no principle of justice could this long predominance be explained; but he forgot to confess the secret agency. Though unseen, Slavery was present always with decisive influence. No matter what the question, it was the same. Once the Free States inclined to Free Trade, but the Slave States went the other way; but when the former inclined towards Protection, the Slave Power in the dark behind dictated Free Trade, and so it has been till now. Here is the subtle ruling influence, against which population, wealth, manufactures, commerce, schools, churches, libraries, and all the activities of a true Civilization are impotent. The Slave Power is always master, and it is this Power which for sixty years, according to the boast of the Senator, has governed this broad and growing country, doing what it pleases, and penetrating far-away places, while it sacrifices all who will not do its bidding.

The actual number of slaveholders was for a long time unknown, and on this account was naturally exaggerated. It was often represented very great. On one occasion, a distinguished representative from Massachusetts, whose name will be ever cherished for devotion to Human Rights,—I mean the late Horace Mann,—was rudely interrupted on the floor of Congress by a member from Alabama, who averred that the number of slaveholders was as many as three millions.[161] At that time there was no official document by which this extravagance could be corrected. But at last we have it. The late census, taken in 1850, shows that the whole number of this peculiar class, all told, so unfortunate as to hold slaves, was only 347,525;[162] and of this number the larger part are small slaveholders, leaving only 92,000 persons as owners of the great mass of slaves, and substantial representatives of this class. And yet this small Oligarchy, odious in origin, without any foundation in that justice which is the essential base of every civilized association, stuck together only by confederacy in all the five-headed wrong of Slavery, and constituting in itself what in other days was called Magnum Latrocinium, has, by confession of one of its own leaders, for sixty years governed the Republic. To this end two things have concurred: first, its associated wealth, being the asserted value of its human flesh, constituting a flagitious capital of near two thousand millions of dollars; and, secondly, its peculiar representation in the House of Representatives, where, under the three-fifths rule of the Constitution, ninety members actually hold their seats by virtue in part of this indefensible property. Thus are our Slave-Masters an enormous Corporation, or Joint-Stock Company, by the side of which the United States Bank, with its petty thirty millions of capital, and without any peculiar representation, is dwarfed into insignificance.

All tyranny, like murder, is foul at the best; but this is most foul, strange, and unnatural, especially when it is considered that the States occupied by the Slave Oligarchy are far below the Free States in resources of all kinds. By the last census there was in the Free States a solid population of freemen amounting to upwards of thirteen millions, while in the Slave States there was a like population of only six millions. In other respects, important to Civilization, the disparity was as great,—all of which I have amply shown elsewhere. And yet from the beginning this Oligarchy has taken the lion’s share among the honors and trusts of the Republic, while it entered into and possessed both the old political parties, Whig and Democrat,—as witness their servile resolutions always,—making them one in subserviency, though double in form, and renewing in them the mystery of the Siamese twins, which, though separate in body and different in name, are constrained by an unnatural ligament to a community of exertion.

I feel humbled, when I dwell on the amazing disproportion of offices usurped by this Oligarchy. From the beginning, all the great posts of the Republic—Presidency, Vice-Presidency, seats in the Cabinet, seats in the Supreme Court, Presidency of the Senate, Speakership—seem to be almost perpetually in their hands. At this moment, the Free States, with double the population of the Slave States, have only four out of nine Justices of the Supreme Court; and of these four, it must be said, three are Northern men with Southern principles. And in the humbler places at the Departments the same extraordinary disproportion prevails. Out of the whole number there employed, 787 are from the Slave States and District of Columbia, and 441 from the Free States, but mostly with Southern principles. These instances are typical. There is nothing in the National Government which the Oligarchy does not appropriate. Down to our day it has held the keys of every office, from President to the humblest postmaster, compelling all to do its bidding. It makes Cabinets,—organizes Courts,—directs the Army and Navy,—manages every department of public business,—presides over the Census,—conducts the Smithsonian Institution, founded by the generous charity of a foreigner to promote the interests of mankind,—and subsidizes the national press, alike in the national capital and in the remotest village of the North.

Mounting the marble steps of the Capitol, it takes the chair of the President of the Senate, also the chair of the Speaker of the House, then arranges the Committees of both bodies, placing at their head only servitors of Slavery, and excluding friends of Freedom, though entitled to such places by personal character and the States they represent; and thus it controls the national legislation. From the Capitol to the most distant confines, the whole country is enslaved. The Mahometan priest turns in prayer towards Mecca, his pulpit is on the side which fronts towards Mecca, his auditors face towards Mecca. But Slavery is our Mecca, towards which everything turns, everything fronts, everything faces.

In maintaining its power the Slave Oligarchy applies a test for office very different from that of Jefferson: “Is he honest? Is he capable? Is he faithful to the Constitution?” These things are all forgotten now in the single question, signalizing the great change which has taken place, “Is he faithful to Slavery?” With arrogant ostracism, it excludes from every national office all who cannot respond to this test, thus surrounding and blockading every avenue of power. So complete and offensive has this tyranny become, that at this moment, while I am speaking, could Washington, or Jefferson, or Franklin, or John Jay, once more descend from his sphere above, to mingle in our affairs, and bless us with his wisdom, not one of them, with his recorded, unretracted opinions on Slavery, could receive a nomination for the Presidency from either fraction of the divided Democratic party, or from that other political combination known as the Union party,—nor, stranger still, could either of these sainted patriots, whose names alone open a perpetual fountain of gratitude in all your hearts, be confirmed by the Senate of the United States for any political function whatever, not even for the local office of Postmaster. What I now say, amid your natural astonishment, I have said often in addressing the people, and more than once from my seat in the Senate, and no man there has made answer, for no man who has sat in its secret sessions, and observed the test practically applied, could make answer; and I ask you to accept this statement as my testimony, derived from the experience which is my lot. Yes, fellow-citizens, had this test prevailed in the earlier days, Washington, “first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen,” could not have been created Generalissimo of the American forces, Jefferson could not have taken his place on the Committee to draft the Declaration of Independence, and Franklin could not have gone forth to France, with the commission of the infant Republic, to secure the invaluable alliance of that ancient kingdom,—nor could John Jay, as first Chief Justice, have lent to our judiciary the benignant grace of his name and character.

Standing on the bent necks of an enslaved race, with four millions of human beings as the black marble Caryatides to support its power, the Slave Oligarchy erects itself into a lordly caste which brooks no opposition. But when I speak of Caste, I mean nothing truly polite; and when I speak of Oligarchy, I mean nothing truly aristocratic. As despotism is simply an abuse of monarchy, so Oligarchy is simply an abuse of aristocracy, unless it be that most vulgar of all, “aristocracy of the skin.” Derived from Slavery, and having the interests of Slavery always in mind, our Oligarchy must naturally take its character from this five-headed wrong.

“Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.”

All that is bad in Slavery, its audacity, its immorality, its cruelty, its robbery, its meanness, its ignorance, its barbarous disregard of human rights, and its barbarous disregard of every obligation, must all be reproduced in its representative. If the Oligarchy hesitates at nothing to serve its selfish ends, it simply acts in harmony with Slavery, from which it draws its life-blood. If in grasp of power it is like the hunchback Richard, if in falsehood it copies Iago, and if in character it is low as the brutish Caliban,

“Which any print of goodness will not take,

Being capable of all ill,”—

ay, if in all these respects it surpasses its various prototypes,—if in steady baseness, in uniform brutality, and consummate wickedness it is without a peer, be not astonished, fellow-citizens, for it acts simply according to the original law of its birth and the inborn necessities of its being. With all these unprecedented qualities and aptitudes combined into one intense activity, it goes where it will and does what it pleases. The Pterodactyl of an early geological period, formed for all service and every element, with neck of bird, mouth of reptile, wing of bat, body of mammifer, and with hugest eye, so that it could seek its prey in the night,—such was the ancient and extinct kindred of this Oligarchy, which, like Milton’s fiend,

“O’er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,

With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way,

And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.”

The soul sickens in contemplating the acts of dishonest tyranny perpetrated by this lordly power. I cannot give their prolonged history now. But looking at the old Missouri Compromise, founded on the admission of Missouri as a Slave State, and in consideration thereof the Prohibition of Slavery in other outlying territory, and seeing how, after an acquiescence of thirty-four years, and the irreclaimable possession by Slavery of its especial 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 was overturned, and the vast region now known as Kansas and Nebraska opened to Slavery,—looking next at the juggling bill by which this was accomplished, declaring that its object was to leave the people “perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way,” and seeing how, in spite of these express words, the courageous settlers there were left a prey to invading hordes from Missouri, who, entering the Territory, organized a Usurpation which by positive law proceeded to fasten Slavery upon that beautiful soil, and to surround it with a code of death, so strict, that the famous bell which once swung in the steeple over the Hall of Independence at Philadelphia would be nothing but a nuisance in Kansas, while its immortal inscription, “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof,” would be an offence, and the sexton who rang the bell a criminal,—looking at the Lecompton Constitution, that masterpiece of wicked contrivance, by which this same people, in organizing a State, were fraudulently prevented from passing upon the question of Slavery, and seeing how the infamous counterfeit, though repudiated by the people, was openly adopted by the President, and by him corruptly urged upon Congress, with all the power of his Administration,—looking at these things, so recent and menacing, I feel how vain it is to expect truce or compromise with the Slave Oligarchy. Punic in faith, as in fear, no compact can bind it, while all interpretations of the Constitution friendly to Freedom, though sanctioned by Court and Congress in continuous precedent, are unceremoniously rejected. Faust, in the profound poem of Goethe, on being told that in Hell itself the laws prevail, says:—

“Now that I like: so, then, one may, in fact,

Conclude a binding compact with you, gentry!”

To which Mephistopheles replies:—

“Whatever promise in our books finds entry

We strictly carry into act.”

But no compact or promise binds our gentry, although entered again and again in their books.

According to a famous saying, Russia is a “despotism tempered by assassination”; but even the steel of Brutus, refulgent in the Capitol, without the supplementary fulfilment of the wish of Caligula, that all should have a single life, must fail to reach our despotism, which in numbers enjoys an immunity beyond any solitary tyrant. Surely, if the Oligarchy is to live yet longer, its badges should symbolize its peculiar despotism born of Slavery. The coin, seal, and flag must be changed. Let the eagle be removed, giving place to the foul vulture with vulgar beak and filthy claw,—how unlike that bird of Jove, with ample pinion, and those mighty pounces, holding the dread thunderbolt and better olive of peace!—and instead of these, let there be fetter and lash, borrowed from the plantation, which is the miniature of the broader plantation to which the Republic is reduced. That appearance may be according to reality, and that we may not seem what we are not, this at least must be done. Abandon, too, the stars and stripes,—the stars numbering the present Union, the stripes numbering that Union which gave to mankind the Declaration of Independence with immortal truth; and let these also be replaced by the universal fetter and lash, for here is typified our Oligarchy, in all present power, as in all vital principle. Fetter and lash! The schoolboy shall grow up honoring the chosen emblems; the citizen shall hail them with sympathetic pride; the Republic shall be known by them on coin, seal, and flag; while the ruler of the subjugated land, no longer President, shall be called Overseer.

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Of course, fellow-citizens, you are now ready to see that the corruptions by which the present Administration is degraded are the natural offspring of slaveholding immorality. They have all concurred in sustaining the policy of the Oligarchy, and in the case of the Lecompton Constitution in direct effort to fasten Slavery upon a distant Territory, and they are all marked by the effrontery of Slavery. There is also its vulgarity; but this is natural; for is not pretension a fruitful source of vulgarity? and, pray, what is Slavery, but an enormous Pretension? Smollett attributes the peculiar profligacy of England at a particular period to the demoralization of the South Sea Bubble; but what is such a fugitive influence, compared with Slavery, which, indeed, if it were not a crime, might well be called a Bubble? A Government which vindicates the sale of human beings need not hesitate to purchase votes, whether at the polls or in Congress. The two transactions belong to the same family, though unquestionably the last is the least reprehensible.

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Fellow-citizens,—And now we are brought to the practical bearing of this statement. Beyond all doubt your souls rise in judgment against these things. Beyond all doubt you are saddened at the shadow which they cast over the land. Beyond all doubt you are unwilling to bear any responsibility for their longer continuance. But this is not enough. There must be opposition, active, constant, perpetual; and this is the foremost duty of patriotism. From the virtuous Reformer, Wycliffe, whose name illumines the earlier period of English history, we learn that men are sharers in evil deeds who from “coward dumbness” fail to oppose them. There can be no such coward dumbness now. Happily, a political party is at hand whose purpose is to combine and direct all generous energies for the salvation of the country.

Would you arrest these terrible corruptions, and the disastrous influence from which they spring, involving nothing less than civilization on this continent, the Republican party tells you how, and, in telling you how, vindicates at once its Origin and its Necessity. The work must be done, and there is no other organization by which it can be done. A party with such an origin and such a necessity cannot be for a day, or for this election only. It cannot be less permanent than the hostile influence which it is formed to counteract. Therefore, just so long as the present false theories of Slavery prevail, whether concerning its character, morally, economically, and socially, or concerning its prerogatives under the Constitution, and just so long as the Slave Oligarchy, which is the sleepless and unhesitating agent of Slavery in all its pretensions, continues to exist as a political power, the Republican party must endure. If bad men conspire for Slavery, good men must combine for Freedom; nor can the Holy War be ended, until the Barbarism now dominant in the Republic is overthrown, and the Pagan power is driven from our Jerusalem. And when this triumph is won, securing the immediate object of our organization, the Republican party will not die, but, purified by long contest with Slavery, and filled with higher life, it will be lifted to yet other efforts for the good of man.

At present the work is plain before us. It is simply to elect our candidates: Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, whose ability, so conspicuously shown in his own State, attracted at once the admiration of the whole country, whose character no breath has touched, and whose heart is large enough to embrace the broad Republic and all its people,—him you will elect President; and Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, whose clear head, firm principles, and ample experience none who sit with him in the Senate Chamber can contest,—him you will elect Vice-President. Electing these, we shall put the National Government, at least in its Executive department, openly and actively on the side of Freedom; and this alone will be of incalculable influence, not only in itself, but as harbinger of the Future.

First and foremost, we shall save the Territories from the five-headed Barbarism of Slavery, keeping them in their normal condition, as they came from the hand of God, free,—with Freedom written on the soil and engraved on the rock, while the winds whisper it in the trees, the rivers murmur it in their flow, and all Nature echoes it in joy unspeakable.

Next, we shall save the country and the age from that crying infamy, the Slave-Trade, whose opening anew, as now menaced, is but a logical consequence of the new theories of Slavery. If Slavery be the “blessing” it is vaunted, then must the Slave-Trade be beneficent, while they who ply it with fiercest activity take place among the missionaries and saints of humanity.

Next, we shall save the Constitution, at least within the sphere of Executive influence, from outrage and perversion; so that the President will no longer lend himself to that wildest pretension of the Slave Oligarchy, as Mr. Buchanan has done, declaring that Slavery is carried under the Constitution into all the Territories, and that it now exists in Kansas as firmly as in South Carolina. As out of nothing can come nothing, so out of the nothing in the Constitution on this subject can be derived no support for this inordinate pretension, which may be best dismissed in that classical similitude by which the ancients rebuked a groundless folly, when they called it ass’s wool, or something that does not exist, and plainly said to its author, Asini lanas quæris,—“You are in quest of ass’s wool!”[163]

Next, we shall help save the Declaration of Independence, now dishonored and disowned in its essential, life-giving truth,—the Equality of Men. This transcendent principle, which appears twice at the Creation, first, when God said, “Let us make man in our image,” and, secondly, in the Unity of the Race, then divinely established,—which appears again in the New Testament, when it was said, “God, that made the world and all things therein, hath made of one blood all nations of men,”—which appears again in the primal reason of the world, anterior to all institutions and laws,—belongs to those self-evident truths, sometimes called axioms, which no man can question without exposing to question his own intelligence or honesty. As well deny arithmetically that two and two make four, or deny geometrically that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, as deny the axiomatic, self-evident, beaming truth, that all men are equal. As of the sun in the heavens, blind is he who cannot perceive it. Of course, this principle, uttered in a Declaration of Rights, is applicable simply to rights; and it is a childish sophism to allege against it the obvious inequalities of form, character, and faculties. As axiom, it admits no exception; for it is the essence of an axiom, whether in geometry or in morals, to be universal. As abstract truth, it is also without exception, according to the essence of such truth. And, finally, as self-evident truth, so announced in the Declaration, it is without exception; for only such truth can be self-evident. Thus, whether axiom, abstract truth, or self-evident truth, it is always universal. In vindicating this principle, the Republican party have a grateful duty, to which they are moved by justice to a much-injured race, excluded from its protection, and by justice also to the Fathers, whose well-chosen words, fit foundation for empire, are turned into mockery. Nor can the madness of the Propagandists be better illustrated than in this assault on the Declaration of Independence, stultifying the Fathers for no other purpose than to clear the way for their five-headed abomination of Compulsory Labor without Wages.

And, finally, we shall help expel the Slave Oligarchy from all its seats of National power, driving it back within the States. This alone is worthy of every effort; for, until this is done, nothing else can be completely done. In vain you seek economy or purity in the National Government, in vain you seek improvement of rivers and harbors, in vain you seek homesteads on the public lands for actual settlers, in vain you seek reform in administration, in vain you seek dignity and peace in our foreign relations, with just sympathy for struggling Freedom everywhere, while this selfish and corrupt power holds the National purse and the National sword. Prostrate the Slave Oligarchy, and the door will be open to all generous principles. Prostrate the Slave Oligarchy, and the wickedness of the Fugitive Slave Bill will be expelled from the statute-book. Prostrate the Slave Oligarchy, and Slavery will cease at once in the National Capital. Prostrate the Slave Oligarchy, and the Slave-Trade will no longer skulk along our coasts beneath the National flag. Prostrate the Slave Oligarchy, and Liberty will become, in fact, as in law, the normal condition of all the National Territories. Prostrate the Slave Oligarchy, and the National Government will be at length divorced from Slavery. Prostrate the Slave Oligarchy, and the National star will be changed from Slavery to Freedom. Prostrate the Slave Oligarchy, and the North will be no longer the vassal of the South. Prostrate the Slave Oligarchy, and the North will be admitted to its just share in the trusts and honors of the Republic. Prostrate the Slave Oligarchy, and a mighty victory of Peace will be won, whose influence on the Future of our country and of mankind no imagination can paint.

Prostrated, exposed, and permanently expelled from ill-gotten power, the Oligarchy will cease to exist as a political combination. Its final doom may be postponed, but it is certain. Languishing, it may live yet longer; but it will surely die. Yes, fellow-citizens, surely it will die, when, disappointed in purpose, driven back within the States, and constrained within these limits, it can no longer rule the Republic as a plantation of slaves at home, can no longer menace the Territories with five-headed device to compel Labor without Wages, can no longer fasten upon the Constitution an interpretation which makes merchandise of men and gives disgraceful immunity to brokers of human souls and butchers of human hearts, and can no longer grind flesh and blood, with groans and sighs, tears of mothers and cries of children, into the cement of a barbarous political power. Surely, then, in its retreat, smarting under the indignation of an aroused people and the concurring judgment of the civilized world, it must die,—it may be as a poisoned rat dies of rage in its hole.

Meanwhile all good omens are ours. The work cannot stop. Quickened by the triumph now so near, with a Republican President in power, State after State, quitting the condition of a Territory and spurning Slavery, will be welcomed into our Plural Unit, and, joining hands together, will become a belt of fire girt about the Slave States, within which Slavery must die,—or, happier still, joining hands together, they will become to the Slave States a zone of Freedom, radiant, like the ancient cestus of Beauty, with transforming power.

It only remains that we speed these good influences. Others may dwell on the Past as secure; but to my mind, under the laws of a beneficent God, the Future also is secure,—on the single condition that we press forward in the work with heart and soul, forgetting self, turning from all temptations of the hour, and, intent only on the cause,

“With mean complacence ne’er betray our trust,

Nor be so civil as to prove unjust.”[164]

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OUR CANDIDATES WILL BE ELECTED.

Letter to the Lincoln and Hamlin Club of Owego, New York, July 30, 1860.

Boston, July 30, 1860.

DEAR SIR,—It is still uncertain whether my engagements here and elsewhere will allow me to visit Tioga County during the present season. But I beg to assure the Republicans there of my sympathy in their generous labors.

There is ample reward simply in working for a good cause; but we have before us, also, the assurance that our candidates will be elected.

Accept my thanks for the honor of your invitation, and believe me, dear Sir,

With much respect,

Faithfully yours,

Charles Sumner.

Isaac S. Catlin, Esq.

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EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES A BLESSING, AND NOT A FAILURE.

Letter to a Public Meeting at Framingham, Massachusetts, July 30, 1860.

Boston, July 30, 1860.

MY DEAR SIR,—If I forego the opportunity which you offer me of uniting with the earnest Abolitionists of Massachusetts in celebrating the anniversary of Emancipation in the British Islands of the West Indies, I pray you not to believe me insensible to the magnanimous teachings of that day,—destined, I doubt not, as men advance in virtue, to take its place yet more and more among the great days of History.

Nothing shows the desperate mendacity of the partisans of Slavery more than the unfounded persistence with which they call this act “a failure.” If it be a failure, then is virtue a failure, then is justice a failure, then is humanity a failure, then is God himself a failure; for virtue, justice, humanity, and God himself are all represented in this act.

Well-proved facts vindicate completely the policy of Emancipation, even if it were not commanded by the simplest rules of morality. All testimony, whether from official documents or from travellers, shows, beyond question, that in these islands the condition of the negro is improved by emancipation; but this testimony is especially instructive, when we learn that the improvement is most strongly manifest in those who have been born in Freedom. Ask any person familiar with these islands,—as I have often done,—or consult any unprejudiced authority, and such will be the answer. This alone is enough to vindicate the act. Moreover, it is enough, if men are raised in the scale of being, even though sugar perishes from the earth.

But careful statistics attest that the material interests of these possessions share the improvement of the population. In some of the islands, as in Barbadoes and Antigua, the advance is conspicuous, while in Jamaica itself, which is the instance most constantly cited of “failure,” the evidence is unanswerable, that the derangement of affairs cannot be charged upon Emancipation, but is a natural incident to the anomalous condition of that island throughout its history, aggravated by insane pretensions of the Slave-Masters. Two different Governors of this island[165] have assured me, that, with all their experience there, they looked upon Emancipation as a “blessing.” Thus is it shown that the true policy of this world is found in justice. Nothing is truer than that injustice, beside its essential wickedness, is folly also. The unjust man is a fool.

Only recently important testimony on this subject has found place, where it would be hardly expected, in the columns of the “New York Times”; and similar testimony occurs in other quarters, both in England and America. And yet, with the truth flashing in their faces, our Slave-Masters misrepresent the sublime and beautiful act as a “failure”! This, however, is of a piece with their whole conduct.

Let me thank you for the invitation with which you have honored me, and for the good wishes with which you cheer me; and believe me, my dear Sir,

Very faithfully yours,

Charles Sumner.

William Lloyd Garrison.

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SLAVERY A BARBAROUS DISEASE TO BE STAYED.

Letter to a Republican Meeting at the Dedication of the Republican Wigwam in New York, August 6, 1860.

Boston, August 6, 1860.

GENTLEMEN,—Accept my thanks for the invitation with which you have honored me. Knowing by recent experience something of the generous Republicans of New York, it is with reluctance that I renounce the opportunity you give me of mingling with them on an interesting occasion.

As citizens of a great metropolis, they have duties of peculiar difficulty. It is in these centres that the Proslavery sentiment of the North shows itself with violence often kindred to that of the plantation, so as almost to justify the language of Jefferson, who called great cities “sores” of the body politic.[166] Even this expression does not seem too strong, when we recognize the infection of Slavery breaking out sometimes in the violence of mobs, and constantly manifest in the press, in public speech, and in a corrupt public sentiment. It belongs to the Republican party, by gentle, healing influences, guided by a firm hand, to inaugurate the work of cure, that health may be substituted for disease.

Meanwhile the wretched disease must be understood, and I venture to call attention to a work just published in New York, where it is exposed with consummate ability: I refer to “Slavery in History,” by Adam Gurowski. The learned author, who vindicates his new title as American citizen by noble effort for the good of his adopted country, exhibits Slavery, from the beginning of time, in all nations and places, as nothing more nor less than a monstrosity, disturbing, corrupting, and debasing the government under which it exists, and all the individuals who are parties to it, directly or indirectly: for no man can sustain Slavery, or in any way apologize for it, without suffering in moral, if not also in intellectual nature. Such a work, founded on careful studies, and executed in the spirit of science, will naturally take a place in libraries; but I am sure that all inquirers into the character of Slavery, and especially all practical Republicans, engaged in efforts to stay the spread of this barbarous disease, ought to welcome it as an ally. No good citizen who makes himself acquainted with Slavery can hesitate to join against it.

Accept my best wishes for the success of your festival, and also the assurance of the respect with which

I have the honor to be, Gentlemen,

Your obliged Servant,

Charles Sumner.

Homer Franklin, Abraham W. Kennedy, W. K. Schenck, Esqrs.

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TRIBUTE TO A COLLEGE CLASSMATE.

Remarks on the Late John W. Browne, August 20, 1860.

Mr. Browne died suddenly, May 1st, 1860. A little volume was printed in the summer, entitled “In Memoriam J. W. B.,” to which Mr. Sumner contributed the following notice. Prefixed were the words of Fénelon:—

“Il n’y a que les grands cœurs qui sachent combien il y a de gloire à être bon.”

I should feel unhappy, if this little book of tribute to my early friend were allowed to appear without a word from me. We were classmates in college, and for two out of the four years of undergraduate life were chums. We were also together in the Law School. Perhaps no person now alive knew him better, during all this period. Separated afterwards by the occupations of the world, I saw him only at intervals, though our friendship continued unbroken to the end, and when we met, it was always with the warmth and confidence of our youthful relations.

Of all my classmates, I think that he gave, in college, the largest promise of future eminence, mingled, however, with uncertainty whether the waywardness of genius might not betray him. None then imagined that the fiery nature, nursed upon the study of Byron, and delighting always to talk of his poetry and life, would be tamed to the modest ways which he afterwards adopted. The danger seemed to be, that, like his prototype, he would break loose from social life, and follow the bent of lawless ambition, or at least plunge with passion into the strifes of the world. His earnestness at this time bordered on violence, and in all his opinions he was a partisan. But he was already thinker as well as reader, and expressed himself with accuracy and sententious force. Voice harmonizes with character, and his was too apt to be ungentle and loud.

They who have known him only latterly will be surprised at this glimpse of him in early life. A change so complete in sentiment, manner, and voice, as took place in him, I have never known. It seemed like one of those instances in Christian story, where the man of violence is softened suddenly into a saintly character. I do not exaggerate in the least. So much have I been impressed by it at times, that I could hardly believe in his personal identity, and I have recalled the good Fra Cristoforo, in the exquisite romance of Manzoni, to prove that the simplest life of unostentatious goodness may succeed a youth hot with passion of all kinds.

To me, who knew him so well in his other moods, it was touching in the extreme to note this change. Listening to his voice, now so gentle and low, while he conversed on the duties of life, and with perfect simplicity revealed his own abnegation of worldly aims, I have been filled with reverence. At these times his conversation was peculiar and instructive. He had thought for himself, and expressed what he said with all his native force refined by new-born sweetness of soul, which would have commended sentiments even of less intrinsic interest. I saw how, in the purity of his nature, he turned aside from riches and from ambition of all kinds, content with a tranquil existence, undisturbed by any of those temptations which promised once to exercise such sway over him. But his opinions, while uttered with modesty, were marked by the hardihood of an original thinker, showing that in him

“the Gods had joined

The mildest manners and the bravest mind.”

His firm renunciation of office, opening the way to a tempting political career, when formally tendered to him, is almost unique. He had been Representative from Lynn, in the Legislature of Massachusetts, and was nominated as Senator for Essex. This was long ago, in 1838, while he was yet a young man; and here his sagacity seemed to be remarkable as his principles. At that early day, when the two old political parties had been little criticised, he announced that their strife was “occasional and temporary, and that both had forgotten or overlooked the great principle of equal liberty for all, upon which a free government must rest as its only true and safe basis.” He then proceeded to dissolve his connection with parties, in words worthy of perpetual memory. “I disconnect myself from party,” he said, “whose iron grasp holds hard even upon the least of us, and mean in my little sphere, as a private individual, to serve what seems to me the cause of the country and humanity. I cannot place currency above liberty. I cannot place money above man. I cannot fight heartily for the Whigs and against their opponents, when I feel, that, whichever shall be the victorious party, the claims of humanity will be forgotten in the triumph, and that the rights of the slave may be crushed beneath the advancing hosts of the victors.”[167] No better words have been uttered in our political history. In this spirit, and with his unquestionable abilities, he might well have acted an important part in the growing conflict with Slavery. But his love of retreat grew also, and he shrank completely from all the activities of political life. There was nothing that was not within his reach; but he could not be tempted.

I cannot disguise that at times I was disposed to criticise this withdrawal, as suggesting too closely the questionable philosophy concentrated in the saying, Bene vixit qui bene latuit. But as often as I came within the sphere of his influence, and felt the simple beauty of his life, while I saw how his soul, like the sensitive leaf, closed at the touch of the world, I was willing to believe that he had chosen wisely for himself, or at all events that his course was founded on a system deliberately adopted, upon which even an old friend must not intrude. Having always the greatest confidence in his resources, intellectual as well as moral, I was never without hope that in some way he would make his mark upon his country and his age. If he has not done this, he has at least left an example precious to all who knew him.

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PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES AND THE ISSUES.

Speech at the State Convention of the Republican Party at Worcester, August 29, 1860.

This Convention was organized by the choice of the following officers:—

President,—George S. Boutwell of Groton.

Vice-Presidents,—At large,—Alfred Macy of Nantucket, Robert T. Davis of Fall River, Ezra W. Taft of Dedham, George Morey of Boston, Samuel Hooper of Boston, Charles W. Upham of Salem, P. J. Stone of Charlestown, B. C. Sargent of Lowell, Ebenezer Torrey of Fitchburg, Joel Hayden of Williamsburg, W. B. C. Pearsons of Holyoke; Suffolk,—Charles Torrey of Boston; Essex,—Henry K. Oliver of Lawrence; Middlesex,—Charles Hudson of Lexington; Worcester,—P. Emory Aldrich of Worcester; Norfolk,—James Ritchie of Roxbury; Bristol,—Samuel O. Dunbar of Taunton; Hampden,—E. B. Gillette of Westfield; Hampshire,—William Hyde of Ware; Franklin,—William B. Washburn of Greenfield; Berkshire,—Walter Laflin of Pittsfield; Plymouth,—Levi Reed of Abington; Barnstable,—James Gifford of Provincetown; Nantucket,—Edward Field of Nantucket; Dukes,—John Vinson of Edgartown.

Secretaries,—George W. McLellan of Cambridge, Andrew Tower of Malden, Philip Cook of Provincetown, A. B. Underwood of Newton, W. C. Sheldon of Ware, W. W. Clapp, Jr., of Boston, Charles H. Spring of Holyoke, Franklin Williams of Roxbury, J. J. Piper of Fitchburg, Edmund Anthony of New Bedford, Thomas G. Kent of Milford, Edwin B. George of Groveland, W. S. George of Adams, J. A. Alden of East Bridgewater, S. S. Eastman of Greenfield, W. A. Brabiner of Brighton.

At this Convention John A. Andrew was for the first time nominated as Governor.

The Convention had more than its annual importance, as it was on the eve of a Presidential election. Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, and Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, were the Republican candidates for President and Vice-President; John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, and Joseph Lane, of Oregon, the Democratic candidates; Stephen H. Douglas, of Illinois, and Herschell V. Johnson, of Georgia, the candidates of a seceding body of Democrats, known as the Douglas party; John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, candidates of old Whigs, called at the time the Bell-Everett party.

On motion of J. D. Baldwin, of Worcester, afterwards Representative in Congress, Mr. Sumner was invited to address the Convention. The report says:—

“Mr. Sumner then came forward, and his appearance upon the platform was hailed with enthusiastic shouts, which testified the esteem and admiration in which the distinguished Senator is held by his fellow-Republicans of the Commonwealth. The cheering was continued some minutes, and when it had subsided, Mr. Sumner proceeded to address the crowded assembly,—the vast hall being filled to overflowing.”

MR. PRESIDENT,—It is now six years since I had the honor of meeting my Republican fellow-citizens of Massachusetts in State Convention, drawn together from all parts of our beloved Commonwealth,—and then also, I remember well, it was at this good city of Worcester. Returning, at last, with restored health, to the activities of public life, I am happy again in this opportunity. It is pleasant to look into the faces of friends, and to feel the sympathy of kindred hearts.

Nor can I disguise the satisfaction which I find at being here in Worcester,—early and constant home of the Republican cause. When other places, even in Massachusetts, were indifferent for Freedom, Worcester was earnest; and when the cause was defeated in other counties, here, under the lead of an eminent citizen, now the ornament of the bench,[168] it triumphed by brilliant majorities; so that Worcester became known, not only throughout Massachusetts, but everywhere, throughout the country, as our impregnable stronghold. Long since, while America was yet an unsettled wilderness, an English poet depicted a county of our motherland as

“That shire which we the heart of England well may call”;[169]

and this ancient verse furnishes a descriptive phrase which has been aptly applied to our Worcester, “the heart,” as it is the central county, of the Commonwealth. But though truly belonging to Worcester on this account, I have always been glad to believe that it only justly depicted her as the “heart” of our cause,—here at least in Massachusetts.

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If this cause were of common political interest, if it turned only on some question of mere policy, or if it involved simply the honors and emoluments of office, I should willingly leave the contest to others. It would have little attraction for me. But it is far above these things. It concerns the permanent well-being, primarily, of all the outlying territories of the Republic, broad enough for empires, now menaced by Slavery; and since one part of the body cannot suffer without all being affected, it concerns the permanent well-being and also the good name of the whole country, clouded by the growing influence of Slavery. Nor is this all. The special motive for the proposed extension of Slavery is to fortify the Slave Power in the Senate of the United States, and, through the assured preponderance of this Power there, to control the National Government in legislation, diplomacy, and the distribution of office, so that, in short, no law can be passed, no treaty can be ratified, and no individual, though possessing all possible fitness for public service, can be confirmed for office of any kind, without the consent of the Slave Power,—thus, through the Senate, controlling the Judiciary itself. Seeking, therefore, by active measures,—I say active and immediate measures,—to save the Territories, you seek also to save the whole country, not only from a deadly influence, but also from a degrading rule, which ostracizes from office all who avow the early opinions of the Fathers.

Such is our cause, nakedly stated, without illustration or argument. Strange that it is not recognized at once by every patriot heart! Strange that we should be compelled to vindicate it, sometimes against open foes, and sometimes—harder still—against others who betray it with a kiss!

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In the coming election this cause has its representative in Abraham Lincoln. And why has he been selected? Not solely because he is a popular favorite in the great Northwest,—of blameless life, of unimpeachable integrity, of acknowledged abilities, and of practical talent, all of which are unquestionable recommendations, shared, however, by many others,—but because he had made himself the determined champion of the Prohibition of Slavery in the Territories, stating the case with knowledge, with moderation, and yet with firmness,—avowing openly his hatred of Slavery,—likening its introduction in the Territories now to the Canada thistle, which a few may plant to the detriment of succeeding generations, and then again to snakes deposited in the cradle of an infant,—and especially exposing the dishonest invention of “Squatter Sovereignty,” which would despoil Congress of all power over this subject, and transfer it to the distant handful of first settlers.

On two different occasions his views have been put forth and developed,—first, in elaborate controversy with Mr. Douglas in Illinois, and, secondly, in his well-known speech at the Cooper Institute, New York. He does not need my praise; nor would I step aside from my argument to praise anybody; but I may fitly call attention to this masterly address, which, in careful research, clearness of statement, and directness of purpose, may well compare with any one of the innumerable speeches ever made concerning the power of Congress over the Territories. On the topic it professes to treat it is a monograph. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the effort was needed in establishing his title to that public confidence which made him our candidate. It is for the Prohibition of Slavery in the Territories that he has labored, and, excepting his brief, but honorable, experience in Congress, his public life may be summed up in this single service,—nor more nor less. The magnitude of the service may be measured by his present position as representative of our cause.

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Arrayed in opposition are three other candidates for the Presidency,—Bell, Breckinridge, and Douglas,—I mention them in alphabetical order,—differing superficially among themselves, but all concurring in friendship for Slavery and in withstanding its prohibition anywhere, with followers ready, in warfare against the Republican party, to coalesce or fuse with each other. In this readiness you see the common antagonism. No person in the Republican party can think of coalition or fusion with either of these three parties; for they each and all represent in some form resistance to the Prohibition of Slavery, and therefore must be opposed, each and all. The whole trio are no better than Mrs. Malaprop’s idea of Cerberus, “three gentlemen at once,” and must be encountered together.

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Looking at them separately, there is, first, the Bell party. Pardon me, if I use names familiarly: it is but for the sake of convenience. This party, known among us only by its boasts, draws its practical support from the Slave States. It is a Proslavery party,—essentially hostile to the Prohibition of Slavery in the Territories, and dealing always in treacherous generalities, which, if they have any meaning, mean Slavery,—exalting the Constitution, as Slave-Masters understand it,—also exalting the Union, in order to gain credit for “saving” it,—and calling for the enforcement of the laws, meaning the enforcement of the only Act of Congress which Slave-Masters specially recognize, that for the surrender of fugitive slaves. Your indulgence would hardly excuse me, if I occupied time in argument against this combination, which, without declaring a single principle, without any chance of a majority in the electoral colleges, and without any hope of a single electoral vote in the Free States, runs for luck,—which, with only a single possible vote in the House of Representatives, where it seeks, for a revolutionary purpose, to transfer the election, again proposes to run for luck.

Its plan, so far as known, is this. You will remember, that, by the Constitution of the United States, in the event of failure to elect by the people, the House of Representatives is empowered to choose a President out of the three highest candidates for that office, and the Senate to choose a Vice-President out of the two highest candidates for that office. Now, assuming, first, that the Republican candidate will not be elected by the people, which you know to be a very wild assumption,—and, secondly, assuming that there will be no election of President by the House,—this party, turning next to the Vice-Presidency, assumes, thirdly, that Mr. Everett will be one of the two highest candidates for the Vice-Presidency, and, fourthly, that Mr. Everett will be elected by the Senate Vice-President, and then will become President, like John Tyler and Millard Fillmore,—not through the death of a President, but through a double failure by the people and by the House. Such is the calculation by which this band of professed Conservatives seek repose for the country. Permit me to say that it is equalled only by the extravagance of Mrs. Toodles, in the farce. Her passion was auctions, where she purchased ancient articles of furniture under the idea that they might some day be useful. Once, to the amazement of her husband, she brought home a brass door-plate with the name of Thompson spelled with a p. “But what is this for?” he demanded. “Why,” said Mrs. Toodles, with logic worthy of the Bell party, “though we have been married many years without children, it is possible, my dear, that we may have a child, that child may be a daughter, and may live to the age of maturity, and she may marry a man of the name of Thompson spelled with a p. Then how handy it will be to have this door-plate in the house!” I doubt if any person really familiar with affairs can consider this nomination for the Vice-Presidency of more practical value than Mrs. Toodles’s brass door-plate, with the name of Thompson spelled with a p, picked up at an auction. But then, in a certain most difficult contingency at the end of a long line of contingencies, how handy it must be to have it in the house!

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In speaking of the Breckinridge party, I confess myself at the outset perplexed between abhorrence of its dogma and respect for its frankness. No plausible generality is put forward, as by the Bell party, under which good and evil may alike find shelter; nor is any plausible invention announced, as in the case of yet another party, under which the real issue is avoided. But the insufferable claim, first made by Mr. Calhoun, is unequivocally promulgated, that under the Constitution the master may at all times carry his slaves into the Territories, and neither Congress nor Territorial Legislature can prohibit the outrage. This at least is plain. There is something even in criminal boldness which we are disposed to admire. We like an open foe, who scorns to hide in deceit, and meets us in daylight. But we do not like a foe who dodges and hides so that we cannot find him. Nor do we like a man who gives us only something counterfeit in exchange for our votes. We do not like the double-faced prevaricator, who cozens both sides, and deals in words “that palter in a double sense.” It is praise to be frank, even on a bad side; and I have no reason to question this merit of the Breckinridge party. And yet this very frankness reveals an insensibility to reason and humanity, which, when recognized, must add to our abhorrence. That men calling themselves Christians, calling themselves Americans, in this nineteenth century, should without a blush assert such a dogma may well excite our wonder.

Fully to appreciate this dogma, you must know and feel what Slavery is. And here I content myself simply with reminding you of what elsewhere I have demonstrated, that Slavery, as defined by existing law, is a five-headed Barbarism, composed of five different wrongs, each of which you must indignantly reject: first, the impudent claim of property in man; secondly, the gross mockery of the marriage-tie; thirdly, the absolute nullification of the parental relation; fourthly, the denial of instruction; and, fifthly, the robbery of another’s labor, and of all its fruits: that this whole five-headed Barbarism, sustained by existing law, and enforced by the lash, is simply to compel labor without wages; and that to this end all great rights of freedom, marriage, family, instruction, and property are trampled down. This is Slavery. Turn it over, look at it as you will, such it is, and such it must be seen to be by every honest mind.

“To those who know thee not no words can paint,

And those who know thee know all words are faint.”

Believe me, fellow-citizens, I do not present this outline willingly. Gladly would I drop a veil over the revolting features. But when audacious claims are made for Slavery, and you are told by one candidate that it travels with the Constitution into new Territories, and then by another candidate that the handful of first settlers can alone deal with it in the Territories, while Congress sits powerless, it becomes your duty to consider precisely what Slavery is, to study it in the law from which it derives its character, and to follow it also in all its effects. Here is the essential and vital part of the argument, even on the question of Constitutional Law. It is only when this is done that we can see how irrational is every effort to give it constitutional force, or to save it from the action of Congress within the national jurisdiction.

According to the claim now made, Slavery exists under the Constitution everywhere outside the States,—in other words, Slavery is National; whereas just the contrary is true. Everywhere outside the States Freedom must prevail; in other words, Freedom is National. Yes, Freedom is National, and Slavery Sectional. Read the Constitution, and tell me if it be not so. Surely, if a pretension so peculiar as that now set up could be found there, it would be plain to all, so that no man could question it. Like the Decalogue, it would be in positive language: “Thou shalt enslave thy brother man.” It would be left to no doubtful phrase or ambiguous words, but would stand forth in appalling certainty, a “darkness visible.” It would be stuck up, like Gessler’s hat in the marketplace, so that all could see it. But nothing is clearer than that in this well-considered instrument there is not one clause or word which maintains property in man, not one clause or word on which any such pretension can be founded. Wherever there is any imagined reference to slaves, it is at most only to their possible existence in States, “under the laws thereof”; and then their designation as “persons” shows, that, whatever may be their condition in the States, the Constitution does not regard them as “property.” Thank God, the Constitution does not contain the idea that man can be the property of man. It was the declared purpose of Mr. Madison to exclude this idea. So completely has this been done, that it is among boasts often made, that a stranger in a distant country or a future age, reading our Constitution, and having no other record of our history, would not know that any human being had ever been claimed as “property” within the limits of the Republic. The text, at least, of the Constitution is blameless. If men find Slavery there, it is only because they make the Constitution reflect their own souls.

And yet this pretension is now the shibboleth of a great political party; this is its single inspiration; this is its only principle; this is all its stock in trade; this is its very “breath of life.” To this base use has Democracy come. In voting for Mr. Breckinridge, you declare, first, that man can have property in his fellow-man, and, secondly, that such property is recognized by the Constitution of the United States. The soul recoils from both. But even if the first be true,—which I utterly deny,—it does not follow that such property is sanctioned in the Constitution.

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Last in order of alphabet is the Douglas party, whose single cry is “Popular Sovereignty”; last also in character,—for who can respect what we know to be a deceit? The statesman founds himself on principles; sometimes it is his office to frame expedients; but Popular Sovereignty, as now put forward, is not a principle,—oh, no! not even an expedient; it is nothing but a device, a pretext, an evasion, a dodge, a trick, in order to avoid the commanding question, whether Slavery shall be prohibited in the Territories. That is all.

All hail to Popular Sovereignty in its true glory! This is the grand principle, first announced in the Declaration of Independence, which is destined to regenerate the world. It is embodied in those famous words, adopted by the Republican Convention at Chicago, that among the unalienable rights of all men are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and that “to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” These are sacred words, full of life-giving energy. Not simply national independence was here proclaimed, but also the primal rights of all mankind. Then and there appeared the Angel of Human Liberation, speaking and acting at once with heaven-born strength,—breaking bolts, unloosing bonds, and opening prison-doors,—always ranging on its mighty errand, wherever there are any, no matter of what country or race, who struggle for rights denied,—now cheering Garibaldi at Naples, as it had cheered Washington in the snows of Valley Forge,—and especially visiting all who are down-trodden, whispering that there is none so poor as to be without rights which every man is bound to respect.

“The affrighted gods confessed their awful lord;

They dropped the fetters, trembled, and adored.”[170]

None so degraded as to be beneath its beneficent reach, none so lofty as to be above its restraining power; while before it Despotism and Oligarchy fall on their faces, like the image of Dagon, and the people everywhere begin to govern themselves. Such is the Popular Sovereignty proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence.

But the Great Declaration, not content with announcing certain rights as unalienable, and therefore beyond the control of any government, still further, restrains the sovereignty, which it asserts, by simply declaring that the United States have “full power to do all acts and things which independent states may OF RIGHT do.” Here is a well-defined limitation upon Popular Sovereignty. The dogma of Tory lawyers and pamphleteers—put forward to sustain the claim of Parliamentary omnipotence, and vehemently espoused by Dr. Johnson in his “Taxation no Tyranny”—was, openly, that sovereignty is in its nature illimitable, precisely as is now loosely professed by Mr. Douglas for his handful of squatters. But this dogma is distinctly discarded in the Declaration, and it is frankly proclaimed that all sovereignty is subordinate to the rule of Right. Mark, now, the difference. All existing governments at that time, even the local governments of the Colonies, stood on Power, without limitation. Here was a new government, which, taking its place among the nations, announced that it stood only on Right, and claimed no sovereignty inconsistent with Right. Such, again, is the Popular Sovereignty of the Declaration of Independence.

And yet this transcendent principle is now degraded into a “dodge,” and the sacred name of Popular Sovereignty is prostituted to cover the claim of a master over his slave. It is urged that a handful of squatters may rightfully decide this claim, and the time-honored traditional power of Congress over Slavery in the Territories is denied or voted down. To protect this “villany,” as John Wesley would call it, the right of the people to govern themselves is invoked,—forgetful that this divine right can give no authority to enslave others, that even the people are not omnipotent, and that never do they rise so high as when, recognizing the everlasting laws of Right, they bend to the behests of Justice.

Though bearing the name of Mr. Douglas, and now peddled through the country by him, this contrivance is not of his invention. It comes from an older head. It first showed itself in the Nicholson Letter of 1847, by which General Cass, as Presidential candidate, sought to avoid the Wilmot Proviso. Laborious, studious, exemplary in private life, and fertile in pretexts, this venerable character has afforded the formula by which men have voted for Slavery, while making professions for Freedom. He is author of the artifice—rejected by every Slave-Master, and rejected by every lover of Freedom, whose eyes are open—which, under the nickname of Squatter Sovereignty, has been the device of doughfaces, enabling them sometimes to deceive the public and sometimes even to deceive themselves. Owing to the peculiar condition of opinion at that time, not yet stiffened against the compromise of Human Rights, his very vacillation put him in harmony with the public, and gave him a commanding position. Once for the Wilmot Proviso, which asserted the power of Congress over the Territories, and then for a pretended Popular Sovereignty, which denied this power, he became the pendulum between Freedom and Slavery, and, thus swinging, imparted motion to a sham Democracy.

The device next showed itself on the passage of the Kansas and Nebraska Bill; and here it became a trick, as appears by open confession of one of the parties to it,—and a trick it has continued ever since. It was proposed to repeal the old Prohibition of Slavery in the Missouri Territory, established as part of the Missouri Compromise. But instead of doing this openly and precisely, by simple words of repeal, language was invented to mystify the whole question. Then appeared that “little stump speech injected in the belly of the bill,” according to Colonel Benton, declaring that the intent was to leave the people “perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.” As in the gray of the morning the fatal bill containing these words passed, General Cass, rising from his seat,—I remember well the scene,—exclaimed, “This is the triumph of Squatter Sovereignty!” The old Prohibition of Slavery was overthrown, and his Nicholson Letter was vindicated.

And now note well the trick. The Slave-Masters who voted for these words rejected with scorn the idea that the handful of squatters could exclude Slavery. According to them, Slavery went with the Constitution, and was beyond the control of squatters. But formal assertion of this dogma would have caused trouble, and it was accordingly disguised in these familiar words,—“subject only to the Constitution of the United States.” Mr. Benjamin, of Louisiana, in a recent speech, lets us behind the scenes. He tells, that, at a caucus of Senators, “both wings of the Democracy agreed that each should maintain its particular theory before the public,—one side sustaining Squatter Sovereignty, and the other Protection to Slavery in the Territories, but pledging themselves to abide by the decision of the Supreme Court, whatever it might be.” Such was the secret conspiracy, concealed for a long time from the public, and only recently revealed. And Mr. Douglas was a party to it.

Had the Popular Sovereignty of Mr. Douglas been a reality and not a sham, had it been a sincere recognition of popular rights instead of a trick to avoid their recognition, he could not have been party to such deception. But how was the fact? While professing Popular Sovereignty, what did his bill really confer upon the people? Not the right to organize their own government, determining for themselves its form and character; for all this was done by Act of Congress. Not the right to choose the Executive; for the Governor and all other officers in this department were sent from Washington, nominated by the President. Not the right to nominate the Judiciary; for the judges were also sent from Washington, nominated by the President. Not even the right completely to constitute the Legislature; for even this body was placed in many important respects beyond the popular control. Thus in each of the three great departments of State, Executive, Judicial, and Legislative, is Popular Sovereignty disowned.

Search the “Congressional Globe” during the Nebraska debate, and you will see with what sincerity Mr. Douglas guarded the much vaunted rights of the people. Mr. Chase moved to allow the people to elect their Governor and other officers. On the vote by ayes and noes, the champion of Popular Sovereignty voted No. Mr. Chase, whose effort to unmask this hypocrisy was indefatigable, made another motion, which put Mr. Douglas still more to the test. After the words of alleged Popular Sovereignty in the bill, he moved to add, “under which the people of the Territory, through their appropriate representatives, may, if they see fit, prohibit the existence of Slavery therein.” Here was a plain proposition. On the vote by ayes and noes, Mr. Douglas and his associates again voted No. His recent excuse, put forth in his single peripatetic speech, is, that the proposition was not in the alternate,—that is, that it gave power only to exclude, and not to admit. But if he really favored it in that form, why not move to amend it by adding the power to admit, instead of voting against the whole proposition? It is clear that such an open and unequivocal declaration was not congenial with the game to be played.

The bill passed, and then came other opportunities to test the sincerity of the present knight-errant of Popular Sovereignty. Under its provisions commenced at once a race of emigration into the new Territories, and there Free Labor and Slave Labor grappled. Lovers of Freedom from the North were encountered by partisans of Slavery from the South, organized by Blue Lodges in Missouri, and incited from every part of the Land of Slavery. The officials of a government established under pretended safeguards of Popular Sovereignty all ranged themselves on the side of Slavery; or, if their allegiance became doubtful,—as in the case of Governor Reeder,—they were dismissed, and more available tools sent instead. I spare details. You cannot forget that winter and spring preceding the Presidential election of 1856, when we were alternately startled and stunned at tidings from Kansas, as a body of strangers from Missouri, entering in hundreds, forcibly seized the polls, and, under pretended forms of law, set up a Usurpation, which by positive legislation proceeded to establish Slavery there, and to surround it with a Code of Death. The atrocity of Philip the Second, when, by violence and through a “Council of Blood,” he sought to fasten the Inquisition upon Holland, was renewed. Invasion, rapine, outrage, arson, rape, murder, the scalping-knife, were the agents now employed; and to crown this prostration of popular rights, Lawrence, home of New England settlers, and microcosm of New England life, was burned to the ground by a company of profane and drunken ruffians stimulated from Washington.

What then was the course of the champion of Popular Sovereignty? Did he thunder and lighten? Did he come forward to defend those settlers, who had gone to Kansas under pretended safeguards of his bill? Oh, no! In the Senate he openly ranged himself on the side of their oppressors, mocked at their calamities, denounced them as “insurgents,” insulted their agents, and told them they must submit,—while the distant Emigrant Aid Society in Massachusetts was made the butt of his most opprobrious assaults. All this I myself witnessed.

Then came another scene, with which, owing to my enforced absence from the Senate, as an invalid, I have less personal familiarity; but it is known to all of you. The Senatorial election in Illinois was at hand, when Mr. Douglas suddenly discovered that Popular Sovereignty was something more than a name. He opposed the Lecompton Constitution; but my distinguished colleague [Mr. Wilson] will tell you that even there he was kept from barefaced apostasy only by the stern will and indomitable principle of the lamented Broderick, the murdered Senator from California.

Then came stump speeches and Senate speeches without number, and a magazine article, all to explain Popular Sovereignty. But this simple principle, which, in the light of the Declaration of Independence, and also in the light of reason, is plain enough, has been so twisted, turned, and befogged, now explained away and then explained back, now enlarged and then limited, now acknowledged and then denied, that I challenge any person to say with certainty in what, according to Mr. Douglas, it really consists.

At one time we find him declaring that “Slavery is the creature of local law, and not of the Constitution of the United States.” Good! Let him follow this to its natural conclusion, and no Republican asks more.

Then, at New Orleans, after his election to the Senate was secured, he says: “The Democracy of Illinois accept the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Dred Scott as an authoritative interpretation of the Constitution. In accordance with that decision, we hold that slaves are property, and hence on an equality with all other kinds of property, and that the owner of a slave has the same right to move into a Territory and carry his slave property with him as the owner of any other property has to go there and carry his property.” Here is the extreme dogma of Slavery in full feather. Let him follow this to its natural conclusion, and no Breckinridge man could ask more.

At another time we find him declaring that “sovereign States have the right to make their own constitutions and establish their own governments, but that he has never claimed these powers for the Territories, nor has he ever failed to resist such claims, when set up by others.” How, then, under this theory, can Popular Sovereignty have any foothold in the Territories? It is clear that all Territorial legislation against Slavery must be invalid.

And then again, in another place, by roundabout language, he admits, that, according to the Dred Scott decision, which he declares that he “approves,” the people of a Territory cannot, by any legislation, confiscate slave property, or impair the “Constitutional right” of the master to this property in the Territory. With this limitation, pray, where, again, is Popular Sovereignty?

But elsewhere, as if to furnish something for the other side, he intimates a policy of inaction by the Territorial Legislature with regard to Slavery, and asks, “Would not the inaction of the local Legislature, its refusal to provide a Slave Code, or to punish offences against that species of property, exclude Slavery just as effectually as a Constitutional prohibition?” And here is an end of the matter.

Changing forms as often as Proteus, we yet find him admitting, first, that Slavery goes into the Territories under the Constitution; secondly, that the right of property in a slave cannot be destroyed by the Territorial Legislature; and all that this Legislature can do, by way of opposition, is to fold its hands and to seal its tongue in inaction. What, then, is this wonderful doctrine? So far as it means anything, it is simply this: that the people of a Territory have a right to introduce Slavery, but not to prohibit it. And such is Popular Sovereignty! Verily, between this and the Breckinridge dogma there is about the same difference as between the much-vexed doctrines of Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation, where there was only the difference of a single syllable, and both involved the same thing.

Nor is even this all. The Convention at Baltimore which nominated Mr. Douglas has declared by formal resolution, that “the measure of restriction, whatever it may be, imposed by the Federal Constitution on the power of the Territorial Legislature over the subject of the domestic relations, as the same has been or shall hereafter be finally determined by the Supreme Court of the United States, should be respected by all good citizens, and enforced with promptness and fidelity by every branch of the General Government.” And Mr. Douglas, in accepting his nomination, has expressly recognized this doctrine, thus in advance delivering over his bantling Popular Sovereignty to the tender mercies of the Supreme Court.

Far different is the position of Mr. Lincoln, who has openly said, in his debate with Mr. Douglas, “If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether Slavery should be prohibited in a new Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should. That is what I would do.”[171] And allow me to add, that this doctrine of Mr. Lincoln is the doctrine of the Republican party. Any doctrine short of this betrays the trick of Mr. Douglas.

The tree is known by its fruits, and if anything further were needed to expose this cheat of Popular Sovereignty, it might be found in its fruits as boasted by Mr. Douglas. A slave code most revolting in character had been adopted by the Territorial Legislature of New Mexico, not only establishing Slavery there, including the serfdom of whites, but prohibiting Emancipation. Through the generous activity of the Republicans, and in the exercise of a just Congressional intervention, a bill passed the House of Representatives annulling this slave code. While the bill was on the table of the Senate, attesting at once the disposition of the House of Representatives to interfere against Slavery, and also the signal necessity of such interference, Mr. Douglas took occasion to make his boasts. Surrounded by the chiefs of Proslavery Democracy, the juggler of Popular Sovereignty thus showed what the trick had done for Slavery. Here are his words:—

“It is part of the history of the country, that, under this doctrine of Non-Intervention, this doctrine that you delight to call Squatter Sovereignty, the people of New Mexico have introduced and protected Slavery in the whole of that Territory. Under this doctrine, they have converted a tract of Free Territory into Slave Territory more than five times the size of the State of New York. Under this doctrine, Slavery has been extended from the Rio Grande to the Gulf of California, and from the line of the Republic of Mexico, not only up to 36° 30´, but up to 38°, giving you a degree and a half more Slave Territory than you ever claimed.”[172]

As the tree is known by its fruits, so also is the man known by the company he keeps. At first associated with Mr. Douglas on the same ticket, as candidate for the Vice-Presidency, was Mr. Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, belonging to the school of Slave Propagandists, and fresh from voting in the Senate against Popular Sovereignty; and when he declined, his place was supplied by Mr. Johnson, of Georgia, also belonging to the school of Slave Propagandists, who from the beginning has denounced Popular Sovereignty, and insisted that “it is the right of the South to demand, and the duty of Congress to extend, protection to Slavery in the Territories during the Territorial state,” and who, at Philadelphia, in a public speech, did not hesitate to insult the mechanics and working-men of the country by the insolent declaration that “Capital should own Labor.” Such is the associate of Mr. Douglas, with whom he is so united as candidate that you cannot vote for one without voting for the other. One of his earnest supporters in the Convention at Baltimore, Mr. Gaulden, of Georgia, pressed the opening of the slave-trade with Africa on the very grounds of Popular Sovereignty and Non-Intervention. After declaring, that, “if it be right to go to Virginia and buy a negro and pay two thousand dollars for him, it is equally right to go to Africa, where we can get them for fifty dollars,” he said, that, “if the Southern men had the spunk and spirit to come right up and face the North, he believed the Northern Democracy, at least, would come to the true doctrine of Popular Sovereignty and Non-Intervention.” This barbarous utterance was received by the Douglas Convention with “applause and laughter.” Such are the men with whom this candidate is associated.

If you follow Mr. Douglas in his various speeches, you cannot fail to be shocked by the heartlessness of his language. Never in history has any public man insulted human nature so boldly. At the North he announces himself as “always for the white man against the nigger,” but at the South he is “for the nigger against the alligator.” It was natural that such a man, who thus mocked at a portion of God’s creation made in the Divine image, should say, “Vote Slavery up or vote it down,”—as if the idea of voting it up were not impious and never to be endured. Beyond all doubt, no majority can be permitted to vote that fellow-men shall be bought and sold like cattle. The pretension is preposterous, aggravated by knowledge on his part that under his device the settlers could only vote Slavery up, and that they were not allowed to vote it down. But this speech attests a brazen insensibility to Human Rights. Not so spoke the Fathers of the Republic, who would not let us miss an opportunity to vote Slavery down. Not so spoke Washington, who declared that to the abolition of Slavery “his suffrage should never be wanting.” Such is the whole political philosophy of this Presidential candidate. A man thus indifferent to the rights of a whole race is naturally indifferent to other things which make for justice and peace.

Again he cries out, that the Slavery agitation is in the way of public business, and that it must be removed from Congress. But who has thrust it there so incessantly as himself? Nay, who so largely as himself has been the occasion of its appearance? His complaint illustrates anew the old fable. It was the wolf above that troubled the waters, and not the lamb below. It is the Slave Propagandists—among whom the champion of Popular Sovereignty must find a place—who, from the Missouri Compromise in 1820, through all the different stages of discussion, down to the shutting out of Kansas as a Free State at the recent session, have rendered it impossible to avoid the exciting subject. By dishonest, audacious theories of Slavery, both morally and constitutionally, they have aroused a natural opposition, and put all who truly love their country on the defensive. Yes, it is in defence of the Constitution perverted, of reason insulted, and of humanity disowned, that we are obliged to speak out.

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True, the country needs repose;—but it is the repose of Liberty, and not the repose of Despotism. And, believe me, that glad day can never come, until the mad assumptions for Slavery are all rejected, and the Government is once more brought back to the spirit of the founders. It was clearly understood at the beginning that Congress could not touch Slavery in the States; and this is the doctrine of the Republican party now. But it was also clearly understood at the beginning that Slavery everywhere else was within the jurisdiction of Congress; and this also is the doctrine of the Republican party now. With the practical acceptance of these two correlative principles the Slavery Question will cease to agitate Congress and to divide political parties. Transferred to the more tranquil domain of morals, religion, economy, and philanthropy, it must continue to occupy the attention of the good and the humane; but it will cease to be the stumbling-block of politicians. Not until then is it permitted us to expect that Sabbath of repose so much longed for.

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The first stage in securing for our country the repose which all covet will be the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, and the election of that well-tried, faithful, and able Senator,—whom I know well,—Hannibal Hamlin, as Vice-President. I do not dwell on all that will then follow,—homesteads for actual settlers, improvement of rivers and harbors, economy and purity in the National Administration, increased means of communication, postal and commercial, with the establishment of a Pacific Railroad; nor do I dwell on the extirpation of the direful African slave-trade, now thriving anew under our national flag,—nor on our relations with foreign countries, destined to assume that character of moderation and firmness which becomes a great republic, neither menacing the weak nor stooping to the proud, and, while sympathizing with generous endeavors for Freedom everywhere, avoiding all complicity with schemes of lawless violence. Ask the eminent Boston merchant, Mr. Clark, whose avocation makes him know so well the conduct of our Government with Hayti, if there is not need of change in our course toward a humble people, in order to save ourselves from the charge of national meanness, if not of national injustice? But it is by this election that you will especially vindicate the Prohibition of Slavery in the Territories, even in the face of the Dred Scott decision, and fling your indignant answer at once at the Proslavery non-committalism of Bell, the Proslavery dogma of Breckinridge, and the Proslavery dodge of Douglas.

All this can be done, nay, will be done. But let me not beguile you. The ancient price of Liberty was vigilance; and this price has not diminished of late years, especially when surrounded by men accustomed to power and stimulated by rage. Already the news has reached us of combinations to consolidate the Opposition,—as we read that of old two inveterate parties among the Jews were reconciled. “The same day,” writes the sacred historian, “Pilate and Herod were made friends together; for before they were at enmity between themselves.” This example is too kindred not to be adopted. Already, also, we hear of devices at a distance, and even near at home, to distract our friends, by producing distrust either of our principles or of our candidate. At one time it is said that the principle of Prohibition is a mistake,—and then again, by natural consequence, that our candidate is not sufficiently moderate.

Fellow-citizens, hearken not to any of these things. Keep the Prohibition of Slavery in the Territories as the fixed and irreversible purpose of your hearts, and insist that it shall be established by Congress; for without Congress it may not be established. Old Cato procured a decree of the Roman Senate that no king should ever enter Rome, saying that “a king is a carnivorous animal.” A similar decree must be adopted by Congress against an animal more carnivorous than king. In upholding this paramount necessity, I utter nothing new. During the debate on the Nebraska Bill, my eminent colleague at that time in the Senate, Mr. Everett, now candidate for the Vice-Presidency, while approving the Prohibition, allowed himself to disparage its importance. With the convictions which are mine, I felt it my duty to reply, kindly, but most strenuously. After exhibiting the efficacy of the Prohibition, I said:—

“Surely this cannot be treated lightly. But I am unwilling to measure the exigency of the Prohibition by the number of persons, whether many or few, whom it may protect. Human rights, whether in a multitude or the solitary individual, are entitled to equal and unhesitating support. In this spirit, the flag of our country only recently became the impenetrable panoply of a homeless wanderer who claimed its protection in a distant sea; and, in this spirit, I am constrained to declare that there is no place accessible to human avarice or human lust or human force, whether the lowest valley or the loftiest mountain-top, whether the broad flower-spangled prairies or the snowy caps of the Rocky Mountains, where the Prohibition of Slavery, like the Commandments of the Decalogue, should not go.”[173]

And these words, uttered more than six years ago, are still of vital, practical force. The example of Delaware shows how little Slavery it takes to make a Slave State, giving two votes to the ascendency of the Slave Power in the Senate. Be wakeful, then, and do not disparage that enemy which for sixty years has ruled the Republic. “That man is dangerous,” exclaimed the Athenian orator, “who does not see danger in Philip.” And I now say, that man is dangerous who does not see danger in the Slave Power.

When God created man in his own image, and saw that his work was good, he did not destine his creature for endless ages to labor without wages, compelled by the lash. Such degradation we seek to arrest by careful measures under the Constitution. And this is the cause of which your candidate is the generous and noble representative. Stand by him. Let not fidelity to those principles which give dignity and glory to Massachusetts, and to our common country, be an argument against him. From the malignity of enemies, from the vacillation of timeservers, and from the weakness of friends shield him by your votes. Make him strong to commence the great work by which the Declaration of Independence shall become a living letter, and the ways of Providence shall be justified to men.

“If yet ye are not lost to common sense,

Assist your patriot in your own defence;

That stupid cant, ‘He went too far,’ despise,

And know that to be brave is to be wise.”[174]

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