APPENDIX.
The tributes to Bingham and Baker were accepted at the time as more than eulogies. The protest against Slavery and the cry for Emancipation were not lost. They were noticed extensively by the press and by correspondents. The effect shows the development of that sentiment before which Slavery was falling. A Philadelphia newspaper, even while praising the eulogy on Senator Baker, seemed to shrink from the demand with which it concluded.
“The speech of Senator Sumner surpassed all others in powerful effect, clear and manly style, and an undisguised expression of opinion which all must respect, and which but few can condemn at the present juncture. His learned eloquence captivated the heart, even where it did not convince the judgment.”
Another recorded the impressions of a correspondent.
“Mr. Sumner, in his splendid eulogy on Baker this morning, uttered a stupendous thought, when, in commenting on the unfortunate reconnoissance at Ball’s Bluff, he scoffed at the idea of an investigating committee to ascertain where the blame should justly be charged, and said that the great criminal stood before the country and the world, and that great criminal was Slavery. You will have his words in print, and can judge of this point for yourselves. I confess that it thrilled me like an electric shock.”
The Antislavery Standard, of New York, exulted that Slavery was arraigned.
“To see men like Bright and Powell sit still, when Charles Sumner charged Baker’s murder on Slavery, was worth at least ten years of Antislavery privations. The Proslavery interest in the Senate is quite respectful, and does not indulge in the old-time bluster and parade.”
On the contrary, the “Editorial Correspondent” of the New York Express, writing on the day of the eulogy on Baker, gave vent to his sentiments with regard to Mr. Sumner.
“Even in the burial services of the dead he mingles his sectional hate and personal wrath.
“Such a man will never consent to a peaceful reunion of the States, nor to an equal representation of all the States in the Federal Congress. He deeply wounds the self-sacrificing, loyal Union men of the Border States and Far South; in every breath he utters, and in every speech he makes, he sets back upon the clock of advancing time the hour-hand of Peace. His presence in the Senate Chamber is a signal of protracted war, renewed sectional hate, and offensive intermeddling.…
“If Massachusetts were to-day represented in the spirit of her early Revolutionary men, or in the spirit in which so many thousands of her sons have rushed to the defence of the country, Mr. Sumner, as a long standing enemy of the Constitution and the Union, would be sent back to Boston, and there sandwiched between Slidell and Mason within the casemates of Fort Warren. These three men are each old acquaintances here, and each old enemies of the Government, the Union, and the Constitution; and the only difference between the extremes is, that the Senator from Boston remains in council here to fight the Government, and men and institutions belonging to it from its foundation, while the others fled from its service to render more available aid to those in arms against it.”
Hon. Edward G. Parker, author of “The Golden Age of American Oratory” and “Reminiscences of Rufus Choate,” wrote from Boston:—
“I thank you sincerely for a copy of your exquisite panegyrics on Bingham and Baker. I often heard Baker, and recognize at once the beautiful fidelity of your description.
“The touch of Plutarch and of Addison—both, if you will allow me to say so—are there.
“I had, before receiving this, cut out of the newspaper your portrait of Baker, and put it in a choice book devoted to great men and memorable thoughts.
“It is to me like a medallion of that true man, who, in so shining a manner, and yet so suddenly, ‘passed from the service of his country to the service of his God.’
“Pardon what you may perhaps consider the superfluous enthusiasm of this note; but it is written right away upon reading these oratoric odes, and I feel a little of the lava struggling even in the attempt to acknowledge receiving them.”
Hon. John Jay, afterwards Minister at Vienna, wrote from New York:—
“They are not only eloquent tributes to the dead, but powerful appeals to the living.”
Epes Sargent, the friend and writer, showed his sympathy in a letter from Boston.
“Your remarks in the Senate on Senator Baker pleased me so much that I could not forbear speaking my pleasure in print. They are level with the theme and the time, and the trumpet-note at the close is in just the right key. Oh, if it were not for Kentucky, that neither hot nor cold State, we might hope for a policy up to the height of this great argument! ‘I would she were hot or cold.’
“Our Boston papers do not yet speak out, as I would like to see them, on this question of proclaiming emancipation to the slaves of Rebels. We need another disaster to carry us forward a little further.”
William Lloyd Garrison declared himself with his accustomed directness in a letter from Boston.
“Thanks for your eloquent eulogy upon the late Senator Baker, (which I have published in the Liberator this week,) and its forcible application to Slavery as the primary cause of his untimely death, as it is of all our national woes. Be in no wise daunted, but rather strengthened and stimulated, by the abusive clamors and assaults following all your efforts, on the part of the ‘Satanic press,’ and unprincipled demagogues generally. These are surer evidences of the wisdom, goodness, and nobility of your cause than all the praises of your numerous friends and admirers. You may confidently make ‘the safe appeal of truth to time,’ and rely upon a universal verdict of approval at no distant day. To be in the right is as surely to be allied to victory as that God reigns. When there is howling in the pit, there is special rejoicing in heaven.”