“If anything could aggravate the inherent brutality of this act, it is the character of the man upon whom it was committed. For Mr. Sumner is a gentleman in whom there meets a combination of qualities adapted in a rare degree to inspire the affectionate attachment of friends, and to command courtesy and respect from all generous and honorable opponents: a man of a chivalrous and heroic spirit, of a refined and sensitive nature, of a powerful and cultivated intellect disciplined by hard study and adorned with profound and various learning, who has led a life of irreproachable purity and active benevolence,—the favorite pupil of Story, the intimate friend and disciple of Channing, the chosen associate of the finest living minds of America, Quincy, Sparks, Longfellow, Goodrich, Dana, Everett, Bryant, Emerson.
…
“And when the greatest of American orators and statesmen, Daniel Webster, was stricken down by the hand of death, Mr. Sumner was the man whom the State of Massachusetts chose from among her sons, as most worthy to be his successor. And most nobly has he vindicated the wisdom of their choice. Taking small interest in the ordinary conflicts of parties, he has stood forth, from the moment that he entered the Senate, as the courageous and resolute champion of the slave. His speeches are elaborate and masterly orations, with perhaps almost too much of classical stateliness and refinement for the tribune. Over the hard and dry abstraction of politics he throws the glancing lights of his fertile and polished fancy, and relieves the tedium of debate by the rich stores of an elegant and varied erudition. The speech that brought upon him the recent attack was perhaps the greatest of all his efforts. It is in every respect a magnificent production. With a lofty and relentless logic he tears away the covering veil of sophistry with which the Southern members had sought to conceal the naked iniquity of the transactions in Kansas. There are, no doubt, passages of terrible severity, but not, we think, exceeding the license of parliamentary debate among ourselves. And the most conclusive testimony to the power of the orator is afforded by the desperate extremities to which it reduced his discomfited foes.
“We have no words of commiseration to offer to Mr. Sumner. God grant only that a life so valuable may be spared, and he will occupy in the estimation of all men, at home and abroad, whose judgment he would value, a prouder position than he ever occupied before. He stood in the vanguard of Freedom, and the marks of the ruffianly outrage inflicted upon him, which he will probably bear to the grave, he will wear as more honorable scars than ever warrior brought from a battle-field.”
This record of opinion at the North, echoed from Europe, may be closed by words from an important journal at New York, The Courier and Enquirer, in the summer of 1856.
“The fact is incontestable, that, when the Massachusetts Senator again crosses the threshold of that Senate Chamber, Slavery will have to confront the most formidable foe it ever had to face before the public eye. He will come with every muscle braced and every sinew strung by the sense of measureless personal wrong; but infinitely more than that, he will come armed with the indignation and shielded by the moral support of the whole North. Hitherto he has figured but in one character, the assailant of Slavery; henceforth he will be also the accredited assertor and champion of the most sacred right of freedom of speech, and as such will command tenfold greater consideration. His antagonists have affected to despise him before, and to treat him with scorn. The day for that has passed. The public man, who has once been the occasion of such an outburst of sympathy and good-will as has within the last week sprung from the mouth of millions upon millions of his countrymen, is no longer a man to be disdained. He has henceforth position, power, and security, beyond any of his adversaries. Let his sentiments be what they may, his free utterance of them hereafter becomes an assured thing, insomuch as that utterance will serve as the best of all possible tests of that freedom of debate which has once been outraged in his person, and which it is the present determination of the North shall be maintained at all hazards.”
V.
INJURIES AND CONTINUED DISABILITY OF MR. SUMMER.
Senator Butler, in reply to Mr. Sumner, June 12, 1856, remarked on his absence from his seat as follows.
“If I give credence to the testimony of Dr. Boyle, I see no reason why he should not be present. For anything that appears in that testimony, if he had been an officer of the Army, and had not appeared the next day on the battle-field, he would have deserved to be cashiered.”[152]