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:—