“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.”