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:—