“I may just say that Senator Chesnut’s commentary on Mr. Sumner’s speech is very amusing here. He cannot know much of the English aristocracy, if he supposes that strangers can get at them by their back doors. Their back doors are well looked to; but in Mr. Sumner’s case there was no question of back door or front. Our aristocracy went out to seek him,—not he them. I need not say that we heartily rejoice in the full truth having been spoken in Congress. The occasion brings back vividly to my memory Mr. Calhoun’s countenance and voice, when he insisted to me, peremptorily putting down all argument, that that day would never come: there would be silence about Slavery in Congress world without end. This was in 1835. It must be also needless for me to say that no unprejudiced man or woman here really supposes that any terms can be kept with Slavery and Slaveholders. The crisis of your revolution may be precipitated by such open defiance in the Federal Legislature; but we see that it was the South which brought on the revolution and uttered the defiance, and that the only course for the Senator from Massachusetts is to take care that the revolution is steered straight by compass while there is such a fearful tampering with the helm. To speak gingerly of Barbarism, when his business was to set before his country the choice between Barbarism and Civilization, was, of course, impossible; and there could be no fidelity short of such a thorough exposure and denunciation as he has offered.”
Then, under date of July 16, Miss Martineau wrote again:—
“Since I wrote last, we have had the opportunity of reading Mr. Sumner’s speech entire. I know no instance in which it was so necessary to have read the whole in order to understand any part; and certainly I can recall no case in which careless and conceited critics have cut a more wretched figure in condemning a production before they understood it. They supposed themselves on safe ground, when they cited passages of denunciation, leaving (as such isolated passages must) an impression that the speaker had outraged the principles and spirit of legislative debate by personal imputation and provocation to passion. Mr. Sumner’s own friends here regretted what they saw, simply because personal accusation and insult can never do any good, and must, in a crisis like that of your polity, render a complete rupture inevitable. As soon as we got the whole speech, however, the aspect of the quoted paragraphs was entirely changed. Instead of a piece of stimulating invective, we find the speech to be a chapter of history, and an exposition, calm and rational, of the workings of a social institution which is brought forward for discussion, and so placed on its trial, by Mr. Sumner’s opponents. To me it appears a production of altogether incalculable importance, apart from its merits in detail. Till now, if we could have met with such a phenomenon in England as a person who was not convinced of the wickedness and folly of Slavery, we should not have known where to turn for a compact, reliable, serviceable statement of the modern case of slave and free labor.”
Another testimony, purporting to be “by a distinguished writer of England,” appeared in the American papers at the time.
“Thanks, many thanks, for Sumner’s noble speech. It has been read with swelling throats and tearful eyes. It is a mighty effort towards wiping out the monstrous blot that disfigures your fair country. I like well the way in which he takes head after head of the foul Hydra, and severs each as completely as ever Hercules did; yet his labor was child’s play in comparison.”
To this English list may be joined a poem prompted by this speech. The New York Independent, where it first appeared in our country, announced that the initials subscribed to it were those of Mrs. L. W. Fellowes, a daughter of Rowland Hill, originator of the cheap postage system in England.
“TO CHARLES SUMNER.
“As one who wandering lone is sudden stirred
With a wild gush of hidden woodland singing,
Doth picture to himself the beauteous bird