“You have suffered, and are still suffering, for your intrepid faithfulness. But suffering in the cause of Truth and Liberty is the heaven-laid path to win ‘the crown which Virtue gives after this mortal change to her true servants.’ [Hearty cheers.]
“I rejoice that my life has been prolonged to this day,—that I am permitted to behold the dawnings of ancient Liberty through the broken openings of the clouds, which for more than fifty years the spirit of Slavery has extended over this Union. I thank Heaven that now, at last, the Free States are beginning to awaken to a sense of their dangers and their duties,—that, at length, they begin to realize that the Slave States have overleaped the bounds of the Constitution. The apathy of half a century may delay for a time the triumphs of Freedom, but come they will. Final success is certain. Never again will the Free States in silence acquiesce in the farther extension of slave domain. [Loud applause, and cries of ‘Never! never!’] Henceforth they will hear and attend to the warning voice of Washington, solemnly uttered in his Farewell Address,—‘Submit not to Usurpation,’—‘Resist, with care, the spirit of Innovation upon the Principles of the Constitution.’ [Cheers.]
“We welcome you, Sir, as the champion of Freedom [loud cheers], and as one to whom the deliverance which we hope may yet be destined for our country will be greatly due.”
Mr. Sumner, who had been standing in his carriage, uncovered, then spoke, in a subdued voice, and evidently under the influence of deep feeling, as follows.
MR. QUINCY,—A year has nearly run since I left Boston in the discharge of public duties. During this period, amidst important events, I have been able to do something which my fellow-citizens and neighbors, speaking by your authoritative voice, are pleased to approve. I am happy in this approbation. Especially am I happy that it is conveyed by the eloquent words of one who from my childhood has been with me an object of unaffected reverence, who was the municipal head of my native city while I was a pupil at its public schools, and who was the head of the University while I was a pupil in that ancient seat.
Boston, early in her history, set her face against Slavery. By a vote, entered upon her Town Records, as long ago as 1701, she called upon her Representatives “to put a period to negroes being slaves.” If I have done anything to deserve the greeting you now lavish, it is because I have striven to maintain those principles here declared, and to extend them to other places,—stretching the venerable shelter of Faneuil Hall even over distant Kansas. [Loud applause.]
You have made allusion to the suffering which I have undergone. This is not small. But it has been incurred in the performance of duty; and how little is it, Sir, compared with the suffering of fellow-citizens in Kansas! How small is it, compared with that tale of woe which is perpetually coming to us from the house of bondage!
With you I hail the omens of final triumph. I ask no prophet to confirm this assurance. The future is not less secure than the past.
You are pleased to quote injunctions of Washington. If ever there was occasion to bear these, not only in memory, but in heart, the time is now, when Usurpation is the order of the day, and the Constitution is set at defiance. Beyond these precepts is also his great example, which, from first to last, teaches the constant lesson of fidelity, in standing up for the liberties of our country, in undoubting faith that the good cause cannot fail.