May it please your Excellency,—
It is a pleasure to be once more among the scenes of home; to look upon familiar objects,—the State House, the Common, and well-known streets. It is more pleasant still to behold the countenances of friends. And all this pleasure, Sir, is enhanced by the welcome which you now give me, in behalf of the beloved Commonwealth which for five years I have served, honestly, earnestly, and constantly, in an important field of duty, to which I was introduced by an unsought suffrage.
Sir, I thank you for this welcome. I thank, also, the distinguished gentlemen who have honored this occasion by their presence. I thank, too, these swelling multitudes who contribute to me the strength and succor of their sympathies; and my soul overflows especially to the young men of Boston, out of whose hearts, as from an exuberant fountain, this broad-spreading hospitality took its rise.
My earnest desire, often expressed, has been, that I might be allowed to return home quietly, without show or demonstration of any kind. And this longing was enforced by my physical condition, which, though vastly improved at this time, and advancing surely towards complete health, is still exposed to the peril of relapse, or at least to the arrest of those kindly processes of Nature essential to the restoration of a shattered system. But the spontaneous kindness of this reception makes me forget my weakness, makes me forget my desire for repose.
I thank you, Sir, for the suggestion of seclusion, and the security which that suggestion promises to afford.
Something more, Sir, I would say, but I am admonished that voice and strength will not permit. With your permission, therefore, I will hand the reporters what I should be glad to say, that it may be printed.
[The remainder of the speech is printed from Mr. Sumner’s manuscript.]
More than five months have passed since I was disabled from the performance of my public duties. During this weary period I have been constrained to repeat daily the lesson of renunciation,—confined at first to my bed, and then only slowly regaining the power even to walk. But, beyond the constant, irrepressible grief which must well up in the breast of every patriot, as he discerns the present condition of his country, my chief sorrow has been caused by the necessity, to which I was doomed, of renouncing all part in the contest for human rights, which, beginning in Congress, has since enveloped the whole land. The Grecian chief, grievously ill of a wound from the stealthy bite of a snake, and left behind while his companions sailed to the siege of Troy, did not repine more at his enforced seclusion. From day to day and week to week I vainly sought that health which we value most when lost, and which perpetually eluded my pursuit. For health I strove, for health I prayed. With uncertain steps I sought it at the seashore and I sought it on the mountain-top.
“Two voices are there: one is of the sea,