Alike by sympathy with the slave and by determination to save ourselves from wretched thraldom, we are all summoned to the effort now organized for the emancipation of the National Government from a degrading influence, hostile to civilization, which, wherever it shows itself, even at a distance, is brutal, vulgar, and mean, constituting an unnatural tyranny, calculated to arouse the generous indignation of good men. Of course, no person, unless ready to say in his heart that there is no God, can doubt the certain result. But this result, like every great good, can be accomplished only by well-directed effort. I know something of the labor and trial which such service imposes; I also know something of the satisfaction it affords, giving to all who truly espouse it a better joy than anything in office or honor. In the weary prostration of months, from which I have now happily risen, the sharpest pang came out of my enforced separation from the cause which was so dear to me; and now my content is in the assurance that to this service I may dedicate the vigorous health which, through medical care and the kindly ministrations of Nature, I am permitted to expect. In this well-founded assurance, I welcome the trust which has been again conferred upon me, while I once more bespeak the candid judgment of my fellow-citizens, and once more invoke the guardianship of a benignant Providence.
I have the honor to be, fellow-citizens, with grateful regard,
Your faithful servant and Senator,
Charles Sumner.
Boston, January 22, 1857.
The following tribute, taken from contemporary newspapers, attests a feeling much above that of ordinary politics, and therefore illustrates this record.
“‘CHARLES SUMNER, OF BOSTON.’
“‘Three hundred and thirty-three members answered to their names, with the words, “CHARLES SUMNER, of Boston”; and as the Clerk responded with the same words to each vote, they rang upon the ears of the large assembly more than six hundred times during the hour occupied with calling the roll.’
“‘It is said, no sound is ever lost,—that every word uttered upon earth is echoed and reëchoed through space forever.’
“Old Massachusetts! nobly thou