The Boston Evening Gazette was in harmony with the Advertiser.
“His appearance this year was not in accordance with the wishes of those who do not follow his lead, but regard him as one of the most irrepressible impracticables of the party.… The sentiments uttered by Mr. Sumner are opposed to the spirit of the times, to the policy of the Administration, and are detrimental to the prosperity of the cause. They are Charles Sumner’s ideas; he is responsible for them; and the Convention, by killing the resolutions offered by Rev. James Freeman Clarke, of Boston, which substantially indorsed the speech of Mr. Sumner, repudiated the Emancipation sentiments which Mr. Sumner attempted to induce the Republicans to adopt as a part of their policy. It was a most lamentable failure, and should prove a lesson to men who are so entangled in one idea that they imagine the wealth of the country and the blood of its sons are being poured out to perpetuate a party, instead of securing the safety of the Union and the Constitution.
“After reading Mr. Sumner’s speech, one can but regret that a mind possessed of such culture should give utterance to sentiments that will stimulate the flames which now threaten the destruction of the ship of state, and provoke discord among the noble men who are striving to save it. Had some unknown individual spoken the same words at this time, we doubt not many would have regarded him as a fit inmate for an insane asylum; but it is the position and antecedents of the Senator which alone shield him from the suspicion of being a proper person against whom a writ De lunatico inquirendo might be issued.… The tone of the speech and the manner in which it was delivered are the acme of arrogance.”
The Boston Journal did not differ much from the Advertiser, except in manner.
“Mr. Sumner and other radical Antislavery men, dazzled by visions of Universal Freedom, entirely overlook the insurmountable difficulties which stand in the way of immediate emancipation. The unutterable horrors of a servile insurrection do not present themselves, or they would shrink from the prospect. The economic problem of supporting four millions of human beings who have never been self-dependent is not considered. All practical considerations, in fact, are ignored by a miscalled philanthropy which is as impracticable as it is visionary, and which would lay waste the most prolific soil, and fill our land with vagrants and marauders.
“We must limit the war to the purposes so distinctly avowed by the Administration, or the sun of our national prosperity will set in darkness and gloom, to rise again, if at all, only after years of bloodshed and anarchy. Proclaim the policy of Emancipation, and all hope of a reconstruction of the Union will be crushed out. All the loyal elements in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri will be alienated at once, and every prospect of awakening the dormant loyalty in the seceded States will have passed away. It will come to this, that we must subjugate or be subjugated. The people of the South would defend their homes and their firesides to the last extremity, as we would do, should the chances of war favor them. The present generation would not see the end of such a contest, unless the North should be conquered and subdued by the aid of foreign bayonets or internal dissensions. From such a war we may well pray to be delivered.”
The Norfolk County Journal declared dissent.
“We are not prepared to indorse the doctrines to which Mr. Sumner gave utterance in his Worcester speech. They strike us as not pertinent to the present stage of the Rebellion. Though their application may become a necessity in the future, public sentiment is as yet unready to adopt and enforce them. They were especially infelicitous in being advanced at a Convention to which men of varying views of public policy had been invited, and their influence has not conduced to that harmony of political action in Massachusetts which it is desirable to bring about.”
The Springfield Republican, among many things, said:—