“I have been present at sessions of the Senate and House of Representatives. I have had pointed out to me the most influential members of both parties, … Mr. Sumner, Massachusetts Senator, acknowledged leader of the Abolitionists, an amiable, educated man, having travelled much in France, the friend of De Tocqueville, and very well versed in our literature.”[195]
In harmony with this testimony was the sketch by Colonel Ferri-Pisani, aide-de-camp of Prince Napoleon, in his letter from Washington of August 10, 1861.
“The person with whom the Prince has formed the most sympathetic relations is Mr. Sumner, Senator of the State of Massachusetts (Boston), and declared partisan of the Abolition of Slavery. Mr. Sumner is one of the most eloquent men of the United States, a mind highly instructed, very cultivated, especially versed in French literature, which he studied in France. He was the friend of De Tocqueville, and is personally connected with a great number of our writers and thinkers. His manners are as distinguished as his intelligence. He inspires among the partisans of the South a furious hate; in return, he passes for the warmest partisan of the French alliance, and for the friend of our Legation.”[196]
These testimonies prepare the way for expressions which found utterance abroad after the speech at Worcester, and help explain the notice it received.
The London Times, always against the Union in its efforts to put down the Rebellion, said:—
“While statesmen, merchants, and bankers are laboring to carry on a suicidal war in a conservative spirit, and to spare the interests and prejudices of the foe, a more numerous class from the Atlantic to the Mississippi have no such scruple, and go to the root of the evil. Slavery, they are told by one of the most eloquent of the agitators, himself a martyr in the cause, is the original sin of the Union, the cause of every subsequent dissension, the occasion of this war, and, what is more, the strength of the wrong cause, and the weakness of the right. Mr. Sumner refers to Slavery every misery, every mishap, every difficulty of the Federal cause,—and tells listening thousands that all they do, the sacrifices they make, their taxation, their life-blood, their commercial interests, everything they have, suffer, do, or hope, is all flung into that Maelström, never to reappear. The whole American nation, with all its wealth and all its glory, is flung as a holocaust before the shrine of this hideous idol. The remedy he proclaims is to give up the weak scruple which paralyzes a righteous arm. Mr. Sumner sees in this war not merely a call to rally round a Constitution, to punish treason, and reinstate a mighty power; he sees a call to a higher level of humanity, and a sublimer doctrine. “Not Union, but Freedom,”[197] is his cry. This is the fated weapon for the decision of the contest. This alone can defeat the foe, whose strength is in Slavery.…
“Now all this we have heard before. It is a story in Mr. Sumner’s mouth, and according to him it is as old as the Declaration of Independence itself, and the first struggles of the Commonwealth. What, we have to ask, is its fresh significance at the present hour? According to Mr. Sumner, its significance is most critical. Slavery he makes out to be the very balance on which the fortunes of America now hang.…
“Every nation in the world has had to give up its pretensions at one time or another; and the Federal Government will only follow the example of the most powerful sovereigns and the wisest ministers, if it makes peace in time, before it is committed to a treble war,—with the Confederates, the British, and its own Abolitionists at home.”
The London Herald of Peace, in its opposition to the war, took pains to insist that it was not Antislavery,—forgetting that the North, even when failing to demand the abolition of Slavery, sought its limitation, and that the new Government openly declared Slavery its corner-stone. After setting forth Mr. Sumner’s “proposal to use the War Power to proclaim at once, as respects the Rebels, the emancipation of their slaves,” and that “the speech was received with many demonstrations of applause,” it dwells on the circumstances favoring the effort: that it was in Massachusetts, of all the States “the most forward in the Antislavery cause”; that “the subject was presented by one whose judgment they were most bound to honor, and whose lead they were most likely to follow,” whom it describes.