“To see men like Bright and Powell sit still, when Charles Sumner charged Baker’s murder on Slavery, was worth at least ten years of Antislavery privations. The Proslavery interest in the Senate is quite respectful, and does not indulge in the old-time bluster and parade.”
On the contrary, the “Editorial Correspondent” of the New York Express, writing on the day of the eulogy on Baker, gave vent to his sentiments with regard to Mr. Sumner.
“Even in the burial services of the dead he mingles his sectional hate and personal wrath.
“Such a man will never consent to a peaceful reunion of the States, nor to an equal representation of all the States in the Federal Congress. He deeply wounds the self-sacrificing, loyal Union men of the Border States and Far South; in every breath he utters, and in every speech he makes, he sets back upon the clock of advancing time the hour-hand of Peace. His presence in the Senate Chamber is a signal of protracted war, renewed sectional hate, and offensive intermeddling.…
“If Massachusetts were to-day represented in the spirit of her early Revolutionary men, or in the spirit in which so many thousands of her sons have rushed to the defence of the country, Mr. Sumner, as a long standing enemy of the Constitution and the Union, would be sent back to Boston, and there sandwiched between Slidell and Mason within the casemates of Fort Warren. These three men are each old acquaintances here, and each old enemies of the Government, the Union, and the Constitution; and the only difference between the extremes is, that the Senator from Boston remains in council here to fight the Government, and men and institutions belonging to it from its foundation, while the others fled from its service to render more available aid to those in arms against it.”
Hon. Edward G. Parker, author of “The Golden Age of American Oratory” and “Reminiscences of Rufus Choate,” wrote from Boston:—
“I thank you sincerely for a copy of your exquisite panegyrics on Bingham and Baker. I often heard Baker, and recognize at once the beautiful fidelity of your description.
“The touch of Plutarch and of Addison—both, if you will allow me to say so—are there.
“I had, before receiving this, cut out of the newspaper your portrait of Baker, and put it in a choice book devoted to great men and memorable thoughts.
“It is to me like a medallion of that true man, who, in so shining a manner, and yet so suddenly, ‘passed from the service of his country to the service of his God.’