Quant à moi, j’avoue que mon indolence sur cet objet tient à la confiance intime où je suis que la liberté finira par s’établir dans l’ancien monde comme dans le nouveau, et qu’alors l’histoire de nos révolutions mettra chaque chose et chacun à sa place.—Lafayette, Mémoires, Tom. I. Avant-propos, p. v.
Go on, my friend, in your consistent and magnanimous career; and may you live to witness and enjoy the success of a cause the most truly glorious that can animate the breast of man,—that of elevating and meliorating the condition of his race.—James Madison, Letter to Lafayette, 1821: Letters and other Writings, Vol. III. pp. 237, 238.
This Address was at the invitation of the Young Men’s Republican Union of New York, before whom the speech on the Republican party had been given.[51] On the present occasion, William C. Bryant, justly famous in our literature, took the chair and introduced Mr. Sumner in the following words.
“I am glad, my friends, to see so large an audience assembled for the purpose of hearing one of our most accomplished scholars and orators discourse on a subject lying apart from the ordinary strifes and immediate interests of the day. Concerning the services rendered by Lafayette to our country, to our own Republic, in the most critical stage of its existence, there is no controversy. For them we are all grateful. For his personal character we all cherish a high veneration. And your presence here to-night in such numbers declares that there are multitudes among us who cherish and preserve a warm admiration, a generous and purifying enthusiasm, for the noble examples of self-sacrifice bequeathed to us by a generation which has passed away. Among public men, in all times and all countries, among all that class who have been actors in the events which make up the history of the world, there are few, unfortunately, who can compare with Lafayette in a course of steady, unswerving virtue. Attend, then, my friends, to the portraiture of that virtue drawn and set before you in living words by a great artist, Charles Sumner, of Boston, whom I now introduce to this assembly.” [Long continued cheering.]
The newspapers speak of the assembly as crowded and enthusiastic, in spite of stormy weather. The Herald says, “The cheering was protracted, and the utmost enthusiasm was manifested by the audience.” Even the World adds, “The lecturer was frequently and vociferously applauded, and the audience gave evidence of deep interest in his remarks.” From the report in the Herald it appears that the allusions to Slavery were received always with “applause,” while, at the remark of Lafayette attributing “the evils of France less to the madness of violence than to compromise of conscience by timid men,”[52] there was what the Herald calls “vehement and long continued applause, and waving of hats and handkerchiefs.” The temper of the audience was an illustration of prevailing sentiment.
Beside the newspaper report at the time, this address was printed at New York in a pamphlet, but from notes of reporters without revision or help from Mr. Sumner.