“I know of no words of any language adequate to convey to you the gratitude I feel in my inmost soul towards you for your efforts and final success in defeating the bill for the readmission of Louisiana as a State into the Union, with the present flagrantly unjust and proscriptive laws and Constitution. The white people of this country have been so accustomed to regard and treat us as their natural inferiors, that we dread the very thought of submitting to them the adjustment of our rights after their own are made secure. What is not gained for us now will not be obtained for a quarter of a century after peace is declared.”
Frederick Douglass, the watchful orator of his race, wrote from Rochester, New York:—
“The friends of Freedom all over the country have looked to you, and confided in you, of all men in the United States Senate, during all this terrible war. They will look to you all the more, now that peace dawns, and the final settlement of our national troubles is at hand. God grant you strength equal to your day and your duties! is my prayer and that of millions.”
In harmony with these expressions, the following resolution was adopted unanimously by the Worcester Freedom Club, and communicated to Mr. Sumner:—
“Resolved, That the ‘Worcester Freedom Club’ tenders to the Hon. Charles Sumner their gratitude as freemen, for the able manner in which he met the question for the admission of Louisiana, and for his noble defence of the ‘Equality of all men before the Law.’”
Evidently Mr. Sumner was not alone. The right of colored fellow-citizens was recognized as next in order for discussion and judgment. The Antislavery fires were flaming forth anew.