"'There's a fount about to stream;
There's a light about to beam;
There's a warmth about to glow;
There's a flower about to blow;
There's a midnight blackness changing
Into gray:
Men of thought and men of action,
Clear the way!'"
Theodore Parker wrote to the orator, "You have planted a seed, 'out of which many and tall branches shall arise,' I hope. The people are always true to a good man who truly trusts them. You have had opportunity to see, hear, and feel the truth of that oftener than once. I think you will have enough more opportunities yet; men will look for deeds noble as the words a man speaks."
And Charles Sumner became as noble as the words he had spoken. It makes us stronger to commit ourselves before the world. We are compelled to live up to the standard of our speech, or be adjudged hypocrites.
Before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, Sumner read a brilliant paper on "White Slavery in the Barbary States," and gave an address before Amherst College on "Fame and Glory." He spoke earnestly in the Whig conventions, asking them to come out against slavery. He urged Daniel Webster, the Defender of the Constitution, to become the "Defender of Humanity," "by the side of which that earlier title shall fade into insignificance, as the Constitution, which is the work of mortal hands, dwindles by the side of man, who is created in the image of God." But the words of entreaty came too late; the Whig party did not dare take up the cause of human freedom.
In 1851, when Sumner was forty, the new era of his life came. The Free-Soil party, organized August 9, 1848, the successor of the "Liberty" party formed eight years earlier, wanted him as their leader. Would he separate from the Whigs? Yes, for he had said, "Loyalty to principle is higher than loyalty to party. The first is a heavenly sentiment from God; the other is a device of this earth.... I wish it to be understood that I belong to the party of freedom,—to that party which plants itself on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.... It is said that we shall throw away our votes, and that our opposition will fail. Fail, sir! No honest, earnest effort in a good cause ever fails. It may not be crowned with the applause of man; it may not seem to touch the goal of immediate worldly success, which is the end and aim of so much of life; but still it is not lost. It helps to strengthen the weak with new virtue, to arm the irresolute with proper energy, to animate all with devotion to duty, which in the end conquers all. Fail! Did the martyrs fail when with their precious blood they sowed the seed of the Church?... Did the three hundred Spartans fail when, in the narrow pass, they did not fear to brave the innumerable Persian hosts, whose very arrows darkened the sun? No! Overborne by numbers, crushed to earth, they have left an example which is greater far than any victory. And this is the least we can do. Our example shall be the source of triumph hereafter."
Millard Fillmore had signed the hated Fugitive Slave Bill, and Webster had made his disastrous speech of March 7, 1850, urging conformity to the demands of the bill. Sumner's hour had come. By a union of the Free-Soil and Democratic parties, he was elected to the Senate of the United States for six years, over the eloquent Robert C. Winthrop, the Whig candidate. The contest was bitter. Sumner would give no pledges, and said he would not walk across the room to secure the election. On Monday, December 1, 1851, he took his seat. Devotion to principle had gained him an exalted position.
Months went by before he could possibly obtain a hearing on the slavery question, on which issue he had been elected. Finally, the long sought opportunity came by introducing an amendment that the Fugitive Slave Bill should be repealed. He spoke for four hours as only Charles Sumner could speak. Despised by the slave-holders, they listened to his burning words. In closing, he said: "Be admonished by those words of oriental piety,—'Beware of the groans of wounded souls. Oppress not to the utmost a single heart; for a solitary sigh has power to overset a whole world.'"
Mr. Polk of Tennessee said to him: "If you should make that speech in Tennessee, you would compel me to emancipate my niggers."
The vote on the repeal stood: Yeas, four; nays, forty-seven. Alas! how many years he wrought before the repeal came.
Sumner had been heard not merely by Congress; he had been heard by two continents. Henceforward, for twenty-three years, he was to be in Congress the great leader in the cause of human freedom.