Chapter 12

“TheBoston Journalmay call it ‘ill-timed eloquence,’ but we believe that the people are rapidly coming to the conclusion that the Honorable Senator has resolutely spoken the needed truth, and has indicated the proper course for our Government to pursue, in order to put down rebellion most speedily and effectually, and secure a permanent peace and an undivided country.”TheTaunton Gazettesaid:—“This suggestive speech of the eloquent Senator is not in a strain which is just now popular. He does not sigh for the things which have passed away, but calmly fronts the demands of the future; and what he sees and declares of swift-coming events is in keeping with the sternest struggles for Liberty, and in full accordance with the irrepressible instinct which animates our armed free laborers, however the trimming politicians may denounce their declaration. Let us not speak ill of this forecast and courage. None knew better than he, that, for the time being, he was rendering a thankless service. Indeed, we venture to say that no other man holding high office in the government, or desiring to hold, will dare to second or in any way publicly approve of the vital suggestions of this address.”TheDedham Gazettewas positive for the speech, and also as to its favorable reception.“The most significant feature of the Convention was the speech of Mr. Sumner, which was received with the strongest expressions of approval by the great mass of delegates present. The fixed and earnest attention with which every word was received, and the hearty and repeated applause which greeted every allusion to the doctrine of Emancipation, proved conclusively that upon this question the people are far in advance of the Government.”TheCharlestown Advertisertestified to the reception of the speech at the Convention.“This speech by the Hon. Charles Sumner has been assailed during the last fortnight by a herd of political scribblers, none of whom, however, have the wit to refute its positions. The Republican Convention sanctioned it, on its delivery, with the most hearty applause.”The HaverhillPublisherexpressed itself with caution.“As was said, in remarking upon the Worcester Convention, Mr. Sumner furnished the sensation matter for the occasion, so it now appears; for all over the country the press is lively with comment upon it, and in every circle it is the theme of discussion. It may be well to remember that the speech of Mr. Sumner will test the spirit of his constituents, and time will show whether they will sustain this great statesman, not as a partisan, but as a moral and philosophical force, in the evidently Heaven-appointed mission of keeping the public eye fixed upon a great principle, regardless of politicians or parties.”TheNorthampton Free Presssaid:—“Charles Sumner was present at the Convention, and made one of his best speeches on Slavery and its relation to the war. It is sound in argument, and such a one as might be expected from its author. It was received with great applause; but theSpringfield Republicancalls it ill-advised and out of place.”TheTrue American, of Erie, Pennsylvania, said:—“The speech from Hon. Charles Sumner, made at Worcester, Massachusetts, on the 1st inst., and which is printed in full upon our first page, deserves the attention of every reader. It is a calm and statesmanlike argument in favor of suppressing this guilty Rebellion by removing its guilty cause. It is a clear vindication of a necessary policy. Coming from a man in his high official position, it is significant. And we believe, with a contemporary, that he will not have to wait for the verdict of posterity to justify and exalt the great truth his speech embodies. Indeed, we are confident that his word will find a response in all that is best of the North,—and not only in all that is best in quality, but strongest in numbers.”The PhiladelphiaPublic Ledgerheld the scales:—“Although Mr. Sumner, and Massachusetts at his back, are disposed to move faster than the rest of the North upon the Slavery Question, there is no doubt that whatever amount of injury, consistent with the Laws of War, inflicted on the South, will bring this Rebellion most speedily to an end will find the next Congress prepared at least to consider it. Mr. Sumner has proved very conclusively, that, as a punishment to Rebels and bad citizens, the manumission of the slaves is fully recognized by those old Roman laws which the South-Carolinians have been so fond of quoting in their own behalf. But Mr. Sumner has not proved, we think, that it would be policy to adopt at once and irrevocably so extreme a measure as to set at liberty some four millions of slaves.”Le Messager Franco-Américain, a French journal at New York, thus balanced the account:—“Mr. Charles Sumner, the eloquent Senator of Massachusetts, is indefatigable in his devotion to the cause of Free Labor. Always in the breach with the ardor of a true patriot and of a friend of Liberty, he contends without cessation for the triumph of those great principles of Right and Justice consecrated by the National Constitution.… Mr. Sumner is a light of the Antislavery army. He sees the cause of right and of country in danger. As a vigilant sentinel, he gives the signal of alarm. Let the civil war continue, and the cry of Emancipation by Mr. Sumner will find powerful echoes in the Northern States. The conservative and honest population at the South should reflect upon this.”Crossing the ocean, the same differences appear, with allusions to the character of the war. Here was evident disposition to recognize in Mr. Sumner exceptional earnestness against Slavery, while the country was worse than indifferent. This view was presented by no less a person than the Earl of Shaftesbury, in a speech at a public meeting, reported in the LondonTimes, July 25, 1861, where he said:—“There had, however, been no great feeling in the country for either one or the other of the parties; for the country did not believe in the sincerity of either. The North had conceded everything to Slavery that it could possibly demand; so the South had certainly no cause for rebellion. But in the struggle they were entering on, the North never thought of putting an end to Slavery; for,if such a declaration had been made, they would have had the sympathy of every man in England: he was almost afraid to say how far he thought that sympathy would have gone.… There was no honest feeling on the subject of Slavery in America, except among the Abolitionistsheaded by that great and good man, Charles Sumner.”Similar expressions of good-will to Mr. Sumner had appeared in France. Besides allusions in the writings of M. Laboulaye and M. Cochin, there was a contemporary notice in a letter from Washington, of August 12, 1861, in theOpinion Nationaleof Paris, evidently by a gentleman who accompanied Prince Napoleon on his summer tour in the United States.“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 LondonTimes, 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 haveno 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 LondonHerald 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.“Mr. Sumner is a man of whom Massachusetts might well be proud. His great abilities, his lofty spirit, his spotless public life, mark him as a man standing apart, not to be confounded with the crowd of selfish politicians that besiege the avenues of power in America. He has stood forward in evil days to encounter with an undaunted mien the obloquy and the peril attaching to the avowal of thorough Antislavery principles, and has been not the champion merely, but the martyr of the cause.”After this presentation, it goes on to ask, “Well, and what was the reception which Mr. Sumner’s proposal met from the Republican Convention of the State of Massachusetts?” It finds an answer in the refusal to act on the resolutions of Mr. Clarke, and then says:—“After all this, we sincerely hope we shall hear no more of this war as a war for the liberation of the slave, as a ‘sublime uprising’ of the men of the North for the cause of Human Freedom.”The LondonPost, which did not sympathize with the National cause, said:—“If the Federal Government are in want of anex partedefender, they will certainly find one in Mr. Charles Sumner. When he tells the Republican State Convention at Worcester, that Rebellion never assumed such a front since Satan made war upon the Almighty, he used first the hyperbolical language which the most abject courtier of an absolute monarch in the Middle Ages could have suggested in condemnation of some insurrection that had broken out in one of his provinces.…Mr. Sumner narrows the question now dividing the North and South distinctly into a war of Slavery.Hence he appeals to European sympathies in behalf of the North. Now this view is in great part true, yet it is not wholly true.… It is not simply in respect of Slavery, as Mr. Sumner represents it, that the South differs from the North. The leading men of the South were commonly of different extraction from the leading men of the North. That difference has developed a broad distinction in social habits, in political ideas, in consent to authority, and in other characteristics which constitute the idiosyncrasy of a nation.… We cannot, therefore, agree with Mr. Sumner, that the question is essentially and wholly a slave question, any more than we can regard the secession as a rebellion against quasi-Divine authority.”But the National cause was not without defenders abroad, nor the speech without sympathy.The LondonDaily News, in an elaborate leader, with an abstract of the speech, said:—“The most remarkable circumstance which we have yet chronicled is the speech of Mr. Charles Sumner in defence of the war.… We regard Mr. Sumner’s speech as most important in every point of view. It is thebest answer which has been yet made on American ground to those who complain that hitherto the cause of the North has not met with the sympathy it deserved in Britain. But passing this, it shows to the Northerners themselves what it is that paralyzes their arms, what it is that places them so generally on the defensive and prevents their success. Let Mr. Sumner’s policy be adopted, and it would not only strike terror into the hearts of the Rebels, but would animate the masses of volunteers in the North with a ‘spirit which would render them still more formidable.’”A London commercial paper,The Floating Cargoes Evening List, published a considerable extract, with a line from the speech as its caption, “Look at the war as you will, and you always see Slavery,” and the following notice:—“The present American war exercises so powerful an influence upon commercial affairs in general, that the expression of an opinion on this subject by one of the most eminent American statesmen deserves special notice.”The LondonMorning Starthus declared its sympathy:—“The speech delivered by the Hon. Charles Sumner, at the Republican Convention at Worcester, in Massachusetts, is one of the most significant events of the American crisis.… In vigorous and eloquent words Mr. Sumner has told the plain truths which we have frequently reiterated, and there was not heard even the whisper of a dissentient voice.[198]He pointed out that Slavery is the great enemy to the preservation of the Union, and that its eradication would bring the war at once to a close.… Emancipation must come, and its calm concession by an act of executive power can alone prevent its ultimate consummation by red-handed insurrection. The enthusiastic assent which was evoked by Mr. Sumner’s noble words—words worthy alike of the man and of his theme—is a cheering foretaste of the triumph which cannot be long deferred.”In the English island of Jersey, one of the Channel Isles, on the coast of France, theIndependent and Daily Telegraphpublished the speech at length, with an article entitled “The Orator of Freedom,” where it said:—“As a general rule, even those who like to listen to good speeches do not care to read long speeches, good or bad. But even such persons need not our recommendation to give their attention to the graceful periods and electrifying appeals of, probably, the most accomplished of American speakers,—perhaps we might justly say the foremost orator speaking the Anglo-Saxon tongue; for, rivalling Gladstone in genius, he more than rivals the glory of England’s House of Commons by that holy earnestness which impartsto eloquence its chief effect, and which naturally is the product of circumstances rather than of individual will.… The principles of the Massachusetts Senator command our thorough adhesion, as his extraordinary talents challenge our admiration, and his courageous consistency carries with it our respect. But, although we can make every allowance for President Lincoln and his ministers, and those Massachusetts men who hesitate to invoke the sword of Spartacus, still, we repeat, all our sympathies are with Mr. Sumner, and the cause of which he is the champion, and the policy of which he is the exponent.… Although grammarians will not allow the comparative and superlative of ‘right,’ and know nothing of ‘righter’ and ‘rightest,’ we must nevertheless affirm that General Butler was right, General Fremont more right, and that Senator Sumner is most right.”Crossing to the Continent, the controversy continues.ThePrécurseurof Antwerp, in Belgium, said:—“Mr. Charles Sumner has pronounced very energetically in favor of the Abolition of Slavery, and demanded, with great strength of expression and power of argument, the introduction of this question into the conflict. He demanded especially, that the Executive Power should pronounce in favor of Immediate Abolition by a declaration, perfectly legal according to him, that all slaves coming within the lines of the Federal [National] army should be free. This declaration seems to him at the same time constitutional and justified by precedents. The Executive Power has this right in virtue of Martial Law. The most significant fact, and which augurs the definitive solution of the question, is, that the speech was received with great enthusiasm by the audience; and since it presents in effect the most rapid solution of a burdensome war, it becomes now more than probable that the pressure of public opinion will not be slow in making itself felt by the Federal Government.”ThePays, at Paris, an Imperialist journal, said:—“It appears that in the State of Massachusetts public views are divided as to the means to be employed for joining the pieces of the American Union. The most violent, represented by Senator Sumner, preach war to the knife, and the emancipation of the blacks. They propose to give liberty to all the slaves in the Union, with indemnities to loyalists only. Thus, then, if we are to believe Senator Sumner, the surest way of establishing peace in North America will be to let loose several millions of blacks, and incite them to murder and incendiarism.”On the other hand, in France was the testimony of Count Agénor de Gasparin, noble friend of the national cause, who, in a powerful work, cited the speech at Worcester, and adopted its conclusion,[199]—also of M. Édouard Laboulaye, who, at a later day, when presidingover the Antislavery Conference at Paris, surrounded by the Abolitionists of all countries, paid a flattering tribute to Mr. Sumner, winding up with allusion to this speech:—“Charles Sumner, a man who in his turn took up this cause and defended it with the most admirable eloquence, which, as you probably all know, was the occasion of his being nearly killed in his place in the Senate,—an act for which the assassin was rewarded by his Southern friends. They gave him a cane, gold-mounted, bearing the inscription, ‘Hit him again.’ Mr. Sumner came to France, and we made his acquaintance at that time. The object of his journey was the reëstablishment of his health,—and he recovered it; for he it was, who, during the whole of the war, was the real adviser of America: he felt, and he said, more boldly than any one, that the war could be terminated only by the Abolition of Slavery.”[200]The position accorded to Mr. Sumner in Europe, beginning especially with this speech, was attested at a still later day in an article by M. Michel Chevalier, a Senator of France under the Empire, renowned for various writings, especially in Political Economy. In a sympathetic review of the address on the “Duel between France and Germany,” this authority thus expresses himself:—“The opinion embodied in the writing which I am about to analyze, and which is a mixture of sympathetic words and of severe counsels for France, is not that of one or many assemblies, of one or many popular meetings, of one group or of many groups of journals; it is that of one man. But this man is one of the most distinguished citizens of his country; he has exercised a supreme influence in the events of which the great Republic has been the theatre since the moment when, in 1861, the South declared that it broke the Union, and at the mouth of the cannon seized Fort Sumter, situated in the harbor of Charleston. Mr. Charles Sumner has not figured on the battle-field; he was elsewhere, in the Senate of the United States, from which place, it can be said, he was the political director of the conflict.… But the thought of extirpating Slavery, of obliging the Slave States to modify their internal system so as to render impossible the reëstablishment of servitude under another name, the idea of assimilating by law the black and mulatto with the white,—assimilation to which until then their habits were as repugnant as their laws,—these have belonged to Mr. Charles Sumner more than to any other person, and were the basis of a plan which has triumphed by the indomitable will and the ever-ready eloquence of this statesman. It can therefore be said of Mr. Charles Sumner, that he is in himself a public opinion.”[201]CORRESPONDENCE.As after the speech on the Barbarism of Slavery, so now, letters came with volunteer testimony. Beyond their interest as tokens of strong and wide-spread sympathy with Mr. Sumner, they have historic value as illustrations of the intense Antislavery sentiment destined so soon to triumph. Sometimes they are directly responsive to the press, especially in the severity of its criticism on the speech. Here, as before, Abolitionists took the lead.Wendell Phillips thus earnestly placed himself by the side of his friend:—“I both thank and congratulate you most heartily on your great speech, for some reasons theboldesteven you ever made,—the first statesmanlike word worthy of the hour from any one in a high civil position,—fit response from Statesmanship to War,—showing the people the reasons and purpose of Fremont’s proclamation, and giving it more breadth and a nobler basis.“All agree it was a most decided success,—taking the Convention wholly off its feet with enthusiasm; and we absent ones may measure the strength of the blow from the rebound,—witnessPost,Courier,Journal, and, basest of all,Advertiser, of course.…“Never fear but that the masses, the hearts, are all with you,—and you’ll see your enemies at your footstool, as you so often have already.”And in another letter:—“I could not take the hazard of advising you to make it, though I told you in your circumstances I should; but now you’ve done it, I can say it waswiseandwell,—your duty to the country, to the hour, yourself, the slave,—to your fame as a statesman, and your duty as leader.”Lewis Tappan, the Abolitionist, wrote from New York:—“‘Union and Peace,—how they shall be restored.’ You have shown the way, and the only way. We may have peace on other terms, but no unionandpeace. The Free States must choose between peace, temporary peace, renewed war, and peace founded upon righteousness, justice, and equity.”Hon. Amasa Walker, the able writer on Political Economy, afterwards Representative in Congress, wrote from North Brookfield:—“You never made a nobler, braver, or more opportune utterance than at Worcester on the first instant. But all Hunkerdom is down upon you for it, as I expected. No matter,—the people, I trust in God, will sustain you. Your words meet a most hearty response in the hearts of all true men, you may rest assured. If your positions are not sustained by the country, the great contest now going on will end in failure, and ought to end so.”David Lee Child, the sincere and lifelong Abolitionist, once a journalist and lawyer, and always a writer, wrote for himself and his wife from Wayland, Massachusetts:—“I was, and my wife was, refreshed and strengthened by your voice from Worcester. When you gave us the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ the grandest, the most comprehensive, complete, compact, and conclusive of all your noble utterances against ‘the sum of all villanies,’ I did not write, though never before so much moved to do so. We read it the night that it reached us, and were so exalted by it that we sat up two hours beyond our time, talking about it and rejoicing over it. The foes of justice and freedom accuse you of accelerating the crisis and precipitating civil war by that speech. I think they are right for once. The revived victim of frustrate assassins, the calm and undaunted bearing, the inflexible purpose, the overwhelming force of facts, argument, and illustration, struck more terror to the soul of Richard than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers armed in proof.“I fully intended to address you as soon as the overflow of my heart became somewhat proportionate to the capacity of the pen, and to repeat that quotation from Tully which Junius aptly uses, though less aptly than it applied then: ‘Quod si quis existimat me aut voluntate esse mutata, aut debilitata virtute, autanimofracto, vehementer errat.’[202]But my dear wife wrote you our joint offering of admiration and gratitude better than I could do it for myself.”Hon. S. E. Sewall, the able lawyer and devoted Abolitionist, whose sympathy with Mr. Sumner had been constant, wrote from Boston:—“As I have not time to call on you just now, I cannot forbear writing, merely to say how delighted I am with your speech at Worcester. I see it has roused a good deal of howling among our wretched editors. But this does not convince me that your position is wrong, or that it will not be sustained by the country. Almost every one whom I see thinks as I do about your speech, and regards it as eloquent, statesmanlike, and timely. I trust Congress will think as you do, and act accordingly.”George Livermore, who so often wrote to Mr. Sumner with entire sympathy, and soon afterwards contributed an invaluable service to the African race,[203]expressed his present anxiety.“I did hope that in this terrible day of our country’s trial there would be found sufficient patriotism with those sent to Worcester to cast asideall partyconsiderations and all disturbing differences, and unite,before it is too late, in trying to save the Government and the Union.… I trembled when I heard that you had been invited to speak, and I wept when I read your speech.“Unless there is a united North, united on the basis of the Constitution as it is, we are doomed to defeat.”Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, at the time Consul General at Montreal, wrote from that city:—“Thanks for your speech at Worcester. I want you to place the same question before the Senate.”Hon. Carl Schurz, at the time Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Spain, wrote from Madrid:—“First let me thank you for the glorious speech you have delivered before the Massachusetts Convention. I agree with you on every point, and expect shortly to fight by your side.”William S. Thayer, a writer of admirable sense, and Consul General at Alexandria in Egypt, wrote:—“Well, after all, your Cassandra-like prophecies as to the course of public affairs have come true to the letter. Time will show whether your declaration at the Massachusetts Convention, that without Emancipation our war will be a vain masquerade of battles, will not also be realized. At this distance from home I do not feel qualified to dogmatize; but we do not appear as yet to have struck our opponents in a vital part.”Hon. Montgomery Blair, Postmaster General, wrote from Washington:—“Your speech is noble, beautiful, classical, sensible. I would have timed it differently; but I will take it now, rather than lose it.”Hon. Hiram Barney, Collector of New York, wrote:—“I was gratified with it. You indicate the proper course for the Government to take in this war with Slavery. It is the real Rebel, and Providence has brought us at length into direct conflict with it. We can destroy it without violating any right. Now is our opportunity, and I pray God we may have the wisdom and the intrepidity to end the war humanely and economically by the speedy destruction of the enemy, Slavery. Peace by Emancipation is accomplishing a good end by good means. How easily will the President make his administration the most eventful and glorious in American history!”Hon. Thomas Dawes Eliot, Representative in Congress, pure in life, and always against Slavery, wrote from New Bedford:—“If the party who have the responsible conduct of our war do not avail themselves of the power which the Law of Nations gives to them, whereby to strengthen themselves and defeat the Rebels, we shall find the party opposed to them will advocate Emancipation as a party issue. And when the time comes, as it must, that the South shall realize their own inevitable defeat, and shall see the alternative of submission or Emancipation, they will themselves initiate Freedom and secure Europe, unless before them we shall have acted.”Hon. E. G. Spaulding, the eminent Representative in Congress, and a leading member of the Committee of Ways and Means, wrote from Buffalo:—“Our people are earnestly discussing the subject of Immediate Emancipation, and I desire to see the views of one who has so thoroughly considered this question. Nearly all our people have come to the conclusion, that, whenever it is necessary to crush out the Rebellion to abolish Slavery, then the Government must abolish it.”Hon. Robert C. Pitman, afterwards of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, wrote from New Bedford:—“Permit me to thank you cordially for the service rendered by you to our cause, on Tuesday, at Worcester. Ideas must reinforce our arms, or we shall neither deserve nor win a victory.”Epes Sargent, journalist, another and early friend, wrote from Boston:—“I do not think you can be more than two months in advance of the public sentiment of the North, in your speech. I read it with great satisfaction, and it was not till I got down town among the politicians that I realized what imprudent things you had been saying.”Hon. Daniel W. Alvord, who had coöperated with Mr. Sumner before, wrote from Greenfield, Massachusetts:—“I thank you for the right word uttered at the right time in your Worcester speech. I should not deem it necessary to say this, as you could hardly fail to know that such a speech would meet my hearty approbation, but for the attacks made upon you by theSpringfield Republican. Be assured that theRepublicanby no means reflects the feelings or the opinions of the people of the western counties. The thorough, hearty Republicans, who in the northwest, if not in the southwest, constitute a great majority, cordially indorse the reasoning and positions of the speech.”Hon. John D. Baldwin, journalist, afterwards Representative in Congress, and author of the work entitled “Pre-Historic Nations,” wrotefrom Worcester:—“What a wave of Hunkerism has flooded Massachusetts since the State Convention, reaching up to the ceiling of nearly every editorial sanctum! But the ebb-tide must come.”Hon. James H. Morton, the magistrate, wrote from Springfield, Massachusetts:—“I cannot refrain from expressing the satisfaction and pleasure I derived from the perusal of your Worcester speech. In my opinion it expressed the sentiment of a very large majority of the citizens of Massachusetts, and though in advance of the sentiment of the whole country, still, if I can read the signs of the times, our Government, if it has not already reached, is fast approaching, the doctrines there enunciated by you. It seems to me they must be adopted in their length and breadth.”A writer, admired as “Gail Hamilton,” wrote from Hamilton, Massachusetts:—“I glory in that speech. It is logic, and sagacity, and morality. Let them maul it. To that complexion must they come at last, and perhaps before. Strange that people will have so much faith in shilly-shally! Strange they will not see that honesty is the best policy, as well as the best religion! But never mind. Do you lead the van.”Rev. John Weiss, the eloquent preacher, and biographer of Theodore Parker, wrote from Milton:—“I am surprised and disappointed at the temper shown by the Republicans. Before the Worcester Convention I was ready to declare that the people were only waiting to have the word Emancipation strongly pronounced to repeat it with the aggrandizement of a hundred thousand votes. I am deeply pained to see how the newspapers receive your declarations. They thinly veil a spirit which is ready at the first opportunity to forget the Past, and to sacrifice its living representatives,—the men who alone preserve the glorious Antislavery idea, and whose prophecies can alone secure the Future.… ‘Cry aloud, and spare not.’ Reiterate more flatly and unsparingly, that the war must destroy the evil which engendered it. Give the bullets their billet, and the bayonets something to think about, and lend them a manifesto of Freedom to punctuate. What a Congress will next winter’s be! Compromise will seek to make War its missionary.”Orestes A. Brownson, Catholic thinker and writer, wrote from Elizabeth, New Jersey:—“I have re-read your speech at Worcester, and I’m even better pleased with it than I was at the first reading. You have struck the right chord, as the manner in which my own article has been received sufficiently indicates. Our venerable President and his rhetorical adviser, whatever their timidity, or their reluctance, or attachment to the ‘Rule of Three,’ must come to the policy you recommend. It is clear to me that it is impossible to save both the integrity of the Nation and Southern Slavery, and the great question before us now is, whether we shall sacrifice the Nation to Slavery, or Slavery to the Nation. This is the issue before the people, and this issue we must meet.”Rev. R. S. Storrs, the eminent Congregational divine, wrote from Braintree, Massachusetts:—“Your admirable speech before the Worcester Convention ought to have been sooner acknowledged, with the fervent gratitude of my heart, to Heaven and you, for its delivery. The spirit that condemns its argument or author is either the spirit of blind infatuation, or of treachery as foul as marks the Southern Confederates themselves. It surprises and grieves me thatRepublicanswince and scold at thejustlashing given to the grand conspirator against Liberty and Religion,—for in this contest they are identical. The timeserving policy of multitudes who have hitherto acted with us, and, as it seems to me, of the Administration itself, is revolting, and puts far away the day of peace and prosperity.”Rev. Francis LeBaron, afterwards of Ohio, earnest against Slavery, wrote from Dighton, Massachusetts:—“Let me take this opportunity to thank you most heartily for your Worcester speech, and for your Boston lecture. Such noble words dwarf other men’s actions, and make me glad that the feeling of hero-worship is still strong at my heart. I can see honor and victory and glory and permanence on no other path than that by which you would lead the nation. If you will touch men’s hearts so nobly, you must not be surprised that they leap toward you; and when men move my deepest respect and admiration, I must tell them so.”Rev. Moncure D. Conway, the Reformer, so admirable with his pen, wrote from Cincinnati:—“Allow me to thank you for the exquisite presentation of the law and the truth in your Worcester speech, which I read in theTribune, to the million of readers guarantied it there, and the million others by the Boston press. I shall secure a large circulation in this city’s press. It is a perfect code for the hour.”Rev. Rufus P. Stebbins, who sympathized so strongly with the speech on the Barbarism of Slavery, wrote now from Woburn, Massachusetts:—“Accept a ‘thousand thanks’ for your speech at Worcester. It was a calm, solid, irresistible word. Adoption or no adoption by that Convention was of little consequence. Perhapsdelaybysuchbodies is wise; butthe people are coming, and the hour is at hand.”Rev. Elnathan Davis, the friend of Peace, wrote from Fitchburg:—“That the position taken in your speech is true I believe the judgment of Massachusetts and the country bears full testimony to-day; and that it is taken in due season I think the veryhowlof a Hunker political press clearly testifies. God give you strength forthisbattle, and, amidst the shifting experiences of the Government, and above ‘the confused noise of the warrior,’ make your word ‘On to Freedom’ clearly and widely heard by our countrymen.”Rev. Moses Thacher, the venerable clergyman, formerly of Massachusetts, wrote from Fort Covington, New York:—“God bless you!Your Worcester speech of the 1st inst. is invaluable. It states thecause, theissue, and theremedyof the war.”Rev. W. H. Cudworth, chaplain in the army, in a letter from Hooker’s Brigade, Camp Union, wrote:—“If I bore you, pardon me,—but, sympathizing most heartily in your uncompromising hostility to Slavery, and yet placed by the laws in an embarrassing, if not helpless position, what can I do, in the way of preventing the rendition of fugitives? For instance, one was hidden in our regimental barn. I knew and encouraged it, intending to trot him off, if a favorable chance offered. The owner came, but could not accomplish anything. He came next day with a United States warrant and the Provost Marshal. It wrung my heart, but what could I do?… Meantime let me thank you, as a servant of God and in the name of my brother man, for your Worcester speech, which I have just read, for your magnificent broadside called the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ and for all your efforts to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free.”Hon. Charles W. Slack, connected with the press, and always Antislavery Republican, wrote from Boston:—“Whether speaking for others or myself individually, I only express a general acknowledgment among all Liberty-loving men, when I say that to you preëminently is assigned the responsible, yet honorable, task of indicating the advance of public sentiment upon the living, overtopping, gigantic question of the day. I thank God daily that we have so earnest, steadfast, and persistent an exponent in the Senate Chamber. May you, then, be delivered and preserved from all harm for even greater achievements!”John P. Jewett, bookseller, original publisher ofUncle Tom’s Cabin, wrote from Boston:—“I am more than provoked with the unmitigated flunkeyism of the Boston —— and —— in their criticisms of your manly and excellent speech at Worcester. Posterity will do you justice, even if the sneaking toadyism of the day refuse it to you. I cannot refrain from writing you a word of sympathy, although perhaps you do not feel the need of it. Rest assured, my noble friend, that God and all truly great and good men are with you, therefore you have nothing to fear from the malice of cowardly time-servers.”William Kenrick, the horticulturist, wrote from Newton, Massachusetts:—

TheTaunton Gazettesaid:—

“This suggestive speech of the eloquent Senator is not in a strain which is just now popular. He does not sigh for the things which have passed away, but calmly fronts the demands of the future; and what he sees and declares of swift-coming events is in keeping with the sternest struggles for Liberty, and in full accordance with the irrepressible instinct which animates our armed free laborers, however the trimming politicians may denounce their declaration. Let us not speak ill of this forecast and courage. None knew better than he, that, for the time being, he was rendering a thankless service. Indeed, we venture to say that no other man holding high office in the government, or desiring to hold, will dare to second or in any way publicly approve of the vital suggestions of this address.”

TheDedham Gazettewas positive for the speech, and also as to its favorable reception.

“The most significant feature of the Convention was the speech of Mr. Sumner, which was received with the strongest expressions of approval by the great mass of delegates present. The fixed and earnest attention with which every word was received, and the hearty and repeated applause which greeted every allusion to the doctrine of Emancipation, proved conclusively that upon this question the people are far in advance of the Government.”

TheCharlestown Advertisertestified to the reception of the speech at the Convention.

“This speech by the Hon. Charles Sumner has been assailed during the last fortnight by a herd of political scribblers, none of whom, however, have the wit to refute its positions. The Republican Convention sanctioned it, on its delivery, with the most hearty applause.”

The HaverhillPublisherexpressed itself with caution.

“As was said, in remarking upon the Worcester Convention, Mr. Sumner furnished the sensation matter for the occasion, so it now appears; for all over the country the press is lively with comment upon it, and in every circle it is the theme of discussion. It may be well to remember that the speech of Mr. Sumner will test the spirit of his constituents, and time will show whether they will sustain this great statesman, not as a partisan, but as a moral and philosophical force, in the evidently Heaven-appointed mission of keeping the public eye fixed upon a great principle, regardless of politicians or parties.”

TheNorthampton Free Presssaid:—

“Charles Sumner was present at the Convention, and made one of his best speeches on Slavery and its relation to the war. It is sound in argument, and such a one as might be expected from its author. It was received with great applause; but theSpringfield Republicancalls it ill-advised and out of place.”

TheTrue American, of Erie, Pennsylvania, said:—

“The speech from Hon. Charles Sumner, made at Worcester, Massachusetts, on the 1st inst., and which is printed in full upon our first page, deserves the attention of every reader. It is a calm and statesmanlike argument in favor of suppressing this guilty Rebellion by removing its guilty cause. It is a clear vindication of a necessary policy. Coming from a man in his high official position, it is significant. And we believe, with a contemporary, that he will not have to wait for the verdict of posterity to justify and exalt the great truth his speech embodies. Indeed, we are confident that his word will find a response in all that is best of the North,—and not only in all that is best in quality, but strongest in numbers.”

The PhiladelphiaPublic Ledgerheld the scales:—

“Although Mr. Sumner, and Massachusetts at his back, are disposed to move faster than the rest of the North upon the Slavery Question, there is no doubt that whatever amount of injury, consistent with the Laws of War, inflicted on the South, will bring this Rebellion most speedily to an end will find the next Congress prepared at least to consider it. Mr. Sumner has proved very conclusively, that, as a punishment to Rebels and bad citizens, the manumission of the slaves is fully recognized by those old Roman laws which the South-Carolinians have been so fond of quoting in their own behalf. But Mr. Sumner has not proved, we think, that it would be policy to adopt at once and irrevocably so extreme a measure as to set at liberty some four millions of slaves.”

Le Messager Franco-Américain, a French journal at New York, thus balanced the account:—

“Mr. Charles Sumner, the eloquent Senator of Massachusetts, is indefatigable in his devotion to the cause of Free Labor. Always in the breach with the ardor of a true patriot and of a friend of Liberty, he contends without cessation for the triumph of those great principles of Right and Justice consecrated by the National Constitution.… Mr. Sumner is a light of the Antislavery army. He sees the cause of right and of country in danger. As a vigilant sentinel, he gives the signal of alarm. Let the civil war continue, and the cry of Emancipation by Mr. Sumner will find powerful echoes in the Northern States. The conservative and honest population at the South should reflect upon this.”

Crossing the ocean, the same differences appear, with allusions to the character of the war. Here was evident disposition to recognize in Mr. Sumner exceptional earnestness against Slavery, while the country was worse than indifferent. This view was presented by no less a person than the Earl of Shaftesbury, in a speech at a public meeting, reported in the LondonTimes, July 25, 1861, where he said:—

“There had, however, been no great feeling in the country for either one or the other of the parties; for the country did not believe in the sincerity of either. The North had conceded everything to Slavery that it could possibly demand; so the South had certainly no cause for rebellion. But in the struggle they were entering on, the North never thought of putting an end to Slavery; for,if such a declaration had been made, they would have had the sympathy of every man in England: he was almost afraid to say how far he thought that sympathy would have gone.… There was no honest feeling on the subject of Slavery in America, except among the Abolitionistsheaded by that great and good man, Charles Sumner.”

Similar expressions of good-will to Mr. Sumner had appeared in France. Besides allusions in the writings of M. Laboulaye and M. Cochin, there was a contemporary notice in a letter from Washington, of August 12, 1861, in theOpinion Nationaleof Paris, evidently by a gentleman who accompanied Prince Napoleon on his summer tour in the United States.

“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 LondonTimes, 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 haveno 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.”

“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 LondonHerald 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.

“Mr. Sumner is a man of whom Massachusetts might well be proud. His great abilities, his lofty spirit, his spotless public life, mark him as a man standing apart, not to be confounded with the crowd of selfish politicians that besiege the avenues of power in America. He has stood forward in evil days to encounter with an undaunted mien the obloquy and the peril attaching to the avowal of thorough Antislavery principles, and has been not the champion merely, but the martyr of the cause.”

After this presentation, it goes on to ask, “Well, and what was the reception which Mr. Sumner’s proposal met from the Republican Convention of the State of Massachusetts?” It finds an answer in the refusal to act on the resolutions of Mr. Clarke, and then says:—

“After all this, we sincerely hope we shall hear no more of this war as a war for the liberation of the slave, as a ‘sublime uprising’ of the men of the North for the cause of Human Freedom.”

The LondonPost, which did not sympathize with the National cause, said:—

“If the Federal Government are in want of anex partedefender, they will certainly find one in Mr. Charles Sumner. When he tells the Republican State Convention at Worcester, that Rebellion never assumed such a front since Satan made war upon the Almighty, he used first the hyperbolical language which the most abject courtier of an absolute monarch in the Middle Ages could have suggested in condemnation of some insurrection that had broken out in one of his provinces.…Mr. Sumner narrows the question now dividing the North and South distinctly into a war of Slavery.Hence he appeals to European sympathies in behalf of the North. Now this view is in great part true, yet it is not wholly true.… It is not simply in respect of Slavery, as Mr. Sumner represents it, that the South differs from the North. The leading men of the South were commonly of different extraction from the leading men of the North. That difference has developed a broad distinction in social habits, in political ideas, in consent to authority, and in other characteristics which constitute the idiosyncrasy of a nation.… We cannot, therefore, agree with Mr. Sumner, that the question is essentially and wholly a slave question, any more than we can regard the secession as a rebellion against quasi-Divine authority.”

But the National cause was not without defenders abroad, nor the speech without sympathy.

The LondonDaily News, in an elaborate leader, with an abstract of the speech, said:—

“The most remarkable circumstance which we have yet chronicled is the speech of Mr. Charles Sumner in defence of the war.… We regard Mr. Sumner’s speech as most important in every point of view. It is thebest answer which has been yet made on American ground to those who complain that hitherto the cause of the North has not met with the sympathy it deserved in Britain. But passing this, it shows to the Northerners themselves what it is that paralyzes their arms, what it is that places them so generally on the defensive and prevents their success. Let Mr. Sumner’s policy be adopted, and it would not only strike terror into the hearts of the Rebels, but would animate the masses of volunteers in the North with a ‘spirit which would render them still more formidable.’”

A London commercial paper,The Floating Cargoes Evening List, published a considerable extract, with a line from the speech as its caption, “Look at the war as you will, and you always see Slavery,” and the following notice:—

“The present American war exercises so powerful an influence upon commercial affairs in general, that the expression of an opinion on this subject by one of the most eminent American statesmen deserves special notice.”

The LondonMorning Starthus declared its sympathy:—

“The speech delivered by the Hon. Charles Sumner, at the Republican Convention at Worcester, in Massachusetts, is one of the most significant events of the American crisis.… In vigorous and eloquent words Mr. Sumner has told the plain truths which we have frequently reiterated, and there was not heard even the whisper of a dissentient voice.[198]He pointed out that Slavery is the great enemy to the preservation of the Union, and that its eradication would bring the war at once to a close.… Emancipation must come, and its calm concession by an act of executive power can alone prevent its ultimate consummation by red-handed insurrection. The enthusiastic assent which was evoked by Mr. Sumner’s noble words—words worthy alike of the man and of his theme—is a cheering foretaste of the triumph which cannot be long deferred.”

In the English island of Jersey, one of the Channel Isles, on the coast of France, theIndependent and Daily Telegraphpublished the speech at length, with an article entitled “The Orator of Freedom,” where it said:—

“As a general rule, even those who like to listen to good speeches do not care to read long speeches, good or bad. But even such persons need not our recommendation to give their attention to the graceful periods and electrifying appeals of, probably, the most accomplished of American speakers,—perhaps we might justly say the foremost orator speaking the Anglo-Saxon tongue; for, rivalling Gladstone in genius, he more than rivals the glory of England’s House of Commons by that holy earnestness which impartsto eloquence its chief effect, and which naturally is the product of circumstances rather than of individual will.… The principles of the Massachusetts Senator command our thorough adhesion, as his extraordinary talents challenge our admiration, and his courageous consistency carries with it our respect. But, although we can make every allowance for President Lincoln and his ministers, and those Massachusetts men who hesitate to invoke the sword of Spartacus, still, we repeat, all our sympathies are with Mr. Sumner, and the cause of which he is the champion, and the policy of which he is the exponent.… Although grammarians will not allow the comparative and superlative of ‘right,’ and know nothing of ‘righter’ and ‘rightest,’ we must nevertheless affirm that General Butler was right, General Fremont more right, and that Senator Sumner is most right.”

Crossing to the Continent, the controversy continues.

ThePrécurseurof Antwerp, in Belgium, said:—

“Mr. Charles Sumner has pronounced very energetically in favor of the Abolition of Slavery, and demanded, with great strength of expression and power of argument, the introduction of this question into the conflict. He demanded especially, that the Executive Power should pronounce in favor of Immediate Abolition by a declaration, perfectly legal according to him, that all slaves coming within the lines of the Federal [National] army should be free. This declaration seems to him at the same time constitutional and justified by precedents. The Executive Power has this right in virtue of Martial Law. The most significant fact, and which augurs the definitive solution of the question, is, that the speech was received with great enthusiasm by the audience; and since it presents in effect the most rapid solution of a burdensome war, it becomes now more than probable that the pressure of public opinion will not be slow in making itself felt by the Federal Government.”

ThePays, at Paris, an Imperialist journal, said:—

“It appears that in the State of Massachusetts public views are divided as to the means to be employed for joining the pieces of the American Union. The most violent, represented by Senator Sumner, preach war to the knife, and the emancipation of the blacks. They propose to give liberty to all the slaves in the Union, with indemnities to loyalists only. Thus, then, if we are to believe Senator Sumner, the surest way of establishing peace in North America will be to let loose several millions of blacks, and incite them to murder and incendiarism.”

On the other hand, in France was the testimony of Count Agénor de Gasparin, noble friend of the national cause, who, in a powerful work, cited the speech at Worcester, and adopted its conclusion,[199]—also of M. Édouard Laboulaye, who, at a later day, when presidingover the Antislavery Conference at Paris, surrounded by the Abolitionists of all countries, paid a flattering tribute to Mr. Sumner, winding up with allusion to this speech:—

“Charles Sumner, a man who in his turn took up this cause and defended it with the most admirable eloquence, which, as you probably all know, was the occasion of his being nearly killed in his place in the Senate,—an act for which the assassin was rewarded by his Southern friends. They gave him a cane, gold-mounted, bearing the inscription, ‘Hit him again.’ Mr. Sumner came to France, and we made his acquaintance at that time. The object of his journey was the reëstablishment of his health,—and he recovered it; for he it was, who, during the whole of the war, was the real adviser of America: he felt, and he said, more boldly than any one, that the war could be terminated only by the Abolition of Slavery.”[200]

The position accorded to Mr. Sumner in Europe, beginning especially with this speech, was attested at a still later day in an article by M. Michel Chevalier, a Senator of France under the Empire, renowned for various writings, especially in Political Economy. In a sympathetic review of the address on the “Duel between France and Germany,” this authority thus expresses himself:—

“The opinion embodied in the writing which I am about to analyze, and which is a mixture of sympathetic words and of severe counsels for France, is not that of one or many assemblies, of one or many popular meetings, of one group or of many groups of journals; it is that of one man. But this man is one of the most distinguished citizens of his country; he has exercised a supreme influence in the events of which the great Republic has been the theatre since the moment when, in 1861, the South declared that it broke the Union, and at the mouth of the cannon seized Fort Sumter, situated in the harbor of Charleston. Mr. Charles Sumner has not figured on the battle-field; he was elsewhere, in the Senate of the United States, from which place, it can be said, he was the political director of the conflict.… But the thought of extirpating Slavery, of obliging the Slave States to modify their internal system so as to render impossible the reëstablishment of servitude under another name, the idea of assimilating by law the black and mulatto with the white,—assimilation to which until then their habits were as repugnant as their laws,—these have belonged to Mr. Charles Sumner more than to any other person, and were the basis of a plan which has triumphed by the indomitable will and the ever-ready eloquence of this statesman. It can therefore be said of Mr. Charles Sumner, that he is in himself a public opinion.”[201]

As after the speech on the Barbarism of Slavery, so now, letters came with volunteer testimony. Beyond their interest as tokens of strong and wide-spread sympathy with Mr. Sumner, they have historic value as illustrations of the intense Antislavery sentiment destined so soon to triumph. Sometimes they are directly responsive to the press, especially in the severity of its criticism on the speech. Here, as before, Abolitionists took the lead.

Wendell Phillips thus earnestly placed himself by the side of his friend:—

“I both thank and congratulate you most heartily on your great speech, for some reasons theboldesteven you ever made,—the first statesmanlike word worthy of the hour from any one in a high civil position,—fit response from Statesmanship to War,—showing the people the reasons and purpose of Fremont’s proclamation, and giving it more breadth and a nobler basis.“All agree it was a most decided success,—taking the Convention wholly off its feet with enthusiasm; and we absent ones may measure the strength of the blow from the rebound,—witnessPost,Courier,Journal, and, basest of all,Advertiser, of course.…“Never fear but that the masses, the hearts, are all with you,—and you’ll see your enemies at your footstool, as you so often have already.”

“All agree it was a most decided success,—taking the Convention wholly off its feet with enthusiasm; and we absent ones may measure the strength of the blow from the rebound,—witnessPost,Courier,Journal, and, basest of all,Advertiser, of course.…

“Never fear but that the masses, the hearts, are all with you,—and you’ll see your enemies at your footstool, as you so often have already.”

And in another letter:—

“I could not take the hazard of advising you to make it, though I told you in your circumstances I should; but now you’ve done it, I can say it waswiseandwell,—your duty to the country, to the hour, yourself, the slave,—to your fame as a statesman, and your duty as leader.”

Lewis Tappan, the Abolitionist, wrote from New York:—

“‘Union and Peace,—how they shall be restored.’ You have shown the way, and the only way. We may have peace on other terms, but no unionandpeace. The Free States must choose between peace, temporary peace, renewed war, and peace founded upon righteousness, justice, and equity.”

Hon. Amasa Walker, the able writer on Political Economy, afterwards Representative in Congress, wrote from North Brookfield:—

“You never made a nobler, braver, or more opportune utterance than at Worcester on the first instant. But all Hunkerdom is down upon you for it, as I expected. No matter,—the people, I trust in God, will sustain you. Your words meet a most hearty response in the hearts of all true men, you may rest assured. If your positions are not sustained by the country, the great contest now going on will end in failure, and ought to end so.”

David Lee Child, the sincere and lifelong Abolitionist, once a journalist and lawyer, and always a writer, wrote for himself and his wife from Wayland, Massachusetts:—

“I was, and my wife was, refreshed and strengthened by your voice from Worcester. When you gave us the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ the grandest, the most comprehensive, complete, compact, and conclusive of all your noble utterances against ‘the sum of all villanies,’ I did not write, though never before so much moved to do so. We read it the night that it reached us, and were so exalted by it that we sat up two hours beyond our time, talking about it and rejoicing over it. The foes of justice and freedom accuse you of accelerating the crisis and precipitating civil war by that speech. I think they are right for once. The revived victim of frustrate assassins, the calm and undaunted bearing, the inflexible purpose, the overwhelming force of facts, argument, and illustration, struck more terror to the soul of Richard than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers armed in proof.“I fully intended to address you as soon as the overflow of my heart became somewhat proportionate to the capacity of the pen, and to repeat that quotation from Tully which Junius aptly uses, though less aptly than it applied then: ‘Quod si quis existimat me aut voluntate esse mutata, aut debilitata virtute, autanimofracto, vehementer errat.’[202]But my dear wife wrote you our joint offering of admiration and gratitude better than I could do it for myself.”

“I fully intended to address you as soon as the overflow of my heart became somewhat proportionate to the capacity of the pen, and to repeat that quotation from Tully which Junius aptly uses, though less aptly than it applied then: ‘Quod si quis existimat me aut voluntate esse mutata, aut debilitata virtute, autanimofracto, vehementer errat.’[202]But my dear wife wrote you our joint offering of admiration and gratitude better than I could do it for myself.”

Hon. S. E. Sewall, the able lawyer and devoted Abolitionist, whose sympathy with Mr. Sumner had been constant, wrote from Boston:—

“As I have not time to call on you just now, I cannot forbear writing, merely to say how delighted I am with your speech at Worcester. I see it has roused a good deal of howling among our wretched editors. But this does not convince me that your position is wrong, or that it will not be sustained by the country. Almost every one whom I see thinks as I do about your speech, and regards it as eloquent, statesmanlike, and timely. I trust Congress will think as you do, and act accordingly.”

George Livermore, who so often wrote to Mr. Sumner with entire sympathy, and soon afterwards contributed an invaluable service to the African race,[203]expressed his present anxiety.

“I did hope that in this terrible day of our country’s trial there would be found sufficient patriotism with those sent to Worcester to cast asideall partyconsiderations and all disturbing differences, and unite,before it is too late, in trying to save the Government and the Union.… I trembled when I heard that you had been invited to speak, and I wept when I read your speech.“Unless there is a united North, united on the basis of the Constitution as it is, we are doomed to defeat.”

“Unless there is a united North, united on the basis of the Constitution as it is, we are doomed to defeat.”

Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, at the time Consul General at Montreal, wrote from that city:—

“Thanks for your speech at Worcester. I want you to place the same question before the Senate.”

Hon. Carl Schurz, at the time Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Spain, wrote from Madrid:—

“First let me thank you for the glorious speech you have delivered before the Massachusetts Convention. I agree with you on every point, and expect shortly to fight by your side.”

William S. Thayer, a writer of admirable sense, and Consul General at Alexandria in Egypt, wrote:—

“Well, after all, your Cassandra-like prophecies as to the course of public affairs have come true to the letter. Time will show whether your declaration at the Massachusetts Convention, that without Emancipation our war will be a vain masquerade of battles, will not also be realized. At this distance from home I do not feel qualified to dogmatize; but we do not appear as yet to have struck our opponents in a vital part.”

Hon. Montgomery Blair, Postmaster General, wrote from Washington:—

“Your speech is noble, beautiful, classical, sensible. I would have timed it differently; but I will take it now, rather than lose it.”

Hon. Hiram Barney, Collector of New York, wrote:—

“I was gratified with it. You indicate the proper course for the Government to take in this war with Slavery. It is the real Rebel, and Providence has brought us at length into direct conflict with it. We can destroy it without violating any right. Now is our opportunity, and I pray God we may have the wisdom and the intrepidity to end the war humanely and economically by the speedy destruction of the enemy, Slavery. Peace by Emancipation is accomplishing a good end by good means. How easily will the President make his administration the most eventful and glorious in American history!”

Hon. Thomas Dawes Eliot, Representative in Congress, pure in life, and always against Slavery, wrote from New Bedford:—

“If the party who have the responsible conduct of our war do not avail themselves of the power which the Law of Nations gives to them, whereby to strengthen themselves and defeat the Rebels, we shall find the party opposed to them will advocate Emancipation as a party issue. And when the time comes, as it must, that the South shall realize their own inevitable defeat, and shall see the alternative of submission or Emancipation, they will themselves initiate Freedom and secure Europe, unless before them we shall have acted.”

Hon. E. G. Spaulding, the eminent Representative in Congress, and a leading member of the Committee of Ways and Means, wrote from Buffalo:—

“Our people are earnestly discussing the subject of Immediate Emancipation, and I desire to see the views of one who has so thoroughly considered this question. Nearly all our people have come to the conclusion, that, whenever it is necessary to crush out the Rebellion to abolish Slavery, then the Government must abolish it.”

Hon. Robert C. Pitman, afterwards of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, wrote from New Bedford:—

“Permit me to thank you cordially for the service rendered by you to our cause, on Tuesday, at Worcester. Ideas must reinforce our arms, or we shall neither deserve nor win a victory.”

Epes Sargent, journalist, another and early friend, wrote from Boston:—

“I do not think you can be more than two months in advance of the public sentiment of the North, in your speech. I read it with great satisfaction, and it was not till I got down town among the politicians that I realized what imprudent things you had been saying.”

Hon. Daniel W. Alvord, who had coöperated with Mr. Sumner before, wrote from Greenfield, Massachusetts:—

“I thank you for the right word uttered at the right time in your Worcester speech. I should not deem it necessary to say this, as you could hardly fail to know that such a speech would meet my hearty approbation, but for the attacks made upon you by theSpringfield Republican. Be assured that theRepublicanby no means reflects the feelings or the opinions of the people of the western counties. The thorough, hearty Republicans, who in the northwest, if not in the southwest, constitute a great majority, cordially indorse the reasoning and positions of the speech.”

Hon. John D. Baldwin, journalist, afterwards Representative in Congress, and author of the work entitled “Pre-Historic Nations,” wrotefrom Worcester:—

“What a wave of Hunkerism has flooded Massachusetts since the State Convention, reaching up to the ceiling of nearly every editorial sanctum! But the ebb-tide must come.”

Hon. James H. Morton, the magistrate, wrote from Springfield, Massachusetts:—

“I cannot refrain from expressing the satisfaction and pleasure I derived from the perusal of your Worcester speech. In my opinion it expressed the sentiment of a very large majority of the citizens of Massachusetts, and though in advance of the sentiment of the whole country, still, if I can read the signs of the times, our Government, if it has not already reached, is fast approaching, the doctrines there enunciated by you. It seems to me they must be adopted in their length and breadth.”

A writer, admired as “Gail Hamilton,” wrote from Hamilton, Massachusetts:—

“I glory in that speech. It is logic, and sagacity, and morality. Let them maul it. To that complexion must they come at last, and perhaps before. Strange that people will have so much faith in shilly-shally! Strange they will not see that honesty is the best policy, as well as the best religion! But never mind. Do you lead the van.”

Rev. John Weiss, the eloquent preacher, and biographer of Theodore Parker, wrote from Milton:—

“I am surprised and disappointed at the temper shown by the Republicans. Before the Worcester Convention I was ready to declare that the people were only waiting to have the word Emancipation strongly pronounced to repeat it with the aggrandizement of a hundred thousand votes. I am deeply pained to see how the newspapers receive your declarations. They thinly veil a spirit which is ready at the first opportunity to forget the Past, and to sacrifice its living representatives,—the men who alone preserve the glorious Antislavery idea, and whose prophecies can alone secure the Future.… ‘Cry aloud, and spare not.’ Reiterate more flatly and unsparingly, that the war must destroy the evil which engendered it. Give the bullets their billet, and the bayonets something to think about, and lend them a manifesto of Freedom to punctuate. What a Congress will next winter’s be! Compromise will seek to make War its missionary.”

Orestes A. Brownson, Catholic thinker and writer, wrote from Elizabeth, New Jersey:—

“I have re-read your speech at Worcester, and I’m even better pleased with it than I was at the first reading. You have struck the right chord, as the manner in which my own article has been received sufficiently indicates. Our venerable President and his rhetorical adviser, whatever their timidity, or their reluctance, or attachment to the ‘Rule of Three,’ must come to the policy you recommend. It is clear to me that it is impossible to save both the integrity of the Nation and Southern Slavery, and the great question before us now is, whether we shall sacrifice the Nation to Slavery, or Slavery to the Nation. This is the issue before the people, and this issue we must meet.”

Rev. R. S. Storrs, the eminent Congregational divine, wrote from Braintree, Massachusetts:—

“Your admirable speech before the Worcester Convention ought to have been sooner acknowledged, with the fervent gratitude of my heart, to Heaven and you, for its delivery. The spirit that condemns its argument or author is either the spirit of blind infatuation, or of treachery as foul as marks the Southern Confederates themselves. It surprises and grieves me thatRepublicanswince and scold at thejustlashing given to the grand conspirator against Liberty and Religion,—for in this contest they are identical. The timeserving policy of multitudes who have hitherto acted with us, and, as it seems to me, of the Administration itself, is revolting, and puts far away the day of peace and prosperity.”

Rev. Francis LeBaron, afterwards of Ohio, earnest against Slavery, wrote from Dighton, Massachusetts:—

“Let me take this opportunity to thank you most heartily for your Worcester speech, and for your Boston lecture. Such noble words dwarf other men’s actions, and make me glad that the feeling of hero-worship is still strong at my heart. I can see honor and victory and glory and permanence on no other path than that by which you would lead the nation. If you will touch men’s hearts so nobly, you must not be surprised that they leap toward you; and when men move my deepest respect and admiration, I must tell them so.”

Rev. Moncure D. Conway, the Reformer, so admirable with his pen, wrote from Cincinnati:—

“Allow me to thank you for the exquisite presentation of the law and the truth in your Worcester speech, which I read in theTribune, to the million of readers guarantied it there, and the million others by the Boston press. I shall secure a large circulation in this city’s press. It is a perfect code for the hour.”

Rev. Rufus P. Stebbins, who sympathized so strongly with the speech on the Barbarism of Slavery, wrote now from Woburn, Massachusetts:—

“Accept a ‘thousand thanks’ for your speech at Worcester. It was a calm, solid, irresistible word. Adoption or no adoption by that Convention was of little consequence. Perhapsdelaybysuchbodies is wise; butthe people are coming, and the hour is at hand.”

Rev. Elnathan Davis, the friend of Peace, wrote from Fitchburg:—

“That the position taken in your speech is true I believe the judgment of Massachusetts and the country bears full testimony to-day; and that it is taken in due season I think the veryhowlof a Hunker political press clearly testifies. God give you strength forthisbattle, and, amidst the shifting experiences of the Government, and above ‘the confused noise of the warrior,’ make your word ‘On to Freedom’ clearly and widely heard by our countrymen.”

Rev. Moses Thacher, the venerable clergyman, formerly of Massachusetts, wrote from Fort Covington, New York:—

“God bless you!Your Worcester speech of the 1st inst. is invaluable. It states thecause, theissue, and theremedyof the war.”

Rev. W. H. Cudworth, chaplain in the army, in a letter from Hooker’s Brigade, Camp Union, wrote:—

“If I bore you, pardon me,—but, sympathizing most heartily in your uncompromising hostility to Slavery, and yet placed by the laws in an embarrassing, if not helpless position, what can I do, in the way of preventing the rendition of fugitives? For instance, one was hidden in our regimental barn. I knew and encouraged it, intending to trot him off, if a favorable chance offered. The owner came, but could not accomplish anything. He came next day with a United States warrant and the Provost Marshal. It wrung my heart, but what could I do?… Meantime let me thank you, as a servant of God and in the name of my brother man, for your Worcester speech, which I have just read, for your magnificent broadside called the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ and for all your efforts to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free.”

Hon. Charles W. Slack, connected with the press, and always Antislavery Republican, wrote from Boston:—

“Whether speaking for others or myself individually, I only express a general acknowledgment among all Liberty-loving men, when I say that to you preëminently is assigned the responsible, yet honorable, task of indicating the advance of public sentiment upon the living, overtopping, gigantic question of the day. I thank God daily that we have so earnest, steadfast, and persistent an exponent in the Senate Chamber. May you, then, be delivered and preserved from all harm for even greater achievements!”

John P. Jewett, bookseller, original publisher ofUncle Tom’s Cabin, wrote from Boston:—

“I am more than provoked with the unmitigated flunkeyism of the Boston —— and —— in their criticisms of your manly and excellent speech at Worcester. Posterity will do you justice, even if the sneaking toadyism of the day refuse it to you. I cannot refrain from writing you a word of sympathy, although perhaps you do not feel the need of it. Rest assured, my noble friend, that God and all truly great and good men are with you, therefore you have nothing to fear from the malice of cowardly time-servers.”

William Kenrick, the horticulturist, wrote from Newton, Massachusetts:—

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