Part 12

Meanwhile an incident in Boston was used to arouse a feeling against him. On the evening of the 24th of May Anthony Burns was seized there as a fugitive slave, on the claim of a citizen of Virginia, and detained by the marshal in a room of the Court-House. In the course of the evening of the 26th, immediately after a meeting at Faneuil Hall, addressed by Abolitionists, the Court-House was attacked by a number of citizens, and in the defence, James Batchelder, one of the guard, was killed. The report of his death caused a great sensation at Washington. It was received while the impression of Mr. Sumner's midnight speech was still fresh, and was at once attributed to that effort. Mr. Sumner was treated as responsible for this act, and the official organs of the Administration openly denounced him as "murderer." It was predicted in the speech that the bill would "scatter dragons' teeth," which he was assured would "fructify in civil strife and feud"; but plainly there was nothing to suggest or excite violence, even if at the time the speech had been known in Boston, as it was not. It was concluded on the morning of the 26th of May, at too late an hour for the telegraph, and in fact was not known in Boston until it reached there by mail on the 27th; but Batchelder was killed on the previous evening. And yet, in the face of these unquestionable facts, there was a cry against Mr. Sumner.

The _Union_, which was the official organ, thus broke forth on the morning of May 30th.

"Boston in arms against the Constitution, and an Abolition fanatic, the distant leader, safe from the fire and the fagot he invokes from his seat in the Senate of the United States, _giving the command_. Men shot down in the faithful discharge of duty to a law based upon a constitutional guaranty, and _the word which encourages the assassin_ given by a man who has sworn on the Holy Evangelists and in the presence of his Maker to support the Constitution of the country. But our Charles Sumner tells us that a new era has been inaugurated, ... that the Constitution shall not be obeyed, and that Slavery shall at all and every hazard be uprooted and destroyed, in spite of all that has been pledged and written in other days."

The _Star_, another organ of the Administration, repeated the imputations of the _Union_, in a long article, of which the following is a specimen.

"If Southern gentlemen are threatened and assaulted, while legally seeking to obtain possession of property for the use of which they have a solemn constitutional guaranty, if legal rights can only be sought for and established at the bayonet's point, _certain Northern men now in our midst_ will have to evince a little more circumspection than they have ever evinced in their walk, talk, and acts.

"Public sentiment in Alexandria is intensely excited in condemnation of Sumner and his allies. We know that it increases in this city every hour. The masses look upon Sumner as responsible for the death of Batchelder. They attribute, and justly, the action of the murderers to the counsel of Sumner. We hope that the public sentiment against these Abolition miscreants who infest Congress and our fair city, and fill the atmosphere in which they move with the odor of a brothel, will not descend to acts of personal violence. Such conduct can find no justification. But let public opinion condemn these men everywhere,--in the street, in the Capitol, in every place where men meet. _Let Sumner and his infamous gang_ feel that he cannot outrage the fame of his country, counsel treason to its laws, incite the ignorant to bloodshed and murder, and still receive the support and countenance of the society of this city, which he has done so much to vilify.

"While the person of a Virginia citizen is only safe from rudeness and outrage behind the serried ranks of armed men, Charles Sumner is permitted to walk among the 'slave-catchers' and 'fire-eaters' of the South in peace and security. While he incites his constituents to resist the Federal laws _even to the shedding of blood_, concocts his traitorous plots, and sends forth his incendiary appeals under the broad protecting panoply of the laws he denounces, he retains his seat in the Senate, and yet daily violates the official oath which he took to support the Constitution of the United States."

Such articles were plainly intended to excite a mob against Mr. Sumner. The conspiracy obtained headway in Alexandria. One proposition was, to seize him as hostage for the surrender of the fugitive slave whose case was then pending in Boston; another was, to inflict upon him personal indignity and violence; another was, "to put a ball through his head." These menaces were communicated to him, and he was warned to leave Washington. This he refused to do, and he insisted upon walking to the Senate by Pennsylvania Avenue, always unarmed. At a restaurant, where he dined, he was directly menaced and insulted. The following telegram in the New York _Times_, under date of May 31, states the case briefly.

"A strenuous and systematized effort is making here and in Alexandria to raise a mob against Senator Sumner, in retaliation for the Boston difficulty.... The _Star_ of this evening has two articles, the incendiary purpose of which cannot be mistaken. Senator Sumner himself has been several times warned to-day of personal danger, and assured that persons bearing close relation to the Administration are inciting the people to violence against him. Northern men are much excited in consequence, and if an outrage is committed, there is a probability that there will be serious trouble."

The same telegram was sent to other places. Throughout New England it excited great sensation, attested at once by the public press and by private letters. The following was received by Mr. Sumner, under date of May 31, from Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut, afterwards a general in the War, and Governor of Connecticut.

"If you really think there is any danger worth mentioning, I wish you would telegraph me instantly. I will come to Washington by the next train, and quietly _stay by_. I have revolvers, and can use them,--and while there should not be a word of unnecessary provocation, still, if anybody in Alexandria or Washington _really_ means to trouble you, or any other Free Democrat there, you know several can play at that game. I feel comparatively little anxiety as to the result in Boston. Let them hunt slaves till the people get sick of it. But such threats as are conveyed by that despatch should be quietly prepared for, and met as they deserve."

George Livermore, of Boston, gave expression to the same anxiety in a different form. He wrote thus, under date of June 3.

"There is but one feeling here respecting the infamous threats of the _Union_ and _Star_. _Let the minions of the Administration and of the Slavocracy harm one hair of your head, and they will raise a whirlwind that will sweep them to destruction._ I have read your closing remarks on the Nebraska Bill with the greatest admiration, and most heartily indorse every word and sentiment. You never made a better speech. What higher praise could I offer? Many persons not of the Free-Soil party have spoken of it in terms of the highest commendation."

The violence was postponed; but the malignant spirit continued active.

Beyond the sentiment of indignation at the menaces to which Mr. Sumner was exposed arose another against Slavery. Persons who had been cold or lukewarm before were excited now. Here again contemporary newspapers and private letters testify. John B. Alley, for several years afterwards the representative from Essex, wrote thus, under date of June 5.

"The most eventful week that Boston has ever seen has just passed, and I cannot refrain from troubling you with a description of the state of feeling here. In the first place, allow me to congratulate you upon the glorious position you occupy in the hearts of the people of Boston. Praises from the lips of the most ultra Hunker Whigs have greeted my ears (I need not tell you with how much pleasure) during the past week.

"Boston, it is true, has been humbled in the dust, and it is hard, terribly hard, to be compelled to witness the surrender of a panting fugitive into the hands of the Slave-Hunters; but never, since I have been engaged in the Antislavery cause, have I seen occasion for rejoicing as now.

"Thank God, the chains that have bound the people to their old organizations have been snapped asunder, and they have proved in this case but as packthreads upon the arms of an unshorn Samson.... Your speech in defence of the clergy is noble, and wonderfully effective, apparently, in stirring up their sympathies for the slave."

Numerous letters describe the surrender to which Mr. Alley alludes. The following from R. H. Dana, Jr., under date of June 5, gives details.

"Judging from present appearances, there are few Compromise men left in Boston. I firmly believe that in the providence of God it has been decreed that one cup more should be put to our lips, and that it should not pass away until we had drained it to the dregs. To this end, a folly has been put in their counsel and a madness in their hearts, that they might do the things that should work in the end the utmost good. The delays, the doubts as to the propriety of the decision (more than doubts even with the moderate), the military indignities and violence, the noonday procession, the refusal to sell, the Presidential intervention, all have tended to the desired effect. Poor Burns himself looked with terror to a renewal of slavery. Not that Colonel Suttle was cruel. He has never lived with Suttle, but he is intelligent, reads and writes, is weak in his injured head, and therefore of little value, and liable to be sold and abused.

"Batchelder was not a deputy-marshal. He is only a man who has volunteered, this third time, against advice, to help catch and keep a fugitive slave. You observe the marshal only calls him one of his 'guards.' This guard were a precious set of murderers, thieves, bullies, blacklegs,--with a very few men who went into it from party bias, old Hunker Democratic truckmen. Batchelder was a truckman, I am told, and may be personally respectable for aught I know. I can give you no advice as to the pension. They ought to know what Batchelder was. It seems to me unconstitutional and unprecedented. If it can be defeated without your stir, it would be better, no doubt. I do not find there is any feeling for his case here. He volunteered for the duty, and met the consequences. He voluntarily risked his life for pay, in an odious and dangerous business, and lost it."

George Livermore, always a decided Whig, who had written under date of June 3, wrote again, under date of June 13:--

"I am, as I always have been, a Conservative Whig, but I am ready to fraternize with _anybody who will do the most for Freedom_; and if one who has heretofore been called a Democrat or a Free-Soiler will do more for this cause than a candidate who has been called a Whig, he shall have my vote, and my hearty coöperation in every way in my power."

A merchant of Boston wrote at the same time:--

"I rejoice that a man of your sympathies and sensibilities is not here to see the Court-House again in chains, and justice administered behind bayonets. The only retaliation at present proposed is a petition to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act, now in the News-Room, on its second day, with several thousand names attached. But what is the use of petition, or polished sentences and rounded periods, in a contest with the pirate honor of Slavery? It is like an attempt to hew down a mountain of granite with a glass pick-axe."

The sentiments of the people, and particularly of the clergy, are sketched by Rev. George C. Beckwith, Secretary of the Peace Society, in a letter dated June 2, from which an extract is given.

"You will have learned ere this that the deed is done.--the deed of shame and degradation to our good old State. I witnessed the scene from an insurance office on State Street, and never before felt such a sense of degradation. I am glad that so many seemed to share it with me: for I observed a sort of funereal sadness on the vast masses before and around me. There were groans and hisses at even our own troops, the militia, that had come out at the call of our mayor; but every effort to get up any counter applause proved a failure.

"I took my pen, however, for another purpose, as you will get from other sources a better account of this day's public proceedings. I wish to say a word about our clerical friends, whom you have vindicated with so much spirit and force in your brief speech before the Senate. They met yesterday morning, almost without notice, to the number of some four or five hundred, for consultation on this subject. I never attended a meeting that evinced a truer spirit or a greater amount of moral power. Little or no effervescence on the surface, but a depth of feeling, a calmness of conviction, and an energy of purpose, from which, I am well satisfied, the whole country will hear in due time.

* * * * *

"I think I am still true to my peace principles, but my heart is stirred to its lowest depths of indignation; and I say frankly to men who applaud what our forefathers did, that _we_ have now even _stronger_ reasons for resistance to the Slave Power than they had to the usurpations of England."

Thomas Sherwin, late head-master of the Boston High School, and once a tutor of Mr. Sumner at Harvard University, wrote as follows.

"You, Sir, in my opinion, command the highest respect from the people, not only of Massachusetts, but of the entire Union. To yourself, Chase, Giddings, Smith, Benton, and a few others, the great majority of our people look for protection against the machinations of politicians who would bring upon our country the contempt of the civilized world, and upon the Government the execration of unborn millions."

These extracts prepare the way for the next scene in the drama.

UNION OF ALL PARTIES NECESSARY AGAINST THE SLAVE POWER.

LETTER TO A MASSACHUSETTS COMMITTEE, MAY 29, 1854.

SENATE CHAMBER, May 29, 1854.

Gentlemen,--For the present my post of duty is here, so that I must forego the pleasure of meeting our friends on Wednesday next. The Massachusetts host, I am glad to learn, will be reinforced on that occasion by brave voices from other States. Mr. Giddings you will be glad to welcome.

Could I meet my fellow-citizens, I should not lose the opportunity of sounding the alarm and exhorting them to action. The Nebraska Bill has passed, but it is a mistake to suppose that the propagandists of Slavery will stop here. Other audacities are at hand. More land from Mexico is sought, on which to extend a nefarious institution. The calamities of war with Spain, incalculably disastrous to the commerce of New York and Boston, are all to be braved in order to appropriate slaveholding Cuba. An intrigue is now pending to secure a foothold in Hayti; and even the distant valley of the Amazon is embraced in these gigantic schemes, by which the despotism of the Slave Power is to be established, while you and I, and all of us from the North, are to bow down before it. For myself, I will not bow down; but, Gentlemen, you will understand that no individual can effectually oppose these schemes.

This can be done only in one way. As all at the South, without distinction of party, unite for Slavery, so all at the North, without distinction of party, forgetting vain differences of Whig and Democrat, must unite for Freedom, and, rising in majority and might, take control of the National Government. For this work the people are now ready; and they can surely accomplish it, if they will. The only impediment, at this moment, is to be found in those blind or selfish politicians who perversely seek a triumph of mere party, instead of a triumph of Freedom. Neither the Whig party nor the Democratic party, through its national organization dependent on slaveholding wings, is competent to the exigency. The slaveholding wings can be kept in concert with the Northern wings only when they give the law to the movement. For a poor triumph of party, the North yields, in advance, all that is dear to it, and, while vainly calling itself _national_, helps to instal the _sectional_ power of Slavery in the National Government. This must be changed.

With an earnest soul, devoted to the triumph of the righteous cause, and indifferent to the name by which I may be called, I would say to all at this time, Abandon old party ties; forget old party names; let by-gones be by-gones; and for the sake of Liberty, and to secure the general welfare, now unite against the Despotism of Slavery, and in this union let past differences disappear.

Believe me, Gentlemen,

Very faithfully yours,

CHARLES SUMNER.

Hon. F.W. BIRD, JAMES M. STONE, Committee.

THE BOSTON PETITION FOR THE REPEAL OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT.

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON THE BOSTON PETITION FOR THE REPEAL OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT, JUNE 26, 1854.

The midnight speech of Mr. Sumner on the Kansas and Nebraska Bill contained language which was soon justified. In pronouncing the bill "the best on which Congress ever acted," he said that it annulled all past compromises with Slavery, and "thus it puts Freedom and Slavery face to face, and bids them grapple." And this was the case in Boston, immediately after the passage of the bill, when a fugitive slave was surrendered. The indignation was general, and a petition for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act was extensively signed, in the following terms.

"To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled: The undersigned, men of Massachusetts, ask for the repeal of the Act of Congress of 1850 known as the FUGITIVE SLAVE BILL."

There were twenty-nine hundred petitioners, among whom were many who had heretofore sustained this atrocious measure; but they felt at last relieved from this service. In this respect this petition marks an epoch in public sentiment.

Its reception in the Senate marks an epoch there. It was presented on the 22d of June, by Mr. Rockwell, the new Senator in Mr. Everett's place, who moved its reference to the Committee on the Judiciary. Other petitions of like character had been treated very unceremoniously. This was debated at length, and finally referred according to the motion of Mr. Rockwell.

On the 26th of June the debate began, in which Mr. Jones, of Tennessee, Mr. Rockwell, of Massachusetts, then again Mr. Jones, and Mr. Brodhead, of Pennsylvania, took part. At this stage Mr. Sumner spoke as follows.

Mr. President,--I begin by answering the interrogatory propounded by the Senator from Tennessee [Mr. JONES]: "Can any one suppose, that, if the Fugitive Slave Act be repealed, this Union can exist?" To which I reply at once, that, if the Union be in any way dependent on an act--I cannot call it a _law_--so revolting in every aspect as that to which he refers, then it ought not to exist. To much else that has fallen from that Senator I do not desire to reply. Matters already handled again and again, in the long-drawn-out debates of this session, he has discussed at length. Like the excited hero of Macedonia, he has renewed past conflicts,--

"And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain."

Of what the Senator said on the relations of Senators, North and South, of a particular party, it is not my province to speak. And yet I do not turn from it without expressing at least some confidence that men from the North, whether Whigs or Democrats, will neither be cajoled by any temptation nor driven by any lash from the support of those principles which are inseparable from the true honor and welfare of the country. At last there will be, I trust, a backbone in the North.

My colleague has already remarked that this petition proceeds from persons many of whom were open supporters of the alleged Compromises of 1850, including even the odious Fugitive Slave Act. I have looked over the long list, and, so far as I can judge, find this to be true. And, in my opinion, the change shown by these men is typical of the change in the community of which they constitute a prominent part. Once the positive upholders of the Fugitive Slave Act, they now demand its unconditional repeal.

There is another circumstance worthy of especial remark. This petition proceeds mainly from persons connected with trade and commerce. Now it is a fact too well known in the history of England, and of our own country, that these persons, while often justly distinguished by individual charities, have been lukewarm in opposition to Slavery. Twice in English history did "the mercantile interest" frown upon endeavors to suppress the atrocity of Algerine Slavery; steadfastly in England it sought to baffle Wilberforce's great effort for the abolition of the African slave-trade; and at the formation of our own Constitution, it stipulated a sordid compromise, by which this same detested, Heaven-defying traffic was saved for twenty years from American judgment. But now it is all changed,--at least in Boston. Representatives of "the mercantile interest" place themselves in the front of the new movement against Slavery, and, by their explicit memorial, call for the removal of a grievance which they have bitterly felt in Boston.

Mr. President, this petition is interesting to me, first, as it asks a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, and, secondly, as it comes from Massachusetts. That repeal I shall be glad, at any time, now and hereafter, as in times past, to sustain by vote and argument; and I trust never to fail in any just regard for the sentiments or interests of Massachusetts. With these few remarks I would gladly close. But there has been an arraignment, here to-day, both of myself and of the Commonwealth which I represent. To all that has been said of myself or the Commonwealth, so far as it is impeachment of either, so far as it subjects either to any real censure, I plead openly, for myself and for Massachusetts, "Not guilty." But pardon me, if I do not submit to be tried by the Senate, fresh from the injustice of the Nebraska Bill. In the language of the Common Law, I put myself upon "God and the country," and claim the same trial for my honored Commonwealth.

So far as the arraignment touches me personally, I hardly care to speak. It is true that I have not hesitated, here and elsewhere, to express my open, sincere, and unequivocal condemnation of the Fugitive Slave Act. I have denounced it as at once a violation of the law of God, and of the Constitution of the United States; and I now repeat this denunciation.

Its violation of the Constitution is manifold; and here I repeat but what I have often said. Too often it cannot be set forth, so long as the infamous statute blackens the land.

It commits the great question of human freedom,--than which none is more sacred in the law,--not to a solemn trial, but to summary proceedings.