Part 1

Statesman Edition VOL. V

Charles Sumner

HIS COMPLETE WORKS

With Introduction BY HON. GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR

BOSTON LEE AND SHEPARD MCM

COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY LEE AND SHEPARD.

Statesman Edition. LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND COPIES. OF WHICH THIS IS No. 565

Norwood Press: NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME V.

PAGE

THE ANTISLAVERY ENTERPRISE: ITS NECESSITY, PRACTICABILITY, AND DIGNITY; WITH GLANCES AT THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF THE NORTH. Address before the People of New York, at the Metropolitan Theatre, May 9, 1855 1

NEW OUTRAGE FOR THE SAKE OF SLAVERY. Letter to Passmore Williamson, in Moyamensing Prison, August 11, 1855 52

THE PEN BETTER THAN THE SWORD. Letter to Committee of Publishers in New York, September 26, 1855 58

REPUBLICAN PARTY IN NEW YORK. Letter to a New York Committee, October 7, 1855 60

REPUBLICAN PARTY OFFSPRING OF AROUSED CONSCIENCE OF THE COUNTRY. Letter to a Boston Committee, October 8, 1855 61

POLITICAL PARTIES AND OUR FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION. Speech at a Republican Rally in Faneuil Hall, November 2, 1855 62

ORIGINATION OF APPROPRIATION BILLS. Speech in the Senate, on the Usurpation of the Senate in the Origination of Appropriation Bills, February 7, 1856 83

RELIEF OF VESSELS IN DISTRESS ON THE COAST. Letter to the Director of the Exchange News-room, Boston, February 18, 1856 93

THE EXAMPLE OF WASHINGTON AGAINST SLAVERY NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN NOW. Letter to a Committee of the Boston Mercantile Library Association, February 19, 1856 95

CONSTANT EXERTION AND UNION AMONG GOOD MEN. Letter to a Massachusetts Committee, February 25, 1856 97

ABROGATION OF TREATIES. Speeches in the Senate, March 6 and May 8, 1856 98

REPLY TO ASSAULTS ON EMIGRATION IN KANSAS. Speech in the Senate, on the Report of the Committee on Territories, March 12, 1856 121

UNION TO SAVE KANSAS, AND UNION TO SAVE OURSELVES. Letter to a New York Committee, April 28, 1856 123

THE CRIME AGAINST KANSAS: THE APOLOGIES FOR THE CRIME; THE TRUE REMEDY. Speech in the Senate, May 19 and 20, 1856. With Appendix 125

“WHATEVER MASSACHUSETTS CAN GIVE, LET IT ALL GO TO SUFFERING KANSAS.” Telegraphic Despatch to Boston, June 6, 1856 343

REFUSAL TO RECEIVE TESTIMONIAL IN APPROBATION OF KANSAS SPEECH. Letter to a Committee in Boston, June 13, 1856 344

THE ANTISLAVERY ENTERPRISE: ITS NECESSITY, PRACTICABILITY, AND DIGNITY; WITH GLANCES AT THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF THE NORTH.

ADDRESS BEFORE THE PEOPLE OF NEW YORK, AT THE METROPOLITAN THEATRE, MAY 9, 1855.

The principles of true politics are those of morality enlarged; and I neither now do nor ever will admit of any other.--BURKE, _Letter to the Bishop of Chester: Correspondence_, Vol. I. p. 332.

True politics I look on as a part of moral philosophy, which is nothing but the art of conducting men right in society, and supporting a community amongst its neighbors.--JOHN LOCKE, _Letter to the Earl of Peterborough: Life, by Lord King_, Vol. I. p. 9.

Malus usus abolendus est.--LAW MAXIM.

All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.--MATTHEW, viii. 12.

You have among you many a purchased slave, Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules, You use in abject and in slavish parts, Because you bought them.

SHAKESPEARE, _Merchant of Venice_.

From Guinea’s coast pursue the lessening sail, And catch the sounds that sadden every gale. Tell, if thou canst, the sum of sorrows there; Mark the fixed gaze, the wild and frenzied glare, The racks of thought, and freezings of despair! But pause not then,--beyond the western wave, Go, view the captive bartered as a slave!

ROGERS, _Pleasures of Memory_.

Through the influence of the late Dr. James W. Stone, an indefatigable Republican, a course of lectures was organized in Boston especially for the discussion of Slavery. This course marks the breaking of the seal on the platform. Mr. Sumner undertook to open this course, which was to begin in the week after his address before the Mercantile Library Association; but he was prevented by sudden disability from a cold. His excuse was contained in the following letter.

“HANCOCK STREET, 23d November, 1854.

“MY DEAR SIR,--An unkindly current of air is often more penetrating than an arrow. From such a shaft I suffered on the night of my address to the Mercantile Library Association, more than a week ago, and no care or skill has been efficacious to relieve me. I am admonished alike by painful consciousness and by the good physician into whose hands I have fallen, that I am not equal to the service I have undertaken on Thursday evening.

“Fitly to inaugurate that course of lectures would task the best powers in best health of any man. Most reluctantly, but necessarily, I must lose sight of the inspiring company there assembled in the name of Freedom to sit in judgment on Slavery, and postpone till some other opportunity what I had hoped to say. You, who know the effort I have made to rally for this occasion, will appreciate my personal disappointment.

“It is my habit to keep my engagements. Not for a single day have I been absent from my seat in the Senate during the three sessions in which duty has called me there; and never before, in the course of numerous undertakings to address public bodies, at different times and in different places, has there been any failure through remissness or disability on my part.

“Pardon these allusions, which I make that you may better understand my feelings, now that I am compelled to depart for the moment from a cherished rule of fidelity.

“Ever faithfully yours,

“CHARLES SUMNER.

“DR. STONE.”

Failing to open the course, Mr. Sumner closed it, on his return from Washington in the spring, with the following address, which he was called to repeat in the same hall a few days later. Yielding to friendly pressure, he consented to repeat it at several places in New York, among which was Auburn, the residence of Mr. Seward, by whom he was introduced to the audience in the following words.

“FELLOW-CITIZENS,--A dozen years ago I was honored by being chosen to bring my neighbors residing here to the acquaintance of a statesman of Massachusetts who was then directing the last energies of an illustrious life to the removal of the crime of Human Slavery from the soil of our beloved country,--a statesman whose course I had chosen for my own guidance,--John Quincy Adams, ‘the old man eloquent.’

“He has ascended to heaven: you and I yet remain here, in the field of toil and duty. And now, by a rare felicity, I have your instructions to present to you another statesman of Massachusetts, him on whose shoulders the mantle of the departed one has fallen, and who more than any other of the many great and virtuous citizens of his native Commonwealth illustrates the spirit of the teacher whom, like us, he venerated and loved so much,--a companion and friend of my own public labors,--the _young_ ‘man eloquent,’--Charles Sumner.”

In the city of New York the same address formed the last of an Antislavery course. It was delivered in the Metropolitan Theatre, before a crowded audience, May 9, 1855. Mr. Sumner had never before spoken in New York. He was introduced by Hon. William Jay, in the following words.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--I have been requested, on the part of the Society, to perform the pleasing, but unnecessary, office of introducing to you the honored and well-known advocate of Justice, Humanity, and Freedom, Charles Sumner. It is not for his learning and eloquence that I commend him to your respectful attention; for learning, eloquence, and even theology itself, have been prostituted in the service of an institution well described by John Wesley as the sum of all villanies. I introduce him to you as a Northern Senator on whom Nature has conferred the unusual gift of a backbone,--a man who, standing erect on the floor of Congress, amid creeping things from the North, with Christian fidelity denounces the stupendous wickedness of the Fugitive Law and the Nebraska Perfidy, and in the name of Liberty, Humanity, and Religion demands the repeal of those most atrocious enactments. May the words he is about to utter be impressed on your consciences and influence your conduct.”

The reception of the address attested the change in the public mind. Frederick Douglass, who was present, wrote:--

“Metropolitan Theatre was literally packed, and, for two hours and a half, the vast audience, with attention unwearied, and with interest rising with every sentence which dropped from the speaker, indorsed sentiments which many of the same parties would five years ago have stoned any one for uttering.”

The _Tribune_ said:--

“Mr. Sumner’s speech last night was the greatest oratorical and logical success of the year, and was most enthusiastically praised by the largest audience yet gathered in New York to hear a lecture.”

The interest was such, that he was constrained, much against his own disposition, to repeat it in Brooklyn, where he was introduced by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and then again at Niblo’s Theatre, New York, where he was introduced by Joseph Blunt, Esq. The concluding words of Mr. Beecher were as follows.

“I am to introduce to you a statesman who follows a long train of representatives and statesmen who were false to the North, false to Liberty; and then they made a complaint that there was no North! It was because the North lost faith in her recreant children. It lost faith in its traitors, and not in Liberty. But now, if the haughty Southerners wish to engage in any more conflicts of this kind, I think they will have to find some other than the speaker to-night with whom to break a lance. [_Loud cheers._] I do not wish merely to introduce to you the ‘honorable gentleman’ sent from Massachusetts as a United States Senator; my wish is to do better than that; I wish to introduce to you the MAN,--CHARLES SUMNER. [_Loud applause._]”

The _Tribune_ spoke thus of these meetings:--

“That a lecture should be repeated in New York is a rare occurrence. That a lecture on Antislavery should be repeated in New York, even before a few despised ‘fanatics,’ is an unparalleled occurrence. But that an Antislavery lecture should be repeated night after night to successive multitudes, each more enthusiastic than the last, marks the epoch of a revolution in popular feeling; it is an era in the history of Liberty. Niblo’s Theatre was crowded last evening long before the hour of commencement. Hundreds stood through the three hours’ lecture. We give a full report of the words, but only of the words.”

Other newspapers were enthusiastic in their comments.

The _National Era_, at Washington, in printing the address, said of its delivery in Metropolitan Hall:--

“Mr. Sumner closed, as he had continued, amid loud and protracted applause. Especially at the point when he said that the Fugitive Slave Bill must be made a dead letter, the audience seemed wild with enthusiasm. Handkerchiefs waved from fair hands, and reporters almost forgot their stolid unconcern.”

Such extracts might be multiplied. Beyond these was the testimony of individuals gratified at the hearing obtained for cherished sentiments. One wrote from Philadelphia as follows.

“I cannot forbear, not for your gratification, but for my own, to testify my unbounded sympathy and satisfaction in the Three Days’ Ovation of May that you have enjoyed in New York, in reward of your faithful sentinelship on the ramparts of Liberty in that sin-beleaguered fortress, the Capitol at Washington, faithfully supporting the cause of the weak against insolence and haughty vulgarity.… You have gloriously and faithfully withstood obloquy and reproach: the hour of triumph is now well assured.”

Another wrote from Albany:--

“I have never read anything so magnificent as your Lecture in the _Independent_. How I wish I could have heard it! Letters from judges in such matters inform me that no speech in New York for many years has produced such a sensation.”

Count Gurowski, writing from Brattleboro’, Vermont, expressed his enthusiastic sympathy, and at the same time predicted the adverse feeling among slave-masters.

“I have just finished the reading of your admirable Oration. I am _en extase_. I was near to cry.… But you have thrown the gauntlet once more to the ‘gentlemen from the South,’ bravely, decidedly, and pitilessly. Do not be astonished, if they shall send you, covered with laurels as you are, to Coventry. This undoubtedly they will do.”

These extracts show something of public sentiment at this stage of the great contest with Slavery. From this time forward the discussion broadened and deepened.

ADDRESS.

History abounds in vicissitudes. From weakness and humility, men ascend to power and place. From defeat and disparagement, enterprises are borne on to recognition and triumph. The martyr of to-day is gratefully enshrined on the morrow. The stone that the builders rejected is made head of the corner. Thus it always has been, and ever will be.

Only twenty years ago, in 1835, the friends of the slave in our country were weak and humble, while their great undertaking, just then showing itself, was trampled down and despised. Small companies, gathered together in the name of Freedom, were interrupted and often dispersed by riotous mobs. At Boston, a feeble association of women, called the Female Antislavery Society, sitting in a small room of an upper story in an obscure building, was insulted and then driven out of doors by a frantic crowd, politely termed at the time “gentlemen of property and standing,” which, after various deeds of violence and vileness, next directed itself upon William Lloyd Garrison,--known as the determined editor of the “Liberator,” and originator of the Antislavery Enterprise in our day,--then ruthlessly tearing him away, amidst savage threats and with a halter about his neck, dragged him through the streets, until, at last, guilty only of loving liberty, if not wisely, too well, this unoffending citizen was thrust into the common jail for protection against an infuriate populace. Nor was Boston alone. Even villages in remote rural solitude broke out in similar outrage,--while large towns, like Providence, New Haven, Utica, Worcester, Alton, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, became so many fiery craters overflowing with rage and madness. What lawless violence failed to accomplish was urged next through forms of law. By solemn legislative acts, the Slave States called on the Free States “promptly and effectually to suppress all those associations within their respective limits purporting to be Abolition Societies”;[1] and Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York basely hearkened to the base proposition. The press, too, with untold power, exerted itself in this behalf, while pulpit, politician, and merchant conspired to stifle discussion, until the voice of Freedom was hushed to a whisper, “alas! almost afraid to know itself.”

Since then, in the lapse of few years only, a change has taken place. Instead of those small companies, counted by tens, we have now this mighty assembly, counted by thousands; instead of an insignificant apartment, like that in Boston, the mere appendage of a printing-office, where, as in the manger itself, Truth was cradled, we have this Metropolitan Hall, ample in proportion and central in place; instead of a profane and clamorous mob, beating at our gates, dispersing our assembly, and making one of our number the victim of its fury, we have peace and harmony at unguarded doors, ruffled only by generous competition to participate in this occasion; while Legislatures openly declare their sympathies, villages, towns, and cities vie in the new manifestation, and the press itself, with increased power, heralds, applauds, and extends the prevailing influence, which, gushing from every fountain, and pouring through every channel, at last, by quickening power of pulpit, politician, and merchant, swells into an irresistible tide.

Here is a great change, worthy of notice and memory, for it attests the first stage of victory. Slavery, in all its many-sided wrong, still continues; but here in this metropolis--ay, Sir, and throughout the whole North--freedom of discussion is at length secured. And this, I say, is the first stage of victory,--herald of the transcendent future.

“Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers: Prepare the way! a God, a God appears! A God! a God! the vocal hills reply: The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity.”

Nor is there anything peculiar in the trials to which our cause has been exposed. Thus in all ages is Truth encountered. At first persecuted, gagged, silenced, crucified, she cries out from the prison, the rack, the stake, the cross, until at last her voice is heard. And when that voice is really heard, whether in martyr cries, or in earthquake tones of civil convulsion, or in the calmness of ordinary speech, such as I now employ, or in that still, small utterance inaudible to the common ear, then is the beginning of victory! “Give me where to stand and I will move the world,” said Archimedes; and Truth asks no more than did the master of geometry.

Viewed in this aspect, the present occasion rises above any ordinary course of lectures or series of political meetings. It is the inauguration of Freedom. From this time forward, her voice of warning and command cannot be silenced. The sensitive sympathies of property, in this commercial mart, may yet again recognize property in man; the watchful press itself may falter or fail; but the vantage-ground of free discussion now achieved cannot be lost. On this I take my stand, and, as from the Mount of Vision, behold the whole field of our great controversy spread before me. There is no point, topic, fact, matter, reason, or argument, touching the question between Slavery and Freedom, which is not now open. From these I might aptly select some one, and confine myself to its development. But I should not in this way best satisfy the seeming requirement of the occasion. According to the invitation of your Committee, I was to make an address introductory to the present course of lectures, but was prevented by ill-health. And now, at the close of the course, I am to say what I failed to say at its beginning. Not as Caucus or as Congress can I address you; nor am I moved to undertake a political harangue or constitutional argument. Out of the occasion let me speak, and, discarding any individual topic, aim to exhibit the entire field, in its divisions and subdivisions, with metes and bounds.

* * * * *

My subject will be THE NECESSITY, PRACTICABILITY, AND DIGNITY OF THE ANTISLAVERY ENTERPRISE, WITH GLANCES AT SPECIAL DUTIES OF THE NORTH. By this enterprise I do not mean the efforts of any restricted circle, sect, or party, but the cause of the slave, in all its forms and under all its names,--whether inspired by pulpit, press, economist, or politician,--whether in the early, persistent, and comprehensive demands of Garrison, the gentler tones of Channing, or the strictly constitutional endeavors of others now actually sharing the public councils of the country. To carry through this review, under its different heads, I shall not hesitate to meet the objections urged against it, so far at least as I am aware of them. As I speak to you seriously, I venture to ask your serious attention even to the end. Not easily can a public address reach that highest completeness which is found in mingling the useful and the agreeable; but I desire to say that it will be my effort to cultivate that highest courtesy of a speaker which is found in clearness.

I.

I begin with the NECESSITY of the Antislavery Enterprise. In the wrong of Slavery, _as defined by existing law_, this necessity is plainly apparent; nor can any man within the sound of my voice, who listens to the authentic words of the law, hesitate in my conclusion. A wrong so grievous and unquestionable should not be allowed to continue. For the honor of human nature, and the good of all concerned, _it must at once cease_. On this simple statement, as corner-stone, I found the necessity of the Antislavery Enterprise.

I do not dwell, Sir, on the many tales which come from the house of bondage: on the bitter sorrows undergone; on the flesh galled by manacle, or spurting blood beneath the lash; on the human form mutilated by knife, or seared by red-hot iron; on the ferocious scent of bloodhounds in chase of human prey; on the sale of fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, little children, even infants, at the auction block; on the practical prostration of all rights, all ties, and even all hope; on the deadly injury to morals, substituting concubinage for marriage, and changing the whole land of Slavery into a by-word of shame, only fitly pictured by the language of Dante, when he called his own degraded country a House of Ill Fame;[2] and, last of all, on the pernicious influence upon master as well as slave, showing itself too often, even by his own confession, in rudeness of manners and character, and especially in that blindness which renders him insensible to the wrongs he upholds. On these things I do not dwell, although volumes are at hand of unquestionable fact, and also of illustrative story so just and germane as to vie with fact, out of which I might draw, until, like Macbeth, you had “supped full with horrors.”