Part 26

“One supposition more. Conceive the situation of the parties in the case before us reversed. Suppose Senator Butler, who has said severer things of Mr. Sumner than Mr. Sumner of him, to have been the victim, and some member from Massachusetts, perhaps a far-away cousin of Mr. Sumner, to have been the aggressor. Does any one here present imagine that the ‘gallant relative’ in that case would be going about unmolested on a paltry bail of five hundred dollars? If the trusty bowie-knife or omnipresent revolver of Southern chivalry did not otherwise dispose of him, does any one doubt that the summary and prompt vengeance of Congress and the law would have been demanded by one side and conceded by the other?”

Here is a brief extract from the speech of Rev. Dr. Wayland.

“The question before us is simply, whether you, here and now, consent to this change in our form of government, and accept the position which it assigns to you,--and whether you agree to transmit to your children this precious inheritance? For myself, I must decline the arrangement. I was born free, and I cannot be made a slave. I bow before the universal intelligence and conscience of my country, and when I think this defective, I claim the privilege of using my poor endeavors to enlighten it. But to submit my reason to the bludgeon of a bully or the pistol of an assassin I cannot; nor can I tamely behold a step taken which leads inevitably to such a consummation.

“You see that I consider this as a case of unusual solemnity. It becomes us to deliberate wisely, to resolve in view of the future as well as the past, and prepare ourselves to carry our resolutions out to all their legitimate conclusions, and, in doing this, to pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

At a public meeting in Chapman Hall, Boston, immediately after the assault, Wendell Phillips said:--

“Nobody needs now to read this speech of Charles Sumner to know whether it is good. We measure the amount of the charge by the length of the rebound. [_Cheers._] When the spear, driven to the quick, makes the Devil start up in his own likeness, we may be sure it is the spear of Ithuriel. [_Great applause._] That is my way of measuring the speech which has produced this glorious result. Oh, yes, glorious! for the world will yet cover every one of those scars with laurels. [_Enthusiastic cheering._] Sir, he _must_ not die! We need him yet, as the vanguard leader of the hosts of Liberty. No, he shall yet come forth from that sick-chamber, and every gallant heart in the Commonwealth be ready to kiss his very footsteps. [_Loud cheers._]

…

“Perhaps, Mr. Chairman and fellow-citizens, I am wrong; but I accept that speech of my loved and honored friend, and with an unmixed approbation,--read it with envious admiration,--take it all. [_Cheers._] Yes, what word is there in it that any one of us would not have been proud to utter? Not one! [_Great applause._] In utter scorn of the sickly taste, of the effeminate scholarship, that starts back, in delicate horror, at a bold illustration, I dare to say there is no animal God has condescended to make that man may not venture to name. [_Applause._] And if any ground of complaint is supposable in regard to this comparison, which shocks the delicacy of some men and some presses, it is the animal, not Mr. Douglas, that has reason to complain. [_Thunders of applause, renewed again and again._]

…

“Mr. Chairman, there are some characters whose worth is so clear and self-evident, so tried and approved, so much without flaw, that we lay them on the shelf,--and when we hear of any act attributed to them, no matter in what doubtful terms it be related, we judge the single act by the totality of the character, by our knowledge of the whole man, letting a lifetime of uprightness explain a doubtful hour. Now, with regard to our honored Senator, we know that his taste, intellect, and heart are all of this quality,--a total, unflawed gem; and I know, when we get the full and complete report of what he said, the _ipsissima verba_ in which it was spoken, that the most fastidious taste of the most delicate scholar will not be able to place finger on a word of Charles Sumner which the truest gentleman would not gladly indorse. [_Loud cheers._] I place the foot of my uttermost contempt on those members of the press of Boston that have anything to say in criticism of his language, while he lies thus prostrate and speechless,--our champion beaten to the ground for the noblest word Massachusetts ever spoke in the Senate. [_Prolonged applause._]”

A great meeting in Faneuil Hall was remarkable for the speeches, of which a few extracts are given.

His Excellency, Henry J. Gardner, at the time Governor of Massachusetts, said:--

“Were this a party occasion, my feet would not be upon this platform; were this to stir up sectional animosity or promote local discord, my voice would never reverberate from these arches above my head; but when the State of Massachusetts is attacked in one of her dearest rights, one of her most glorious privileges, I should be recreant to my duty, I should be false to my trust, as every one who hears me would be, did I not protest against this infraction of our common rights. I wish, my friends, in order to give the greatest moral weight possible to this meeting, to give its proceedings the most cogent force, to assume in the outset that this case can in no wise, in no way, and under no consideration, be considered anything but a spontaneous expression of the sentiments of gentlemen of every party in the State of Massachusetts upon this question. The last time the eloquent and honorable Senator of Massachusetts addressed his fellow-citizens of Boston, he stood where I now stand, on the eve of the election in November last; and here, he being a Senator of Massachusetts in the Congress of the United States, and I being Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, he indulged in what he honestly believed to be facts and statements in regard to those of my friends who were striving to place me again in the post I then occupied, using no unfair, but only honest statements of the views he held; and he being still a Senator from Massachusetts, and I again her Governor, and this being the first time since then that my voice has been heard in Faneuil Hall, while I lament most deeply the circumstance which has called us together, I rejoice that it gives me an opportunity to rise superior to party feelings, to party bias, and to express my sentiments that we must stand by him who is the representative of Massachusetts, under all circumstances. [_Loud cheers._] And while he represents the old Commonwealth in the United States Senate, in the performance of his constitutional duties as he understands them, I will, so help me Heaven, do all in my humble ability to strengthen his arm and encourage his heart. [_Loud applause._]”

Hon. George S. Hillard said:--

“But now, when I read of this event in the Senate, of this assault upon Sumner, it seemed to me it was a very bad specimen of a very bad school. [_Laughter._] And all of us were affected in the same manner, upon reading the account. What was our first exclamation? Not that it was an inhuman outrage, or a brutal outrage, but that it was cowardly. I say that the cowardliness of this attack stands out even more conspicuous, to my eye, than its brutality or its inhumanity. To approach a man imprisoned, tied hand and foot, as it were, between an arm-chair and a desk, and to strike him over the head without warning or immediate provocation, a stunning, deadly blow with a bludgeon, is, in my opinion, the act of an assassin. [_Applause._] And I say, that, compared to such an act, the act of the man who meets me on the high-road, and horsewhips, or at least attempts to horsewhip me [_laughter_], soars to something like manliness and courage. [_Cheers._]”

Hon. Peleg W. Chandler said:--

“For more than twenty years, Mr. President and fellow-citizens, I have been on terms of the closest intimacy with Charles Sumner. For more than one half that period I have been his political opponent. It is precisely because I have been, and now am, his personal friend, and it is precisely because I have been, and now am, his political opponent, that I have come here to-night,--not with the intention of speaking upon this platform, but to listen to the voices of those who are his political as well as personal friends, in relation to the great outrage which has brought a stain upon our country.

“I have heard here, Gentlemen, a great deal of sympathy expressed for Mr. Sumner. As his personal friend, I beg to say that that feeling is entirely uncalled for, if not to some extent misplaced. Have sympathy for the great martyrs of the past, for those who wear the civic crown, if you will,--but I tell you that that gentleman in Washington who now lies upon a bed of pain, whose life it may be is hanging in the balance, needs no sympathy from us. Every drop of blood shed by him in this disgraceful affair has raised up ten thousand armed men. [_Applause._] Every gash upon that forehead will be covered with a political crown, let it be resisted as much as it may be resisted, here or elsewhere. [_Loud cheers._] This matter is raised far above and beyond all personal considerations. It is a matter of trifling consequence to Mr. Sumner. It makes those who love him love him more,--and no man is more loved, or more to be considered, so far as the affections or friendship are concerned. Yet personal feelings are of little or no consequence in this outrage. It is a blow not merely at Massachusetts, a How not merely at the name and fame of our common country; it is a blow at constitutional liberty all the world over; it is a stab at the cause of Universal Freedom. It is aimed at all men, everywhere, who are struggling for what we now regard as our great birthright, and which we intend to transmit unimpaired to our latest posterity. [_Loud cheers._]

“Whatever may be done in this matter, however, one thing is certain, one thing is sure. The blood of this Northern man, who had dared to stand up in the Senate of the United States under circumstances that would have discouraged a man of less ardor, less enthusiasm, and less courage,--that blood now stains the Senate floor; and let me tell you, that not all the water of the Potomac can wash it out. They may cry, with the great tragic queen, ‘Out, damned spot!’ but no water of this world can ever efface it. Forever, forever and aye, that stain will plead in silence for liberty, wherever man is enslaved, for humanity all over the world, for truth and for justice, now and forever. [_Continued applause._]”

The meeting at Cambridge was distinguished for the character of those who took part in it, many of whom had not sympathized with Mr. Sumner in his public life. The President was Hon. Joel Parker, formerly Chief Justice of New Hampshire; and among the Vice-Presidents were Theophilus Parsons, the eminent law-writer,--C. C. Felton, afterwards President of Harvard University,--Jared Sparks, the historian,--Henry W. Longfellow,--Charles Beck, the Latin scholar,--Joseph E. Worcester, the lexicographer,--Willard Phillips, the law-writer and judge,--Joseph T. Buckingham, the well-known editor.

Professor Felton thus alluded to Mr. Sumner:--

“I know Mr. Sumner well. In former times I had a long, an intimate, and an affectionate acquaintance with him; and I feel bound to say that he is a scholar of rich and rare acquirements, a gentleman of noble qualities and generous aims, distinguished for the amenities of social life, and a companion most welcome in the society of the most generous, the most refined, the most exalted. Sir, I had nothing to do with sending Mr. Sumner to the Senate of the United States; I had no vote to cast on that occasion; and if I had had, it would not, on public grounds, have been cast for him. I shall have none to cast, when the time for another election comes; but if I had five hundred votes, every one should be given to send him back again. [_Great applause._]

“Such is the man for whom ruffians lay in wait, whom they assaulted, when unarmed and defenceless, in the Senate House.”

Richard H. Dana, Jr., Esq., made an elaborate speech, of which the following is only an extract.

“But I cannot, if I would, altogether withdraw my thoughts from this personal outrage upon Mr. Sumner. Charles Sumner!

‘He is my friend,--faithful and just to me.’

I cannot allow myself to call up that scene in the Senate House, lest I should feel more than I shall be able to express or be willing to betray. Boston, his native town, has spoken. Next to Boston, there is no place so dear to him as Cambridge. He is a true son of Harvard. The best years of his early life, from fifteen to twenty-three, he spent here: the four years of college,--a fifth year which he wisely, though unusually, added to his course, for the perfecting of his classical and general studies,--and the three years of his studies in the Law School. At the Law School his attainments were not only great, but wonderful; and for purity of character, kindness, and frankness, he was respected and beloved by all. He was the friend, young as he was, the beloved friend, the frequent and honored guest of Story, of Channing, and of Allston. He was the companion of your Longfellow and your Felton. No young man was more honored by Mr. Webster--in I had almost said his better days. He was the friend of every man and of every cause that deserved to have a friend. At the bar he distinguished himself, especially in juridical literature. He was the reporter of Judge Story’s decisions, and editor of the _Jurist_, where the young student will find the copious results of his enthusiastic labors in his then beloved profession. When he went abroad, he took nothing in his hand that his own merits had not given him. He had not one claim that did not rest on character, learning, and talents. Still under the age of thirty, he became in Europe the honored friend of men whose names have honored the world. Turning his back upon the attractions of dissipation and fashion, he devoted himself to the society of the learned, the wise, the philanthropic, and to all great and good objects. Thomas Carlyle, in a letter to America, says, “We have had _popular Sumner_ here,”--so universally was he liked. In Paris, while the Northeastern Boundary question was agitating England and America, and attracting much of the attention of Europe, Sumner shut himself into the libraries and public archives, and produced a treatise upon the subject, thought then to be almost exhausted, which, published in the great journals of Europe, and brought before Parliaments and Councils, changed the aspect of the question in Europe, and redounded to his great honor at home.

“After his return, under the influence of Dr. Channing, and in sympathy with Dr. Howe and others, he devoted much of his time to the great philanthropic and social problems of the day,--Slavery, Pauperism, Crime, and Prison Discipline,--and gradually the overshadowing social, political, and national importance of the Slave question drew him first before the people and into public life. When his sentiments on the Slave question were to be sustained at the risk of his ease, his interests, his friendships, and his popularity, he put them all to the hazard. When proposed as candidate for the Senate, the highest office Massachusetts can give, while his election hung trembling in the balance week after week, when one or two votes would secure it, and this or that thing said or done it was thought would gain them, nothing would induce Charles Sumner to take one step from his regular course from his house to his office to speak to any man; he would not make one bow the more, nor put his hand to a line, however simple or unobjectionable, to secure the result. I know--I have right to say this--I know that in this course he resisted temptations and advice and persuasions which few men would not have yielded to. He was elected. It was a tribute to character and talent.

“When he went to Washington, to fight almost alone, with only two or three allies, discountenanced by colleagues and cried down by the great majority, to fight the fight for Freedom, he determined not to speak on the subject of Slavery until he had done all in his power to secure the confidence and good-will of his opponents. So far did he carry this, that his friends here feared that he was bending before the idol, as others had bent. He secured his footing as well as it could be secured. All but fanatics for Slavery admitted his claims to personal affection and public respect. On this basis he took his stand for Freedom. You have seen the result. Few men in America have ever had, perhaps no one man now has, so many readers as he. His opponents say that he burns the midnight lamp. He does. And

‘How far that little candle throws his beams!’

His opponents, too, burn the midnight lamp; but, as you remember, Sir, the great Athenian said, there is a difference between the objects on which their lamp throws its glare and his.”

Among the meetings, that of Concord deserves mention. The resolutions, introduced by Hon. E. Rockwood Hoar, were as follows.

“_Resolved_, That we have heard with feelings of the deepest indignation of the cowardly and brutal assault upon a Senator of Massachusetts, in the Senate Chamber of the United States, for words spoken in debate, in his place, upon the floor of the Senate.

“_Resolved_, That this dastardly outrage has in itself dishonored no one but the ruffian who committed it,--but that the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States will make themselves accomplices of the criminal, and deliberate partakers of the guilt and infamy of the crime, if they shall fail to visit upon him speedy and condign punishment.

“_Resolved_, That, if there are those who imagine that the voice of a Senator of Massachusetts can be silenced, or the expression of the deliberate opinions of her people upon public measures and public men can be stifled and suppressed, _by the terrors of assassination_, we _know_ that in CHARLES SUMNER they have mistaken _the man_, and we will endeavor to show that they have mistaken the Commonwealth.

“_Resolved_, That, in this assault upon our distinguished Senator, the right of free debate in Congress, guarantied by the Constitution of the United States, has been dangerously assailed; and all men who are not willing to see it wholly destroyed are called upon, personally, to rebuke the outrage, and all its abettors, defenders, and apologists.

“_Resolved_, That we thank Mr. Sumner with our whole hearts for his heroic defence of the Kansas settlers, and his solemn arraignment before the country of the perpetrators of the great _Crime_ against that unhappy and conquered province.

“_Resolved_, That we have a right to look to the House of Representatives to vindicate the honor of the country in the eyes of the civilized world, by expelling from their body a member with whom none but bullies and savages can hereafter fitly associate.”

These were followed by a speech from Ralph Waldo Emerson, of which this is an extract.

“The outrage is the more shocking from the singularly pure character of its victim. Mr. Sumner’s position is exceptional in its honor. He had not taken his degrees in the caucus and in hack politics. It is notorious, that, in the long time when his election was pending, he refused to take a single step to secure it. He would not so much as go up to the State House to shake hands with this or that person whose good-will was reckoned important by his friends. He was elected. It was a homage to character and talent. In Congress he did not rush into a party position. He sat long silent and studious. His friends, I remember, were told that they would find Sumner a man of the world, like the rest: ‘’Tis quite impossible to be at Washington and not bend; he will bend, as the rest have done.’ Well, he did not bend. He took his position, and kept it. He meekly bore the cold shoulder from some of his New England colleagues, the hatred of his enemies, the pity of the indifferent, cheered by the love and respect of good men with whom he acted, and has stood for the North, a little in advance of all the North, and therefore without adequate support. He has never faltered in his maintenance of justice and freedom. He has gone beyond the large expectation of his friends in his increasing ability and his manlier tone.

“I have heard that some of his political friends tax him with indolence or negligence in refusing to make electioneering speeches, or otherwise to bear his part in the labor which party organization requires. I say it to his honor. But more to his honor are the faults which his enemies lay to his charge. I think, Sir, if Mr. Sumner had any vices, we should be likely to hear of them. They have fastened their eyes like microscopes, now for five years, on every act, word, manner, and movement, to find a flaw,--and with what result? His opponents accuse him neither of drunkenness, nor debauchery, nor job, nor peculation, nor rapacity, nor personal aims of any kind. No: but with what? Why, beyond this charge, which it is impossible was ever sincerely made, that he broke over the proprieties of debate, I find him accused of publishing his opinion of the Nebraska conspiracy in a letter to the People of the United States, with discourtesy. Then, that he is an Abolitionist: as if every sane human being were not an Abolitionist, or a believer that all men should be free. And the third crime he stands charged with is, that his speeches were written before they were spoken: which of course must be true in Sumner’s case,--as it was true of Webster, of Adams, of Calhoun, of Burke, of Chatham, of Demosthenes, of every first-rate speaker that ever lived. It is the high compliment he pays to the intelligence of the Senate and of the country. When the same reproach was cast upon the first orator of ancient times by some caviller of his day, he said, ‘I should be ashamed to come with one unconsidered word before such an assembly.’

“Mr. Chairman, when I think of these most small faults as the worst which party hatred could allege, I think I may borrow the language which Bishop Burnet applied to Sir Isaac Newton, and say, that Charles Sumner ‘has the whitest soul I ever knew.’