Part 27

“Well, Sir, this noble head, so comely and so wise, must be the target for a pair of bullies to beat with clubs! The murderer’s brand shall stamp their foreheads, wherever they may wander in the earth. But I wish, Sir, that the high respects of this meeting shall be expressed to Mr. Sumner, that a copy of the resolutions that have been read may be forwarded to him. I wish that he may know the shudder of terror that ran through all this community on the first tidings of this brutal attack. Let him hear that every man of worth in New England loves his virtues,--that every mother thinks of him as the protector of families,--that every friend of Freedom thinks him the friend of Freedom. And if our arms at this distance cannot defend him from assassins, we confide the defence of a life so precious to all honorable men and true patriots, and to the Almighty Maker of men.”

At a meeting in Worcester, Hon. Charles Allen, the eminent Judge, and formerly a Representative in Congress, said:--

“Now, Sir, we have met to express our warm feelings of indignation--at what? That Charles Sumner has been stricken down by the hand of a brutal ruffian? No, Sir: that is but a small portion of the question which is presented for our consideration at this time. Not by the hand of Brooks of South Carolina, alone, did he fall; but it was through a _concerted effort_, which has not been denied in the House of Representatives, although the question was evaded by Mr. Brooks, declaring that he had informed no one of the _time_ when it should take place; but he did not deny--and it is well known in Washington, and will be throughout the country, that this attack upon Mr. Sumner--that this slaughter of Mr. Sumner, for such was the purpose--was concerted among Southern men, and that Brooks was but the base instrument by which the purpose was to be carried into effect. Sir, we must hold, not Mr. Brooks responsible alone, but all those who combined with him to do this foul deed,--all those--and you will find there will be hosts in another section of the country--who will applaud the act, and profess to honor the man who was put forward to perpetrate this deed. And, Sir, if we consider it merely as a combination of slaveholders against our Senator, and nothing more, we shall not reach the magnitude of the question open for our consideration. That blow was not meant for Mr. Sumner alone. It was meant for the _State_ which he represented. It was the State of Massachusetts whose honor was outraged by that act. It was her majesty which was stricken down in the person of her Senator. It is her body that lies bleeding, and demands retribution at the hands of her children. Shall retribution not come? Shall there not be a voice from one end of Massachusetts to the other, calling aloud for retribution upon the perpetrator, and the aiders and abettors of that foul act? [_Loud cries of ‘Yes,’ and applause._]”

The voice of the Young Men of Boston found utterance at a large and enthusiastic meeting of the Mercantile Library Association, held at their rooms, June 6, 1856, when the following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted.

“_Whereas_ the Hon. Charles Sumner, Senator in Congress from this Commonwealth, and an honorary member of this Association, has been most brutally assaulted in his seat in Congress for words uttered in debate: Therefore

“_Resolved_, That it is with feelings of profound sorrow and shame that we are obliged to recognize in this act a _cowardly_ and _base_ assault upon the rights of free speech, and to regard this indignity, perpetrated upon the person of our honored and beloved Senator, as an insult to the city of Boston and its institutions, the State of Massachusetts, and our common country.

“_Resolved_, That the members of the Mercantile Library Association of Boston, without distinction of party, most respectfully tender to the Hon. Charles Sumner their kindest feelings of sympathy and esteem, and earnestly hope, that, by the blessing of Divine Providence, he may resume his seat in Congress, and reiterate those principles of humanity which every institution, whether political or literary, should most earnestly espouse.

“_Resolved_, That the Corresponding Secretary of this Association is hereby requested to furnish the Hon. Charles Sumner with an appropriate copy of these resolves.”

The sentiments of the medical profession appear in a speech and toast by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, at the dinner of the Massachusetts Medical Society, at the Revere House, Boston.

“Look into the chamber where our own fellow-citizen, struck down without warning by the hand of brutal violence, lies prostrate, and think what fearful issues hang on the skill or incompetence of those who have his precious life in charge. One little error, and the _ignis sacer_, the fiery plague of the wounded, spreads his angry blush over the surface, and fever and delirium are but the preludes of deadlier symptoms. One slight neglect, and the brain, oppressed with the products of disease, grows dreamy, and then drowsy, its fine energies are palsied, and too soon the heart that filled it with generous blood is still forever. It took but a little scratch from a glass, broken at his daughter’s wedding, to snatch from life the great anatomist and surgeon, Spigelius, almost at the very age of him for whose recovery we look, not without anxious solicitude.

“At such a moment as this, more than at any other, we feel the dignity, the awful responsibility, of the healing art. Let but that life be sacrificed, and left unavenged, and the wounds of that defenceless head, like the foul witch’s blow on her enchanted image, are repeated on the radiant forehead of Liberty herself, and flaw the golden circlet we had vainly written with the sacred name of Union!

“‘Dî, prohibete minas! Dî, talem avertite casum!’

“I give you, Mr. President,--

“_The Surgeons of the City of Washington._--God grant them wisdom! for they are dressing the wounds of a mighty empire, and of uncounted generations.”

Hon. Josiah Quincy, in the eighty-fifth year of his age, addressed a letter to the Unitarian Festival, in which he said:--

“The hostile irruption of two members of Congress into the Senate Chamber of the United States, openly armed with deadly bludgeons, and probably secretly, according to the habits of their breed, with bowie-knives and revolvers, and there prostrating on the floor with their bludgeons a Senator of the United States, sitting peaceably in his seat, unconscious of danger, and from his position incapable of defence, inflicting upon him blows, until he sunk senseless under them, and which, if they do not prove mortal, it was not for want of malignant intent in the cowardly assassins,--and all this for words publicly spoken in the Senate, in the course of debate, allowed by its presiding officer to be spoken, _and exceeding not one hair’s breadth any line of truth or duty_: this is the fifth, and the climax, of this series of outrages, unparalleled, nefarious, and brutal.”

At an indignation meeting in the town of Quincy, this venerable citizen spoke as follows.

“The blow struck upon the head of Charles Sumner did not fall upon him alone. It was a blow purposely aimed at the North. It was a blow struck at the very Tree of Liberty. It speaks to us in words not to be mistaken. It says to us that Northern men shall not be heard in the halls of Congress, except at the peril of the bowie-knife, the bludgeon, and revolver. Nor is this any new thing.

“The bludgeon, heretofore only brandished, has at last been brought down; and now is the time for the North to fight. Charles Sumner needs not our sympathy: if he dies, his name will be immortal,--his name will be enrolled with the names of Warren, Sidney, and Russell; if he lives, he is destined to be the light of the nation.”

Hon. Edward Everett, at Taunton, opened his “Address on the Character of Washington” by allusion to the assault.

“With the satisfaction which I feel in addressing you at the present time are mingled the profoundest anxiety and grief. An irrepressible sadness takes possession of my heart at the occurrences of the past week, and the most serious apprehensions force themselves upon me that events are already in train, with an impulse too mighty to be resisted, which will cause our beloved country to weep tears of blood through all her borders for generations to come. The civil war,--for such it is,--with its horrid train of pillage, fire, and slaughter, carried on, without the slightest provocation, against the infant settlements of our brethren on the frontier of the Union,--the worse than civil war which has for months raged unrebuked at the capital of the Union, and has at length, by an act of lawless violence, of which I know no parallel in the history of Constitutional Government, stained the floor of the Senate Chamber with the blood of an unarmed, defenceless man, and he a Senator of Massachusetts,--ah, my friends, these are events which, for the good name, the peace, the safety of the country, for the cause of free institutions throughout the world, it were worth all the gold of California to blot from the record of the past week. They sicken the heart of the good citizen, of the patriot, of the Christian; they awaken a gloomy doubt whether the sacrifices and the sufferings endured by our fathers, that they might found a purer, higher, and freer civilization on this Western Continent than the world had yet seen, have not been endured in vain.”

William H. Hurlbut, of New York, the eminent journalist, wrote thus, under date of June 7, 1856.

“The newspapers, which have for so long kept the millions of the North as watchers about your bed, now gladden all our hearts with the news that you are soon to stand again upon that floor which promises to become as sacred in the annals of Freedom as is the arena of the Coliseum in the story of our faith.…

“Nothing, I am sure, could so have touched and roused every class of Northern society, nothing could so have put the terrible realities of the issue we _must_ confront before the most unwilling and the most indifferent minds, as the atrocious deed which, imbecile as it was atrocious, makes the firmest enemy of Slavery the perpetual representative alike of Northern honor and of Northern manhood, and enlists around you, as the perpetual Senator of Massachusetts, every instinct, passion, and necessity of Northern civilization.

“It is your rare good fortune to be able to wear the martyr’s crown into the battle of life, and I really do not see how any true man can have any words for you but those of congratulation and of stern exultation. The scoundrelly simpleton who struck you fled from the recoil of his weapon; but there will be a fiercer recoil from that blow, and a flowing of blood not so easily to be stanched.

“I think, if you could have seen the meeting at the Tabernacle, you would have marked the 22d of May with white in your calendar: it is marked with _red_ in the calendar of our country.

“I am going to England in a few weeks, but I hope, before I go, to hear that you are quite reëstablished in health, and once more face to face with the lions,--I beg the pardon of the forest-king,--with the tigers of the Senate House.

“In this season of our national degradation, it will be something, that, when Englishmen talk to me of their dead Miltons and Marvells and Hampdens and Sidneys, I can answer them with a living name, which, like these names, shall never cease to live.”

Dr. John W. Francis, the eminent physician, of New York, wrote, under date of October 9, 1856:--

“I now write a line or two for the purpose of renewing to you the sentiments I cherish in your behalf, and my admiration of your noble patriotism and commanding eloquence. I had read carefully your classical speeches, and rejoiced that there was at least one in the Senate who to rich culture added the graces of finished oratory and the abiding principles of constitutional freedom. Yes, my dear Sir, I have been for several months, amidst many cares, absorbed on the consequences which I inferred must follow the brutal assault which you received. I almost at once exclaimed, That _blow_ will effect a revolution in our political relationship; yet I pray God that the Union may continue intact under its momentous influences. You have, by your parliamentary demonstrations, evinced the heroism of the patriots of the earlier days of our Republic; you have stamped your Senatorial career with the impress of the loftiest intrepidity and moral courage. You are destined to occupy an ample page in your country’s history. These expressions, dear Sir, flow from a full heart and a deep conviction.”

Governor Banks, in his annual message to the Legislature of Massachusetts, January, 1858, associated the violence in Kansas with that upon Mr. Sumner.

“Nothing but the direct intervention of Federal influence can force through Congress the Lecompton Constitution; and if the Government, with the sanction of the people, can force upon Kansas a Constitution conceived in fraud and violence, it will be the weightiest blow ever given against free governments.

“Violence and fraud, if successful in this instance, will be repeated whenever occasion demands it. It will not be limited to Territories or States. No shrine will be held sacred. The Senate Chamber of the United States has been already invaded, and this State was for a time bereft of a part of its representative power by an act of fearful wrong, committed upon the most cherished and brilliant of her sons, while in the performance of constitutional duty.”

The following extract from a poem by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe appeared in the _New York Tribune_ at the time.

“A WOMAN’S WORD FOR THE HOUR.

“While she yet spake, from the heaven God’s thunder had fallen, And I heard: ‘The crime, not the paltry offender, so stirs us.’ Take heart, thou lone one! a champion leaps to defend thee, Armed with the loftier issue, the art and the moral,-- Eloquent lips, and the integral heart of Conviction, Powerful still when the arm of the spoiler has crumbled,-- Doctrine of Right, and the Old-World tradition of Freedom,-- Doctrine of Justice, thank God, no New-England invention,-- Known to the ancients, known to the gods and their poets, Known to great Tully, whose pillars of perfect marble Stand in the temple of Truth, his remembrance for ages. There shall thy record be, Knight of the wronged and the helpless! There shall thy weapon be kept, with the motto, ‘I hurled it.’ How hast thou hardened the living heart and quick feelings To stand up and speak the great spirit-dividing sentence,-- To stand, a mark for the thief and assassin to aim at! More than our envy, more than thy hope, was thy guerdon, Setting the seal of thy blood to the word of thy courage! If but the pure of heart in a pure cause should suffer, SUMNER, the task thou hast chosen was thine for its fitness. Never was paschal victim more stainlessly offered,-- Never on milder brow gleamed the crown of the martyr.

“Stand thence, a mark for the better and nobler ambition! For they are holy, the wounds that the Southerner dealt thee: Count them blessed, and blessed the mother that bore thee. “Would that the thing I best love, ay, the son of my bosom, Suffering beside thee, had shared the high deed and its glory! Shall we bend over those wounds with our tears and our balsams,-- Tears warm with rapture, balsams of costliest clearness? Take thy deserving, then; wear it for life on thy forehead! Crowned with those scars, shalt thou enter the just man’s heaven,-- Crowned with those scars, shalt thou stand in the record of heroes!

“If earthly counsel were vain, should the heavens befriend thee! Sinking Orion, flung far in the wrath of the tyrant, Calls not in vain on the dumb heart of Nature to help him: Lo! the deep comes to his aid, and its monsters upbear him; Hesper stoops over the Ocean her long shining tresses, Till he is drawn by them up to the zone of her beauty, And, like fair sisters, the stars close around him forever!”

The wide-spread, spontaneous sentiment of the North found echo in Europe, especially in England. Among various testimonies, the following is selected from the _Morning Star_ of London, June 24, 1856.

“The assault upon Mr. Sumner stands without parallel in the annals of civilized communities. While sitting at his desk in the Senate Chamber, quietly engaged in writing, a member of the other legislative body, the House of Representatives, deliberately walks up to him, and, taking advantage of his utterly helpless position, where he could neither escape nor defend himself, begins to beat him violently upon his bare head with a heavy cane, until he falls down stunned and insensible, covered with his own blood, the cowardly ruffian not desisting even then, when the form of his antagonist lay prostrate and senseless before him. While this is taking place, a number of his brother Senators stand round and make no attempt to stay the arm of the assailant; some of them, indeed, mounted guard expressly to prevent interference. Such conduct is utterly inexplicable to us in this country.

…

“If anything could aggravate the inherent brutality of this act, it is the character of the man upon whom it was committed. For Mr. Sumner is a gentleman in whom there meets a combination of qualities adapted in a rare degree to inspire the affectionate attachment of friends, and to command courtesy and respect from all generous and honorable opponents: a man of a chivalrous and heroic spirit, of a refined and sensitive nature, of a powerful and cultivated intellect disciplined by hard study and adorned with profound and various learning, who has led a life of irreproachable purity and active benevolence,--the favorite pupil of Story, the intimate friend and disciple of Channing, the chosen associate of the finest living minds of America, Quincy, Sparks, Longfellow, Goodrich, Dana, Everett, Bryant, Emerson.

…

“And when the greatest of American orators and statesmen, Daniel Webster, was stricken down by the hand of death, Mr. Sumner was the man whom the State of Massachusetts chose from among her sons, as most worthy to be his successor. And most nobly has he vindicated the wisdom of their choice. Taking small interest in the ordinary conflicts of parties, he has stood forth, from the moment that he entered the Senate, as the courageous and resolute champion of the slave. His speeches are elaborate and masterly orations, with perhaps almost too much of classical stateliness and refinement for the tribune. Over the hard and dry abstraction of politics he throws the glancing lights of his fertile and polished fancy, and relieves the tedium of debate by the rich stores of an elegant and varied erudition. The speech that brought upon him the recent attack was perhaps the greatest of all his efforts. It is in every respect a magnificent production. With a lofty and relentless logic he tears away the covering veil of sophistry with which the Southern members had sought to conceal the naked iniquity of the transactions in Kansas. There are, no doubt, passages of terrible severity, but not, we think, exceeding the license of parliamentary debate among ourselves. And the most conclusive testimony to the power of the orator is afforded by the desperate extremities to which it reduced his discomfited foes.

“We have no words of commiseration to offer to Mr. Sumner. God grant only that a life so valuable may be spared, and he will occupy in the estimation of all men, at home and abroad, whose judgment he would value, a prouder position than he ever occupied before. He stood in the vanguard of Freedom, and the marks of the ruffianly outrage inflicted upon him, which he will probably bear to the grave, he will wear as more honorable scars than ever warrior brought from a battle-field.”

This record of opinion at the North, echoed from Europe, may be closed by words from an important journal at New York, _The Courier and Enquirer_, in the summer of 1856.

“The fact is incontestable, that, when the Massachusetts Senator again crosses the threshold of that Senate Chamber, Slavery will have to confront the most formidable foe it ever had to face before the public eye. He will come with every muscle braced and every sinew strung by the sense of measureless personal wrong; but infinitely more than that, he will come armed with the indignation and shielded by the moral support of the whole North. Hitherto he has figured but in one character, the assailant of Slavery; henceforth he will be also the accredited assertor and champion of the most sacred right of freedom of speech, and as such will command tenfold greater consideration. His antagonists have affected to despise him before, and to treat him with scorn. The day for that has passed. The public man, who has once been the occasion of such an outburst of sympathy and good-will as has within the last week sprung from the mouth of millions upon millions of his countrymen, is no longer a man to be disdained. He has henceforth position, power, and security, beyond any of his adversaries. Let his sentiments be what they may, his free utterance of them hereafter becomes an assured thing, insomuch as that utterance will serve as the best of all possible tests of that freedom of debate which has once been outraged in his person, and which it is the present determination of the North shall be maintained at all hazards.”

V.

INJURIES AND CONTINUED DISABILITY OF MR. SUMMER.

Senator Butler, in reply to Mr. Sumner, June 12, 1856, remarked on his absence from his seat as follows.

“If I give credence to the testimony of Dr. Boyle, I see no reason why he should not be present. For anything that appears in that testimony, if he had been an officer of the Army, and had not appeared the next day on the battle-field, he would have deserved to be cashiered.”[152]

This fling was so agreeable to the Senator that he repeated it, with a variation, on the second day of his speech.

“After all that has been said and done, on a _post bellum_ examination, what is it? A fight in the Senate Chamber, resulting in two flesh wounds, which ought not to have detained him from the Senate. Being rather a handsome man, perhaps he would not like to expose himself by making his appearance for some time; but if he had been in the Army, there was no reason why he should not go to the field the next day; and he would deserve to be cashiered, if he did not go.”[153]