Part 18

“From beginning to end it was a vehement denunciation of Slavery. The labor of four leisure years seems to have been devoted by Mr. Sumner to collecting every instance of cruelty, violence, passion, coarseness, and vulgarity recorded as having happened within the Slave States, or as having been committed by a slaveholder.… But, aside from its utter irrelevancy to the Kansas Question, what general good can be hoped for from such envenomed attacks upon the Slave States? Do they tend in any way to promote the public welfare? Do they aid in the least the solution of what every sensible man acknowledges to be the most delicate and difficult problem of this age?”

Then, in another number, the _Times_ said:--

“Fortunately, it has commanded less attention than was anticipated, and has encountered silence in some quarters, and positive disapproval in others, usually disposed to judge speeches of this class with the utmost forbearance. Even the _Tribune_, while it has published the speech in its editions intended mainly for the country, has not deemed it judicious or wise to give it circulation among its city readers; and some of the most decided Republican papers in the country have protested against the injustice of holding the party responsible for its sentiments.”

The _New York Herald_ took advantage of the speech to hold up the consequences of “Black Republicanism.” On the day after the delivery, it wrote thus:--

“_Important from Washington.--The Great Republican Manifesto.--Opening of the Campaign in Earnest.--Charles Sumner’s Inflammatory Harangue in the Senate.--Appeal to the North against the South.--The Fivefold Wrong of Human Slavery.--Its Total Abolition in the United States the Sacred Duty of the Republican Party.--The Helper and Spooner Programmes fully and emphatically indorsed.--Mr. Sumner the Leading Light of the Black Republicans._

“We give elsewhere, to-day, in full, the speech of Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts, on the great question that is presented to the whole country for judgment in November next.

“Not only the argument it contains, but the place where it was uttered, and the position and character of the man who uttered it, should be taken into consideration, in measuring its bearing upon, and relation to, what may truthfully be called the greatest question of the present age.…

“In that Senate which has so often resounded with the sublimest utterances of human lips and human hopes, Mr. Sumner stands forth the personification of a great and a free State, and the representative man of a great and powerful political party in fifteen of the sovereign States of this Union. He possesses the philosophical acumen of Mr. Seward, without his cautious reserve as a politician,--the honesty of Lincoln, without the craft of a candidate in nomination,--and literary culture, political zeal, and the gift of eloquence, which place him in the very foremost rank as a leader and an exponent of the Black Republican ideas. All of these circumstances combine to give a more deep solemnity to his words, in this grave moment of their utterance.…

“Every man admits that our fraternal relations with the Southern States are productive of unmixed benefit to us and to ours; and yet Lincoln and Seward incite the North to an ‘irrepressible conflict’ with the South; and now comes another mighty leader among the Black Republicans, and proclaims it to be a ‘sacred animosity.’

“This is the burden of Mr. Sumner’s eloquence, and we need not enter upon its details. But there is one characteristic of this speech which is in perfect accordance with the policy of the Black Republican party in the present campaign. The bloody and terrible results which must ensue, if that party succeeds in getting possession of the Federal Government, are kept carefully out of view. John Brown’s practice is taught, but there is no word of John Brown. The social condition of fifteen populous, rich, and powerful States is to be revolutionized; but not a hint of the possibility of resistance on their part, or of the reactive effect of such resistance upon the aggressive North, is dropped.”

On the next day the _Herald_ said:--

“_Sumner’s Truthful Exposition of the Aims of Black Republicanism.--Its Teachings in the coming Conventions._

“The perfect platform of the Black Republican party has been laid down by Senator Sumner in his recent speech in the Senate, and it is now before the country for approval or rejection.”

In the same spirit, the _Richmond Despatch_ recognized the speech as an authentic manifestation of Northern sentiment.

“The fact is, Sumner has spoken but too truly. His is the spirit in which the South is regarded by the party to which he belongs. He is its mouthpiece. His is the tongue to the Abolition lyre, giving it utterance, bringing out its genuine tones. Greeley and Raymond are afraid, just at this moment, to speak the whole truth. They dare not let the conservative portion of the people at the North know that it is the design of the party with which they are associated to make uncompromising war upon the South,--to destroy its institutions at any cost of blood, to hunt down its people even to the extremity of death, if it be necessary. The South ought to feel obliged to Sumner for betraying the designs of the party. His speech is a godsend.”

The _Indianapolis Daily Journal_ wrote:--

“We have read as much of Senator Sumner’s speech on the Barbarism of Slavery as we have had time to read, and must bear witness that it is one of the ablest, most exasperating, and most useless speeches we ever read. It shows all through the genius, the learning, and the hate of its gifted and abused author. It is manifestly the revenge of the orator on the institution that through Brooks’s arm struck him down so brutally. It is intended less to check the growth of Slavery than to gall Slaveholders. It is a scalding, excoriating invective, almost without parallel in the annals of oratory.… As a vengeance for the orator’s own wrongs, it is ample and admirable. As an implement to aid the great work of repressing Slavery extension, it is simply worthless, or worse. Slavery is all that he charges. But slaveholders are not as barbarous as their system.”

The _Boston Daily Advertiser_ begins by saying of the speech, that “its denunciation, although strong, is not hot; its profuse learning and reference to history show elaboration and study; and the whole mass of reasoning, of rhetoric, and of authority is brought together and wielded with such skill and power as the greatest masters of oratory might well envy”; and then the journal proceeds:--

“We confess that in our judgment the argument upon Slavery itself need be neither long nor elaborate. The Golden Rule has exhausted the subject, both upon principle and authority. The testimony of one enlightened slaveholder like Jefferson, who ‘trembled for his country, when he remembered that God was just,’ tells us as much of the actual workings of the institution as all the hideous narratives which its opponents have culled in such appalling profusion from its current history. The subject is one which is governed by principles which are essentially and peculiarly elementary, and we confess that we see not how any powers of eloquence or reasoning could turn him who is not convinced by the simple statement of these few original principles.…

“If the majority of the people are already right upon the main subject,--and we should otherwise despair of the Republic,--we must conclude that our efforts will be much more efficacious, if directed at those constitutional heresies by means of which this giant evil is at present carrying on its attack. It is in this way, chiefly, that, within those limits of duty which the Republican party is ever careful to affirm and observe, we can hope to act efficiently upon this great question.”

The tone of the Democratic papers appears in the _Albany Atlas and Argus_.

“No one can rise from a perusal of this speech without a contempt for the author, and a conviction of his unfitness for the place.”

Also in the _Boston Post_.

“Charles Sumner’s recent speech is a curiosity that has no parallel, at least in our Senatorial record. Pedantry, egotism, fortuitous hypothesis, malice, rhapsody, and verbosity stripe and emblazon it with disgusting conspicuousness.”

Other papers were grateful and enthusiastic, generally in proportion to their Antislavery character.

The _Boston Traveller_ said:--

“No nobler specimen of American eloquence can be found than this logical, bold, spirited, clear, and learned exposition of the ‘Barbarism of Slavery.’ In it we have the views of the chivalrous antagonist of Wrong, expressed in the pointed and elegant language of the accomplished scholar, and guided by the intellect of the sagacious and benevolent statesman. We are the more pleased with the plain speaking of Mr. Sumner, because there has apparently been a falling off in the language of some leading Republicans since the beginning of the Presidential contest, as if they were fearful of offending the Oligarchy. Mr. Sumner, who has no idea of sacrificing the Right to the Expedient, has given utterance to vital truths in language full of vital energy,--‘Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.’”

The _Boston Transcript_ said:--

“Many persons, who read this speech without having previously read a number of speeches made on the other side, may be likely to consider it too abstract in its character. But, as many Southern Senators, who assume to be the representative men of their section, have gravely lectured the Senate at great length in defence of the principles and practice of Slavery, have taken the bold ground that it is in accordance with the commands of God and the teachings of experience, have attempted to show that it elevates the white man and blesses the black, have even gone so far as to assert that labor, whether white or black, is happier when owned than when hired, and on the strength of these assumptions have eagerly argued for the extension of such a beneficent institution into territory now free, it is certainly proper that some man from the Northern States should make an attempt to save religion, conscience, reason, common sense, common sensibility, from being pressed into the service of the wickedest and most nonsensical paradoxes that ever entered the brain or came out of the mouth of educated men.”

The _Boston Atlas and Bee_ said:--

“It is not too much to say that it is the boldest, most thorough, and most uncompromising speech that Mr. Sumner has ever delivered; and it is easy to see that it must prove the most offensive to the slaveholders of any of his speeches. It is a complete hand-book of their offences, and will excite in them great and perhaps irrepressible rage.…

“In vigor of thought and style, this speech will rank among the greatest, if not at the head, of Mr. Sumner’s productions. It is straightforward, direct, logical, proceeding directly to its mark and by the shortest line, striking the swiftest and hardest blows, and never for a moment leaving the reader in doubt as to its meaning, while it is enlivened by even more than the orator’s usual wealth of classical and historical lore. It is in every respect a remarkable speech, and will arrest the attention of the whole country.”

The _Boston Journal_ said:--

“We trust that the length of Mr. Sumner’s speech will deter none from its perusal. It is what it professes to be, an examination of the institution of Slavery itself,--and we venture to say a more acute, comprehensive, exhaustive, and powerful exposition of the whole subject never was made. Whoever wants to understand what American Slavery is must read this speech; whoever wants to make headway against the ripening public feeling by defending Slavery must first try to answer the arguments of this speech. If he does not, he will be in danger of imitating the folly of Senator Chesnut, and, through an exhibition of passion and scurrility, of becoming a living illustration of its truths.… The nation has certainly been drifting into a too general acquiescence in the doctrine, upheld openly or insidiously by both factions of the Democratic party, that slaves are property, precisely like any other property known to the Common Law. Any utterance like this of Mr. Sumner’s, which shall call the American people from this disgraceful and dangerous conclusion, may well be generously criticised in other respects.”

The _New Bedford Mercury_ had the following, in a letter from Boston.

“The chief event of interest, certainly to Bostonians, lately, is the astonishing speech delivered by Charles Sumner, in his place in the Senate, in which he takes up the Slavery Question precisely where he left it off, when stricken down by the cane of the deceased bully Brooks. Offensive as that speech proved to the Slave-Masters, this one is ten times worse. This speech, for the first time in the history of Congressional speeches, sets forth, without the slightest veil or mincing of the matter, the deformities, obliquities, and immoralities of the Slavery system.”

The _Albany Evening Journal_ said:--

“On the 22d of May, four years ago, we were startled with the news that Charles Sumner had been struck down in the Senate Chamber and nearly killed. Yesterday, for the first time since that event, his eloquence again enchained the attention of the Senate. The speech which provoked the assault in 1856 has been more than matched in the one just delivered. The former speech was read by millions, and the last is undoubtedly destined to receive a still wider attention. The glowing eloquence and surpassing erudition of Mr. Sumner give to all his speeches an attraction difficult to resist, even by those who dislike the doctrines he proclaims. His last speech is characterized not only by his usual brilliancy of style, but contains a striking array of facts and statistics which must have cost much patient toil in collecting.”

The _Hartford Evening Press_ said:--

“It is said in certain quarters that it would have been more politic to have left the speech unspoken. It is even urged by a leading journal that the admission of Kansas is endangered by it. The fact is, that the journal knows--none know better--that the Kansas Bill stands just as good a chance at the hands of Southern Senators to-day as if Charles Sumner had bent low and with bated breath begged the admission of that Territory as a favor, instead of demanding it as a right.… The speech is demanded by the progress of the assumptions of Slavery. It boldly sets itself up as divine in origin, Christian in practice, the best form of civilized society, and challenges our scrutiny and approbation. This, taken in connection with its extraordinary interpretation of the Constitution as a charter of Slavery, and not of Freedom, as we have all along supposed it to be, forces the discussion upon us. Let us thank Heaven that we have men bold enough to take up the gauntlet. Charles Sumner deserves well of the country and well of the age, for his calm and masterly exposition of the true character of that system we are urged to accept and extend, as divine in appointment, and adapted to the wants of our time.”

The _New Yorker Abendzeitung_, a German paper at New York, published an elaborate leader, translated by the _Evening Post_, of which this is an extract:--

“The oration made by Mr. Sumner is not a mere speech in the common meaning of the term, but rather a thoroughly digested treatise, carefully prepared, on the basis of a great number of facts and quotations. It unites the most thorough-going philosophical research, regardless of the conflict of its results with the nearest practical aims, to that variegated poetical coloring, which, appealing to the power of imagination, is an indispensable element of an efficient speech. Even to the best speeches of Senator Seward Sumner’s speech stands in proportion as an oil painting of richest coloring and most dramatic grouping of figures to a mere black crayon etching. If Mr. Sumner’s speech had been uttered before the meeting of the Chicago Convention, he would undoubtedly have occupied a prominent rank among the candidates of the radical portion of the Republican party.”

The _Sunday Transcript_, of Philadelphia, said:--

“The greatest speech of the season is certainly Charles Sumner’s magnificent philippic against ‘The Great Barbarism.’ The learning and research, the array of facts, the apt and eloquent quotations, the striking illustrations, and the vivid imagery of the oration are its least merits. The style and diction are as clear as crystal, as pure as water, and sonorously musical. The entire tone of the speech is dignified and lofty.…

“Indeed, we admire his courage, his unequalled moral _pluck_. In this day of compromise and timidity, of bated breath and base concession, when it is the loathsome fashion to say that the Slavery Question should be discussed only as a matter of profit and loss, it is refreshing to hear a Senator speak in the spirit of Jefferson and the Fathers. Besides, does not the South challenge us to discuss the abstract question? Do not Benjamin, Toombs, Stephens, Curry, Keitt, Lamar, Hunter, Slidell, Brown, Hammond, Chesnut, Mason, Pryor, Clingman, Fitzhugh, and _all_ the Southern politicians, discuss the question of Slavery in the abstract? Do they not deliver long arguments to prove that Slavery is right, just, benign, civilizing, and necessary,--that it is the proper condition of the negro and the working-man? And is any free Northern man so poor a poltroon as to say that these men shall not be _replied to_? What! shall all the South be privileged to praise and applaud Human Slavery, and not even Charles Sumner be allowed to _describe it as it really is_?”

The _Daily Democrat,_ of Chicago, said:--

“This is the great speech of the day. It paints American Slavery as it is, and as it has never been painted before. No Republican can look upon the picture which Charles Sumner draws of this Barbarism without feeling his heart swell with hatred against it, and without recording a new vow to labor unceasingly for its extinction.”

Early in the controversy _Frederick Douglass’s Paper_ bore testimony as follows.

“At last the right word has been spoken in the Chamber of the American Senate. Long and sadly have we waited for an utterance like this, and were beginning at last to despair of getting anything of the sort from the present generation of Republican statesmen; but Senator Sumner has now exceeded all our hopes, and filled up the full measure of all that we have long desired in the Senatorial discussions of Slavery. He has dared to grapple directly with the Hell-born monster itself. It is not the unreasonableness of the demands of Slavery, not the aggressions nor the mere arrogance of the Slave Power, insufferable and unconstitutional as these have been, that have now so thoroughly aroused the soul and fired the tongue of the learned and eloquent Senator of Massachusetts, but the inherent and brutal barbarism of Slavery itself.… His manner of assault is, we think, faultless. It was calm, self-poised, earnest, brave, and yet completely guarded. The network of his argument, though wonderfully elaborate and various, is everywhere, and in all its parts, strong as iron. The whole slaveholding Propaganda of the Senate might dash themselves against it in a compact body, without breaking the smallest fibre of any of its various parts.”

The _Liberator_, in an editorial article by William Lloyd Garrison, said:--

“Throughout, its spirit was lofty, dignified, and bold, indicative of high moral intrepidity and a noble purpose. No attempts were made to interrupt him, though the smothered wrath of the Southern members must have been excessive.”

The correspondent of an Antislavery paper, with the initials W. P., in an article entitled “Mr. Sumner’s Last and Greatest Speech,” said:--

“The Massachusetts Senator has led a column into this fortress, which, in the name of God and Humanity, must eventually silence all its guns and level its last stone to the ground. Neither statesman nor philanthropist has ever, in like manner, rent asunder the veil and exposed to the view of an outraged people the Barbarism of Slavery. This Mr. Sumner has done, _and no man can undo it_. ‘What is written is written.’ Slaveholders may rave, Americans may ignore, Republicans may deplore, but the speech and the name of Charles Sumner will live and be praised when the death-pall of oblivion shall cover the last vestige of these unhappy men.”

The _Independent_, of New York, said:--

“The world will one day acknowledge the debt of gratitude it owes to the author of this masterly analysis. For four hours he held a crowded audience in attention, including large numbers of Southern people, members of Congress, and others.”

The _Antislavery Standard_, of New York, said:--

“Nothing like it, in elevation of tone and width of scope, had ever before been heard in that Chamber. It was worth, to the author, to the cause, and to the country, all that it cost to produce it. For Mr. Sumner it was a great triumph and a revenge. And yet there was nothing vindictive in its tone or spirit. The ‘bitterness’ which is ascribed to it was in its truth. No doubt it stirred the malignant passions of the Slave-Masters to the deepest depths; but the fault was theirs, not his. His facts were unquestionable, his logic beyond the reach of cavil, and his rhetoric eminently becoming and self-respectful.”

While newspapers were discussing the speech, and Republicans were differing, the Legislature of Massachusetts threw its weight into the scales by the adoption of resolutions, entitled “Resolves relating to Freedom of Speech,” containing the following support of Mr. Sumner.

“_Resolved_, That the thanks of the people of this Commonwealth are due and are hereby tendered to the Honorable Charles Sumner for his recent manly and earnest assertion of the right of free discussion on the floor of the United States Senate, and we repeat the well-considered words of our predecessors in these seats in approval of ‘Mr. Sumner’s manliness and courage in his fearless declaration of free principles and his defence of human rights and free institutions.’

“_Resolved_, That we approve the thorough, truthful, and comprehensive examination of the institution of Slavery embraced in Mr. Sumner’s recent speech; that the stern morality of that speech, its logic, and its power command our entire admiration; and that it expresses with fidelity the sentiments of Massachusetts upon the question therein discussed.”