Part 3

This was the only point on the route of the procession where Mr. Sumner rose to his feet. Here the kindness of these orphaned ones so touched his feelings, that he could not help acknowledging it in this way.

Attached to several of the bouquets thrown to Mr. Sumner were appropriate and expressive mottoes. The principal of them were as follows.

“No bludgeon can dim the lustre of our champion of Freedom.”

“Massachusetts’s most honored son. If the ladies could vote, he would be the next President.”

“A warm welcome from warm hearts to the noblest man America has ever borne in her bosom! 78 Shawmut Avenue, Nov. 3, 1856.”

“Welcome home! The sons and daughters of Massachusetts greet her noblest defender.”

“Infants welcome him whose name lives immortal in the hearts of his countrymen.”

“Welcome, dear friend of justice!”

All along the line of procession, namely, down Washington Street, Newton Street, Shawmut Avenue, Dover Street, Washington Street, West Street, Tremont Street, Boylston Street, Charles Street, and Beacon Street to the State House, the crowds which greeted the honored Senator at every point were great.

At the corner of Washington and Newton Streets, over Washington, there was a fine display of flags and streamers. From the house of Mr. Nickerson, fronting on Franklin Square, was a splendid triumphal arch, between two elm-trees, flags and streamers surrounding the word--

“Welcome!”

Newton Street had a large number of flags, the union jack displayed alternately with the national ensign on staffs projecting from Franklin Square. The entire street was strewed with evergreens. It was a beautiful display.

At the junction of Newton Street and Shawmut Avenue, the houses of Benjamin Smith and Alfred A. Andrews were splendidly decorated with festoons and flags. Between them, floating above Newton Street, was the following:--

“Massachusetts loves, honors, will sustain and defend her noble Sumner!”

The house of E. G. Dudley, at the corner of Shawmut Avenue and Waltham Street, made a fine appearance. Besides flags and festoons, was the following, wreathed in black:--

“May 22, 1856.”

Beneath this was the following:--

“Welcome, thrice welcome!”

At the corner of Shawmut Avenue and Dover Street, on the house of Rev. Mr. Sargent, was the following significant motto:--

“To the _Right_!”

pointing the route of the procession.

The house of Dr. Parks, No. 88 Dover Street, was beautifully decorated,--an eagle above the upper-story windows, holding a number of streamers, which were gathered below. The following was inscribed upon the building:--

“Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.”

The piano-rooms of T. Gilbert were decorated, with the words in front,--

“Welcome, Freedom’s Defender!”

There were many other similar decorations. If longer time had been given, the demonstration would have been other than it was.[2] But it was not in decorations that the citizens of Boston welcomed home the beloved son of Massachusetts; it was rather with emotion too deep for utterance that they received him.

The scene at the State House was beyond description. The area in front, the long range of steps leading to the Capitol, the Capitol itself, the streets in the vicinity, the houses even to the roofs, were packed with human beings. The assembled thousands greeted him with long continued cheering.

Mr. Sumner arrived in front of the Capitol, where a platform had been erected. His Excellency Governor Gardner, the Executive Council, and the Governor’s Staff were escorted by the Sergeant-at-Arms, Benjamin Stevens, Esq. Mr. Sumner was then introduced by Professor Huntington in an eloquent speech, as follows.

“MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY,--In behalf of the Committee of Reception, I present to your Excellency the Hon. Charles Sumner, Senator of Massachusetts in the Congress of the United States. It is needless to recount here his services to our Commonwealth, to the whole Republic, to the principles of a pure and just nationality, to elegant learning, to Christian statesmanship, to the liberties and the rights of man. These are all safely recorded in the imperishable history of the country and the race. How deeply they are written in the hearts of his fellow-citizens let this vast and enthusiastic concourse bear witness. He returns to his friends; but his friends are wherever justice is revered. He returns to his neighbors; but he has a neighbor in every victim of wrong throughout the world. He returns to the State that entrusted her interests to his charge, having proclaimed--according to the spirit of her own institutions and her people--the doctrine of the Brotherhood of all States, in the bonds of universal Peace. He stands at the door of her Capitol, and in the presence of her Chief Magistrate,--stands here her faithful steward, her eloquent and fearless advocate, her honored guest, her beloved son!”

His Excellency replied briefly as follows.

“SIR,--I am admonished by the Committee of Arrangements that my words must be few and brief.

“This is no political ovation. The Chief Marshal of the procession announces that no political mottoes will be admitted into the ranks. By the same sense of propriety I am admonished that no political phrases are appropriate here.

“This is the spontaneous outpouring of your friends and neighbors and fellow-citizens to welcome you from your field of intellectual victory,--and to welcome you also from your bed of pain and suffering. I cordially add my tribute, humble, save what my official station imparts to it, to crown the just and welcome offering.

“We hail you with warm hearts, not only as the eloquent orator, the accomplished scholar, and the acknowledged statesman,--not only as the earnest friend of suffering humanity and of every good cause,--not only as one who, educated in the institutions and by the altars and firesides of Massachusetts, has won for himself imperishable laurels on the arena of the nation’s conflicts,--but especially now do we welcome you as the successful defender of her integrity and her honor. [_Cheers._]

“In her name I declare that the base and cowardly blows which fell on you struck through you into her. Within the circuit of the sun’s flight after I heard of that assault, before such an assemblage as rarely gathers in Faneuil Hall, I pledged Massachusetts to stand by you. [_Loud applause._]

“And she does stand by you to-day. She will stand by you to-morrow [_enthusiastic cheers_]; and she will stand by you in her defence forever. [_Loud cheering._]

“I welcome you, then, most cordially and warmly, in her name, again to her borders. Every thrilling breast and kindling countenance around you in this immense throng welcomes you,--Boston welcomes you,--Massachusetts welcomes you.

“In her name I trust that the quiet of your home may speedily restore you to perfect health, so you can again go forward to your sphere of duty, to new achievements, and new victories.

“And now, Gentlemen, fellow-citizens, one word to you. The duty of the day over, let us, one and all, leave our distinguished friend to the undisturbed quiet of his own home, to the fond caress of one whose ear is at this moment bent in anxious watching for the earliest warning of his approach, that he may there recover, not only from his past illness, but from the present excitement and the fatigues of travel. At present our kindest attentions will consist in scrupulously avoiding exacting intrusions.

“To you, Sir, again, in the name of our glorious old Commonwealth, I extend a cordial welcome. [_Loud cheers._]”

Three times three cheers were then given for Mr. Sumner, who attempted to reply; but his voice was more feeble than in replying to Mr. Quincy. He spoke, with great difficulty, as follows.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY,--

It is a pleasure to be once more among the scenes of home; to look upon familiar objects,--the State House, the Common, and well-known streets. It is more pleasant still to behold the countenances of friends. And all this pleasure, Sir, is enhanced by the welcome which you now give me, in behalf of the beloved Commonwealth which for five years I have served, honestly, earnestly, and constantly, in an important field of duty, to which I was introduced by an unsought suffrage.

Sir, I thank you for this welcome. I thank, also, the distinguished gentlemen who have honored this occasion by their presence. I thank, too, these swelling multitudes who contribute to me the strength and succor of their sympathies; and my soul overflows especially to the young men of Boston, out of whose hearts, as from an exuberant fountain, this broad-spreading hospitality took its rise.

My earnest desire, often expressed, has been, that I might be allowed to return home quietly, without show or demonstration of any kind. And this longing was enforced by my physical condition, which, though vastly improved at this time, and advancing surely towards complete health, is still exposed to the peril of relapse, or at least to the arrest of those kindly processes of Nature essential to the restoration of a shattered system. But the spontaneous kindness of this reception makes me forget my weakness, makes me forget my desire for repose.

I thank you, Sir, for the suggestion of seclusion, and the security which that suggestion promises to afford.

Something more, Sir, I would say, but I am admonished that voice and strength will not permit. With your permission, therefore, I will hand the reporters what I should be glad to say, that it may be printed.

[The remainder of the speech is printed from Mr. Sumner’s manuscript.]

More than five months have passed since I was disabled from the performance of my public duties. During this weary period I have been constrained to repeat daily the lesson of renunciation,--confined at first to my bed, and then only slowly regaining the power even to walk. But, beyond the constant, irrepressible grief which must well up in the breast of every patriot, as he discerns the present condition of his country, my chief sorrow has been caused by the necessity, to which I was doomed, of renouncing all part in the contest for human rights, which, beginning in Congress, has since enveloped the whole land. The Grecian chief, grievously ill of a wound from the stealthy bite of a snake, and left behind while his companions sailed to the siege of Troy, did not repine more at his enforced seclusion. From day to day and week to week I vainly sought that health which we value most when lost, and which perpetually eluded my pursuit. For health I strove, for health I prayed. With uncertain steps I sought it at the seashore and I sought it on the mountain-top.

“Two voices are there: one is of the sea, One of the mountains; each a mighty voice: In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, They were thy chosen music, Liberty!”[3]

I listened to the admonitions of medical skill, and I courted all the bracing influences of Nature, while time passed without the accustomed healing on its wings. I had confidently hoped to be restored so as to take my seat in the Senate, and to be heard there again, long before the session closed. But Congress adjourned, leaving me still an invalid. My next hope was, that I might be permitted to appear before the people during the present canvass, and with heart and voice plead the great cause now in issue. Here again I have been disappointed, and the thread of my disability is not yet spun to the end. Even now, though happily lifted from long prostration, and beginning to assume many of the conditions of health, I am constrained to confess that I am an invalid,--cheered, however, by the assurance that I shall soon be permitted, with unimpaired vigor, to resume all the responsibilities of my position.

* * * * *

Too much have I said about myself; but you will pardon it to the occasion, which, being personal in character, invites these personal confessions. With more pleasure I turn to other things.

* * * * *

I should feel that I failed in one of those duties which the heart prompts and the judgment confirms, if I allowed this first opportunity to pass without sincerest acknowledgment to my able, generous, and faithful colleague, Mr. Wilson. Together we labored in mutual trust, honorably leaning upon each other. By my disability he was left sole representative of Massachusetts on the floor of the Senate, throughout months of heated contest, involving her good name and most cherished sentiments. All who watched the currents of debate, even as imperfectly as I did in my retirement, know with what readiness, courage, and power he acted,--showing himself, by extraordinary energies, equal to the extraordinary occasion. But it is my especial happiness to recognize his unfailing sympathies for myself, and his manly assumption of all the responsibilities of the hour.

I am not here to indulge in eulogy, nor to open any merit-roll of service; but the same feeling which prompts these acknowledgments to my colleague embraces also the Commonwealth from whom we have received our trust. To Massachusetts, mother of us all,--great in resources, great in children,--I now pledge anew my devotion. Never before did she inspire equal pride and affection; for never before was she so completely possessed by those sentiments which, when manifest in Commonwealth or citizen, invest the character with its highest charm, so that what is sown a natural body is raised a spiritual body. My filial love does not claim too much, when it exhibits her as approaching the pattern of a Christian Commonwealth, which, according to the great English Republican, John Milton, “ought to be but as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth and stature of an honest man, as big and compact in virtue as in body.”[4] Not through any worldly triumphs, not through the vaults of State Street, the spindles of Lowell, or even the learned endowments of Cambridge, is Massachusetts thus,--but because, seeking to extend everywhere within the sphere of her influence the benign civilization which she cultivates at home, she stands forth the faithful, unseduced supporter of Human Nature. Wealth has its splendor, and the intellect has its glory; but there is a grandeur in such service which is above all that these can supply. For this she has already the regard of good men, and will have the immortal life of history. For this she has also the reproach and contumely always throughout the ages poured upon those who have striven for justice on earth. Not now for the first time in human struggles has Truth, when most dishonored, seemed most radiant, gathering glory even out of obloquy. When Sir Harry Vane, courageous champion of the English Commonwealth, was dragged on a hurdle up the Tower Hill to suffer death by the axe, one of the multitude cried out to him, “That is the most glorious seat you ever sat on!”[5] And again, when Russell was exposed in the streets, on his way to a similar scaffold, the people, according to the simple narrative of his biographer, imagined they saw Liberty and Virtue sitting by his side. Massachusetts is not without encouragement in her own history. She has seen her ports closed by arbitrary power,--has seen her name made a byword of reproach,--has seen her cherished leaders, Hancock and Adams, excepted from all pardon by the crown; but then, when most dishonored, did Massachusetts deserve most, for then was she doing most for the cause of all. And now, when Massachusetts is engaged in a greater cause than that of our fathers, how serenely can she turn from the scoff and jeer of heartless men! Her only disgrace will be in disloyalty to the truth which is to make her free.

Worse to bear--oh, far worse!--than the evil speaking of others is the conduct of some of her own children. It is hard to see the scholarship which has been drawn from her cisterns, and the riches accumulated under her hospitable shelter, now employed to weaken and discredit that cause which is above riches or scholarship. It is hard, while fellow-citizens in Kansas plead for deliverance from a cruel Usurpation, and while the whole country, including our own soil, is trodden down by a domineering and brutal Despotism, to behold sons of Massachusetts in sympathy, open or disguised, with the vulgar enemy, quickening everywhere the lash of the taskmaster, and helping forward the Satanic carnival, when Slavery shall be fastened not only upon prostrate Kansas, but upon all the Territories of the Republic,--when Cuba shall be torn from a friendly power by dishonest force,--and when the slave-trade itself, with all its crime, its woe, and its shame, shall be opened anew under the American flag. Alas, that any child of Massachusetts, in wickedness of heart, or in weakness of principle, or under the delusion of partisan prejudice, should join in these things! With such I have no word of controversy at this hour. But, leaving them now, in my weakness, I trust not to seem too severe, if I covet for the occasion something of the divine power

“To bend the silver bow with tender skill, While, void of pain, the silent arrows kill.”[6]

Gladly from these do I turn to another character, yet happily spared to Massachusetts, whose heart beats strong with the best blood of the Revolution, and with the best sentiments by which that blood was enriched. The only child of one of the authors of American Liberty, for many years the able and courageous Representative of Boston on the floor of Congress, where his speeches were the masterpieces of the time, distinguished throughout a long career by the grateful trust of his fellow-citizens, happy in all the possessions of a well-spent life, and surrounded by “honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,” with an old age which is second youth, JOSIAH QUINCY, still erect under the burden of eighty-four winters, puts himself at the head of our great battle,--and never before, in the ardor of youth, or the maturity of manhood, did he show himself so grandly conspicuous, and add so much to the heroic wealth of our history. His undaunted soul, lifted already to glimpses of another life, may shame the feebler spirits of a later generation. There is one other personage, at a distant period, who, with precisely the same burden of winters, asserted the same supremacy of powers. It is the celebrated Dandolo, Doge of Venice, at the age of eighty-four, of whom the historian Gibbon has said, in words strictly applicable to our own Quincy: “He shone, in the last period of human life, as one of the most illustrious characters of the times: under the weight of years he retained a sound understanding and a manly courage, the spirit of an hero and the wisdom of a patriot.”[7] This old man carried the Venetian Republic over to the Crusaders, and exposed his person freely to all the perils of war, so that the historian describes him, in words again applicable to our day, saying: “In the midst of the conflict, the Doge, a venerable and conspicuous form, stood aloft, in complete armor, on the prow of his galley,” while “the great standard of St. Mark was displayed before him.”[8] Before the form of our venerable head is displayed the standard of a greater republic than Venice, thrilling with its sight greater multitudes than ever gazed on the standard of St. Mark, while a sublimer cause is ours than the cause of the Crusaders; for our task is not to ransom an empty sepulchre, but to rescue the Saviour himself, in the bodies of his innumerable children,--not to dislodge the Infidel from a distant foreign soil, but to displace him from the very Jerusalem of our Liberties.

* * * * *

May it please your Excellency, I forbear to proceed further. With thanks for this welcome, accept also my new vows of duty. In all simplicity let me say that I seek nothing but the triumph of Truth. To this I offer my best efforts, careless of office or honor. Show me that I am wrong, and I stop at once; but in the complete conviction of right I shall persevere against all temptations, against all odds, against all perils, against all threats,--knowing well, that, whatever may be my fate, the Right will surely prevail. Terrestrial place is determined by celestial observation. Only by watching the stars can the mariner safely pursue his course; and it is only by obeying those lofty principles which are above men and human passion that we can make our way safely through the duties of life. In such obedience I hope to live, while, as a servant of Massachusetts, I avoid no labor, shrink from no exposure, and complain of no hardship.

The cavalcade then moved rapidly away, escorting Mr. Sumner to his home in Hancock Street.

On arriving there, he was again welcomed with unbounded enthusiasm by a large crowd assembled in the street and on the sidewalks, the windows being filled on both sides up and down the street. The crowd cheered vociferously for Mr. Sumner, his mother, the Governor, Hon. Josiah Quincy, Hon. N. P. Banks, and Hon. Anson Burlingame. Mr. Sumner and his mother appeared at the window and bowed their acknowledgments, which called forth general and enthusiastic plaudits. The multitude then, giving three parting cheers for the distinguished Senator, separated, and the ceremonies of reception terminated.

Many of the business firms closed their stores during the afternoon. The paper agreeing to do so was headed by A. & A. Lawrence & Co., Gardner Brewer & Co., Parker, Wilder, & Co., Denny, Rice, & Gardner, Wilkinson, Stetson, & Co., Blake, Bigelow, & Co., Pierce Brothers & Flanders, &c.

AID FOR KANSAS.

LETTER TO HON. M. F. CONWAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1856.

HON. M. F. CONWAY, afterwards Representative in Congress from Kansas, in communicating this letter to the public, reported that it “was of great value in securing the appropriation of twenty thousand dollars by the Legislature of Vermont in aid of Kansas.”

BOSTON, November 17, 1856.

DEAR SIR,--I wish that I could aid your efforts to interest the State Legislatures for Kansas. To these Legislatures I look at this exigency for something worthy of the cause which is now in jeopardy. They have the power, and this is the very moment to exert it. God bless the State which begins!

Surely liberty in Kansas, involving our own liberty also, is worthy of every effort. To its security every citizen should contribute according to his means; and I know no better rule for the State Legislatures than for the citizen. These Legislatures should all contribute according to their means,--the more, the better. And such contributions, like every other charity, will be twice blessed.

Accept my best wishes for Kansas, and believe me, dear Sir,

Faithfully yours,

CHARLES SUMNER.

JUDGE CONWAY, of Kansas.

CONGRATULATION ON REËLECTION OF ANSON BURLINGAME AS REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS.

LETTER TO A BANQUET AT FANEUIL HALL, NOVEMBER 24, 1856.

HANCOCK STREET, Monday Evening, November 24, 1856.