Part 20

Attacks upon the speech were not prompted exclusively by friendship to Slavery. Personal opposition to Mr. Sumner, never mitigated by compromise on his part, found vent, in the hope of influencing his reëlection as Senator, although this could not occur till the next year. Such, at least, was the motive of some. Hon. William Claflin, President of the Senate, wrote as early as February 7, 1861, when the Crittenden Compromise was finding support in Massachusetts:--

“The truth is, there is a desperate effort under the surface to drive you from the Senate next winter, and, if _nothing_ is done, it is feared by many that the Conservative force will get so strong as to drive both you and Andrew from your seats.”

A correspondent of the _Plymouth Memorial_ put this point strongly.

“It is true, the country press spoke out and denounced this attack upon Mr. Sumner, and the attempt which is being made to take him from his place and put in it some weak-backed quietist, who, afraid to look this thing in the face, would palter weak commonplaces, and, while the patient writhed in the paroxysms of pain, would administer soothing drops instead of strong medicine to cure the disease. Mr. Sumner struck at Worcester the key-note of an anthem that will, ay, that is now being taken up by the people, and the sound of which will put the croaking of these penny trumpets far out of hearing.”

The _Norfolk County Journal_, by one of its correspondents, explained the opposition.

“Of course no man with his eyes open needs to be told that this furious onslaught on Mr. Sumner has very little to do with this speech. _It is the opening of the war to defeat his reëlection next fall._ A year ago the same papers made, if possible, more savage attacks upon Mr. Andrew. Before he was nominated every one of them opposed him, and after his nomination not one of them supported him cordially; and most of them predicted, that, though he might be carried through by the Presidential election, yet in another year the reaction would sweep him into oblivion. They will find themselves equally mistaken about Mr. Sumner.”

Wendell Phillips, alluding to the assaults upon the speech, wrote:--

“If it had no other advantage, suffice it that it shows you who your personal enemies are.”

Not content with arraigning the policy proposed by Mr. Sumner, his assailants became critics of another sort. They insisted that he was wrong in his illustrations from history,--misrepresenting the decree of Emancipation at Athens, and misquoting Plutarch.

The decree of Emancipation can be read, and also the record of the excitement which followed. That Hyperides at a desperate moment proposed Emancipation as a measure of defence against a triumphant conqueror is indisputable, and that such a measure was already known in Athens among war powers is attested by the scholiast of Aristophanes,[177] while a candid interpretation of all the circumstances, including the acceptable peace unexpectedly offered by Philip, points to the conclusion that the latter was unwilling to provoke this untried warfare.[178] This incident is described by a French writer, who gives to it the same effect as Mr. Sumner:--

“Philippe, au bruit de cette proposition, dont l’adoption pouvait ébranler la Grèce entière, _s’arrêta, frappé d’épouvante_.”[179]

The heaviest blows were on account of Plutarch, and here it is not easy to comprehend the anger displayed. Endeavoring to present the idea of Emancipation in its proper relief, Mr. Sumner brought forward the proclamation of liberty to the slaves, saying nothing of others joining Marius, according to the familiar translation of Langhorne, well satisfied that the slaves were the effective force; and the speech was so reported in the newspapers. Then came the attack, with learned newspaper _scholia_, garnished with Greek type, insisting that the husbandmen and shepherds, called “freemen” in Langhorne’s translation, and not the emancipated slaves, were authors of the success which carried the illustrious adventurer into the Roman Forum, there to clutch with dying grasp his seventh consulate.

The text of Plutarch is the best answer. That interesting biographer speaks of the slaves first, _putting the Proclamation of Emancipation foremost_; and this is precisely what was needed for the argument. Nor was Mr. Sumner alone in omitting to mention particularly the husbandmen and shepherds, whether freemen or freedmen. Good scholars had done precisely the same. Dr. Liddell, head master of Westminster School, and one of the authors of the favorite Greek Lexicon, describing this event, gives prominence to the Proclamation of Emancipation, without mentioning any freemen, saying: “Like all the partisan leaders of this period, _he offered liberty to slaves_, and soon found himself at the head of a large force.”[180] Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology says that Marius “landed at Telamo in Etruria, and, _proclaiming freedom to the slaves_, began to collect a large force.”[181] And the great historian Niebuhr, after referring to his landing on the coast of Etruria, where he was joined by Etruscan cohorts, adds,--“Marius was not at all delicate in collecting troops, and even _restored slaves to freedom on condition of their taking up arms for him_.”[182] Thus both these authorities, in harmony with Dr. Liddell, treat the Proclamation as the chief feature, precisely as Mr. Sumner presented it, and all three leave out of view the “freemen.”

Admitting that there were “freemen,” their part was evidently secondary, unless in reality they were the new-made “freedmen,” as a scholar has suggested. The predominance of the latter is conspicuous in the old English translation by Sir Thomas North:[183] “_And being landed, proclaimed by sound of trumpet liberty to all slaves and bondmen that would come to him._ So the laborers, herdmen, and neat-herds of all that marsh, for the only name and reputation of Marius, ran to the seaside from all parts.” It appears also in the historic fact, that, when Marius landed in Etruria, there were few or no husbandmen and shepherds already free. They were slaves. According to Plutarch, the first prompting of Tiberius Gracchus to his career as a reformer was observation in this very region. Passing through Etruria, on the way to Spain, he was troubled to find “scarce any husbandmen or shepherds except slaves from foreign and barbarous nations.”[184] Niebuhr, following Plutarch, says that “he saw far and wide no free laborers, but numbers of slaves in chains.”[185] The language is strong,--“far and wide no free laborers.” This was 137 years B. C. Somewhat later, 45 years B. C., Julius Cæsar by positive law required that of herdmen one third should always be free,[186] thus showing that two thirds at least were then slaves. It is only reasonable to suppose, that, if slaves were everywhere at the earlier date, and so numerous at the later date, it would have been impossible at the landing of Marius, 87 years B. C., to form an army of freemen in a few days. Only fourteen years later the gladiator Spartacus called the slaves to his standard, and they came by tens of thousands, so as to stifle the local power; and here again is testimony to their comparative numbers.

Nothing is clearer than the diminution of the free population of Italy at this period. An excellent authority speaks of it as “the most notorious evil of the times”;[187] and this is attested by others. It is easy to infer that the freemen must have been few by the side of the slaves. Naturally, therefore, did the experienced general make his appeal to this most numerous and sympathetic class: he knew that so his strength would be best assured. And this was the very position of Mr. Sumner. It is evident that Plutarch himself was of the same opinion; for shortly afterwards, in narrating these events, he records that the other side did not suffer so much through incapacity “as by anxious and unseasonable attention to the laws,”[188] in preventing Emancipation. This important testimony is most vividly stated in the old translation of North, when he describes the opponent of Marius in Rome as failing “not so much for lack of reasonable skill of wars _as through his unprofitable curiosity and strictness in observing the law_; for, when divers did persuade him to set the bondmen at liberty to take arms for defence of the Commonwealth, he answered, that he would never give bondmen the law and privilege of a Roman citizen, having driven Caius Marius out of Rome to maintain the authority of the law.”[189] Here was passion for consistency, and want of practical sense. Marius was not troubled in this way.

Another circumstance makes the conclusion yet clearer. On entering Rome, Marius surrounded himself, according to Plutarch, “with a guard _selected_ from the slaves that had repaired to his standard,”[190] or, according to the same authority in another place, “the slaves, whom he had admitted his fellow-soldiers,“[191] thus attesting still further their superior importance. In the troubles that ensued these freedmen played a bloody part, until they were destroyed by Sertorius; and here again their numbers appear. According to Plutarch, the guard ”_selected_ from the slaves that had repaired to his standard” was four thousand,[192] or not far from the ordinary complement of a Roman legion, which the accomplished scholar, Mr. George Long, tells us was the very force collected by Marius in Etruria.[193] Plainly, therefore, the emancipated slaves constituted the main body, if not the whole legion.

Whatever may be the text of Plutarch, and supposing freemen among the recruits, nothing can prevent the conclusion, that emancipated slaves constituted the decisive force by which success was achieved. Therefore this example illustrates the efficacy of a proclamation giving freedom to slaves, and for this purpose it was adduced.

This discussion seems a diversion now; but at the time of the speech the criticism was a reality,[194] attracting attention and helping to arrest the great cause. To cap the climax, it was gravely argued, that, even if the Proclamation had the effect attributed to it, we must not imitate Caius Marius,--for he was no better than a barbarian.

THE PRESS.

Specimens from the press show the condition of the public mind at the time, and the controversy which arose, extending to foreign countries. If there were enemies, so also were there friends, both at home and abroad.

The _Boston Daily Advertiser_ thus frankly denounced the speech.

“We are sorry to see a disposition in several quarters to represent the Republican party, mainly on the strength of Mr. Sumner’s unfortunate speech at Worcester, as a party of Emancipation, a ‘John Brown party,’ a party that desires to carry on this war as a war of Abolition.… The Convention certainly disavowed any intention of indorsing the fatal doctrines announced by Mr. Sumner, with a distinctness which can scarcely be flattering to that gentleman’s conception of his own influence in Massachusetts.… It is alleged that the Convention cheered Mr. Sumner. His supporters among the delegates and spectators undoubtedly did so: but who does not see that this goes for nothing, in the face of the obvious fact that the silent party who disapproved were so much superior in number as to control the action of the whole body?… We hold it for an incontestable truth, that neither men nor money will be forthcoming for this war, if once the people are impressed with the belief that the Abolition of Slavery, and not the defence of the Union, is its object, or that its original purpose is converted into a cloak for some new design of seizing this opportunity for the destruction of the social system of the South.… The speech to which we have several times referred has certainly done as much as lay within the compass of one man’s powers to inspire this suspicion, to distract and weaken the loyal, and by indirection to aid the disloyal.”

The _Boston Evening Gazette_ was in harmony with the _Advertiser_.

“His appearance this year was not in accordance with the wishes of those who do not follow his lead, but regard him as one of the most irrepressible impracticables of the party.… The sentiments uttered by Mr. Sumner are opposed to the spirit of the times, to the policy of the Administration, and are detrimental to the prosperity of the cause. They are Charles Sumner’s ideas; he is responsible for them; and the Convention, by killing the resolutions offered by Rev. James Freeman Clarke, of Boston, which substantially indorsed the speech of Mr. Sumner, repudiated the Emancipation sentiments which Mr. Sumner attempted to induce the Republicans to adopt as a part of their policy. It was a most lamentable failure, and should prove a lesson to men who are so entangled in one idea that they imagine the wealth of the country and the blood of its sons are being poured out to perpetuate a party, instead of securing the safety of the Union and the Constitution.

“After reading Mr. Sumner’s speech, one can but regret that a mind possessed of such culture should give utterance to sentiments that will stimulate the flames which now threaten the destruction of the ship of state, and provoke discord among the noble men who are striving to save it. Had some unknown individual spoken the same words at this time, we doubt not many would have regarded him as a fit inmate for an insane asylum; but it is the position and antecedents of the Senator which alone shield him from the suspicion of being a proper person against whom a writ _De lunatico inquirendo_ might be issued.… The tone of the speech and the manner in which it was delivered are the acme of arrogance.”

The _Boston Journal_ did not differ much from the _Advertiser_, except in manner.

“Mr. Sumner and other radical Antislavery men, dazzled by visions of Universal Freedom, entirely overlook the insurmountable difficulties which stand in the way of immediate emancipation. The unutterable horrors of a servile insurrection do not present themselves, or they would shrink from the prospect. The economic problem of supporting four millions of human beings who have never been self-dependent is not considered. All practical considerations, in fact, are ignored by a miscalled philanthropy which is as impracticable as it is visionary, and which would lay waste the most prolific soil, and fill our land with vagrants and marauders.

“We must limit the war to the purposes so distinctly avowed by the Administration, or the sun of our national prosperity will set in darkness and gloom, to rise again, if at all, only after years of bloodshed and anarchy. Proclaim the policy of Emancipation, and all hope of a reconstruction of the Union will be crushed out. All the loyal elements in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri will be alienated at once, and every prospect of awakening the dormant loyalty in the seceded States will have passed away. It will come to this, that we must subjugate or be subjugated. The people of the South would defend their homes and their firesides to the last extremity, as we would do, should the chances of war favor them. The present generation would not see the end of such a contest, unless the North should be conquered and subdued by the aid of foreign bayonets or internal dissensions. From such a war we may well pray to be delivered.”

The _Norfolk County Journal_ declared dissent.

“We are not prepared to indorse the doctrines to which Mr. Sumner gave utterance in his Worcester speech. They strike us as not pertinent to the present stage of the Rebellion. Though their application may become a necessity in the future, public sentiment is as yet unready to adopt and enforce them. They were especially infelicitous in being advanced at a Convention to which men of varying views of public policy had been invited, and their influence has not conduced to that harmony of political action in Massachusetts which it is desirable to bring about.”

The _Springfield Republican_, among many things, said:--

“We fear it is but an illustration of the mental perversity produced by entire absorption in a single aspect of a great question, without regard to its manifold relations, and by the ‘sacred animosity,’ which, too exclusively nourished, renders the best men reckless of means in the pursuit of what they consider the chief end of life.”

On the contrary, the able Boston correspondent of that paper wrote:--

“Charles Sumner’s speech was the great event of the day, however. It was an epoch and a victory in itself. The right thing was said, in the right way, at the right time, by the right man. It was wise, conservative, practical, as Mr. Sumner always is, and it unquestionably met the views of four fifths of the audience. Those who did not enthusiastically applaud said, ‘Oh, it isn’t quite time; Sumner is right; this will be the _result_, we hope and expect; but let us wait for Providence and the Administration.’”

The _Boston Post_, representing the Democracy, declared itself.

“Mr. Sumner’s speech at Worcester yesterday was in direct opposition to the policy of the Administration, the declaration of Congress, and the avowed purpose of the war,--overflowing with the same narrow, bitter, and unconstitutional sentiments that have done so much to bring our present misfortunes upon us, and which tend to render the restoration of the Union impossible. If such views as he advances governed the action of the Administration, _not a brigade could be kept in the field_, or money enough raised by the Secretary of the Treasury to buy breeches and gaiters for a demagogue Senator. For such men as Sumner and his ilk do not fight nor pay; they only brawl, and deserve to be treated as were old scolds in days past,--_ducked in a horse-pond_.”

Then in another article:--

“The error of having listened to this speech cannot be repaired. The Republicans can set the matter right, as to this being indorsed by the friends of the Administration in Massachusetts; and it would seem to be incumbent on the Republican State Committee to make a statement of facts, going to show, that, as a body, it did not invite Mr. Sumner to speak,--that, though the noisy Abolitionists shouted, yet the main body of the Convention evidently and notoriously heard him with sorrow.”

And again, by a correspondent, the same Democratic organ said:--

“Can any patriot read the rodomontade of this classic fanatic at the Worcester Convention, without a sense of pain, nausea, and disgust? He certainly ought to be put in a strait-jacket.”

The _Boston Courier_ promptly said:--

“The sincerity of the Republican managers, in appealing to Union men of all parties to meet with them in Convention, is not certainly placed beyond question by the fact that Mr. Sumner (not without invitation, we apprehend) comes forward as the organ of the assembly, and makes the principal speech of the occasion, as he did at the Convention last year. At that period this was felt as at least an awkward circumstance, considering the unquestionable Antislavery ultraisms of Mr. Sumner. Of all men in the community, this, and this alone, was the special vocation of this Senator,--to denounce a domestic usage of a part of the country, which, whether good or bad, is protected by its Constitution and laws.”

In another issue the same paper characterized the speech as one, “the insane counsels of which considerate men of all parties regard with such dislike and indignation.”

The _Newburyport Herald_ said:--

“Charles Sumner’s speech will be found on our first page to-day. We give it not by way of approval, for it seems to us the worst speech that could be made. Its only influence will be to distract and divide the North, and raise up a faction here against the Administration, which has declared for an entirely different policy,--while at the South it will kill what little Union sentiment remains, and rejoice the Rebel hosts, giving them better ammunition for their treason than powder would be.… We don’t know how it appears to others, but it seems to us, that, if Jeff Davis had liberty to send his own agent here to do the worst for us, he could have done nothing more. The war can be fought upon no such grounds; and before it closes, we shall discover that fact.”

The New York _Journal of Commerce_ was quite sententious.

“The Republicans of Boston desire to be rid of any connection with the fanatic Senator’s remarks. The signs of the times improve.”

The _Carbon Democrat_, of Pennsylvania, breaks forth in condemnation.

“If there were any lack of evidence to prove that Charles Sumner is really an enemy to our country, and desired only to destroy it, and immerse the people in the dreadful, crashing slavery of martial tyranny, this speech supplies the link, and makes the train of evidence against his fealty strong as Holy Writ. He here unblushingly proclaims the horrid policy of unloosing the bonds of four million slaves, and setting them against the Caucasian race,--to murder, pillage, and destroy, without stint, until their barbarous appetites may be appeased.…

“In this connection we might suggest that Marius was a very proper example for Senator Sumner and his school of politicians to quote. Like them, he was the very prince of office-seekers.…

“He advocates a doctrine which is in direct violation of the spirit of the Constitution, and which tends only to weaken the hands of the Government, by dividing public sentiment at the North, and thus discouraging enlistments. Why is it that the Government, thus assailed, does not lay its hand upon this fulminator of treason, and secure him safely behind the bars and bolts of Fort Lafayette?”

The _New York Herald_ thus interpreted the speech:--