Part 22

“If the Federal Government are in want of an _ex parte_ defender, they will certainly find one in Mr. Charles Sumner. When he tells the Republican State Convention at Worcester, that Rebellion never assumed such a front since Satan made war upon the Almighty, he used first the hyperbolical language which the most abject courtier of an absolute monarch in the Middle Ages could have suggested in condemnation of some insurrection that had broken out in one of his provinces.… _Mr. Sumner narrows the question now dividing the North and South distinctly into a war of Slavery._ Hence he appeals to European sympathies in behalf of the North. Now this view is in great part true, yet it is not wholly true.… It is not simply in respect of Slavery, as Mr. Sumner represents it, that the South differs from the North. The leading men of the South were commonly of different extraction from the leading men of the North. That difference has developed a broad distinction in social habits, in political ideas, in consent to authority, and in other characteristics which constitute the idiosyncrasy of a nation.… We cannot, therefore, agree with Mr. Sumner, that the question is essentially and wholly a slave question, any more than we can regard the secession as a rebellion against quasi-Divine authority.”

But the National cause was not without defenders abroad, nor the speech without sympathy.

The London _Daily News_, in an elaborate leader, with an abstract of the speech, said:--

“The most remarkable circumstance which we have yet chronicled is the speech of Mr. Charles Sumner in defence of the war.… We regard Mr. Sumner’s speech as most important in every point of view. It is the best answer which has been yet made on American ground to those who complain that hitherto the cause of the North has not met with the sympathy it deserved in Britain. But passing this, it shows to the Northerners themselves what it is that paralyzes their arms, what it is that places them so generally on the defensive and prevents their success. Let Mr. Sumner’s policy be adopted, and it would not only strike terror into the hearts of the Rebels, but would animate the masses of volunteers in the North with a ‘spirit which would render them still more formidable.’”

A London commercial paper, _The Floating Cargoes Evening List_, published a considerable extract, with a line from the speech as its caption, “Look at the war as you will, and you always see Slavery,” and the following notice:--

“The present American war exercises so powerful an influence upon commercial affairs in general, that the expression of an opinion on this subject by one of the most eminent American statesmen deserves special notice.”

The London _Morning Star_ thus declared its sympathy:--

“The speech delivered by the Hon. Charles Sumner, at the Republican Convention at Worcester, in Massachusetts, is one of the most significant events of the American crisis.… In vigorous and eloquent words Mr. Sumner has told the plain truths which we have frequently reiterated, and there was not heard even the whisper of a dissentient voice.[198] He pointed out that Slavery is the great enemy to the preservation of the Union, and that its eradication would bring the war at once to a close.… Emancipation must come, and its calm concession by an act of executive power can alone prevent its ultimate consummation by red-handed insurrection. The enthusiastic assent which was evoked by Mr. Sumner’s noble words--words worthy alike of the man and of his theme--is a cheering foretaste of the triumph which cannot be long deferred.”

In the English island of Jersey, one of the Channel Isles, on the coast of France, the _Independent and Daily Telegraph_ published the speech at length, with an article entitled “The Orator of Freedom,” where it said:--

“As a general rule, even those who like to listen to good speeches do not care to read long speeches, good or bad. But even such persons need not our recommendation to give their attention to the graceful periods and electrifying appeals of, probably, the most accomplished of American speakers,--perhaps we might justly say the foremost orator speaking the Anglo-Saxon tongue; for, rivalling Gladstone in genius, he more than rivals the glory of England’s House of Commons by that holy earnestness which imparts to eloquence its chief effect, and which naturally is the product of circumstances rather than of individual will.… The principles of the Massachusetts Senator command our thorough adhesion, as his extraordinary talents challenge our admiration, and his courageous consistency carries with it our respect. But, although we can make every allowance for President Lincoln and his ministers, and those Massachusetts men who hesitate to invoke the sword of Spartacus, still, we repeat, all our sympathies are with Mr. Sumner, and the cause of which he is the champion, and the policy of which he is the exponent.… Although grammarians will not allow the comparative and superlative of ‘right,’ and know nothing of ‘righter’ and ‘rightest,’ we must nevertheless affirm that General Butler was right, General Fremont more right, and that Senator Sumner is most right.”

Crossing to the Continent, the controversy continues.

The _Précurseur_ of Antwerp, in Belgium, said:--

“Mr. Charles Sumner has pronounced very energetically in favor of the Abolition of Slavery, and demanded, with great strength of expression and power of argument, the introduction of this question into the conflict. He demanded especially, that the Executive Power should pronounce in favor of Immediate Abolition by a declaration, perfectly legal according to him, that all slaves coming within the lines of the Federal [National] army should be free. This declaration seems to him at the same time constitutional and justified by precedents. The Executive Power has this right in virtue of Martial Law. The most significant fact, and which augurs the definitive solution of the question, is, that the speech was received with great enthusiasm by the audience; and since it presents in effect the most rapid solution of a burdensome war, it becomes now more than probable that the pressure of public opinion will not be slow in making itself felt by the Federal Government.”

The _Pays_, at Paris, an Imperialist journal, said:--

“It appears that in the State of Massachusetts public views are divided as to the means to be employed for joining the pieces of the American Union. The most violent, represented by Senator Sumner, preach war to the knife, and the emancipation of the blacks. They propose to give liberty to all the slaves in the Union, with indemnities to loyalists only. Thus, then, if we are to believe Senator Sumner, the surest way of establishing peace in North America will be to let loose several millions of blacks, and incite them to murder and incendiarism.”

On the other hand, in France was the testimony of Count Agénor de Gasparin, noble friend of the national cause, who, in a powerful work, cited the speech at Worcester, and adopted its conclusion,[199]--also of M. Édouard Laboulaye, who, at a later day, when presiding over the Antislavery Conference at Paris, surrounded by the Abolitionists of all countries, paid a flattering tribute to Mr. Sumner, winding up with allusion to this speech:--

“Charles Sumner, a man who in his turn took up this cause and defended it with the most admirable eloquence, which, as you probably all know, was the occasion of his being nearly killed in his place in the Senate,--an act for which the assassin was rewarded by his Southern friends. They gave him a cane, gold-mounted, bearing the inscription, ‘_Hit him again._’ Mr. Sumner came to France, and we made his acquaintance at that time. The object of his journey was the reëstablishment of his health,--and he recovered it; for he it was, who, during the whole of the war, was the real adviser of America: he felt, and he said, more boldly than any one, that the war could be terminated only by the Abolition of Slavery.”[200]

The position accorded to Mr. Sumner in Europe, beginning especially with this speech, was attested at a still later day in an article by M. Michel Chevalier, a Senator of France under the Empire, renowned for various writings, especially in Political Economy. In a sympathetic review of the address on the “Duel between France and Germany,” this authority thus expresses himself:--

“The opinion embodied in the writing which I am about to analyze, and which is a mixture of sympathetic words and of severe counsels for France, is not that of one or many assemblies, of one or many popular meetings, of one group or of many groups of journals; it is that of one man. But this man is one of the most distinguished citizens of his country; he has exercised a supreme influence in the events of which the great Republic has been the theatre since the moment when, in 1861, the South declared that it broke the Union, and at the mouth of the cannon seized Fort Sumter, situated in the harbor of Charleston. Mr. Charles Sumner has not figured on the battle-field; he was elsewhere, in the Senate of the United States, from which place, it can be said, he was the political director of the conflict.… But the thought of extirpating Slavery, of obliging the Slave States to modify their internal system so as to render impossible the reëstablishment of servitude under another name, the idea of assimilating by law the black and mulatto with the white,--assimilation to which until then their habits were as repugnant as their laws,--these have belonged to Mr. Charles Sumner more than to any other person, and were the basis of a plan which has triumphed by the indomitable will and the ever-ready eloquence of this statesman. It can therefore be said of Mr. Charles Sumner, that he is in himself a public opinion.”[201]

CORRESPONDENCE.

As after the speech on the Barbarism of Slavery, so now, letters came with volunteer testimony. Beyond their interest as tokens of strong and wide-spread sympathy with Mr. Sumner, they have historic value as illustrations of the intense Antislavery sentiment destined so soon to triumph. Sometimes they are directly responsive to the press, especially in the severity of its criticism on the speech. Here, as before, Abolitionists took the lead.

Wendell Phillips thus earnestly placed himself by the side of his friend:--

“I both thank and congratulate you most heartily on your great speech, for some reasons the _boldest_ even you ever made,--the first statesmanlike word worthy of the hour from any one in a high civil position,--fit response from Statesmanship to War,--showing the people the reasons and purpose of Fremont’s proclamation, and giving it more breadth and a nobler basis.

“All agree it was a most decided success,--taking the Convention wholly off its feet with enthusiasm; and we absent ones may measure the strength of the blow from the rebound,--witness _Post_, _Courier_, _Journal_, and, basest of all, _Advertiser_, of course.…

“Never fear but that the masses, the hearts, are all with you,--and you’ll see your enemies at your footstool, as you so often have already.”

And in another letter:--

“I could not take the hazard of advising you to make it, though I told you in your circumstances I should; but now you’ve done it, I can say it was _wise_ and _well_,--your duty to the country, to the hour, yourself, the slave,--to your fame as a statesman, and your duty as leader.”

Lewis Tappan, the Abolitionist, wrote from New York:--

“‘Union and Peace,--how they shall be restored.’ You have shown the way, and the only way. We may have peace on other terms, but no union _and_ peace. The Free States must choose between peace, temporary peace, renewed war, and peace founded upon righteousness, justice, and equity.”

Hon. Amasa Walker, the able writer on Political Economy, afterwards Representative in Congress, wrote from North Brookfield:--

“You never made a nobler, braver, or more opportune utterance than at Worcester on the first instant. But all Hunkerdom is down upon you for it, as I expected. No matter,--the people, I trust in God, will sustain you. Your words meet a most hearty response in the hearts of all true men, you may rest assured. If your positions are not sustained by the country, the great contest now going on will end in failure, and ought to end so.”

David Lee Child, the sincere and lifelong Abolitionist, once a journalist and lawyer, and always a writer, wrote for himself and his wife from Wayland, Massachusetts:--

“I was, and my wife was, refreshed and strengthened by your voice from Worcester. When you gave us the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ the grandest, the most comprehensive, complete, compact, and conclusive of all your noble utterances against ‘the sum of all villanies,’ I did not write, though never before so much moved to do so. We read it the night that it reached us, and were so exalted by it that we sat up two hours beyond our time, talking about it and rejoicing over it. The foes of justice and freedom accuse you of accelerating the crisis and precipitating civil war by that speech. I think they are right for once. The revived victim of frustrate assassins, the calm and undaunted bearing, the inflexible purpose, the overwhelming force of facts, argument, and illustration, struck more terror to the soul of Richard than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers armed in proof.

“I fully intended to address you as soon as the overflow of my heart became somewhat proportionate to the capacity of the pen, and to repeat that quotation from Tully which Junius aptly uses, though less aptly than it applied then: ‘Quod si quis existimat me aut voluntate esse mutata, aut debilitata virtute, aut _animo_ fracto, vehementer errat.’[202] But my dear wife wrote you our joint offering of admiration and gratitude better than I could do it for myself.”

Hon. S. E. Sewall, the able lawyer and devoted Abolitionist, whose sympathy with Mr. Sumner had been constant, wrote from Boston:--

“As I have not time to call on you just now, I cannot forbear writing, merely to say how delighted I am with your speech at Worcester. I see it has roused a good deal of howling among our wretched editors. But this does not convince me that your position is wrong, or that it will not be sustained by the country. Almost every one whom I see thinks as I do about your speech, and regards it as eloquent, statesmanlike, and timely. I trust Congress will think as you do, and act accordingly.”

George Livermore, who so often wrote to Mr. Sumner with entire sympathy, and soon afterwards contributed an invaluable service to the African race,[203] expressed his present anxiety.

“I did hope that in this terrible day of our country’s trial there would be found sufficient patriotism with those sent to Worcester to cast aside _all party_ considerations and all disturbing differences, and unite, _before it is too late_, in trying to save the Government and the Union.… I trembled when I heard that you had been invited to speak, and I wept when I read your speech.

“Unless there is a united North, united on the basis of the Constitution as it is, we are doomed to defeat.”

Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, at the time Consul General at Montreal, wrote from that city:--

“Thanks for your speech at Worcester. I want you to place the same question before the Senate.”

Hon. Carl Schurz, at the time Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Spain, wrote from Madrid:--

“First let me thank you for the glorious speech you have delivered before the Massachusetts Convention. I agree with you on every point, and expect shortly to fight by your side.”

William S. Thayer, a writer of admirable sense, and Consul General at Alexandria in Egypt, wrote:--

“Well, after all, your Cassandra-like prophecies as to the course of public affairs have come true to the letter. Time will show whether your declaration at the Massachusetts Convention, that without Emancipation our war will be a vain masquerade of battles, will not also be realized. At this distance from home I do not feel qualified to dogmatize; but we do not appear as yet to have struck our opponents in a vital part.”

Hon. Montgomery Blair, Postmaster General, wrote from Washington:--

“Your speech is noble, beautiful, classical, sensible. I would have timed it differently; but I will take it now, rather than lose it.”

Hon. Hiram Barney, Collector of New York, wrote:--

“I was gratified with it. You indicate the proper course for the Government to take in this war with Slavery. It is the real Rebel, and Providence has brought us at length into direct conflict with it. We can destroy it without violating any right. Now is our opportunity, and I pray God we may have the wisdom and the intrepidity to end the war humanely and economically by the speedy destruction of the enemy, Slavery. Peace by Emancipation is accomplishing a good end by good means. How easily will the President make his administration the most eventful and glorious in American history!”

Hon. Thomas Dawes Eliot, Representative in Congress, pure in life, and always against Slavery, wrote from New Bedford:--

“If the party who have the responsible conduct of our war do not avail themselves of the power which the Law of Nations gives to them, whereby to strengthen themselves and defeat the Rebels, we shall find the party opposed to them will advocate Emancipation as a party issue. And when the time comes, as it must, that the South shall realize their own inevitable defeat, and shall see the alternative of submission or Emancipation, they will themselves initiate Freedom and secure Europe, unless before them we shall have acted.”

Hon. E. G. Spaulding, the eminent Representative in Congress, and a leading member of the Committee of Ways and Means, wrote from Buffalo:--

“Our people are earnestly discussing the subject of Immediate Emancipation, and I desire to see the views of one who has so thoroughly considered this question. Nearly all our people have come to the conclusion, that, whenever it is necessary to crush out the Rebellion to abolish Slavery, then the Government must abolish it.”

Hon. Robert C. Pitman, afterwards of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, wrote from New Bedford:--

“Permit me to thank you cordially for the service rendered by you to our cause, on Tuesday, at Worcester. Ideas must reinforce our arms, or we shall neither deserve nor win a victory.”

Epes Sargent, journalist, another and early friend, wrote from Boston:--

“I do not think you can be more than two months in advance of the public sentiment of the North, in your speech. I read it with great satisfaction, and it was not till I got down town among the politicians that I realized what imprudent things you had been saying.”

Hon. Daniel W. Alvord, who had coöperated with Mr. Sumner before, wrote from Greenfield, Massachusetts:--

“I thank you for the right word uttered at the right time in your Worcester speech. I should not deem it necessary to say this, as you could hardly fail to know that such a speech would meet my hearty approbation, but for the attacks made upon you by the _Springfield Republican_. Be assured that the _Republican_ by no means reflects the feelings or the opinions of the people of the western counties. The thorough, hearty Republicans, who in the northwest, if not in the southwest, constitute a great majority, cordially indorse the reasoning and positions of the speech.”

Hon. John D. Baldwin, journalist, afterwards Representative in Congress, and author of the work entitled “Pre-Historic Nations,” wrote from Worcester:--

“What a wave of Hunkerism has flooded Massachusetts since the State Convention, reaching up to the ceiling of nearly every editorial sanctum! But the ebb-tide must come.”

Hon. James H. Morton, the magistrate, wrote from Springfield, Massachusetts:--

“I cannot refrain from expressing the satisfaction and pleasure I derived from the perusal of your Worcester speech. In my opinion it expressed the sentiment of a very large majority of the citizens of Massachusetts, and though in advance of the sentiment of the whole country, still, if I can read the signs of the times, our Government, if it has not already reached, is fast approaching, the doctrines there enunciated by you. It seems to me they must be adopted in their length and breadth.”

A writer, admired as “Gail Hamilton,” wrote from Hamilton, Massachusetts:--

“I glory in that speech. It is logic, and sagacity, and morality. Let them maul it. To that complexion must they come at last, and perhaps before. Strange that people will have so much faith in shilly-shally! Strange they will not see that honesty is the best policy, as well as the best religion! But never mind. Do you lead the van.”

Rev. John Weiss, the eloquent preacher, and biographer of Theodore Parker, wrote from Milton:--