Volume 4 — REPLY TO ASSAILANTS: (continued 2)
Reading edition
Men particularly interested in the Peace Cause united in the prevailing sentiment.
Of these, Hon. Amasa Walker, afterwards a Representative in Congress from Massachusetts, wrote:—
"Your reply to the slaveholders is capital, and receives universal admiration in this quarter. It was just such a flagellation as the slavocrats deserved, and such a one as they never received before in the Senate. I think, from what I can observe, that your course is universally popular, always excepting the mercenary minions of the Government."
J.P. Blanchard, Esq., devoted to Peace, wrote:—
"I take this occasion to express my warm admiration of the spirit and power you have exhibited in your late contest with Messrs. Butler, Pettit, et id genus omne. I am rejoiced and grateful that your 'backbone' has proved strong enough to stand such a test without bending: that I have not given you this acknowledgment earlier is because, being very busy, I did not take time to write a letter for that purpose only, as I knew you were so well acquainted with my sympathies that the expression of them was unnecessary. I am glad to understand that you have received commendations on this score from sources where a short time ago you would not have expected them."
Elihu Burritt, the Missionary of Peace, wrote:—
"And now I want to thank you with my whole heart for your grand and brave rejoinder to Butler and Mason. It was the best, bravest thing done in the Senate this many a year. I think more hearts in the Free States will glory in your courageous and overwhelming reply to these plantation Senators than in any public effort of your life. You must have made it, too, on short notice. I never read anything with more satisfaction."
Other letters attest a change in sentiment among those who had been lukewarm on Slavery, and perhaps adverse to Mr. Sumner.
Hon. Daniel Shattuck, of Concord, wrote:—
"Being one of the old-time Whigs, I was not pleased with your election to the high seat which you hold: for that opinion you will forgive me, I am sure, when I say that I go with you now heart and soul, and approve all you have said in defence of your native State, whose sons I know approve your course and wish you God-speed.
George M. Browne, Esq., of Boston, wrote:—
"Differing with you as I do in political sentiments, and having no other connection with public affairs than what pertains to every citizen, I desire nevertheless to express to you, what I believe to be the general feeling among all classes of reflecting minds here, an admiration for the dignified and gentlemanly bearing with which you have gone through the contest and rebuked the ruffian onslaught,—and to say, moreover, that we should, I have no doubt, all unite, from all sides, as one man, in sending you back to the Senate, should the maniac threats of expulsion by any possibility be carried into effect."
The following poem, suggested by this debate, belongs to this history.
TO C.S.
I have seemed more prompt to censure wrong Than praise the right,—if seldom to thine ear My voice hath mingled with the exultant cheer Borne upon all our Northern winds along,— If I have failed to join the fickle throng In wide-eyed wonder that thou standest strong In victory, surprised in thee to find Brougham's scathing power with Canning's grace combined,— That he, for whom the ninefold Muses sang, From their twined arms a giant athlete sprang, Barbing the arrows of his native tongue With the spent shafts Latona's archer flung, To smite the Python of our land and time, Fell as the monster born of Crissa's slime, Like the blind bard who in Castalian springs Tempered the steel that clove the crest of kings, And on the shrine of England's freedom laid The gifts of Cumæ and of Delphi's shade,— Small need hast thou of words of praise from me. Thou knowest my heart, dear friend, and well canst guess, That, even though silent, I have not the less Rejoiced to see thy actual life agree With the large future which I shaped for thee, When, years ago, beside the summer sea, White in the moon, we saw the long waves fall Baffled and broken from the rocky wall, That to the menace of the brawling flood Opposed alone its massive quietude, Calm as a fate, with not a leaf nor vine Nor birch-spray trembling in the still moonshine, Crowning it like God's peace. I sometimes think That night-scene by the sea prophetical, (For Nature speaks in symbols and in signs, And through her pictures human fate divines,)— That rock, wherefrom we saw the billows sink In murmuring rout, uprising clear and tall In the white light of heaven, the type of one Who, momently by Error's host assailed, Stands strong as Truth, in greaves of granite mailed, And, tranquil-fronted, listening over all The tumult, hears the angels say, Well done!
J.G. W.
11th month, 25th, 1854.