Volume 5 — APPENDIX. (continued 2)

“The above imputation which had been heaped upon him, with regard to the Constitution, was completely encountered, and his position vindicated by the authority of Andrew Jackson, and the still earlier authority of Thomas Jefferson. On this point no attempt has ever been made to answer him.

“In the course of this speech, alluding to the Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Sumner used words which I now adopt, not only for myself on this occasion, but also as an illustration of his course in this controversy.

“‘It is he, then, who is the offender. For myself, Sir, I understand the sensibilities of Senators from “slaveholding communities,” and would not wound them by a superfluous word. Of Slavery I speak strongly, as I must; but thus far, even at the expense of my argument, I have avoided the contrasts, founded on details of figures and facts, which are so obvious, between the Free States and “slaveholding communities”; especially have I shunned all allusion to South Carolina. But the venerable Senator, to whose discretion that State has entrusted its interests here, will not allow me to be still. God forbid that I should do injustice to South Carolina!’

“But the Senator from South Carolina was not to be silenced or appeased. He still returned to those personalities which flow so naturally and unconsciously from his lips. The early, bitter, personal assaults were repeated. He charged Mr. Sumner’s speech with being ‘unfair in statement.’ This is one of the delicate accusations of the Senator. The next is bolder. He charged Mr. Sumner as ‘guilty of historical perversion.’ Pray, with what face, after this, can he complain of my colleague? But he seems determined still to press this imputation in the most offensive form, for he next charges my colleague with ‘historical falsehood, which the gentleman has committed in the fallacy of his sectional vision.’ It would be difficult to accumulate into one phrase more offensive suggestions; and yet the Senator now complains that he has had administered to him what he has so often employed himself.

“All these are understood to have been accompanied by a manner more offensive than the words.

“In these extracts you will see something of the Senator’s insolence, in contrast with the quiet manner of Mr. Sumner, who, while defending his position, was perfectly parliamentary.

“Other passages from the speech of the Senator might be quoted; but the patience of the Senate is wellnigh exhausted by this long exhibition of personalities; therefore I will content myself with only one more. Here it is.

“‘I know, Sir, he said the other day that all he said was the effusion of an impulsive heart. But it was the effusion of his drawer. Talk to me about the effusions of the heart! What kind of effusions are those which escape from tables, from papers played like cards sorted for the purpose? They are weapons prepared by contribution, and discharged in this body with a view of gratifying the feelings of resentment and malice,—with a view of wounding the pride of the State which I represent, and through her to stab the reputation of the other Southern States. But, Sir, we are above the dangers of open combat, and cannot be hurt by the assaults even of attempted assassination.’

“‘We cannot be hurt by attempted assassination,’ exclaims the Senator from South Carolina!

“‘Attempted assassination’?

“It ill becomes the Senator from South Carolina to use these words in connection with Massachusetts or the North. The arms of Massachusetts are Freedom, Justice, Truth. Strong in these, she is not driven to the necessity of resorting to ‘attempted assassination,’ either in or out of the Senate.

“But the whole story is not yet told. I wish to refer to another assault made by the Senator, which I witnessed myself a few days after I took a seat in this body. On the 23d of February, 1855, on one of the last days of the last session, to the bill introduced by the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Toucey] Mr. Sumner moved an amendment providing for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act. He made some remarks in support of that proposition. The Senator from South Carolina followed him, saying, ‘I would ask him one question, which he, perhaps, will not answer honestly.’ Mr. Sumner said, ‘I will answer any question.’ The Senator went on to ask questions, and received his answers; and then he said, speaking of Mr. Sumner, ‘I know he is not a tactician, and I shall not take advantage of the infirmity of a man who does not know half his time exactly what he is about.’ This is indeed extraordinary language for the Senator from South Carolina to apply to the Senator from Massachusetts. I witnessed that scene. I then deemed the language insulting: the manner was more so. I hold in my hands the remarks of the Louisville Journal, a Southern press, upon this scene. I shall not read them to the Senate, for I do not wish to present anything which the Senator may even deem offensive. I will say, however, that his language and his deportment to my colleague on that occasion were aggressive and overbearing in the extreme. And this is the Senator who never makes assaults! But not content with assaulting Mr. Sumner, he winds up his speech by a taunt at ‘Boston philanthropy.’ Surely, no person ever scattered assault more freely.

“I have almost done. But something has occurred this session which illustrates the Senator’s manner. Not content with making his own speeches, he interrupted the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Geyer], and desired him to insert in his speech an assault on Massachusetts. Here are his words.

“‘I wish my friend would incorporate into his speech an old law of Massachusetts which I have found. I would remind my friend of an old league between the four New England States, made while they were colonies, expressly repudiating trial by jury for the reclamation of fugitive slaves. They called them “slaves,” too, or rather “fugitive servants”; and they say they shall be delivered up on the certificate of one magistrate.’

“Here is another instance of the Senator’s looseness of assertion, even on law, upon the knowledge of which he has plumed himself in this debate. Sir, there were no slaves in Massachusetts at that day. The law alluded to was passed in 1643. It was not until 1646, three years afterward, that the first slaves were imported into Massachusetts from the coast of Africa, and these very slaves were sent back to their native land at public expense. The following is a verbatim copy of the remarkable statute by which these Africans were returned to Guinea, at the expense of the Commonwealth.

“‘The General Court, conceiving themselves bound by the first opportunity to bear witness against the heinous and crying sin of man-stealing, as also to prescribe such timely redress for what is past, and such a law for the future, at may sufficiently deter all others belonging to us to have to do in such vile and most odious courses, justly abhorred of all good and just men, do order that the negro interpreter, with others unlawfully taken, be, by the first opportunity, at the charge of the country for present, sent to his native country of Guinea, and a letter with him, of the indignation of the Court thereabouts, and justice hereof.’

“In the face of this Act of 1646, the learned Senator from South Carolina wished his friend from Missouri to incorporate into his speech a false accusation against Massachusetts and the New England colonies. And he went so far as to assert that this old law contained an allusion to ‘slaves,’ when the word ‘slaves’ was not mentioned, and ‘servants’ only was employed.

“Sir, I might here refer to the assault made by the Senator from South Carolina on the Senator from Iowa [Mr. Harlan], in which he taunted that Senator with being a clergyman, and modestly told him, in the face of the country, that ‘he understood Latin as well as that Senator understood English.’

[Mr. Butler. I never taunted any gentleman with being a clergyman; and the Senator from Iowa will not say so. I said that I had respect for his vocation; but when he attempted to correct my speech, I put him right.]

Mr. Wilson. “Whether it was a taunt or not, the Senator disclaims its being so, and I accept the disclaimer; but I apprehend it was not intended as a compliment to the Senator from Iowa, or that it was received as such by that Senator, particularly when taken in connection with the other taunting assumption of the Senator from South Carolina, that he ‘understood Latin as well as that Senator understood English.’

“Thus has Mr. Sumner been by the Senator from South Carolina systematically assailed in this body, from the 28th of July, 1852, up to the present time,—a period of nearly four years. He has applied to my colleague every expression calculated to wound the sensibilities of an honorable man, and to draw down upon him sneers, obloquy, and hatred, in and out of the Senate. In my place here, I now pronounce these continued assaults upon my colleague unparalleled in the history of the Senate.

“I come now to speak for one moment of the late speech of my colleague, which is the alleged cause of the recent assault upon him, and which the Senator from South Carolina has condemned so abundantly. That speech—a thorough and fearless exposition of what Mr. Sumner entitled ‘The Crime against Kansas’—from beginning to end is marked by entire plainness. Things are called by their right names. The usurpation in Kansas is exposed, and also the apologies for it, successively. No words were spared which seemed necessary to the exhibition. In arraigning the Crime, it was natural to speak of those who sustained it. Accordingly, the Administration is constantly held up to condemnation. Various Senators who have vindicated this Crime are at once answered and condemned. Among these are the Senator from South Carolina, the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason], and the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Geyer]. The Senator from South Carolina now complains of Mr. Sumner’s speech. Surely, it is difficult to see on what ground that Senator can make any such complaint. The speech was, indeed, severe,—severe as truth,—but in all respects parliamentary. It is true that it handles the Senator from South Carolina freely; but that Senator had spoken repeatedly in the course of the Kansas debate, once at length and elaborately, and at other times more briefly, and foisting himself into the speeches of other Senators, and identifying himself completely with the Crime which my colleague felt it his duty to arraign. It was natural, therefore, that his course in the debate, and his position, should be particularly considered. And in this work Mr. Sumner had no reason to hold back, when he thought of the constant and systematic and ruthless attacks which, utterly without cause, he had received from that Senator. The only objection which the Senator from South Carolina can reasonably make to Mr. Sumner is, that he struck a strong blow.

“The Senator complains that the speech was printed before it was delivered. Here, again, is his accustomed inaccuracy. It is true that it was in the printer’s hands, and was mainly in type; but it received additions and revisions after its delivery, and was not put to press till then. Away with this petty objection! The Senator says that twenty thousand copies have gone to England. Here, again, is his accustomed inaccuracy. If they have gone, it is without Mr. Sumner’s agency. But the Senator foresees the truth. Sir, that speech will go to England; it will go to the Continent of Europe; it has gone over the country, and has been read by the American people as no speech ever delivered in this body was read before. That speech will go down to coming ages. Whatever men may say of its sentiments,—and coming ages will indorse its sentiments,—it will be placed among the ablest parliamentary efforts of our own age or of any age.

“The Senator from South Carolina tells us that the speech is to be condemned, and he quotes the venerable and distinguished Senator from Michigan [Mr. Cass]. I do not know what Mr. Sumner could stand. The Senator says he could not stand the censure of the Senator from Michigan. I could; and I believe there are a great many in this country whose powers of endurance are as great as my own. I have great respect for that venerable Senator; but the opinions of no Senator here are potential in the country. This is a Senate of equals. The judgment of the country is to be made up on the records formed here. The opinions of the Senator from Michigan, and of other Senators here, are to go into the record, and will receive the verdict of the people. By that I am willing to stand.

“The Senator from South Carolina tells us that the speech is to be condemned. It has gone out to the country. It has been printed by the million. It has been scattered broadcast amongst seventeen millions of Northern freemen who can read and write. The Senator condemns it; South Carolina condemns it: but South Carolina is only a part of this Confederacy, and but a part of the Christian and civilized world. South Carolina makes rice and cotton, but South Carolina contributes little to make up the judgment of the Christian and civilized world. I value her rice and cotton more than I do her opinions on questions of scholarship and eloquence, of patriotism or of liberty.

“Mr. President, I have no desire to assail the Senator from South Carolina, or any other Senator in this body; but I wish to say now that we have had quite enough of this asserted superiority, social and political. We were told, some time ago, by the Senator from Alabama [Mr. Clay], that those of us who entertained certain sentiments fawned upon him and other Southern men, if they permitted us to associate with them. This is strange language to be used in this body. I never fawned upon that Senator. I never sought his acquaintance,—and I do not know that I should feel myself honored, if I had it. I treat him as an equal here,—I wish always to treat him respectfully; but when he tells me or my friends that we fawn upon him or his associates, I say to him that I have never sought, and never shall seek, any other acquaintance than what official intercourse requires with a man who declared, on the floor of the Senate, that he would do what Henry Clay once said ‘no gentleman could do,’—hunt a fugitive slave.

“The Senator from Virginia, not now in his seat [Mr. Mason], when Mr. Sumner closed his speech, saw fit to tell the Senate that his hands would be soiled by contact with ours. The Senator is not here: I wish he were. I have simply to say that I know nothing in that Senator, moral, intellectual, or physical, which entitles him to use such language towards members of the Senate, or any portion of God’s creation. I know nothing in the State from which he comes, rich as it is in the history of the past, that entitles him to speak in such a manner. I am not here to assail Virginia. God knows I have not a feeling in my heart against her, or against her public men; but I do say it is time that these arrogant assumptions ceased here. This is no place for assumed social superiority, as though certain Senators held the keys of cultivated and refined society. Sir, they do not hold the keys, and they shall not hold over me the plantation whip.

“I wish always to speak kindly towards every man in this body. Since I came here, I have never asked an introduction to a Southern member of the Senate,—not because I have any feelings against them, for God knows I have not; but I knew that they believed I held opinions hostile to their interests, and I supposed they would not desire my society. I have never wished to obtrude myself on their society, so that certain Senators could do with me, as they have boasted they did with others,—refuse to receive their advances, or refuse to recognize them on the floor of the Senate. Sir, there is not a Coolie in the Guano Islands of Peru who does not think the Celestial Empire the whole Universe. There are a great many men who have swung the whip over the plantation, who think they not only rule the plantation, but make up the judgment of the world, and hold the keys not only to political power, as they have done in this country, but to social life.

“The Senator from South Carolina assails the resolutions of my State, with his accustomed looseness, as springing from ignorance, passion, prejudice, excitement. Sir, the testimony before the House Committee sustains all that is contained in those resolutions. Massachusetts has spoken her opinions; and although the Senator has quoted the Boston Courier to-day,—and I would not rob him of any consolation he can derive from that source,—I know Massachusetts, and I can tell him, that, of the twelve hundred thousand people of Massachusetts, you cannot find in the State one thousand, Administration office-holders included, who do not look with loathing and execration upon the outrage on the person of their Senator and the honor of their State. The sentiment of Massachusetts, of New England, of the North, approaches unanimity. Massachusetts has spoken her opinions. The Senator is welcome to assail them, if he chooses; but they are on the record. They are made up by the verdict of her people, and they understand the question, and from their verdict there is no appeal.

“Mr. President, I have spoken freely; I shall continue always to speak freely. I seek no controversy with any man; but I shall express my sentiments frankly, and the more frankly because on this floor my colleague has been smitten down for words spoken in debate, and because there are those who, unmindful of the Constitution of their country, claim the right thus to question us.”

IV. VOICE OF THE NORTH.

Under this head must be put the speech of Hon. Anson Burlingame, afterwards so justly distinguished as the Minister of China, made in the House of Representatives, June 21, 1856. Here is an extract.

“But, Mr. Chairman, all these assaults upon the State of Massachusetts sink into insignificance, compared with the one I am about to mention. On the 19th of May it was announced that Mr. Sumner would address the Senate upon the Kansas question. The floor of the Senate, the galleries, and avenues leading thereto were thronged with an expectant audience; and many of us left our places in this House to hear the Massachusetts orator. To say that we were delighted with the speech we heard would but faintly express the deep emotions of our hearts awakened by it. I need not speak of the classic purity of its language, nor of the nobility of its sentiments. It was heard by many; it has been read by millions. There has been no such speech made in the Senate since the days when those Titans of American eloquence, the Websters and the Haynes, contended with each other for mastery.

“It was severe, because it was launched against tyranny. It was severe as Chatham was severe, when he defended the feeble colonies against the giant oppression of the mother country. It was made in the face of a hostile Senate. It continued through the greater portion of two days; and yet, during that time, the speaker was not once called to order. This fact is conclusive as to the personal and parliamentary decorum of the speech. He had provocation enough. His State had been called ‘hypocritical.’ He himself had been called ‘a puppy,’ ‘a fool,’ ‘a fanatic,’ and ‘a dishonest man.’ Yet he was parliamentary from the beginning to the end of his speech. No man knew better than he did the proprieties of the place, for he had always observed them. No man knew better than he did parliamentary law, because he had made it the study of his life. No man saw more clearly than he did the flaming sword of the Constitution turning every way, guarding all the avenues of the Senate. But he was not thinking of these things; he was not thinking then of the privileges of the Senate, nor of the guaranties of the Constitution. He was there to denounce tyranny and crime; and he did it. He was there to speak for the rights of an empire; and he did it bravely and grandly.

“So much for the occasion of the speech. A word, and I shall be pardoned, about the speaker himself. He is my friend; for many and many a year I have looked to him for guidance and light, and I never looked in vain. He never had a personal enemy in his life; his character is as pure as the snow that falls on his native hills; his heart overflows with kindness for every being having the upright form of man; he is a ripe scholar, a chivalric gentleman, and a warm-hearted, true friend. He sat at the feet of Channing, and drank in the sentiments of that noble soul. He bathed in the learning and undying love of the great jurist, Story; and the hand of Jackson, with its honors and its offices, sought him early in life, but he shrank from them with instinctive modesty. Sir, he is the pride of Massachusetts. His mother Commonwealth found him adorning the highest walks of literature and law, and she bade him go and grace somewhat the rough character of political life. The people of Massachusetts—the old, and the young, and the middle-aged—now pay their full homage to the beauty of his public and private character. Such is Charles Sumner.

“On the 22d day of May, when the Senate and the House had clothed themselves in mourning for a brother fallen in the battle of life in the distant State of Missouri, the Senator from Massachusetts sat in the silence of the Senate Chamber, engaged in the employments appertaining to his office, when a member from this House, who had taken an oath to sustain the Constitution, stole into the Senate, that place which had hitherto been held sacred against violence, and smote him as Cain smote his brother.

[Mr. Keitt (in his seat). That is false.

Mr. Burlingame. I will not bandy epithets with the gentleman. I am responsible for my own language. Doubtless he is responsible for his.

Mr. Keitt. I am.

Mr. Burlingame. I shall stand by mine.]

“One blow was enough; but it did not satiate the wrath of that spirit which had pursued him through two days. Again and again, quicker and faster, fell the leaden blows, until he was torn away from his victim, when the Senator from Massachusetts fell in the arms of his friends, and his blood ran down on the Senate floor. Sir, the act was brief, and my comments on it shall be brief also. I denounce it in the name of the Constitution it violated. I denounce it in the name of the sovereignty of Massachusetts, which was stricken down by the blow. I denounce it in the name of civilization, which it outraged. I denounce it in the name of humanity. I denounce it in the name of that fair play which bullies and prize-fighters respect. What! strike a man when he is pinioned,—when he cannot respond to a blow? Call you that chivalry? In what code of honor did you get your authority for that? I do not believe that member has a friend so dear who must not, in his heart of hearts, condemn the act. Even the member himself, if he has left a spark of that chivalry and gallantry attributed to him, must loathe and scorn the act. God knows, I do not wish to speak unkindly or in a spirit of revenge; but I owe it to my manhood, and the noble State I in part represent, to express my deep abhorrence of the act.

“But, much as I reprobate the act, much more do I reprobate the conduct of those who were by and saw the outrage perpetrated. Sir, especially do I notice the conduct of that Senator, recently from the free platform of Massachusetts, with the odor of her hospitality on him, who stood there, not only silent and quiet, while it was going on, but, when it was over, approved the act. And worse,—when he had time to cool, when he had slept on it, he went into the Senate Chamber of the United States, and shocked the sensibilities of the world by approving it. Another Senator did not take part because he feared his motives might be questioned, exhibiting as extraordinary a delicacy as that individual who refused to rescue a drowning mortal because he had not been introduced to him. [Laughter.] Another was not on good terms; and yet, if rumor be true, that Senator has declared that himself and family are more indebted to Mr. Sumner than to any other man; yet, when he saw him borne bleeding by, he turned and went on the other side. O magnanimous Slidell! O prudent Douglas! O audacious Toombs!”

This speech drew from Mr. Brooks a challenge, which was promptly accepted by Mr. Burlingame, who insisted upon these terms: “Weapons, rifles; distance, twenty paces; place, District of Columbia; time of meeting, the next morning.” Hon. L. D. Campbell, who acted as Mr. Burlingame’s friend, substituted the Clifton House, Canada, for the District of Columbia. The friends of Mr. Brooks, assuming that the excitement growing out of the assault made it dangerous for him to traverse the country, prevented the meeting from taking place.

The following resolves were adopted by the Legislature of Massachusetts, and duly presented to both Houses of Congress.

“Resolves concerning the recent Assault upon the Honorable Charles Sumner at Washington.

“Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, that we have received with deep concern information of the recent violent assault committed in the Senate Chamber at Washington upon the person of the Honorable Charles Sumner, one of our Senators in Congress, by Preston S. Brooks, a member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina,—an assault which no provocation could justify, brutal and cowardly in itself, a gross breach of parliamentary privilege, a ruthless attack upon the liberty of speech, an outrage of the decencies of civilized life, and an indignity to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

“Resolved, That the Legislature of Massachusetts, in the name of her free and enlightened people, demands for her representatives in the National Legislature entire Freedom of Speech, and will uphold them in the proper exercise of that essential right of American citizens.

“Resolved, That we approve of Mr. Sumner’s manliness and courage in his earnest and fearless declaration of free principles and his defence of human rights and free territory.

“Resolved, That the Legislature of Massachusetts is imperatively called upon by the plainest dictates of duty, from a decent regard to the rights of her citizens, and respect for her character as a sovereign State, to demand, and the Legislature of Massachusetts hereby does demand, of the National Congress, a prompt and strict investigation into the recent assault upon Senator Sumner, and the expulsion by the House of Representatives of Mr. Brooks of South Carolina, and any other member concerned with him in said assault.

“Resolved, That his Excellency the Governor be requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing resolves to the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives, and to each of the Senators and Members of the House of Representatives from this Commonwealth, in the Congress of the United States.”

The Governor of New York addressed Mr. Sumner directly by letter as follows.

“State of New York, Executive Department. Albany, May 28, 1856.

“Honorable Charles Sumner:—

“My dear Sir,—From the moment the lightning flashed the intelligence of the barbarous and brutal assault made upon you by the sneaking, slave-driving scoundrel Brooks, the blood has tingled in my veins, and I have desired to express to you, not my abhorrence of the villain, for I could not find words adequate, but my personal sympathy for you, and, in their behalf, that of the people of this State (except a few ‘doughfaces,‘—we have still a very few, the breed is not yet quite extinct here),—assuring you that the hearts of our people are warmly and strongly with you, and that your noble and eloquent speech has already been very generally read by our citizens,—that it is not only entirely approved, but highly applauded,—and that its doctrines, sentiments, and expressions, and its author, will be sustained and DEFENDED by the people of this State.

“Ardently hoping for your recovery and speedy restoration to health, I have the honor to remain, with the highest regard,

“Your friend and servant,

“Myron H. Clark.”

Of the resolutions at public meetings a few only are presented.

The following, from the pen of William Lloyd Garrison, were adopted by the New England Antislavery Society.

“1. Resolved, That this Convention fully participates in the general feeling of indignation and horror which is felt in view of the recent dastardly and murderous assault made in the Senate Chamber at Washington upon the person of the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, Hon. Charles Sumner, by a fitting Representative of and from the lawless State of South Carolina; that, whether regard be had to the place or to the manner in which it was committed, or to the position and character of the victim, an assault characterized by greater cowardice and ruffianism, or more daring in its contempt for all that is sacred in constitutional liberty, or more comprehensively malignant against the cause of human freedom, cannot be found on the page of history; that it indicates a conspiracy, on the part of the Slave Oligarchy, to ‘crush out’ freedom of speech on the floor of Congress as effectually as it is done on the slave plantation, by putting in peril the life of every Northern Senator or Representative who shall dare to lift up a manly voice against Executive usurpation and border-ruffianism; and, therefore, that whoever shall attempt to find any justification, or to frame any apology for it, will reveal himself to be on a level with the base assailant of as pure and generous and noble a man as ever yet occupied a seat in our national legislature.

“2. Resolved, That the speech made by Mr. Sumner, which has subjected him to this most brutal treatment, is a speech at any time worth dying for,—perfect in its conception, arrangement, and execution, conclusive in its argument and evidence, masterly in its exposure of Executive usurpation, sublime in its moral heroism, invincible in its truthfulness, just in its personal impeachment, unsurpassed in its eloquence, and glorious in its object; that, sealed with his blood, it shall quicken the pulses of millions now living to engage in a death-grapple with the Slave Power, and go down to posterity as a rich legacy to the cause of Universal Liberty.”

The following resolution was passed unanimously, at the meeting of Ministers in Boston, immediately after the news of the assault.

“Resolved, That the murderous assault upon our honored Senator, Charles Sumner, is not only a dastardly assault upon his person, and, through him, upon the right of free speech, but also a wound which we individually feel, and by which our very hearts bleed; and whether he shall recover, or sink into a martyr’s grave,—which may God avert!—we will address ourselves unto prayer and effort that this sorrowful event may become the glorious resurrection of national virtue, and the triumph of Freedom.”

At the Political Radical Abolition Convention, held at Syracuse, N. Y., May 28th and 29th, 1856, on motion of Lewis Tappan, the following was unanimously adopted.

“Resolved, That we hold in grateful admiration the character of the Hon. Charles Sumner; that we honor the splendid services he has rendered to the cause of Liberty; that we deeply sympathize with him in his present sufferings in consequence of the cowardly and brutal attack of the villain who dared to assault the intrepid advocate of the Slave in the American Senate Chamber; and that we hope and pray that Mr. Sumner’s valuable life will be spared until he shall witness the complete overthrow of the execrable system that now brutalizes our brethren in bondage, and brutalizes their oppressors, and disgraces our country.”

At New York there was a meeting immense in numbers and unprecedented in character, of which George Griswold was Chairman. Among the speakers were William C. Bryant, Daniel Lord, the eminent lawyer, Samuel B. Ruggles, Charles King, President of Columbia College, Edwin B. Morgan, John A. Stevens, Joseph Hoxie, and Henry Ward Beecher. The following resolutions were moved by Hon. William M. Evarts, afterwards Attorney-General.

“Whereas it has become certainly known to the citizens of New York, upon a formal investigation by a Committee of the Senate of the United States, and otherwise, that on the 22d day of May, instant, the Honorable Charles Sumner [long, loud, and enthusiastic cheers], Senator from Massachusetts, while in his seat in the Senate Chamber, was violently assaulted with a weapon of attack by Preston S. Brooks [loud hisses and groans for Brooks], a member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina, and beaten to insensibility upon the floor of the Senate, which was stained with his blood; that the assailant sought the Senate Chamber to perpetrate this outrage, provided with his weapon and attended by a follower in its aid, and, taking his unarmed victim unawares and in a posture which renders defence impossible, by a heavy blow utterly disabled him, and with cruel repetition inflicted frequent and bloody wounds upon his prostrate, helpless form, with which wounds Senator Sumner now languishes in peril of his life; that the sole reason alleged for this violent outrage was a speech made by Senator Sumner in debate upon a public question then pending in the Senate, no word of which was, during its delivery, made the subject of objection by the President of the Senate or any Senator, and which was concluded on the 20th day of May, instant: Now, at a public meeting of citizens of New York, convened without distinction of party [applause], and solely in reference to the public event above recited, it is

“Resolved, That we sincerely and respectfully tender our sympathy to Senator Sumner in the personal outrage inflicted upon him, and the anguish and peril which he has suffered and still suffers from that outrage, and that we feel and proclaim that his grievance and his wounds are not of private concern [cheers], but were received in the public service, and every blow which fell upon his head we recognize and resent as an insult and injury to our honor and dignity as a people, and a vital attack upon the Constitution of the Union. [Loud cheers and applause.]

“Resolved, That we discover no trace or trait, either in the meditation, the preparation, or the execution of this outrage by Preston S. Brooks [loud hisses and groans for Brooks], which should qualify the condemnation with which we now pronounce it brutal, murderous, and cowardly. [Continued cheers, and cries of ‘Read it again!’ Mr. Evarts repeated the last clause. Voices,—‘Yes, cowardly! that’s the word!—cowardly!’ Another voice,—‘Now let him send another challenge!’]

…

“Resolved, That we have witnessed with unmixed astonishment and the deepest regret the clear, bold, exulting espousal of the outrage, and justification and honor of its perpetrator, exhibited by Senators and Representatives of the Slave States, without distinction of party, in their public places, and by the public press, without distinction of party, in the same portion of our country, and that, upon the present state of the evidence, we are forced most unwillingly to the sad conclusion that the general community of the Slave States is in complicity in feeling and principle with the system of intimidation and violence, for the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press, of which the assault on Senator Sumner is the most signal, but not the singular instance. [Applause.] That we sincerely hope, that, on fuller and calmer consideration, the public men and public press and the general community of the Slave States will give us a distinct manifestation of their sentiments which will enable us, too, to reconsider our present judgment. [Applause.]”

At this meeting the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher spoke as follows.

“Had Mr. Sumner been a man of war, or a man of brawling words, had he been any other than what he was, the case could not have been so strong. I know not that there would have been found throughout all the land one man so fit to be offered up as a sacrifice for Liberty, a man so worthy to be offered up on the great altar of our country. [Applause.] No aspiring politician has he been. His past career has not been marked by ambitious clutchings. A lawyer by profession, but a scholar by instinct,—a man of refined ideas, of social taste,—he was seized by one of those sudden gusts of popular feeling which break out occasionally in all our Free States, and elected to the Senate of the United States. While his election was yet pending, I had the pleasure of conversation with him in his office, I being a clergyman, and confessor on that occasion [laughter], and he told me the secrets of his heart. I am sure, that, although not without honorable and manly ambition, this man had no desire for that position. Since he has been in Washington, his course has been that which became a man, a Christian, a gentleman, a statesman, and a scholar. He has everywhere not merely observed the rules of decorum, but, with true chivalry, with the lowliest gentleness, he has maintained himself void of offence, so that the only complaint which I have ever heard of Senator Sumner has been this, that he, by his shrinking and sensitive nature, was not fit for the ‘rough and tumble’ of politics in our day.…

“Mr. Sumner had no other weapon in his hand than his pen. Ah, Gentlemen, here we have it! The symbol of the North is the pen; the symbol of the South is the bludgeon.”

At a public meeting in Canandaigua, of which Hon. Francis Granger, Postmaster-General under President Harrison, was Chairman, the following resolutions were adopted.

“1. Resolved, That in this premeditated and brutal attack upon Senator Sumner, for words spoken by him in legislative debate, and in the conscientious discharge of his public duty, we behold not only a malignant outrage upon the person of a distinguished public servant, but also a wanton violation of the right of freedom of speech,—a right which is guarantied to every Representative, and through him to his constituents, by the express provisions of the Constitution,—a right without which the office of the legislator would be powerless and the liberties of the people would become extinct, and which is therefore ‘inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.’

“2. Resolved, That, participating in the righteous indignation which was recently expressed by thousands of freemen assembled in the city of New York, ‘we discover no trace or trait, either in the meditation, the preparation, or the execution of this outrage, which should qualify the condemnation with which we now pronounce it brutal, murderous, and cowardly.’

…

“5. Resolved, That to the Hon. Charles Sumner, the man of pure and generous qualities, the accomplished scholar, the distinguished lawyer, and the able and eloquent Senator, we respectfully and sincerely offer our sympathies in the pain and peril which he has suffered and is still suffering from this despicable assault; and we earnestly hope that his restoration to health may be speedy and complete, and that he may long be spared to vindicate the great popular rights at which the blows inflicted upon him were aimed.”

At Providence, Rhode Island, there was a public meeting, in which the most distinguished citizens took part. Among the able speakers was the Rev. Dr. Hedge, who said, among other things:—

“I have heard of crimes which betoken greater pravity of heart, but never have I heard or read of an act more flagitious in its open defiance of sacred rights, in its ruthless disregard of all humane sentiment and shameless violation of decency and order. We shall form a more just conception of the outrage by viewing it abstractedly from any interest we may feel in it as fellow-citizens of the parties concerned. Suppose we had read, among the items of recent transatlantic intelligence, that Count Buol, at the Peace Congress in Paris, offended by some expression of the Earl of Clarendon, had felled him to the ground with murderous blows. Imagine what a thrill of horror would have struck through the heart of Europe, and how the wrath of the nations would have chased the perpetrator of such an act from the face of the earth. Or suppose Mr. Hume, of the British Commons, had entered the House of Lords, and beaten Lord Brougham with a club until he was borne senseless from the spot. “With what confidence should we look to be advised by the next steamer that the culprit had been doomed to expiate his crime by the direst penalty which the laws of England have provided!—if, indeed, the English law has made any provision for such a case, and not rather, as the law of the Roman Commonwealth did the crime of parricide, left it unprovided for, as an impossible, unsupposable enormity.

“One supposition more. Conceive the situation of the parties in the case before us reversed. Suppose Senator Butler, who has said severer things of Mr. Sumner than Mr. Sumner of him, to have been the victim, and some member from Massachusetts, perhaps a far-away cousin of Mr. Sumner, to have been the aggressor. Does any one here present imagine that the ‘gallant relative’ in that case would be going about unmolested on a paltry bail of five hundred dollars? If the trusty bowie-knife or omnipresent revolver of Southern chivalry did not otherwise dispose of him, does any one doubt that the summary and prompt vengeance of Congress and the law would have been demanded by one side and conceded by the other?”

Here is a brief extract from the speech of Rev. Dr. Wayland.

“The question before us is simply, whether you, here and now, consent to this change in our form of government, and accept the position which it assigns to you,—and whether you agree to transmit to your children this precious inheritance? For myself, I must decline the arrangement. I was born free, and I cannot be made a slave. I bow before the universal intelligence and conscience of my country, and when I think this defective, I claim the privilege of using my poor endeavors to enlighten it. But to submit my reason to the bludgeon of a bully or the pistol of an assassin I cannot; nor can I tamely behold a step taken which leads inevitably to such a consummation.

“You see that I consider this as a case of unusual solemnity. It becomes us to deliberate wisely, to resolve in view of the future as well as the past, and prepare ourselves to carry our resolutions out to all their legitimate conclusions, and, in doing this, to pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

At a public meeting in Chapman Hall, Boston, immediately after the assault, Wendell Phillips said:—

“Nobody needs now to read this speech of Charles Sumner to know whether it is good. We measure the amount of the charge by the length of the rebound. [Cheers.] When the spear, driven to the quick, makes the Devil start up in his own likeness, we may be sure it is the spear of Ithuriel. [Great applause.] That is my way of measuring the speech which has produced this glorious result. Oh, yes, glorious! for the world will yet cover every one of those scars with laurels. [Enthusiastic cheering.] Sir, he must not die! We need him yet, as the vanguard leader of the hosts of Liberty. No, he shall yet come forth from that sick-chamber, and every gallant heart in the Commonwealth be ready to kiss his very footsteps. [Loud cheers.]

…

“Perhaps, Mr. Chairman and fellow-citizens, I am wrong; but I accept that speech of my loved and honored friend, and with an unmixed approbation,—read it with envious admiration,—take it all. [Cheers.] Yes, what word is there in it that any one of us would not have been proud to utter? Not one! [Great applause.] In utter scorn of the sickly taste, of the effeminate scholarship, that starts back, in delicate horror, at a bold illustration, I dare to say there is no animal God has condescended to make that man may not venture to name. [Applause.] And if any ground of complaint is supposable in regard to this comparison, which shocks the delicacy of some men and some presses, it is the animal, not Mr. Douglas, that has reason to complain. [Thunders of applause, renewed again and again.]

…

“Mr. Chairman, there are some characters whose worth is so clear and self-evident, so tried and approved, so much without flaw, that we lay them on the shelf,—and when we hear of any act attributed to them, no matter in what doubtful terms it be related, we judge the single act by the totality of the character, by our knowledge of the whole man, letting a lifetime of uprightness explain a doubtful hour. Now, with regard to our honored Senator, we know that his taste, intellect, and heart are all of this quality,—a total, unflawed gem; and I know, when we get the full and complete report of what he said, the ipsissima verba in which it was spoken, that the most fastidious taste of the most delicate scholar will not be able to place finger on a word of Charles Sumner which the truest gentleman would not gladly indorse. [Loud cheers.] I place the foot of my uttermost contempt on those members of the press of Boston that have anything to say in criticism of his language, while he lies thus prostrate and speechless,—our champion beaten to the ground for the noblest word Massachusetts ever spoke in the Senate. [Prolonged applause.]”

A great meeting in Faneuil Hall was remarkable for the speeches, of which a few extracts are given.

His Excellency, Henry J. Gardner, at the time Governor of Massachusetts, said:—

“Were this a party occasion, my feet would not be upon this platform; were this to stir up sectional animosity or promote local discord, my voice would never reverberate from these arches above my head; but when the State of Massachusetts is attacked in one of her dearest rights, one of her most glorious privileges, I should be recreant to my duty, I should be false to my trust, as every one who hears me would be, did I not protest against this infraction of our common rights. I wish, my friends, in order to give the greatest moral weight possible to this meeting, to give its proceedings the most cogent force, to assume in the outset that this case can in no wise, in no way, and under no consideration, be considered anything but a spontaneous expression of the sentiments of gentlemen of every party in the State of Massachusetts upon this question. The last time the eloquent and honorable Senator of Massachusetts addressed his fellow-citizens of Boston, he stood where I now stand, on the eve of the election in November last; and here, he being a Senator of Massachusetts in the Congress of the United States, and I being Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, he indulged in what he honestly believed to be facts and statements in regard to those of my friends who were striving to place me again in the post I then occupied, using no unfair, but only honest statements of the views he held; and he being still a Senator from Massachusetts, and I again her Governor, and this being the first time since then that my voice has been heard in Faneuil Hall, while I lament most deeply the circumstance which has called us together, I rejoice that it gives me an opportunity to rise superior to party feelings, to party bias, and to express my sentiments that we must stand by him who is the representative of Massachusetts, under all circumstances. [Loud cheers.] And while he represents the old Commonwealth in the United States Senate, in the performance of his constitutional duties as he understands them, I will, so help me Heaven, do all in my humble ability to strengthen his arm and encourage his heart. [Loud applause.]”

Hon. George S. Hillard said:—

“But now, when I read of this event in the Senate, of this assault upon Sumner, it seemed to me it was a very bad specimen of a very bad school. [Laughter.] And all of us were affected in the same manner, upon reading the account. What was our first exclamation? Not that it was an inhuman outrage, or a brutal outrage, but that it was cowardly. I say that the cowardliness of this attack stands out even more conspicuous, to my eye, than its brutality or its inhumanity. To approach a man imprisoned, tied hand and foot, as it were, between an arm-chair and a desk, and to strike him over the head without warning or immediate provocation, a stunning, deadly blow with a bludgeon, is, in my opinion, the act of an assassin. [Applause.] And I say, that, compared to such an act, the act of the man who meets me on the high-road, and horsewhips, or at least attempts to horsewhip me [laughter], soars to something like manliness and courage. [Cheers.]”

Hon. Peleg W. Chandler said:—

“For more than twenty years, Mr. President and fellow-citizens, I have been on terms of the closest intimacy with Charles Sumner. For more than one half that period I have been his political opponent. It is precisely because I have been, and now am, his personal friend, and it is precisely because I have been, and now am, his political opponent, that I have come here to-night,—not with the intention of speaking upon this platform, but to listen to the voices of those who are his political as well as personal friends, in relation to the great outrage which has brought a stain upon our country.

“I have heard here, Gentlemen, a great deal of sympathy expressed for Mr. Sumner. As his personal friend, I beg to say that that feeling is entirely uncalled for, if not to some extent misplaced. Have sympathy for the great martyrs of the past, for those who wear the civic crown, if you will,—but I tell you that that gentleman in Washington who now lies upon a bed of pain, whose life it may be is hanging in the balance, needs no sympathy from us. Every drop of blood shed by him in this disgraceful affair has raised up ten thousand armed men. [Applause.] Every gash upon that forehead will be covered with a political crown, let it be resisted as much as it may be resisted, here or elsewhere. [Loud cheers.] This matter is raised far above and beyond all personal considerations. It is a matter of trifling consequence to Mr. Sumner. It makes those who love him love him more,—and no man is more loved, or more to be considered, so far as the affections or friendship are concerned. Yet personal feelings are of little or no consequence in this outrage. It is a blow not merely at Massachusetts, a How not merely at the name and fame of our common country; it is a blow at constitutional liberty all the world over; it is a stab at the cause of Universal Freedom. It is aimed at all men, everywhere, who are struggling for what we now regard as our great birthright, and which we intend to transmit unimpaired to our latest posterity. [Loud cheers.]

“Whatever may be done in this matter, however, one thing is certain, one thing is sure. The blood of this Northern man, who had dared to stand up in the Senate of the United States under circumstances that would have discouraged a man of less ardor, less enthusiasm, and less courage,—that blood now stains the Senate floor; and let me tell you, that not all the water of the Potomac can wash it out. They may cry, with the great tragic queen, ‘Out, damned spot!’ but no water of this world can ever efface it. Forever, forever and aye, that stain will plead in silence for liberty, wherever man is enslaved, for humanity all over the world, for truth and for justice, now and forever. [Continued applause.]”

The meeting at Cambridge was distinguished for the character of those who took part in it, many of whom had not sympathized with Mr. Sumner in his public life. The President was Hon. Joel Parker, formerly Chief Justice of New Hampshire; and among the Vice-Presidents were Theophilus Parsons, the eminent law-writer,—C. C. Felton, afterwards President of Harvard University,—Jared Sparks, the historian,—Henry W. Longfellow,—Charles Beck, the Latin scholar,—Joseph E. Worcester, the lexicographer,—Willard Phillips, the law-writer and judge,—Joseph T. Buckingham, the well-known editor.

Professor Felton thus alluded to Mr. Sumner:—

“I know Mr. Sumner well. In former times I had a long, an intimate, and an affectionate acquaintance with him; and I feel bound to say that he is a scholar of rich and rare acquirements, a gentleman of noble qualities and generous aims, distinguished for the amenities of social life, and a companion most welcome in the society of the most generous, the most refined, the most exalted. Sir, I had nothing to do with sending Mr. Sumner to the Senate of the United States; I had no vote to cast on that occasion; and if I had had, it would not, on public grounds, have been cast for him. I shall have none to cast, when the time for another election comes; but if I had five hundred votes, every one should be given to send him back again. [Great applause.]

“Such is the man for whom ruffians lay in wait, whom they assaulted, when unarmed and defenceless, in the Senate House.”

Richard H. Dana, Jr., Esq., made an elaborate speech, of which the following is only an extract.

“But I cannot, if I would, altogether withdraw my thoughts from this personal outrage upon Mr. Sumner. Charles Sumner!

I cannot allow myself to call up that scene in the Senate House, lest I should feel more than I shall be able to express or be willing to betray. Boston, his native town, has spoken. Next to Boston, there is no place so dear to him as Cambridge. He is a true son of Harvard. The best years of his early life, from fifteen to twenty-three, he spent here: the four years of college,—a fifth year which he wisely, though unusually, added to his course, for the perfecting of his classical and general studies,—and the three years of his studies in the Law School. At the Law School his attainments were not only great, but wonderful; and for purity of character, kindness, and frankness, he was respected and beloved by all. He was the friend, young as he was, the beloved friend, the frequent and honored guest of Story, of Channing, and of Allston. He was the companion of your Longfellow and your Felton. No young man was more honored by Mr. Webster—in I had almost said his better days. He was the friend of every man and of every cause that deserved to have a friend. At the bar he distinguished himself, especially in juridical literature. He was the reporter of Judge Story’s decisions, and editor of the Jurist, where the young student will find the copious results of his enthusiastic labors in his then beloved profession. When he went abroad, he took nothing in his hand that his own merits had not given him. He had not one claim that did not rest on character, learning, and talents. Still under the age of thirty, he became in Europe the honored friend of men whose names have honored the world. Turning his back upon the attractions of dissipation and fashion, he devoted himself to the society of the learned, the wise, the philanthropic, and to all great and good objects. Thomas Carlyle, in a letter to America, says, “We have had popular Sumner here,”—so universally was he liked. In Paris, while the Northeastern Boundary question was agitating England and America, and attracting much of the attention of Europe, Sumner shut himself into the libraries and public archives, and produced a treatise upon the subject, thought then to be almost exhausted, which, published in the great journals of Europe, and brought before Parliaments and Councils, changed the aspect of the question in Europe, and redounded to his great honor at home.

“After his return, under the influence of Dr. Channing, and in sympathy with Dr. Howe and others, he devoted much of his time to the great philanthropic and social problems of the day,—Slavery, Pauperism, Crime, and Prison Discipline,—and gradually the overshadowing social, political, and national importance of the Slave question drew him first before the people and into public life. When his sentiments on the Slave question were to be sustained at the risk of his ease, his interests, his friendships, and his popularity, he put them all to the hazard. When proposed as candidate for the Senate, the highest office Massachusetts can give, while his election hung trembling in the balance week after week, when one or two votes would secure it, and this or that thing said or done it was thought would gain them, nothing would induce Charles Sumner to take one step from his regular course from his house to his office to speak to any man; he would not make one bow the more, nor put his hand to a line, however simple or unobjectionable, to secure the result. I know—I have right to say this—I know that in this course he resisted temptations and advice and persuasions which few men would not have yielded to. He was elected. It was a tribute to character and talent.

“When he went to Washington, to fight almost alone, with only two or three allies, discountenanced by colleagues and cried down by the great majority, to fight the fight for Freedom, he determined not to speak on the subject of Slavery until he had done all in his power to secure the confidence and good-will of his opponents. So far did he carry this, that his friends here feared that he was bending before the idol, as others had bent. He secured his footing as well as it could be secured. All but fanatics for Slavery admitted his claims to personal affection and public respect. On this basis he took his stand for Freedom. You have seen the result. Few men in America have ever had, perhaps no one man now has, so many readers as he. His opponents say that he burns the midnight lamp. He does. And

His opponents, too, burn the midnight lamp; but, as you remember, Sir, the great Athenian said, there is a difference between the objects on which their lamp throws its glare and his.”

Among the meetings, that of Concord deserves mention. The resolutions, introduced by Hon. E. Rockwood Hoar, were as follows.

“Resolved, That we have heard with feelings of the deepest indignation of the cowardly and brutal assault upon a Senator of Massachusetts, in the Senate Chamber of the United States, for words spoken in debate, in his place, upon the floor of the Senate.

“Resolved, That this dastardly outrage has in itself dishonored no one but the ruffian who committed it,—but that the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States will make themselves accomplices of the criminal, and deliberate partakers of the guilt and infamy of the crime, if they shall fail to visit upon him speedy and condign punishment.

“Resolved, That, if there are those who imagine that the voice of a Senator of Massachusetts can be silenced, or the expression of the deliberate opinions of her people upon public measures and public men can be stifled and suppressed, by the terrors of assassination, we know that in Charles Sumner they have mistaken the man, and we will endeavor to show that they have mistaken the Commonwealth.

“Resolved, That, in this assault upon our distinguished Senator, the right of free debate in Congress, guarantied by the Constitution of the United States, has been dangerously assailed; and all men who are not willing to see it wholly destroyed are called upon, personally, to rebuke the outrage, and all its abettors, defenders, and apologists.

“Resolved, That we thank Mr. Sumner with our whole hearts for his heroic defence of the Kansas settlers, and his solemn arraignment before the country of the perpetrators of the great Crime against that unhappy and conquered province.

“Resolved, That we have a right to look to the House of Representatives to vindicate the honor of the country in the eyes of the civilized world, by expelling from their body a member with whom none but bullies and savages can hereafter fitly associate.”

These were followed by a speech from Ralph Waldo Emerson, of which this is an extract.

“The outrage is the more shocking from the singularly pure character of its victim. Mr. Sumner’s position is exceptional in its honor. He had not taken his degrees in the caucus and in hack politics. It is notorious, that, in the long time when his election was pending, he refused to take a single step to secure it. He would not so much as go up to the State House to shake hands with this or that person whose good-will was reckoned important by his friends. He was elected. It was a homage to character and talent. In Congress he did not rush into a party position. He sat long silent and studious. His friends, I remember, were told that they would find Sumner a man of the world, like the rest: ‘’Tis quite impossible to be at Washington and not bend; he will bend, as the rest have done.’ Well, he did not bend. He took his position, and kept it. He meekly bore the cold shoulder from some of his New England colleagues, the hatred of his enemies, the pity of the indifferent, cheered by the love and respect of good men with whom he acted, and has stood for the North, a little in advance of all the North, and therefore without adequate support. He has never faltered in his maintenance of justice and freedom. He has gone beyond the large expectation of his friends in his increasing ability and his manlier tone.

“I have heard that some of his political friends tax him with indolence or negligence in refusing to make electioneering speeches, or otherwise to bear his part in the labor which party organization requires. I say it to his honor. But more to his honor are the faults which his enemies lay to his charge. I think, Sir, if Mr. Sumner had any vices, we should be likely to hear of them. They have fastened their eyes like microscopes, now for five years, on every act, word, manner, and movement, to find a flaw,—and with what result? His opponents accuse him neither of drunkenness, nor debauchery, nor job, nor peculation, nor rapacity, nor personal aims of any kind. No: but with what? Why, beyond this charge, which it is impossible was ever sincerely made, that he broke over the proprieties of debate, I find him accused of publishing his opinion of the Nebraska conspiracy in a letter to the People of the United States, with discourtesy. Then, that he is an Abolitionist: as if every sane human being were not an Abolitionist, or a believer that all men should be free. And the third crime he stands charged with is, that his speeches were written before they were spoken: which of course must be true in Sumner’s case,—as it was true of Webster, of Adams, of Calhoun, of Burke, of Chatham, of Demosthenes, of every first-rate speaker that ever lived. It is the high compliment he pays to the intelligence of the Senate and of the country. When the same reproach was cast upon the first orator of ancient times by some caviller of his day, he said, ‘I should be ashamed to come with one unconsidered word before such an assembly.’

“Mr. Chairman, when I think of these most small faults as the worst which party hatred could allege, I think I may borrow the language which Bishop Burnet applied to Sir Isaac Newton, and say, that Charles Sumner ‘has the whitest soul I ever knew.’

“Well, Sir, this noble head, so comely and so wise, must be the target for a pair of bullies to beat with clubs! The murderer’s brand shall stamp their foreheads, wherever they may wander in the earth. But I wish, Sir, that the high respects of this meeting shall be expressed to Mr. Sumner, that a copy of the resolutions that have been read may be forwarded to him. I wish that he may know the shudder of terror that ran through all this community on the first tidings of this brutal attack. Let him hear that every man of worth in New England loves his virtues,—that every mother thinks of him as the protector of families,—that every friend of Freedom thinks him the friend of Freedom. And if our arms at this distance cannot defend him from assassins, we confide the defence of a life so precious to all honorable men and true patriots, and to the Almighty Maker of men.”

At a meeting in Worcester, Hon. Charles Allen, the eminent Judge, and formerly a Representative in Congress, said:—

“Now, Sir, we have met to express our warm feelings of indignation—at what? That Charles Sumner has been stricken down by the hand of a brutal ruffian? No, Sir: that is but a small portion of the question which is presented for our consideration at this time. Not by the hand of Brooks of South Carolina, alone, did he fall; but it was through a concerted effort, which has not been denied in the House of Representatives, although the question was evaded by Mr. Brooks, declaring that he had informed no one of the time when it should take place; but he did not deny—and it is well known in Washington, and will be throughout the country, that this attack upon Mr. Sumner—that this slaughter of Mr. Sumner, for such was the purpose—was concerted among Southern men, and that Brooks was but the base instrument by which the purpose was to be carried into effect. Sir, we must hold, not Mr. Brooks responsible alone, but all those who combined with him to do this foul deed,—all those—and you will find there will be hosts in another section of the country—who will applaud the act, and profess to honor the man who was put forward to perpetrate this deed. And, Sir, if we consider it merely as a combination of slaveholders against our Senator, and nothing more, we shall not reach the magnitude of the question open for our consideration. That blow was not meant for Mr. Sumner alone. It was meant for the State which he represented. It was the State of Massachusetts whose honor was outraged by that act. It was her majesty which was stricken down in the person of her Senator. It is her body that lies bleeding, and demands retribution at the hands of her children. Shall retribution not come? Shall there not be a voice from one end of Massachusetts to the other, calling aloud for retribution upon the perpetrator, and the aiders and abettors of that foul act? [Loud cries of ‘Yes,’ and applause.]”

The voice of the Young Men of Boston found utterance at a large and enthusiastic meeting of the Mercantile Library Association, held at their rooms, June 6, 1856, when the following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted.

“Whereas the Hon. Charles Sumner, Senator in Congress from this Commonwealth, and an honorary member of this Association, has been most brutally assaulted in his seat in Congress for words uttered in debate: Therefore

“Resolved, That it is with feelings of profound sorrow and shame that we are obliged to recognize in this act a cowardly and base assault upon the rights of free speech, and to regard this indignity, perpetrated upon the person of our honored and beloved Senator, as an insult to the city of Boston and its institutions, the State of Massachusetts, and our common country.

“Resolved, That the members of the Mercantile Library Association of Boston, without distinction of party, most respectfully tender to the Hon. Charles Sumner their kindest feelings of sympathy and esteem, and earnestly hope, that, by the blessing of Divine Providence, he may resume his seat in Congress, and reiterate those principles of humanity which every institution, whether political or literary, should most earnestly espouse.

“Resolved, That the Corresponding Secretary of this Association is hereby requested to furnish the Hon. Charles Sumner with an appropriate copy of these resolves.”

The sentiments of the medical profession appear in a speech and toast by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, at the dinner of the Massachusetts Medical Society, at the Revere House, Boston.

“Look into the chamber where our own fellow-citizen, struck down without warning by the hand of brutal violence, lies prostrate, and think what fearful issues hang on the skill or incompetence of those who have his precious life in charge. One little error, and the ignis sacer, the fiery plague of the wounded, spreads his angry blush over the surface, and fever and delirium are but the preludes of deadlier symptoms. One slight neglect, and the brain, oppressed with the products of disease, grows dreamy, and then drowsy, its fine energies are palsied, and too soon the heart that filled it with generous blood is still forever. It took but a little scratch from a glass, broken at his daughter’s wedding, to snatch from life the great anatomist and surgeon, Spigelius, almost at the very age of him for whose recovery we look, not without anxious solicitude.

“At such a moment as this, more than at any other, we feel the dignity, the awful responsibility, of the healing art. Let but that life be sacrificed, and left unavenged, and the wounds of that defenceless head, like the foul witch’s blow on her enchanted image, are repeated on the radiant forehead of Liberty herself, and flaw the golden circlet we had vainly written with the sacred name of Union!

“I give you, Mr. President,—

“The Surgeons of the City of Washington.—God grant them wisdom! for they are dressing the wounds of a mighty empire, and of uncounted generations.”

Hon. Josiah Quincy, in the eighty-fifth year of his age, addressed a letter to the Unitarian Festival, in which he said:—

“The hostile irruption of two members of Congress into the Senate Chamber of the United States, openly armed with deadly bludgeons, and probably secretly, according to the habits of their breed, with bowie-knives and revolvers, and there prostrating on the floor with their bludgeons a Senator of the United States, sitting peaceably in his seat, unconscious of danger, and from his position incapable of defence, inflicting upon him blows, until he sunk senseless under them, and which, if they do not prove mortal, it was not for want of malignant intent in the cowardly assassins,—and all this for words publicly spoken in the Senate, in the course of debate, allowed by its presiding officer to be spoken, and exceeding not one hair’s breadth any line of truth or duty: this is the fifth, and the climax, of this series of outrages, unparalleled, nefarious, and brutal.”

At an indignation meeting in the town of Quincy, this venerable citizen spoke as follows.

“The blow struck upon the head of Charles Sumner did not fall upon him alone. It was a blow purposely aimed at the North. It was a blow struck at the very Tree of Liberty. It speaks to us in words not to be mistaken. It says to us that Northern men shall not be heard in the halls of Congress, except at the peril of the bowie-knife, the bludgeon, and revolver. Nor is this any new thing.

“The bludgeon, heretofore only brandished, has at last been brought down; and now is the time for the North to fight. Charles Sumner needs not our sympathy: if he dies, his name will be immortal,—his name will be enrolled with the names of Warren, Sidney, and Russell; if he lives, he is destined to be the light of the nation.”

Hon. Edward Everett, at Taunton, opened his “Address on the Character of Washington” by allusion to the assault.

“With the satisfaction which I feel in addressing you at the present time are mingled the profoundest anxiety and grief. An irrepressible sadness takes possession of my heart at the occurrences of the past week, and the most serious apprehensions force themselves upon me that events are already in train, with an impulse too mighty to be resisted, which will cause our beloved country to weep tears of blood through all her borders for generations to come. The civil war,—for such it is,—with its horrid train of pillage, fire, and slaughter, carried on, without the slightest provocation, against the infant settlements of our brethren on the frontier of the Union,—the worse than civil war which has for months raged unrebuked at the capital of the Union, and has at length, by an act of lawless violence, of which I know no parallel in the history of Constitutional Government, stained the floor of the Senate Chamber with the blood of an unarmed, defenceless man, and he a Senator of Massachusetts,—ah, my friends, these are events which, for the good name, the peace, the safety of the country, for the cause of free institutions throughout the world, it were worth all the gold of California to blot from the record of the past week. They sicken the heart of the good citizen, of the patriot, of the Christian; they awaken a gloomy doubt whether the sacrifices and the sufferings endured by our fathers, that they might found a purer, higher, and freer civilization on this Western Continent than the world had yet seen, have not been endured in vain.”

William H. Hurlbut, of New York, the eminent journalist, wrote thus, under date of June 7, 1856.

“The newspapers, which have for so long kept the millions of the North as watchers about your bed, now gladden all our hearts with the news that you are soon to stand again upon that floor which promises to become as sacred in the annals of Freedom as is the arena of the Coliseum in the story of our faith.…

“Nothing, I am sure, could so have touched and roused every class of Northern society, nothing could so have put the terrible realities of the issue we must confront before the most unwilling and the most indifferent minds, as the atrocious deed which, imbecile as it was atrocious, makes the firmest enemy of Slavery the perpetual representative alike of Northern honor and of Northern manhood, and enlists around you, as the perpetual Senator of Massachusetts, every instinct, passion, and necessity of Northern civilization.

“It is your rare good fortune to be able to wear the martyr’s crown into the battle of life, and I really do not see how any true man can have any words for you but those of congratulation and of stern exultation. The scoundrelly simpleton who struck you fled from the recoil of his weapon; but there will be a fiercer recoil from that blow, and a flowing of blood not so easily to be stanched.

“I think, if you could have seen the meeting at the Tabernacle, you would have marked the 22d of May with white in your calendar: it is marked with red in the calendar of our country.

“I am going to England in a few weeks, but I hope, before I go, to hear that you are quite reëstablished in health, and once more face to face with the lions,—I beg the pardon of the forest-king,—with the tigers of the Senate House.

“In this season of our national degradation, it will be something, that, when Englishmen talk to me of their dead Miltons and Marvells and Hampdens and Sidneys, I can answer them with a living name, which, like these names, shall never cease to live.”

Dr. John W. Francis, the eminent physician, of New York, wrote, under date of October 9, 1856:—

“I now write a line or two for the purpose of renewing to you the sentiments I cherish in your behalf, and my admiration of your noble patriotism and commanding eloquence. I had read carefully your classical speeches, and rejoiced that there was at least one in the Senate who to rich culture added the graces of finished oratory and the abiding principles of constitutional freedom. Yes, my dear Sir, I have been for several months, amidst many cares, absorbed on the consequences which I inferred must follow the brutal assault which you received. I almost at once exclaimed, That blow will effect a revolution in our political relationship; yet I pray God that the Union may continue intact under its momentous influences. You have, by your parliamentary demonstrations, evinced the heroism of the patriots of the earlier days of our Republic; you have stamped your Senatorial career with the impress of the loftiest intrepidity and moral courage. You are destined to occupy an ample page in your country’s history. These expressions, dear Sir, flow from a full heart and a deep conviction.”

Governor Banks, in his annual message to the Legislature of Massachusetts, January, 1858, associated the violence in Kansas with that upon Mr. Sumner.

“Nothing but the direct intervention of Federal influence can force through Congress the Lecompton Constitution; and if the Government, with the sanction of the people, can force upon Kansas a Constitution conceived in fraud and violence, it will be the weightiest blow ever given against free governments.

“Violence and fraud, if successful in this instance, will be repeated whenever occasion demands it. It will not be limited to Territories or States. No shrine will be held sacred. The Senate Chamber of the United States has been already invaded, and this State was for a time bereft of a part of its representative power by an act of fearful wrong, committed upon the most cherished and brilliant of her sons, while in the performance of constitutional duty.”

The following extract from a poem by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe appeared in the New York Tribune at the time.

The wide-spread, spontaneous sentiment of the North found echo in Europe, especially in England. Among various testimonies, the following is selected from the Morning Star of London, June 24, 1856.

“The assault upon Mr. Sumner stands without parallel in the annals of civilized communities. While sitting at his desk in the Senate Chamber, quietly engaged in writing, a member of the other legislative body, the House of Representatives, deliberately walks up to him, and, taking advantage of his utterly helpless position, where he could neither escape nor defend himself, begins to beat him violently upon his bare head with a heavy cane, until he falls down stunned and insensible, covered with his own blood, the cowardly ruffian not desisting even then, when the form of his antagonist lay prostrate and senseless before him. While this is taking place, a number of his brother Senators stand round and make no attempt to stay the arm of the assailant; some of them, indeed, mounted guard expressly to prevent interference. Such conduct is utterly inexplicable to us in this country.

…

“If anything could aggravate the inherent brutality of this act, it is the character of the man upon whom it was committed. For Mr. Sumner is a gentleman in whom there meets a combination of qualities adapted in a rare degree to inspire the affectionate attachment of friends, and to command courtesy and respect from all generous and honorable opponents: a man of a chivalrous and heroic spirit, of a refined and sensitive nature, of a powerful and cultivated intellect disciplined by hard study and adorned with profound and various learning, who has led a life of irreproachable purity and active benevolence,—the favorite pupil of Story, the intimate friend and disciple of Channing, the chosen associate of the finest living minds of America, Quincy, Sparks, Longfellow, Goodrich, Dana, Everett, Bryant, Emerson.

…

“And when the greatest of American orators and statesmen, Daniel Webster, was stricken down by the hand of death, Mr. Sumner was the man whom the State of Massachusetts chose from among her sons, as most worthy to be his successor. And most nobly has he vindicated the wisdom of their choice. Taking small interest in the ordinary conflicts of parties, he has stood forth, from the moment that he entered the Senate, as the courageous and resolute champion of the slave. His speeches are elaborate and masterly orations, with perhaps almost too much of classical stateliness and refinement for the tribune. Over the hard and dry abstraction of politics he throws the glancing lights of his fertile and polished fancy, and relieves the tedium of debate by the rich stores of an elegant and varied erudition. The speech that brought upon him the recent attack was perhaps the greatest of all his efforts. It is in every respect a magnificent production. With a lofty and relentless logic he tears away the covering veil of sophistry with which the Southern members had sought to conceal the naked iniquity of the transactions in Kansas. There are, no doubt, passages of terrible severity, but not, we think, exceeding the license of parliamentary debate among ourselves. And the most conclusive testimony to the power of the orator is afforded by the desperate extremities to which it reduced his discomfited foes.

“We have no words of commiseration to offer to Mr. Sumner. God grant only that a life so valuable may be spared, and he will occupy in the estimation of all men, at home and abroad, whose judgment he would value, a prouder position than he ever occupied before. He stood in the vanguard of Freedom, and the marks of the ruffianly outrage inflicted upon him, which he will probably bear to the grave, he will wear as more honorable scars than ever warrior brought from a battle-field.”

This record of opinion at the North, echoed from Europe, may be closed by words from an important journal at New York, The Courier and Enquirer, in the summer of 1856.

“The fact is incontestable, that, when the Massachusetts Senator again crosses the threshold of that Senate Chamber, Slavery will have to confront the most formidable foe it ever had to face before the public eye. He will come with every muscle braced and every sinew strung by the sense of measureless personal wrong; but infinitely more than that, he will come armed with the indignation and shielded by the moral support of the whole North. Hitherto he has figured but in one character, the assailant of Slavery; henceforth he will be also the accredited assertor and champion of the most sacred right of freedom of speech, and as such will command tenfold greater consideration. His antagonists have affected to despise him before, and to treat him with scorn. The day for that has passed. The public man, who has once been the occasion of such an outburst of sympathy and good-will as has within the last week sprung from the mouth of millions upon millions of his countrymen, is no longer a man to be disdained. He has henceforth position, power, and security, beyond any of his adversaries. Let his sentiments be what they may, his free utterance of them hereafter becomes an assured thing, insomuch as that utterance will serve as the best of all possible tests of that freedom of debate which has once been outraged in his person, and which it is the present determination of the North shall be maintained at all hazards.”

V. INJURIES AND CONTINUED DISABILITY OF MR. SUMMER.

Senator Butler, in reply to Mr. Sumner, June 12, 1856, remarked on his absence from his seat as follows.

“If I give credence to the testimony of Dr. Boyle, I see no reason why he should not be present. For anything that appears in that testimony, if he had been an officer of the Army, and had not appeared the next day on the battle-field, he would have deserved to be cashiered.”[152]

This fling was so agreeable to the Senator that he repeated it, with a variation, on the second day of his speech.

“After all that has been said and done, on a post bellum examination, what is it? A fight in the Senate Chamber, resulting in two flesh wounds, which ought not to have detained him from the Senate. Being rather a handsome man, perhaps he would not like to expose himself by making his appearance for some time; but if he had been in the Army, there was no reason why he should not go to the field the next day; and he would deserve to be cashiered, if he did not go.”[153]

After such remarks in open Senate, it was easy for the press in sympathy with Slavery to assert that Mr. Sumner had received no injury, and that his reported disability was a pretence for the benefit of his political party.

At the time of the assault Mr. Sumner was in perfect health, without any weakness or disturbing incident. Having confidence in the native force of his constitution, he looked forward to a very early restoration, thinking that the injuries he had received would yield easily to Nature. His disappointment affords another instance of the extent to which patients are deceived with regard to their true condition, which in his case was revealed tardily. He had hoped to resume his seat in a few days. Months and years passed, leaving him an invalid.

On the healing of the flesh wounds, he found himself still a sufferer from a pressure on the brain, with weakness in the spinal column. The latter became more positive with time. First a guest of F. P. Blair, Esq., at Silver Spring, near Washington, he was able early in July to reach Philadelphia, where he found rest at the house of Rev. William H. Furness. Here he came under the medical care of Dr. Caspar Wister. From Philadelphia he went to Cape May, where he was welcomed by the family of James T. Furness, Esq., at their cottage. Here he was very feeble, so that his kind hosts were alarmed with regard to him. From Cape May he went to Cresson, an elevated place in Pennsylvania, where he stayed with Dr. R. M. Jackson. Once more in Philadelphia at the beginning of September, he was welcomed by his hosts of Cape May, with whom he remained until his return to Boston at the beginning of November. This return was postponed by the advice of his physician, who was unwilling that he should expose himself to the excitement of such an event.

In Boston he was treated by Dr. Marshall S. Perry, in consultation with the venerable physician, Dr. James Jackson. Here he remained several months, most of the time in the house, on his bed. He did not reach Washington until just before the close of the session of Congress, but in season to determine by his vote the fate of the tariff of 1857.[154] On the 4th of March he was sworn as Senator for the second term, and on the 7th of March sailed for Havre in the Steamer Fulton. Still confident in his recuperative force, and underrating his injuries, his object was simply rest and recreation, rather than medical treatment. After some time in Paris, he travelled in France, Switzerland, England, and Scotland, including a stay in London. While in Edinburgh he became acquainted with George Combe, the eminent phrenologist and physiologist, who, taking a strong interest in his case, wrote to Sir James Clark, the Queen’s physician, for his opinion upon it. The two united in advising against an early return to public duties; but Mr. Sumner felt constrained to try himself at Washington. Accordingly he resumed his seat at the beginning of the session, in December, 1857, only to find himself within the circumscriptions of an invalid. Without pretending to take part in business, he sought to be at hand to vote on important questions. At last he was admonished by a succession of relapses that he must make a more serious effort for recovery. On the 22d May, 1858, just two years from his original injuries, he sailed in the steamer Vanderbilt for Havre. His first purpose was to visit Switzerland, and there commence pedestrian exercise in the open air, beginning with a short distance and extending it daily, as the athlete, beginning with the calf, at last carried the ox; but this idea proceeded on a radical misconception of his case, which required repose rather than exercise. A medical friend to whom he communicated this plan warned him against it, saying, curtly, “Then you’ll be a dead man!”

At Paris he first enjoyed the advice of Dr. George Hayward, the eminent surgeon of Boston, but soon afterward came under the care of that remarkable physiologist and specialist, Dr. Brown-Séquard, who, after a most careful diagnosis, reported that the blows on the head had taken effect, by contre-coups, in the spine, producing disturbance in the spinal cord. To Mr. Sumner’s instant inquiry as to the remedy, the Doctor replied, “Fire.” The resolution of the former was taken at once, and he asked, “When can you apply it?” “To-morrow, if you please,” said the Doctor. “Why not this afternoon?” said the patient; and that afternoon it was done by the moxa, which was followed by other applications, being seven in number, always without chloroform, which Mr. Sumner declined to take. This was in June. During this painful treatment he found solace in the study of engravings, to which he devoted himself, according to the limitations of his health, with daily assiduity.

Some time in August he left Paris for the baths of Aix, in Savoy, famous from antiquity, where he underwent still another treatment by hot and cold douches. Then traversing Switzerland, he entered Germany by Venice and Trieste, visiting Vienna, Berlin, and Munich. Reaching Paris in November, he was arrested in his proposed return to the Senate by a medical conference, in which Dr. Brown-Séquard, Dr. George Hayward, and the eminent French practitioner, Dr. Trousseau, took part, all uniting against it. Leaving the excitements of Paris, he passed the ensuing winter at Montpellier, in the South of France. Here he led a retired life, being cupped on the spine daily, and passing as many as eighteen hours out of the twenty-four on the bed or sofa, finding recreation in reading, and, so far as he could, in the public lectures at the college on history and literature. Taking advantage of his improved condition in the spring, he made a hurried visit to Italy, and then reported himself to Dr. Brown-Séquard at Paris, who pronounced him well. To the various treatments already mentioned he added sea-baths at Havre during the following August. At the opening of Congress in December, 1859, he was in his seat, with a certain consciousness of restored health, although admonished to enter upon work slowly.

Contemporary reports in newspapers and letters illustrate the condition of Mr. Sumner at the time, and something of his frame of mind.

A correspondent of the Boston Telegraph and Chronicle, under date of February 20, 1857, shows his occupations at the time he was struck down.

“It was my good fortune to be a frequent caller upon Mr. Sumner during his residence here. I always found him studiously devoted to the duties of his office. He was one of the most active, hard-working men in Congress. Down to the 22d day of May, 1856, when he was so brutally assailed by the agent of the Slave Oligarchy, he had never been out of his seat a single day. It was in this spirit of fidelity that he always discharged his duties. If I may be pardoned in the exhibition of a little selfishness, I will acknowledge that it was in part the discovery of the fact that Mr. Sumner kept a better run of all the public business before Congress than most other members, that induced me, as a member of the press, to make more frequent calls upon him than perhaps I should otherwise have done. He was particularly well posted on all questions of foreign affairs, from the reception of Kossuth down to the important part that he took in the Sound Dues of Denmark; he was always enlightened on all propositions of general legislation, touching the judiciary, commerce, patents, the tariff, and everything concerning the great interests of Massachusetts.