Volume 7 — EVENING AFTER THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

Speech to the Wide-Awakes of Concord, Massachusetts, November 7, 1860.

The “Wide-Awakes” constituted a new and powerful agency in the machinery of American politics. They were companies of active voters in uniform of cap and cape with a lamp on a staff, organized and drilled with officers, who by display in the streets increased their numbers and intensified the prevailing enthusiasm. The organization was general throughout the Northern States, and constituted the working element of the Republican party. It has been sometimes remarked that its military discipline was an unconscious preparation for the sterner duties at hand.

The companies were not disbanded immediately after the election, and at several places where Mr. Sumner lectured he received from them the compliment of a visit after the lecture. This was the case at Concord on the evening succeeding the Presidential election, when the Wide-Awakes of the town appeared before the house of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the admired author, where Mr. Sumner was staying, and their Captain, Hon. John S. Keyes, made the following address.

“Honored Sir,—In behalf of the Republican Wide-Awakes of Concord, and of numerous other Republicans, part of that gallant army whose victory was yesterday achieved, I have the honor to tender to you our respectful greeting on this occasion of your first visit, after many years of pain and suffering endured in the cause of Republicanism, to the old battle-ground of Concord. We could not permit it to pass without at least offering to you a warm and earnest welcome, especially on the day following that glorious victory whose brightness no cloud obscures, and whose lustre is owing more, perhaps, to your earnest efforts in the cause of Freedom than to any other man. Permit me, Sir, in the name of these Wide-Awakes, to say to you that we trust with renewed health upon this soil you may bear forward the glorious cause of Freedom upon which our country has just entered.”

Mr. Sumner, standing on the steps of the house, replied as follows.

Captain and Wide-Awakes:—

You take me by surprise, absolutely. I am here to-night in the performance of an agreeable service outside of politics, and have not anticipated any such contingency as this with which you honor me, nor any such welcome.

I thank you, Gentlemen, for the kind and good words which have fallen from your Captain. They are a reward for the little I have been able to do in the past, and will be an encouragement in the future.

I join with you in gladness at the victory we celebrate to-day,—not of the cartridge-box, but of the ballot-box. No victories of the cartridge-box have involved higher principles or more important results than that just won by the ballot-box. A poet, whose home is in Concord, has said that the shot fired here was heard round the world. I doubt not that our victory just achieved will awaken reverberations also to be heard round the world. All men struggling for rights, vindicating liberal ideas, seeking human improvement, maintaining republican government, will be encouraged, when they hear of yesterday. It will be good news to Garibaldi in Italy, good news to the French now subjected to imperial power, good news to English Reformers,—and so also will it be good news to all among us who love Liberty, for it proclaims that at last Liberty has prevailed. Every four years we choose a new President; but it rarely happens that we choose a new government, as was done yesterday. A new order of things is inaugurated, with new auspices, lifting the Republic once more to that platform of principles on which it was originally placed by the Fathers. What victory of the cartridge-box ever did so much?

Looking at the vote in its practical significance, several things may be considered as established and proclaimed by the American people, so that hereafter they shall not be drawn in question.

Of these I place foremost the irrevocable decree, according to the very words of Madison, that it is “wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there can be property in men,”[38]—that, therefore, Slavery, if it exists anywhere, is sectional, and must derive such life as it has from local law, and not from the Constitution,—in opposition to the pretension so often put forward in its name, that Slavery is national and Freedom sectional.

Then again the American people have declared, that all outlying Territories, so immense in extent, and destined to the support of unknown millions, shall be consecrated to Freedom, so that the vast outstretched soil shall never know the footprint of a slave: all of which is the natural conclusion and corollary from the first decree.

And yet again it is declared, that in the administration of the National Government the original policy of the Fathers shall be adopted, in opposition to the policy of Slavery, which for the last twelve years has been so tyrannical, and for the last forty years has made its barbaric impress on the country.

And still further, the decree goes forth that the Slave-Trade shall be suppressed in reality as in name, that the statutes against it shall be vigorously enforced, and the power of the Government directed in good faith against it, all efforts to the contrary notwithstanding.

These things were yesterday proclaimed by the American people solemnly, and in a way from which there is no appeal. It was done by a vote destined to be ever memorable and a landmark of history.

Having obtained this great victory, let us study to use it with moderation, with prudence, with wisdom. Through no failure on our part must its proper fruits be lost. Happily, Abraham Lincoln [prolonged cheers] has those elements of character needed to carry us through the crisis. He is calm, prudent, wise, and also brave. And permit me to say, that there are moments in government when bravery is not less important than prudence. He will not see our cause sacrificed through menaces of disunion from the South, even if echoed in Massachusetts; and in this firmness he will be sustained by the American people, insisting upon all that is promised and secured by the Constitution, and to all menaces, from whatever quarter, answering back, that the Union shall be preserved and made more precious by consecration to Human Rights. [Three cheers for the Union.]

I thank you for this welcome, and now bid you good night.