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13 - Charles Sumner, The Scholar in Politics by Archibald Grimké · Charles Sumner, The Scholar in Politics

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Speaker 1: Chapter twelve of Charles Sumner, The Scholar in Politics by
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Speaker 1: Archibald Grimkey. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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Speaker 1: red Spirits and Gray. A truly momentous year was eighteen
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Speaker 1: fifty six in the political annals of the Union. The
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Speaker 1: strife between freedom and slavery was raging the while in
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Speaker 1: Kansas and at the seat of the federal government at Washington.
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Speaker 1: Very culminated in the assault on Sumner. It is memorable
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Speaker 1: also as marking the last triumph at the polls of
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Speaker 1: the slave power in America and the first appearance of
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Speaker 1: the new Northern Party in national politics. This year, the
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Speaker 1: Republican Party made its debut on the national stage and
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Speaker 1: swept the Free States with the magnificent courtesy of more
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Speaker 1: than one and one third million of votes. If the
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Speaker 1: New Party of Freedom failed to elect his candidates Fremont
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Speaker 1: and Dayton, neither did the old Party of Slavery succeed
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Speaker 1: in securing for its candidates Buchanan and Breckinridge a majority
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Speaker 1: of the polls by something like nearly four hundred thousand votes.
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Speaker 1: The long primacy of the South and the overlordship of
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Speaker 1: the slave power in the Union drew almost visibly after
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Speaker 1: this period victory to their violent and tremendous downfall. Seeing
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Speaker 1: how matters must conclude for it and its ill gotten gains.
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Speaker 1: Should the excitement growing out of the repeal of the
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Speaker 1: Missouri Compromise continue in the North with no abatement of
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Speaker 1: its energy, the slave power hit upon a bold, bad,
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Speaker 1: and desperate device to compose it. This was no other
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Speaker 1: than the famous or infamous judgment of the Supreme Court
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Speaker 1: in the case of dread Scout, which declared the unconstitutionality
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Speaker 1: of the Missouri Compromise. If that Act was abnitio null
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Speaker 1: and void, it followed plainly enough that its repeal could
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Speaker 1: not have worked any legal detriment to the US interests
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Speaker 1: of the Free States in the upper division of the
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Speaker 1: Louisiana Territory. If they had nothing under the Arrangement of
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Speaker 1: eighteen twenty, and the Act of eighteen fifty four took
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Speaker 1: that nothing away from them, What great consequence had they
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Speaker 1: suffered because of this sort of congressional addition and subtraction.
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Speaker 1: But the North was not deceived by the Solomon partisan
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Speaker 1: jugglery of the majority of the judges on the Supreme
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Speaker 1: Bench upon the subject its moral sense was besides shocked
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Speaker 1: by the bold inhumanities of the decision directed against the
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Speaker 1: Negro race. For deep within the Northern heart, buried, to
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Speaker 1: be sure, within labyrinthine selfishness and pride, there was an
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Speaker 1: idea of feeling that the black men did have rights
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Speaker 1: which white men were bound to respect. The obtudicta of
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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court to the contrary, notwithstanding the suspicion to
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Speaker 1: that the highest judicature of the land, one of the
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Speaker 1: coordinate branches of the national government, had only acted apart
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Speaker 1: assigned it by the Slave Power, served to add fuel
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Speaker 1: to the flames of the vegitation, which the authoritative voice
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Speaker 1: of that tribunal was evoked to allay. And so, after
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Speaker 1: all this shrude calculation, the anti Nebraska excitement was not composed,
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Speaker 1: and it went rapidly, in fact, from bad to worse.
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Speaker 1: The prohibitory legislation of eighteen twenty, torn from the Statute
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Speaker 1: Book by the Slave Power, was not blotted at the
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Speaker 1: same time from the breasts of Northern freemen. Congress and
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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court had not power to erase the great
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Speaker 1: fiat of liberty written there the unconquerable temper with which
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Speaker 1: three Kansas rose with the emergency with which it encountered.
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Speaker 1: The aggressions and outrages of the army of slavery, backed
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Speaker 1: as that army was by the whole authority of the
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Speaker 1: National Executive, proved polly and futility of the repeal. Proved
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Speaker 1: also the folly and futility of the squad or sovereignty
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Speaker 1: dogma as an instrument for introducing slavery into the territories.
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Speaker 1: When the slave leaders perceived that this much vaunted dogma
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Speaker 1: was unequal to the introduction of slavery into the territories,
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Speaker 1: it was promptly discarded by them, and another better adapted
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Speaker 1: to the accomplishment of their purpose selected in its stead.
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Speaker 1: The other was Calhoun's supreme dogma of the self extension
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Speaker 1: of slavery under the Constitution, as bent and phrased it
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Speaker 1: together with this corollary, the obligation of Congress to protect
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Speaker 1: by law the slaveholder in the enjoyment of his constitutional
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Speaker 1: right to slave labor against the hostile territorial majority. Theretofore
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Speaker 1: the Southern shibelette had been, Congress has no power to
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Speaker 1: legislator on the subject of slavery in the territories. Now
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Speaker 1: it became the duty of Congress to safeguard the institution
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Speaker 1: within the territories, not until the territory had attained to statehood.
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Speaker 1: According to this latest position of the South, could the
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Speaker 1: principle of popular sovereignty operate to exclude a master and
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Speaker 1: his slaves. Stephen A. Douglas was altogether to great and
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Speaker 1: selfish a politician to enact the role of a mere tool.
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Speaker 1: If he consented to serve the slave power. It was
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Speaker 1: doubtless because he calculated that he could serve self at
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Speaker 1: the same time could advance designs of his upon the presidency.
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Speaker 1: He knew that his popular sovereignty doctrine measured the full
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Speaker 1: length of his political tether, not an inch beyond the
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Speaker 1: principle set up by him in eighteen fifty four in
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Speaker 1: solution of the territorial problem. Did he dare to venture
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Speaker 1: to shift his position taken then to this last and
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Speaker 1: desperate pretension of the South would be passing politically upon
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Speaker 1: himself a death sentence. And Douglas was not of the
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Speaker 1: self renouncing kind. He left power to greedily to imperil
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Speaker 1: his leadership at the North, even to please the slave power.
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Speaker 1: The little giant drew defiantly and proudly off from his
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Speaker 1: southern allies on the Lacompton issue. On that issue, the earth,
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Speaker 1: while united and invincible Democratic Party ran sharply upon a
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Speaker 1: question which was to shake it to its center and
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Speaker 1: eventually split it into In this posture of affairs between
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Speaker 1: Douglas and fellow Democrats at the south, an old prophecy
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Speaker 1: of Calhoun found fulfillment for northern representatives, even so audacious
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Speaker 1: and powerful a public man as was Douglas, where when
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Speaker 1: they came to act, looking not to the South but
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Speaker 1: to the North for their political queue, Douglas, bissant as
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Speaker 1: he undoubtedly was in Illinois, dared not to bow before
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Speaker 1: the imperious will of the slave power at this juncture.
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Speaker 1: Willing or unwilling, he had to move with the currents
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Speaker 1: of public opinion in his own state. Indeed, he owed
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Speaker 1: his re election to the Senate over Lincoln a few
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Speaker 1: months later. To his courageous and uncompromising tone in the
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Speaker 1: Lacompton debate, the wrath of the self burned hardly against
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Speaker 1: its old confederates inaggression and wrong in obedience to its
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Speaker 1: behest he was deposed from the chairmanship of the Senate
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Speaker 1: Committee on Territories, and stood it was brooded in some
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Speaker 1: danger of being read out of the Democratic Party. Events
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Speaker 1: were plainly getting beyond the control of the politicians, escaping
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Speaker 1: as from Pandor's box. On every hand, to the confusion
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Speaker 1: and discomfiture of the compromisers at the North and those
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Speaker 1: at the South. It was an instance of the irrepressible
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Speaker 1: fermentation of contrary ideas, working from within outwardly in obedience
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Speaker 1: to rooted social differences and antagonisms between the sections. The
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Speaker 1: South was the victim of a system of labor which
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Speaker 1: early withdrew from it the power of choice, and then
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Speaker 1: drove it forward blindly by the force of an inexorable
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Speaker 1: necessity upon its fate. The North was likewise the creature
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Speaker 1: of an industrial principle whose resultant interests and institutions. So
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Speaker 1: they took away from it the power of self determination
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Speaker 1: and its conflicts with slave labor, and impelled it in
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Speaker 1: a line of social expansion as distinct from that of
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Speaker 1: the South as is light from darkness, civilization from barbarism,
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Speaker 1: never to any wide extent where the Free State's abolitionists
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Speaker 1: they opposed slavery so far only as slavery menaced their interests,
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Speaker 1: and no further they loved the Union, they had no
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Speaker 1: love for the slave. To preserve the one, they were
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Speaker 1: ever disposed to sacrifice the freedom of the other, but
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Speaker 1: upily for the slave. His freedom could not be immolated
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Speaker 1: utterly on the altar of the Union without entailing upon
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Speaker 1: his immolators, to a certain extent, a loss of political power.
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Speaker 1: And this possible consequence to themselves served to withhold the
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Speaker 1: Northern people from abandoning him entirely to his wretched fate.
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Speaker 1: From the first. Therefore, the passion of the Free States
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Speaker 1: for sectional ascendency pushed them gradually away from the South
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Speaker 1: and towards the slave. As the contest for political supremacy
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Speaker 1: waxed between the sections, the line of separation lengthened between
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Speaker 1: the North and the South, and lessened between the North
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Speaker 1: and the slave, until in due time liberty and the
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Speaker 1: Union grew to be one and inseparable. But this converging
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Speaker 1: of the sectional interests of the Free States and a
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Speaker 1: freedom to the slave upon a single point was a
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Speaker 1: long and tumultuous process. As the reader well knows, the
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Speaker 1: thing which the self demanded the North could not yield
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Speaker 1: and that which the North had for the South could
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Speaker 1: not grant. The self demanded more slave territory, more slave states,
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Speaker 1: while the North was compelled in self defense to resist
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Speaker 1: all further extension of slavery to the soil of the Republic,
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Speaker 1: and to oppose the admission of more slave states into
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Speaker 1: the Union. Certainly, the two sections were not fed with
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Speaker 1: the same food, For what might be meat to the
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Speaker 1: one was apt to prove poison to the other. A
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Speaker 1: startling episode, like John Brown and Harper's ferry, was the
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Speaker 1: flashby by which destiny revealed to themselves, unto each other,
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Speaker 1: the hearts of those natural and irrepressible enemies. In these circumstances,
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Speaker 1: it did not take that wise man Vaporham Lincoln long
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Speaker 1: to discover for the Northern people that their union could
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Speaker 1: not endure permanently half slave and half free. The discovery
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Speaker 1: of that momentous fact had been made by seventy years
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Speaker 1: of experiment and conflict. This truth, during that long period
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Speaker 1: had deepened and spread at the South. It had deepened
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Speaker 1: and spread at the North, more slowly, to be sure,
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Speaker 1: but with not less certainty or co instancy than in
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Speaker 1: the other half of the country. The logic of Southern
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Speaker 1: aggression tended to make the Union all slave, that of
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Speaker 1: Northern resistance to make it all free. The sectionalism of
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Speaker 1: the Douglas wing of the Democratic Party differed in degree
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Speaker 1: only from the sectionalism of the Republican Party. Neither would
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Speaker 1: go the whole length of Southern demand. Both went part way,
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Speaker 1: the latter stopping in this respect considerably short of the former.
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Speaker 1: But the same force which arrested the one halt of
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Speaker 1: the other. Also that force was the growing consciousness of
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Speaker 1: the people of the free states of deep and dividing
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Speaker 1: differences and antagonisms between the interests and institutions of their
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Speaker 1: section and those of the slave states. But to fail
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Speaker 1: the South at this juncture in one particular was to
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Speaker 1: fail it altogether. So at least reasoned her leaders to
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Speaker 1: throw her back with her inferior, colonizing resources upon the
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Speaker 1: dogma of popular sovereignty as an instrument for opening new
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Speaker 1: regions for the extension of slavery was not the deed
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Speaker 1: of a friend, but of a foe. Douglas, therefore, and
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Speaker 1: his faction in the South, grew to hate with a
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Speaker 1: bitterness hardly less than that with which it hated Lincoln.
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Speaker 1: And his party. Both were denounced as enemies which no
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Speaker 1: Southern man true to his section could support. In the
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Speaker 1: Charleston Convention, the two wings of the Democratic Party collided
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Speaker 1: in a contest of unbridled passion. The South demanded, as
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Speaker 1: a senequanknown to any further union between the Party North
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Speaker 1: and the Party South, the incorporation into the Party platform
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Speaker 1: of the dogma that slavery extends itself under the Constitution
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Speaker 1: to the national territories, together with its corollary that Congress
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Speaker 1: is bound to safeguard by law the human property of
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Speaker 1: slaveholders within the territories popular sovereignty. To the contrary, notwithstanding
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Speaker 1: but an act of such self stultification of madness, the
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Speaker 1: Douglas Men dared not commit. Their refusal to place the
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Speaker 1: party upon this Southern plank was the signal for the
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Speaker 1: disruption of the Democratic organization, which was speedily followed by
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Speaker 1: the US dissolution of the Union. But it is time
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Speaker 1: to return to the story of Sumner's life. He had
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Speaker 1: not resumed his seat in the Senate many months before
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Speaker 1: his collisions with its slave masters began anew one of
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Speaker 1: the earliest of these skirmish as he had with Mason
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Speaker 1: of Virginia over a memorial from mister Frank B. Sanborn
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Speaker 1: of conquered Massachusetts, representing to the Senate how he had
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Speaker 1: been treated by certain persons acting under orders from one
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Speaker 1: of the special committees. Mister Sanborne's case grew out of
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Speaker 1: John Brown's raid into Virginia and an attempt on the
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Speaker 1: part of the Senate committee appointed to investigate the matter
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Speaker 1: to compel him to testify touching his knowledge of the expedition.
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Speaker 1: As mister Sanborn was not disposed to go willingly to Washington,
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Speaker 1: the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate deputed certain persons
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Speaker 1: to take him into custody and convey him to the capitol.
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Speaker 1: This the deputies, on the evening of April three, eighteen sixty,
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Speaker 1: proceeded to do. They succeeded partially in the accomplishment of
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Speaker 1: their purpose bees in getting mister Sanborn into their possession
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Speaker 1: and slipping handcuffs upon him. And we're about to slip
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Speaker 1: him into a carriagement. Owing to the presence of mind
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Speaker 1: and courage of a sister, the friendly sucker of neighbors,
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Speaker 1: and the efficacy of the Habeas corpus, they were finally
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Speaker 1: foiled and forced to release their prisoner. These circumstances were
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Speaker 1: recited to the Senate by mister Summer, who presented the
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Speaker 1: memorial We're upon. Mason, who was the chairman of the
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Speaker 1: Harper's Ferry Committee, moved that the memorial be rejected. This
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Speaker 1: brought mister Summer to his feet with the remark, the
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Speaker 1: Senator moves that the memorial be rejected, and he makes
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Speaker 1: this unaccustomed motion with a view to establish a precedent
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Speaker 1: in such a case. I feel in my duty to
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Speaker 1: establish a president also in this case, by entering an open,
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Speaker 1: unequivocal protest against such an attempt. Sir An ancient poet
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Speaker 1: said of a judge in Hell, that he punished first
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Speaker 1: and heard afterwards casts t god quai au did quay,
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Speaker 1: and permit me to say, the Senator from the on
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Speaker 1: this occasion takes a precedent from that court. Of course,
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Speaker 1: mister Mason, who professed not to be used to such
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Speaker 1: language within or without the Senate, was terribly shocked by
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Speaker 1: this sufferess and burning allusion to his motion to reject
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Speaker 1: the memorial of mister Sanborn. Sumner was not content with
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Speaker 1: striking when struck, as in the instance just given, but
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Speaker 1: he would take the initiative as will. And when this
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Speaker 1: he did, the slave power had occasion to think of
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Speaker 1: him with emotion for many a day afterward. His long
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Speaker 1: disability and absence from his post had not abated a
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Speaker 1: tittle of his hatred of slavery or of its domination
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Speaker 1: in the Union. That hatred and the puritanical sternness and
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Speaker 1: aggressiveness which characterized his opposition to the slave power, had,
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Speaker 1: if anything, increased during those years of illness. In public life.
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Speaker 1: There was no man who so hated slavery as did Sumner.
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Speaker 1: Certainly not Seward, nor Chase, nor Haile, nor Wilson, nor
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Speaker 1: even Gettings. Sumner's hatred of it as a political evil
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Speaker 1: s past theirs, while to this unequal hostility was added
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Speaker 1: an intolerance and abhorrence of it as a moral wrong,
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Speaker 1: felt only by such men as Garrison, Phillips, Theodore d Well,
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Speaker 1: James G. Burney, Elizer Wright, Frederick Douglas, Parker Billsbury, and
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Speaker 1: Stephen S. Foster. He was in truth in eighteen sixty
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Speaker 1: the incarnation of iron will and iron convictions on the
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Speaker 1: subject of slavery, political and moral. All this appears in
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Speaker 1: that grand and terrible Philippic entitled the Barbarism of Slavery,
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Speaker 1: delivered by him in the Senate June four, eighteen sixty.
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Speaker 1: In this speech, which was made on the bill for
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Speaker 1: the admission of Kansas as a free state, Summler condensed
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Speaker 1: the whole horror and curse of slavery, reflected its image
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Speaker 1: with a fierce realism and scorn which was worthy of
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Speaker 1: Garrison himself. In the early years of the Republic, it
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Speaker 1: was general, almost universal, in the slave states to look
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Speaker 1: upon slavery as a political evil and a moral wrong.
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Speaker 1: Slave masters were among the loudest and sincerest in denunciation
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Speaker 1: of it as such, among the most earnest of the
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Speaker 1: early abolitionists who hoped for its ultimate extinction. But owing
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Speaker 1: to several causes of a political economic nature discussed by
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Speaker 1: the writer in his Life of William Lloyd Garrison under
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Speaker 1: the caption The Hour and the Men, Chapter four, page
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Speaker 1: ninety two, into which he begs to refer the interested reader,
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Speaker 1: this early expectation in regard to slavery failed to be realized.
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Speaker 1: The evil, on the contrary, entered upon a period of
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Speaker 1: extraordinary social and political expansion and power, and with this
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Speaker 1: change there was inaugurated another. The early toleration of the
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Speaker 1: South gave place in time to passionate attachment to the monster.
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Speaker 1: It became no longer an evil, a wrong to be extirpated,
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Speaker 1: but a positive good to be cherished, as Calhoun proclaimed
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Speaker 1: it on the floor of the Senate in eighteen thirty seven. Presently,
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Speaker 1: devotion to slavery grew to be general through the South.
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Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty, when Sumner made his speech on the
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Speaker 1: Barbarism of Slavery, it was practically universal. The slave states
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Speaker 1: no more blushed or than for their social system. The
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Speaker 1: mouths of their leaders vaunted it rather as the most solid,
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Speaker 1: endurable foundation of which to rear free and stable political institutions,
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Speaker 1: and as the cornerstone of our republican edifice, as a
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Speaker 1: great moral, social, and political blessing, as the normal condition
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Speaker 1: of human society, as ennobling to both races, the white
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Speaker 1: and the black, et et et cetera. Sumner's speech was
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Speaker 1: in part an elaborate and merciless exposure of the groundlessness
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Speaker 1: of these assumptions. He exposed the barbarism of slavery under
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Speaker 1: the two heads of the character of slavery and of
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Speaker 1: the character of slave masters. In the preparation of his argument,
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Speaker 1: Sumner had evidently acquainted himself with the entire body of
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Speaker 1: the laws and the literature bearing on the subject. He
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Speaker 1: came with chapters, section page of the Black Book of
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Speaker 1: Slavery at his fingers end. The whole awful record he
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Speaker 1: enrolled during the four hours that he held the attention
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Speaker 1: of the Senate. The enormities of the slave code and
17:57
Speaker 1: the enormities of the slave character fouled in a long
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Speaker 1: and terrific procession before the Senate and the country. Slave
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Speaker 1: masters were made to see themselves in the dehumanizing monster
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Speaker 1: which they were hugging, as they appeared to the moral
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Speaker 1: sense of the age. His exhibition of the character of
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Speaker 1: slave masters in congressional history was as pungent, effective, and
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Speaker 1: thorough as truth and the arts of the order could
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Speaker 1: make it. With the congressional globe in one hand, he
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Speaker 1: drew aside with the other the curtain of years, a
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Speaker 1: curtain which concealed a series of shameful and turbulent scenes
18:30
Speaker 1: such as have rarely disgraced the annals of parliamentary proceedings.
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Speaker 1: Just as the records had caught the lords of the
18:37
Speaker 1: lash pictures of vulgarity and violence. They were reproduced with
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Speaker 1: their swagger, their insolence, and oaths, with their bowie knives,
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Speaker 1: their bludgeons and firearms, defiant of the laws of debate,
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Speaker 1: of decency, and of the deity alike. In this stern exposure,
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Speaker 1: he fitly closed with a view of the melancholy unconsciousness,
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Speaker 1: which constitutes one of the distinctive features of this barber.
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Speaker 1: Next to the unconsciousness of childhood observed the orator is
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Speaker 1: the unconsciousness of barbarism. The real barbarian is unconscious as
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Speaker 1: an infant, and the slave master shows much of the
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Speaker 1: same character. No New Zealander exalts in his tattoo, no
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Speaker 1: savage of the Northwest Coast exalts in his flathead, more
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Speaker 1: than the slave master of these latter days, always, of course,
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Speaker 1: with honorable exceptions, exalts in his unfortunate condition. The slave
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Speaker 1: master hugs his disgusting practice, as the carib of the
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Speaker 1: Gulf hugged cannibalism, and Brigham Young now hugs polygamy. The
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Speaker 1: delusion of the goiter is repeated. This prodigious swelling of
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Speaker 1: the neck nothing less than a lowesome wallet of flesh
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Speaker 1: pendulous upon the breast, and sometimes so enormous that the
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Speaker 1: victim is unable to support the burden. Crawls along the
19:54
Speaker 1: ground is common to the population on the slopes of
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Speaker 1: the Alps. But accustomed to this normity the sufferer comes
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Speaker 1: to regard it with pride, as the slave masters with us,
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Speaker 1: unable to support their burden in crawling along the ground,
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Speaker 1: regard slavery. And it is said that those who have
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Speaker 1: no swelling are left at and called goose necked. If
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Speaker 1: the speech four years before roused all the dark and
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Speaker 1: malignant passions of the South against him, this one could
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Speaker 1: do no less. For while it did not single out
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Speaker 1: by name particular representatives of slavery for punishment, as did
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Speaker 1: the former, its general scope and overwhelming effect carried its
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Speaker 1: argument and charge of colossal guilt and iniquity home to
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Speaker 1: the individual consciouences of each, as well as all. He
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Speaker 1: had attacked the whole. He'd attacked every mother's son of
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Speaker 1: the slave oligarchy. The slave masters of the Senate House
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Speaker 1: were metaphorically and literally ready during the progression of the
20:49
Speaker 1: Terrible Philippi and its conclusion to tear the defender of
20:53
Speaker 1: humanity to pieces. A newspaper writer sketched at the time
20:58
Speaker 1: the scenes in the chamber the delivery of the speech.
21:01
Speaker 1: Mister Breckinridge remained all the time, wrote an occasional correspondent
21:05
Speaker 1: of the Chautauqua Democrat, and sat with an open book
21:09
Speaker 1: in his hands, pretending to read, but his eyes wandered
21:12
Speaker 1: from the page, and with a frown upon his brow,
21:14
Speaker 1: he finally gazed at the speaker till he closed. Jefferson
21:18
Speaker 1: Davis pretended to be reading the Globe, but it was
21:20
Speaker 1: plain to be seen by the heading of the paper
21:23
Speaker 1: that it was upside down. Wigfall seemed in torment. He
21:26
Speaker 1: listened respectfully while and then glided silently around from one
21:30
Speaker 1: senator to another and conferred in whisper. He seemed to
21:33
Speaker 1: be hatching mischief. But the grave shake of the head
21:36
Speaker 1: of the older senators doubtless kept this uneasy, restless, desperado
21:40
Speaker 1: quiet Hunters sat like a rock, immovable and listened respectfully
21:45
Speaker 1: to the whole. Not a muscle moved upon his plast
21:47
Speaker 1: that faced to denote what was going on is in
21:49
Speaker 1: his mind Toombs heard the most of it quietly and
21:53
Speaker 1: with as much of a don't care look as his
21:55
Speaker 1: evil passions would permit near the clothes cheeps. Gray Mace
22:00
Speaker 1: and came in and took his seat and commenced writing
22:02
Speaker 1: a letter. He evidently intended to show the galleries that
22:05
Speaker 1: Summer was too small for him to notice. But he
22:08
Speaker 1: soon found a seat in a distant part of the
22:10
Speaker 1: hall and an easy position, where he sat gloomily, scowling
22:13
Speaker 1: upon the orator till he sat down when the speech
22:17
Speaker 1: was about half through. Keate, the accomplice of Books in
22:20
Speaker 1: his attempted assassination of mister Sumner, came in and took
22:23
Speaker 1: a seat near Senator Hammond. For a while he sat
22:26
Speaker 1: gazing about the galleries, evidently to notice the dramatic effect
22:30
Speaker 1: of his presence upon the audience there, but few seemed
22:33
Speaker 1: to notice him. By degrees, he began to pay attention
22:36
Speaker 1: to the speech. Curry of Alabama and Lamar, Mississippi, members
22:40
Speaker 1: of the other House. Though Southerners of the straightest sect
22:43
Speaker 1: could not conceal their delight in the oratory and classic
22:46
Speaker 1: and scholarly feast before them, they were scholars and orchards
22:50
Speaker 1: themselves and could appreciate an intellectual treat though the sentiments
22:53
Speaker 1: were so obnoxious on the Republican's side, breathless attention prevailed.
22:59
Speaker 1: Those whomediately surrounded the Senator were mister Wilson, Senator Brigham,
23:03
Speaker 1: John Hickman, Preston King, and Solomon Foot. Mister Seward sat
23:07
Speaker 1: in his usual seat and scarcely moved during the delivery
23:10
Speaker 1: of the great speech. By the time summoner had finished speaking,
23:14
Speaker 1: the slave masters of the Senate had hit upon an answer,
23:17
Speaker 1: and this, mister Chestnut of South Carolina, was selected to make.
23:20
Speaker 1: And this was the answer, Mister President, after the extraordinary
23:24
Speaker 1: though characteristic speech just stuttered in the Senate. It is
23:27
Speaker 1: proper that I assigned the reason for the position we
23:29
Speaker 1: are now inclined to assume. After ranging over Europe, crawling
23:33
Speaker 1: through the back door to wine at the feet of
23:35
Speaker 1: British aristocracy, craving pity and reaping a rich harvest of contempt,
23:39
Speaker 1: the slander of states and men reappears in the Senate.
23:42
Speaker 1: We had hoped to be relieved from the outpouring of
23:44
Speaker 1: such vulgar malice. We'd hope that one who had felt,
23:47
Speaker 1: though ignominiously he failed to meet the consequences of a
23:51
Speaker 1: former insolence, would have become wiser, if not better by
23:54
Speaker 1: experience in this I'm disappointed, and I regretted, mister President.
23:59
Speaker 1: In the hero ages of the world, men were deified
24:03
Speaker 1: for the possession and the exercise of some virtues wisdom, truth, justice, magnanimity, courage.
24:08
Speaker 1: In Egypt, also we know they deify beasts and reptiles.
24:12
Speaker 1: But even that best you of people worship their idols
24:14
Speaker 1: on account of some supposed virtue. It has been left
24:17
Speaker 1: for this day, for this country, for the abolitionists of
24:20
Speaker 1: Massachusetts to deify the incarnation of malice, mendacity, and cowardice.
24:25
Speaker 1: So we do not intend to be guilty of eating
24:28
Speaker 1: in the apotheosis of pusillanimity and meanness. We do not
24:31
Speaker 1: intend to contribute by any conduct in our part to
24:34
Speaker 1: increase the devotees at the shrine of this new idol.
24:38
Speaker 1: We know what is expected and what is desired. We
24:41
Speaker 1: are not inclined again to send forth the recipient of
24:43
Speaker 1: punishment howling through the world, yelping fresh cries of slander malice.
24:48
Speaker 1: These are the reasons which I feel it due to
24:51
Speaker 1: myself and others to give to the Senate and the country.
24:54
Speaker 1: Why we have quietly listened to what has been said
24:56
Speaker 1: and why we can take no other notice of the matter.
25:00
Speaker 1: To this characteristic Southern answer, mister Summer, gaining the floor
25:04
Speaker 1: with difficulty, replied briefly, thus addressing the President only one word.
25:08
Speaker 1: I expose today the barbarism of slavery. What the Senator
25:12
Speaker 1: has said in reply, I may well print as an
25:15
Speaker 1: additional illustration. That is all, mister Testnut's wrathful little performance
25:20
Speaker 1: was charged to the muzzle with explosives, with savage and
25:24
Speaker 1: intolerable hate. It was the typical Southern answer to anti
25:27
Speaker 1: slavery arguments, with the bludgeon and the bowie knife left out.
25:31
Speaker 1: But if they were left out, it was for the
25:33
Speaker 1: occasion only. As an incident which occurred on the fourth
25:36
Speaker 1: day after the speech events, about six o'clock in the
25:39
Speaker 1: afternoon of that day, mister Summon was called on by
25:42
Speaker 1: a stranger who introduced himself as a Southerner and slaveholder,
25:46
Speaker 1: and demanded of the slanderer of states and men an
25:49
Speaker 1: explanation of his speech and about his intention to hold
25:52
Speaker 1: him responsible. Therefore, but the defender of humanity, though an
25:57
Speaker 1: ardent peaceman who eschewed war and the duel and all
26:00
Speaker 1: appeals to force for the settlement of differences between nation
26:04
Speaker 1: and nation and man and man, as unworthy of a
26:06
Speaker 1: Christian age. Nevertheless believed with no less ardor in the
26:09
Speaker 1: right and the duty of self defense when put to
26:12
Speaker 1: it by Billy's and assassins. He therefore ordered the Ruffian
26:15
Speaker 1: to leave the room, which he did, but not before
26:17
Speaker 1: breathing out vengeance against the author of the barbarism of slavery,
26:21
Speaker 1: and threatening to return with three others who had come
26:23
Speaker 1: with him from Virginia, expressly to hold the orator responsible.
26:28
Speaker 1: After having this notice of intended violence served upon him,
26:32
Speaker 1: mister Sumner sent for his colleague, Henry Wilson, who promptly
26:35
Speaker 1: prepared to the lodgings of his friend, and while there
26:37
Speaker 1: a second unknown man called to see Sumner, but when
26:40
Speaker 1: he was surprised that the object of his call was
26:42
Speaker 1: not alone, he suspiciously declined to enter. A few hours later,
26:46
Speaker 1: three strange men called, but when they were informed that
26:49
Speaker 1: they could not see the Massachusetts senator alone, they too
26:52
Speaker 1: turned away, with the sanguinary message that they would call
26:55
Speaker 1: again in the morning for a private interview, and if
26:58
Speaker 1: they did not get it, they would cut his blank throat.
27:00
Speaker 1: Before the next night. Such a murderous message was not
27:04
Speaker 1: ignored by the friends of mister Sumner. On the contrary,
27:07
Speaker 1: Anson Burlingame and John Sherman slept that night in a
27:10
Speaker 1: room opening into the bedroom of their friend, prepared to
27:13
Speaker 1: teach southern fire eaters that if blood was to be spuilt,
27:16
Speaker 1: northern men proposed to be on hand at the next
27:19
Speaker 1: billing appointment and join in the operation. Nothing, however, came
27:23
Speaker 1: of the matter. The bloody minded visitors failed to repeat
27:26
Speaker 1: their call either that night or the next morning. The
27:29
Speaker 1: noise of the incident reaching the ears of the Mayor
27:32
Speaker 1: of Washington. That official requested mister Sumner to make an
27:35
Speaker 1: affidavit of the facts, but this, owing to a want
27:37
Speaker 1: of faith in the magistrates of that city, he declined
27:40
Speaker 1: to do. The original offender, a well known office holdier
27:43
Speaker 1: of Virginia, was at length discovered and brought to mister
27:46
Speaker 1: Sumner's room by the mayor. The fellow apologized for the
27:49
Speaker 1: part he had taken in the affair, but denied all
27:51
Speaker 1: knowledge of the others who had left the sanguinary message
27:55
Speaker 1: without Sumner's being aware of it at the time. Faithful
27:57
Speaker 1: friends stood walked over him at night and attended him
28:00
Speaker 1: as a bodyguard between his lodgings and the Senate. This
28:03
Speaker 1: letter service performed by Kansas citizens under the command of
28:07
Speaker 1: Augustus Waddles from the door of the House to the
28:09
Speaker 1: door of the Senate, and vice versa, all unknown to
28:12
Speaker 1: the object of their solicitude. These determined men followed him
28:16
Speaker 1: day after day with revolvers in hand. The speech out
28:20
Speaker 1: of the results, coming as it did, about the beginning
28:22
Speaker 1: of the presidential campaign, that produced a sensation among the
28:25
Speaker 1: army of politicians and editors who attached higher value to
28:29
Speaker 1: party success than to everlasting principles. Many there were among
28:33
Speaker 1: this always too numerous class, and who perhaps have never
28:37
Speaker 1: been more so than during the period of the National
28:39
Speaker 1: canvass of eighteen sixty regretted the delivery of the speech
28:43
Speaker 1: and bewailed the fancied harm it would inflict upon the
28:45
Speaker 1: Republican Party in the contest. But as time passed in
28:49
Speaker 1: the contest waxed the squad of croakers and compromises, who
28:53
Speaker 1: were troubled and anxious about everything under the son of
28:56
Speaker 1: the world of politics, except freedom and for the slave
29:00
Speaker 1: that the speech had not injured the chances of their
29:02
Speaker 1: party's success, but had instead really improved them, with the
29:05
Speaker 1: common people began to sing another tune in regard to
29:08
Speaker 1: it and its brave and eloquent author. The speech was
29:13
Speaker 1: printed as a campaign document in several large editions and
29:16
Speaker 1: sent broadcast over the Free States. While the author was
29:19
Speaker 1: an urgent demand as a speaker throughout the North. In
29:21
Speaker 1: Massachusetts he spoke many times during the canvass and in
29:24
Speaker 1: New York once when he made a powerful speech on
29:27
Speaker 1: the origin, necessity, and permanence of the Republican Party, in
29:30
Speaker 1: which he restated the argument against slavery. But with this
29:33
Speaker 1: single exception, possibly from fear of a relapse, he did
29:37
Speaker 1: not speak out of his own state, though again and
29:40
Speaker 1: again importune to do so by Republican committees from Maine
29:44
Speaker 1: to Illinois. The alarmist and loudmouthed friends of the Union
29:49
Speaker 1: converted the barbarism of slavery to their own mischievous purposes.
29:53
Speaker 1: In it, they professed to descry the real but concealed
29:56
Speaker 1: character and aims of the Republican Party, the Black Republican Party,
30:00
Speaker 1: as it was called, to make it odious with the
30:02
Speaker 1: people of the Free States. The dissolution of the Dear
30:05
Speaker 1: Union in the event of the triumph of that party
30:07
Speaker 1: after then approaching elections was held up to frighten the
30:11
Speaker 1: North into a refusal to support the Republican candidates. A
30:14
Speaker 1: vote for Lincoln was in sooth a vote for a disunion.
30:17
Speaker 1: And to summer speech, the alarmists pointed for a confirmation
30:22
Speaker 1: of that gloomy, that destination. Here is one way in
30:25
Speaker 1: which the New York hero, taking the speech for a text,
30:28
Speaker 1: artfully held up the terrible consequences to the country of
30:32
Speaker 1: Republican success. But there is one characteristic of this speech
30:36
Speaker 1: is in perfect accordance with the policy of the Black
30:39
Speaker 1: Republican Party in the present campaign. The bloody and terrible
30:42
Speaker 1: results which must ensue if that party succeeds in getting
30:46
Speaker 1: possession of the federal government are kept carefully out of view.
30:49
Speaker 1: John Brown's practice is taught, but there is no word
30:52
Speaker 1: of John Brown. The social condition of fifteen populous, rich
30:56
Speaker 1: and powerful states is to be revolutionized, but not a
30:59
Speaker 1: hint of possibility of resistance on their part, or of
31:02
Speaker 1: the reactive effect of such resistance upon the aggressive North,
31:06
Speaker 1: is dropped. Whoever else, trimmed and tacked his principles and
31:11
Speaker 1: convictions to whether the gusty currents of the times. Sumner
31:14
Speaker 1: did not no stress or fury of the political elements,
31:17
Speaker 1: no impending peril and disaster, could make him turn from
31:20
Speaker 1: his course and fly before the storm. Throughout the campaign,
31:23
Speaker 1: which terminated in the election of Lincoln, he yield his
31:26
Speaker 1: undeviating way toward the restoration of the Republic to its
31:29
Speaker 1: original anti slavery character, when freedom was national and slavery sectional,
31:34
Speaker 1: to the emancipation of the government from the domination of
31:37
Speaker 1: the slave power, to the total annihilation of the idea
31:39
Speaker 1: wherever the jurisdiction of the Constitution extended, whether in the
31:43
Speaker 1: territories of the District of Columbia or on the high
31:46
Speaker 1: seas under the national flag, that man can hold property
31:49
Speaker 1: in man. The uncompromising spirit which characterized his course before
31:54
Speaker 1: the elections characterized it not less afterwards, when the anti
31:58
Speaker 1: election alarmists double their activity and the apprehensions of the
32:01
Speaker 1: friends of the Union at the same time. In that
32:04
Speaker 1: period of dreadful suspense which intervened between Lincoln's election and
32:08
Speaker 1: the beginning of secession, it seemed almost as if the
32:11
Speaker 1: whole North was in a panic of fright and ready
32:13
Speaker 1: to suggest or support any concession to the South in
32:16
Speaker 1: order to save the union. Give Give, Give, was in
32:19
Speaker 1: the mouths of the most powerful politicians and leaders of
32:22
Speaker 1: the victorious Party of Freedom. Lincoln Seward, Thurlow Weed and
32:26
Speaker 1: company were in the mood for making extraordinary concessions to
32:29
Speaker 1: the South and sacrifices of the anti slavery principles of
32:32
Speaker 1: their party to induce Jefferson, Davis, Howell, Cobb, William L.
32:37
Speaker 1: Yancey and company to refrain from breaking up the precious
32:40
Speaker 1: union and brotherhood of right and wrong for which the
32:43
Speaker 1: government as organized and administered had stood for seventy years.
32:47
Speaker 1: At every door and on every brow sat gloom and apprehension.
32:51
Speaker 1: An appalling uncertainty was indeed scaring statesmen and people. But
32:55
Speaker 1: the thoughts and words of some were not those of
32:58
Speaker 1: the terrified people and leaders. Was light on but one
33:01
Speaker 1: difficult and perilss path, the path of duty of national righteousness.
33:05
Speaker 1: In this one true way, he confidently planted his feet.
33:08
Speaker 1: Thick fogs were around him, a wild gaetic to see
33:11
Speaker 1: of doubt and danger encircled him and the country. But
33:14
Speaker 1: he hesitated, not or swerved to the right hand or
33:17
Speaker 1: to the left, to find an easier and safer way.
33:19
Speaker 1: Of escape. Straight on up he climbed, calling through the
33:23
Speaker 1: rising darkness and tumult to his groping countrymen to fall.
33:27
Speaker 1: Nothing is settled, which is not right. Peace ever, and
33:30
Speaker 1: during peace comes only to that people who dared to
33:32
Speaker 1: put down sin and left up righteousness rang firm and
33:35
Speaker 1: clear from him. In this tremendous crisis in the life
33:37
Speaker 1: of the nation. He was in very truth, then the
33:40
Speaker 1: faithful one. He saw the supreme peril which impended over
33:44
Speaker 1: the Republican felt assured that it was not in secession
33:48
Speaker 1: and civil war, but in the timidity and selfishness which,
33:51
Speaker 1: in order to avert these, were disposing the northern people
33:55
Speaker 1: and their leaders to compromise the principles of liberty, inclining
33:59
Speaker 1: then to make fresh and disastrous concessions to slavery. If
34:04
Speaker 1: his anxiety was great, his vigilance, earnestness, and activity rose
34:08
Speaker 1: to the high level demanded of him in the emergency.
34:11
Speaker 1: No uncertainty vexed his conscience or disturbed his courage. Whatever
34:15
Speaker 1: questions admitted of conciliatory treatment, the slavery question admitted of
34:20
Speaker 1: no back down on the part of the Free States.
34:23
Speaker 1: Not another inch of concession should be made by them
34:26
Speaker 1: to the evil power which had devoured their peace and
34:29
Speaker 1: trodden down their best interests, in which no surrender short
34:33
Speaker 1: of absolute and unconditional could permanently pacify. If his union
34:38
Speaker 1: and civil war were crouching in the rough way of
34:40
Speaker 1: the nation's duty, the nation must not turn aside to
34:44
Speaker 1: avoid them. It ought, on the contrary, resolutely, regardless of consequences,
34:49
Speaker 1: to seek first to establish itself in justice and liberty.
34:52
Speaker 1: This bravely and finally done. He did not doubt that
34:55
Speaker 1: then every other good thing would be added to it.
35:00
Speaker 1: Seeing how matters were with people and politicians, and the
35:03
Speaker 1: temptations which were assailing them through their fears to betray
35:06
Speaker 1: liberty to her ancient foe, Somener seized every opportunity which
35:10
Speaker 1: came to him to fix their wavering faith, to steady
35:13
Speaker 1: their faltering purpose, to bring the government back to its
35:17
Speaker 1: earlier and better policy, when freedom and not slavery was national.
35:23
Speaker 1: His timely lecture on Lafayette the Faithful One was among
35:27
Speaker 1: the potent instrumentalities employed by him in achieving this result,
35:31
Speaker 1: in exalting Lafayette and unrolling the splendid record of his
35:34
Speaker 1: glorious life, where fidelity to liberty shown conspicuous and supreme.
35:39
Speaker 1: Some are held up to living this lofty historic personage
35:43
Speaker 1: for guidance and inspiration. And with the flame of the
35:46
Speaker 1: illustrious Frenchmen sacred and uncomfortable animosity to slavery, the lecturer
35:51
Speaker 1: sought to kindle to a consuming blaze the flickering opposition
35:55
Speaker 1: of the North to the American barbarism and the long
35:58
Speaker 1: enduring tyranny of the slave power. As the term of
36:01
Speaker 1: Buchanan drew to its close, and that of Lincoln to
36:04
Speaker 1: its commencement, the apprehensions of the North increased a pace,
36:08
Speaker 1: and the operations of the alarmists increased a pace. Also,
36:12
Speaker 1: the pressure put upon Congress to induce the adoption of
36:15
Speaker 1: conciliatory measures was redoubled. A Boston delegation of white livered
36:20
Speaker 1: friends of the Union, with Edward Everett at his head,
36:23
Speaker 1: went to Washington urge upon Northern representatives the necessity for
36:28
Speaker 1: mutual concessions in the interest of harmony and the preservation
36:32
Speaker 1: of the dear Union. Mister Sumner has recorded how the
36:37
Speaker 1: timid old Orator went to him at his lodgings, and
36:40
Speaker 1: with much emotion, besought him to bring forward some conciliator proposition,
36:45
Speaker 1: saying you are the only person who can introduce such
36:48
Speaker 1: a proposition with a chance of success. And Sumner has
36:51
Speaker 1: recorded his reply, Also, you are mistaken in supposing that
36:55
Speaker 1: I have success with compromise city to the venerable time
36:59
Speaker 1: Server and Trim, if I could bring it forward, if
37:02
Speaker 1: I am strong with the North. It is because of
37:04
Speaker 1: the conviction that I cannot compromise. But the moment I compromised,
37:09
Speaker 1: I too should be lost thrice happy. It was that
37:12
Speaker 1: at this juncture Massachusetts had not an Edward Everett in
37:16
Speaker 1: the Senate or seated in her gubernatorial chair. In her
37:19
Speaker 1: new governor, the commonwealth found a tower of strength, while
37:23
Speaker 1: in him Sumner found a man after his own heart.
37:26
Speaker 1: Firm indeed was John A. Andrew against the clamor for
37:29
Speaker 1: a compromise. In January eighteen sixty one, he wrote, Sumner
37:33
Speaker 1: in Washington, from war, pestilence, and famine, from all assaults
37:38
Speaker 1: of the world, the flesh and the devil, Good Lord
37:40
Speaker 1: deliver us, but most especially from any compromise with traitors
37:44
Speaker 1: or any bargain with slavery with another time Server and Trimmer.
37:49
Speaker 1: Sumner had a characteristic interview about this time, this one
37:53
Speaker 1: was James Buchanan. He had sought an audience with the
37:56
Speaker 1: President in relation to a subject touching the state of
37:59
Speaker 1: the country. When the conversation was concluded on this head,
38:02
Speaker 1: Sumners said, mister President, what else can we do in
38:05
Speaker 1: Massachusetts for the good of the country? Much was the reply?
38:09
Speaker 1: What queried? Adopt the critic and propositions, responded the Chief Magistrate.
38:14
Speaker 1: Is that necessary? Asked the Senator with a backbone. Yes,
38:19
Speaker 1: answered the President, who belonged unmistakably to the breed of
38:22
Speaker 1: political invertebrates. Massachusetts has not yet spoken directly, was Sumner's answer.
38:29
Speaker 1: But I feel authorized to say that such are the
38:32
Speaker 1: unalterable convictions of her people. They would see their states
38:35
Speaker 1: sunk below the sea and turned into a sandbank before
38:38
Speaker 1: they would adopt propositions acknowledging property in men and disfranchising
38:44
Speaker 1: a portion of her population. Northern compromisers, among other reactionary measures,
38:50
Speaker 1: urged their repeal or modification of the personal liberty laws
38:54
Speaker 1: in conciliation of the South. They were attempts in Massachusetts
38:57
Speaker 1: to obtain the abrogation of the Law for the Protection
39:01
Speaker 1: of Fugitive slaves. To William Claflin, then chairman of the
39:05
Speaker 1: Republican State Committee and President of the Senate. Sumner wrote,
39:09
Speaker 1: touching this subject, in the name of liberty, I supplicate
39:12
Speaker 1: you not to letter Massachusetts take any backward step, not
39:15
Speaker 1: an inch, not a hair's breadth. And to Governor Andrew,
39:19
Speaker 1: he closed one of his letters with words which betray
39:22
Speaker 1: an agony of anxiety, lest Massachusetts to retreat from the
39:26
Speaker 1: high ground occupied by her before the elections. In God's name,
39:31
Speaker 1: stand firm, don't cave Andrew, he wrote, Save Massachusetts from
39:35
Speaker 1: any surrender the least. Sumner's solicitude and activity at this
39:39
Speaker 1: crisis was a potent influence in strengthening many a week
39:43
Speaker 1: back in the legislature and making the adoption of any
39:46
Speaker 1: material concession to slavery impossible. Governor Andrew's unflinching and uncompromising
39:52
Speaker 1: front stood watch over the personal liberty laws and warded
39:55
Speaker 1: off the evil machinations of the compromisers. In February eighteen
40:00
Speaker 1: sixty one, he wrote how he had made known to
40:03
Speaker 1: some persons that they could not get anything through this room.
40:07
Speaker 1: The Council chamber not conformable to certain principles, and which
40:11
Speaker 1: did not contain certain details unless they marched it through
40:15
Speaker 1: by dragoons. Some news letters to the governor from January
40:20
Speaker 1: seventeenth to February twenty eighteen sixty one are eloquent of
40:23
Speaker 1: the excitement and apprehensions of the times. Of the author's firmness, magillance,
40:28
Speaker 1: and fidelity in the great cause of country and humanity.
40:31
Speaker 1: Their sustaining power was of immense account to John A.
40:36
Speaker 1: Andrew in those early and critical weeks beginning his term
40:39
Speaker 1: in the executive chair of the state. I do not
40:42
Speaker 1: think we should allow this opportunity to pass, Sumner wrote him,
40:46
Speaker 1: without trying the question whether a single stake can break
40:48
Speaker 1: up the union? What is it worth if held by
40:51
Speaker 1: any such tenure? And again the question must be met
40:55
Speaker 1: on the Constitution as it is and the facts as
40:58
Speaker 1: they are, Or shall we hereafter hope our government subject
41:01
Speaker 1: to this asserted right of secession? Should we yield now?
41:06
Speaker 1: And any offer is concession. Every presidential election will be
41:10
Speaker 1: conducted with menace of secession by the defeated party. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida,
41:15
Speaker 1: and Alabama had already seceded and raised the standard of
41:19
Speaker 1: rebellion before the end of the month of January Georgia
41:22
Speaker 1: and Louisiana were to do likewise. On the twenty first,
41:25
Speaker 1: the senators of the seceding states made their dramatic exit
41:28
Speaker 1: from the Senate. Treason and the plottings of traitors filled
41:32
Speaker 1: the air of the national capital with rumors of impending violence.
41:36
Speaker 1: The panic of the compromises in consequence, who every twenty
41:40
Speaker 1: four hours in magnitude and threatened to precipitate the Free
41:43
Speaker 1: States into a dishonorable retreat. On the very day that Jefferson,
41:48
Speaker 1: Davis and Company withdrew from the Senate, Sumner wrote, Governor Andrew, pray,
41:53
Speaker 1: keep our beloved commonwealth firm yet a little longer, and
41:56
Speaker 1: the crisis will be passed. Save her from surrendering. Things
42:00
Speaker 1: she can do will stay secession impossible. And two days later,
42:05
Speaker 1: nothing that Massachusetts can do now can arrest one single state.
42:09
Speaker 1: There can be no other result except our own humiliation
42:12
Speaker 1: and a bad example which will be felt by all
42:15
Speaker 1: other states. If Massachusetts yields one hair's breadth, other states
42:19
Speaker 1: may yield and endo our foot a furlong or a
42:22
Speaker 1: mile again. A few days later, he wrote, the Governor,
42:26
Speaker 1: the mistake of many persons comes from this. They do
42:29
Speaker 1: not see that we are in the midst of a
42:31
Speaker 1: revolution where reason is dethroned and passion rules instead. If
42:35
Speaker 1: this were a mere party contest, and the circulation of
42:38
Speaker 1: speeches and a few resolutions might do good. But what
42:41
Speaker 1: are such things in a revolution as well? Attempt to
42:44
Speaker 1: hold a man of war in a tempest by a
42:47
Speaker 1: little anchor board from Jamaica pond. And that is what
42:52
Speaker 1: I told the Boston Committee with regard to their petition.
42:55
Speaker 1: I have but one prayer, stand firm, keep every safeguard
42:58
Speaker 1: of human rights on our status Jude Book, and save Massachusetts.
43:02
Speaker 1: Glorious and true. Rumors were now flying thick of plots
43:06
Speaker 1: to seize Washington by the rebels, to convert the departments
43:09
Speaker 1: into rebel forts, et cetera. More than the loss of forts,
43:13
Speaker 1: Sumner's correspondence with the governor continues arsenals, or the national capital,
43:18
Speaker 1: I feared the loss of our principles. These are now
43:23
Speaker 1: in greatest danger. Our northern fort, Sumter, will be surrendered
43:27
Speaker 1: if you are not aroused. In my view, the vacillation
43:30
Speaker 1: of the Republicans is more fatal than that of Buchanan.
43:33
Speaker 1: And again, thus every word of concession thus far has
43:36
Speaker 1: done infinite mischief, first by encouraging the slave masters, and
43:40
Speaker 1: secondly demoralizing our friends and filling them with doubt and distrust.
43:44
Speaker 1: And finally, when the pressure of apprehensions began to lift
43:48
Speaker 1: from his mind and light to break through the gloom,
43:51
Speaker 1: the heart burnings and divisions showing themselves in our party
43:54
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, are nonetheless active. Those fatal overtures
43:58
Speaker 1: will fall to the ground. Oh that they never have
44:01
Speaker 1: been made. Certain conciliatory propositions contained in a speech by
44:05
Speaker 1: Seward and the Senate, and made to placate the South
44:08
Speaker 1: and save the Union, were undoubtedly the fatal overtures alluded to.
44:13
Speaker 1: Four days before Lincoln's future Secretary of State delivered the
44:16
Speaker 1: objectionable speech he redded to Sumner, who pleaded in vain
44:20
Speaker 1: with him to omit the foolish and feudal offers to
44:23
Speaker 1: the South which it contained. This period of appalling crisis
44:27
Speaker 1: and suspense, so crowded with miserable scenes of weak and
44:30
Speaker 1: vacillating leaders, so full of wretched and bootless efforts and
44:34
Speaker 1: overtures to satisfy the slave power, was abruptly terminated by
44:38
Speaker 1: the roar of cannon in Charleston Harbor. It was the
44:41
Speaker 1: Southern answer to the fatal overtures of the Friends of
44:44
Speaker 1: the Union. The sword of response which the North would
44:47
Speaker 1: make to the challenge was at once apparent in the
44:50
Speaker 1: tremendous popular uprising which volued the bombardment of Sumter. The
44:55
Speaker 1: Union must and shall be preserved was the mighty purpose
44:58
Speaker 1: which swept the freest dates together and launched them as
45:01
Speaker 1: one man against the rebellion. Sumner, as was his wont
45:06
Speaker 1: had lingered in Washington after the close of Congress. He
45:09
Speaker 1: was in Washington when President Lincoln issued his first call
45:12
Speaker 1: for troops. There he remained busying himself, attending to public
45:15
Speaker 1: duties appertaining to him as a senator and patriot, until
45:19
Speaker 1: the afternoon of April eighteenth, when he left for the North.
45:22
Speaker 1: At Baltimore, he got off the train and went to
45:25
Speaker 1: Barnum's Hotel, where he meant to put up for the night.
45:28
Speaker 1: That the city was in a state of unusual excitement,
45:30
Speaker 1: he soon proceeded on his way from the hotel to
45:33
Speaker 1: the home of an old family friend, where he took
45:36
Speaker 1: tea and spent the evening. He found that the excitement
45:38
Speaker 1: had increased. He himself was addressed in a manner not
45:41
Speaker 1: to be mistaken. Returning that evening to the hotel, he
45:45
Speaker 1: was met by an acquaintance who enlightened him as to
45:48
Speaker 1: the object of the excitement which had risen during the evening,
45:51
Speaker 1: to the dimensions of a great mob. He was informed
45:54
Speaker 1: that it was after him, that it had already been
45:56
Speaker 1: to the hotel in quest of him. Having learned so
45:59
Speaker 1: much much, he pushed on to Barnums and called for
46:02
Speaker 1: the key of his room, when he was taken into
46:04
Speaker 1: a retired spot by the proprietor and attas shape of
46:08
Speaker 1: the hotel, and put in possession of the facts of
46:10
Speaker 1: the case and of the danger he was in personally,
46:13
Speaker 1: and in which the house was also from the mob
46:15
Speaker 1: should they return again during the night. But in all
46:19
Speaker 1: that city there was no place in which Sumner could
46:22
Speaker 1: take refuge other than the hotel, and as a traveler,
46:25
Speaker 1: he insisted upon his rights under the circumstance, as much
46:28
Speaker 1: as he regretted the pair of which his presence in
46:31
Speaker 1: the house might involve the property of the proprietor. He
46:34
Speaker 1: was then given a room in a wing of the
46:36
Speaker 1: hotel less accessible to the mob should they attack the
46:39
Speaker 1: house during the night, the greatest secrecy was observed as
46:43
Speaker 1: to the number and location of the room occupied by
46:45
Speaker 1: mister Sumner, as an additional safeguard against a spirit of
46:49
Speaker 1: mischief which was abroad in the city that night, and
46:51
Speaker 1: which was to enact next day those scenes of riot,
46:54
Speaker 1: bloodshed and trees, and which can never be forgotten in
46:59
Speaker 1: the grave of the next next morning, mister Sumner left
47:01
Speaker 1: the hotel for the Philadelphia depot, where he boarded the
47:04
Speaker 1: northward bound train between the two cities. His train passed
47:08
Speaker 1: that which was transporting the sixth Massachusetts Regiment to the
47:12
Speaker 1: National Capital. Before Sumner reached Philadelphia, the tragedy of the
47:16
Speaker 1: nineteenth of April eighteen sixty one had been begun and
47:19
Speaker 1: finished in the streets of Baltimore, and the first bloodshed
47:22
Speaker 1: of the war had passed into history. On his arrival
47:25
Speaker 1: in New York, he called on Major Charles Devons and
47:28
Speaker 1: his battalion, hurrying like the then glorious sixth, to the
47:31
Speaker 1: defense of the National capital. Sumner addressed the men, giving
47:35
Speaker 1: them for a watchword Massachusetts, the Constitution and freedom. The
47:39
Speaker 1: time for speech, however, had ended, and the time for
47:42
Speaker 1: doing and dying had come. And this no one recognized
47:45
Speaker 1: more quickly and heartily peace advocate, though he was than Sumner.
47:49
Speaker 1: Blood and Iron was the stern but simple formula for
47:52
Speaker 1: saving the Union. Blood and Iron as a recipe for
47:55
Speaker 1: destroying slavery, he believed could prove no less potent. End
48:00
Speaker 1: of Chapter twelve.