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

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Speaker 1: Chapter seven 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: The Long Battle begins. The Texan agitation drew forth Sumner's
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Speaker 1: first political speech, writing to doctor S. G. Howe in
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Speaker 1: the winter of eighteen forty three, he feared some insidious
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Speaker 1: movement in favor of Texas the South yearns. He goes
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Speaker 1: on to remark, for that immense cantil of territory to
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Speaker 1: carve into great slaveholding states, we shall witness in this
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Speaker 1: congressome animated contests on this matter. His fear was well founded,
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Speaker 1: his prognostication sustained by the developments of the new year.
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Speaker 1: The agitation for annexation burn fiercely in Congress, spread from
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Speaker 1: Congress to the four quarters of the nation. Such progress
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Speaker 1: had the powers of the agitation made within a twelvemonth,
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Speaker 1: that in eighteen forty five they attained the magnitude of
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Speaker 1: a general conflagration. The excitement in the North was in tense.
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Speaker 1: Tremendous meetings in opposition to annexation were held throughout the
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Speaker 1: Free States. A new note, or rather an old note,
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Speaker 1: struck by the North twice before. Within thirty years, a
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Speaker 1: note of passionate dread of and passionate antagonism to the
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Speaker 1: domination of slavery in the government, A note in which liberty,
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Speaker 1: not union formed the major tone. Sounded like a toxin
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Speaker 1: in the land. The alarm of the Free States was profound, prodigious.
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Speaker 1: In Massachusetts, the agitation excitement reached perhaps its height, and
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Speaker 1: the spirit of bold resistance to the extension of slavery culminated.
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Speaker 1: Sumner made his political debut on the night of November fourth,
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Speaker 1: eighteen forty five, at a public meeting held in for
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Speaker 1: New yea hall to protest against the in mimission of
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Speaker 1: Texas Witherslave Constitution into the Union. Charles Francis Adams presided
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Speaker 1: on the occasion, and William I. Bowditch acted as one
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Speaker 1: of the secretaries young men. Then they both subsequently added
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Speaker 1: luster to names than already illustrious statesmanship and science. Sumners
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Speaker 1: was a leading part in the demonstration, not only uttering
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Speaker 1: with eloquent lips the thoughts of the hour, but voicing
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Speaker 1: with eloquent pen also the anti slavery feelings of the
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Speaker 1: meeting in resolutions of singular boldness, humanity, and energy. He
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Speaker 1: struck firmly on this first evening the keynote of his
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Speaker 1: entire public career, viz. The equality and brotherhood of all men,
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Speaker 1: as set forth in the Declaration of Independence. Whereas the
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Speaker 1: government and independence of the United States so opened. The
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Speaker 1: resolutions are founded on the ada mantine truth of equal
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Speaker 1: rights and the brotherhood of all men, declared in the
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Speaker 1: four of July seventeen seventy six, a truth receiving new
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Speaker 1: and constant recognition in the progress of time, and which
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Speaker 1: is the great lesson from our country to the world,
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Speaker 1: in support of which the founders toiled and bled, and
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Speaker 1: on account of which we their children bless their memory.
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Speaker 1: And whereas this scheme for the annexation of Texas as
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Speaker 1: a slave state, if successful, involves the whole country free
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Speaker 1: states as well as slave ones, in one of the
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Speaker 1: two greatest crimes a nation can commit, and threatens to
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Speaker 1: involve them in the other, namely slavery and unjust war,
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Speaker 1: slavery of the most revoting character, and war to sustain slavery.
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Speaker 1: Therefore be it resolved, in the name of God, of Christ,
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Speaker 1: and of humanity, that we, belonging to all political parties,
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Speaker 1: and reserving all other reasons of objection, unite in protest
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Speaker 1: against the admission of Texas into this Union as a
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Speaker 1: slave state. Resolved that the people of Massachusetts will continue
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Speaker 1: to resist the consummation of this wicked purpose, which will
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Speaker 1: cover the country with disgrace and make us responsible for
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Speaker 1: crimes of gigantic magnitude. Such were the anti slavery style
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Speaker 1: and spirit of those first political resolutions. The anti slavery
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Speaker 1: style and spirit of the first political speech were like
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Speaker 1: unto them. It was the wrong of slavery in its
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Speaker 1: moral rather than in its political aspect, which formed the
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Speaker 1: subject and the burden of this speech. Great as would
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Speaker 1: be the evil of annexation to the people of the North,
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Speaker 1: it could not equal the crime of it against humanity.
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Speaker 1: I cannot dwell now, said the orator, upon the controlling
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Speaker 1: political influence in the councils of the country which the
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Speaker 1: annexation of Texas was secured to slaveholders. This topic is
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Speaker 1: of importance, but it yields to the supreme requirements of religion, morals,
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Speaker 1: and humanity. I cannot banish from my view the great
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Speaker 1: shame and wrong of slavery. Judges of our courts have
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Speaker 1: declared it contrary to the law of nature, finding its
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Speaker 1: support only in positive enactments of men its horrors who
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Speaker 1: can tell language utterly fails to depict them. By the
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Speaker 1: proposed measure, we not only become parties to the acquisition
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Speaker 1: of a large population of slaves with all the crime
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Speaker 1: of slavery, but we open a new market for the
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Speaker 1: slaves of Virginia and the Carolinas, and legalize a new
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Speaker 1: slave trade, a new slave trade. Consider this well, you
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Speaker 1: cannot forget the horrors of that too famous Middle Passage,
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Speaker 1: where crowds of human beings, stolen and borne by sea,
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Speaker 1: far from their warm African homes, are pressed on shipboard
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Speaker 1: into spaces of smaller dimensions for each than a coffin.
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Speaker 1: And yet the deadly consequences of this Middle Passage are
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Speaker 1: believed to fall short of those sometimes undergone. Kauflas driven
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Speaker 1: from the exhausted lands of the northern slave states to
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Speaker 1: the sugar plantations nearer the sun of the South, one
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Speaker 1: quarter are set often to perish in these removed I
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Speaker 1: see them in imagination on their fatal journey, chained in
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Speaker 1: bands and driven like cattle, leaving behind what has become
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Speaker 1: to them a home and a country alias what a home,
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Speaker 1: and what a country husband torn from wife and parent
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Speaker 1: from child, to be sold anew into more direful captivity.
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Speaker 1: Can this take place with our consent, nay without our
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Speaker 1: most determined opposition. If the slave trade is to receive
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Speaker 1: new adoption from our country, let us have no part
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Speaker 1: or lot in it. Let us wash our hands of
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Speaker 1: this great guilt as we read as horse. May each
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Speaker 1: of us be able to exclaim with conscious void of offense.
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Speaker 1: Thou canst not say I did it. God forbid that
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Speaker 1: the votes and voices of northern free men should help
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Speaker 1: to bind anew the fetters of the slave. God forbid
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Speaker 1: that the lash of the slave dealer should descend, by
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Speaker 1: any sanction from New England. God forbid that the blood
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Speaker 1: which spurts from the lacerated, quivering flesh of the slave
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Speaker 1: should soil the hem of the white garments of Massachusetts.
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Speaker 1: This was the first of many addresses which in time
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Speaker 1: were to fill many volumes on the subject of slavery.
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Speaker 1: It was not one of those marvels of the Order's
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Speaker 1: art and eloquence, such as was window Phillips's first speech
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Speaker 1: from the same platform nearly eight years before. Of itself.
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Speaker 1: It could not have placed its author in the front
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Speaker 1: rank of the orchards of the times. But it was
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Speaker 1: the beginning of an oratory stream which, growing with the years,
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Speaker 1: and the great cause of humanity, was to roll through
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Speaker 1: the land like some Mississippi of the anti slavery movement.
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Speaker 1: About a dozen years previously, Sumner had seen slaves for
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Speaker 1: the first time, as the reader will perhaps recall. The
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Speaker 1: reader will perhaps recall also how the sight of them
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Speaker 1: affected him then, and the scholarly aversion with which their
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Speaker 1: appearance filled him. His worst preconception of their appearance and
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Speaker 1: ignorance did not fall as low as their actual stupidity.
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Speaker 1: He wrote, they appeared to be nothing more than moving
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Speaker 1: masses of flesh, unendowed with any thing of intelligence above
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Speaker 1: the brutes. That was to the scholar's eye. But how
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Speaker 1: different they now appeared to the humanitarians is seen in
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Speaker 1: the noble passions beginning I see them in imagination on
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Speaker 1: their fatal journey, et cetera. They are no longer moving
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Speaker 1: masses of flesh, the men and brothers, husbands, wives, parents,
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Speaker 1: and children. The scholars aversion has given place to deep
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Speaker 1: and passionate human sympathy the political evils of their enslavement
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Speaker 1: pales and dwindles by the side of the awful and
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Speaker 1: appalling wrong of it. The moral nature of the young
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Speaker 1: jurist is on fire with tender pity for those self
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Speaker 1: same slaves who once seemed to him unendowed with anything
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Speaker 1: of intelligence above the brutes, and ablaze with hostile aversion
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Speaker 1: to the system which so cruelly oppresses and dehumanizes them.
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Speaker 1: From that brave beginning, Sumner's voice was not long intermitted
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Speaker 1: on this transcendent subject of his own, and the nation's
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Speaker 1: thoughts struck with the truth of that profound saying of Schiller,
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Speaker 1: Give the world beneath your influence a direction towards the good,
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Speaker 1: and the tranquil rhythm of time will bring its development.
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Speaker 1: He began with a noble enthusiasm to give, as far
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Speaker 1: as in in lay the public sentiment of Boston and Massachusetts,
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Speaker 1: a direction toward the equal rights and brotherhood of all men,
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Speaker 1: regardless of race and color, now seizing one occasion now another,
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Speaker 1: in the swift flying months and years, to do what
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Speaker 1: the while was clearly becoming the supreme passion and purpose
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Speaker 1: of his life. On August twenty seven, eighteen forty six,
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Speaker 1: occurred one of those occasions turned by Sumner to the
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Speaker 1: advancement of the freedom of the slave. It was then
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Speaker 1: that he delivered his memorable Phi Beta Kappa oration at
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Speaker 1: Cambridge on the Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, the Philanthropist,
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Speaker 1: which was a tribute to John Pickering, Joseph Story, Washington Austin,
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Speaker 1: and William ellery Channing, who had all passed away during
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Speaker 1: the receding Quadrinera of the Society, and address on the
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Speaker 1: nation's anti slavery duties would not have been tolerated by
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Speaker 1: the scholars of the university at that time, or for
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Speaker 1: that matter, at any subsequent period prior to emancipation. The
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Speaker 1: scholars of Harvard did not take kindly either to the
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Speaker 1: anti slavery agitation or the agitators, as Sumner presently learned
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Speaker 1: by painful experience. But on that August day, fenced behind
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Speaker 1: four such illustrious names, the young philanthropist was able to
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Speaker 1: preach some plain truth touching the wrong of slavery to
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Speaker 1: the men who put human lore above human liberty. The
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Speaker 1: life of doctor Channing furnished the text for the anti
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Speaker 1: slavery portion of that splendid Phibeta cap discourse. Channing's highest
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Speaker 1: praise was his love of humanity, his passion for righteousness,
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Speaker 1: his championship of the rights of man, his exaltation of
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Speaker 1: the worth of the individual man, not alone in his
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Speaker 1: relations to another world, but in those to the present.
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Speaker 1: Also the image of the Dear, which he recognized beneath
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Speaker 1: all varieties of races, colors, and conditions in the nature
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Speaker 1: of man. He held a sacred charge to be cherished
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Speaker 1: and defended all ways and everywhere against the dehumanizing and
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Speaker 1: infernal forces of violence and wrong. His contest with war
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Speaker 1: and slavery was not a contest against them as mere abstractions,
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Speaker 1: but as present, particular and terrible realities. He did not
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Speaker 1: content himself with a discharge into the air of a
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Speaker 1: few broadsides of general moral principles and platitudes, deceiving himself
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Speaker 1: into the absurd belief that he was fighting for right
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Speaker 1: and against wrong. Nothing of the kind. His morality, elevated
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Speaker 1: by Christian love, fortified by Christian righteousness, was frankly applied
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Speaker 1: to the people and affairs of his own country and age.
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Speaker 1: He brought his morality to bear distinctly upon the world.
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Speaker 1: Nor was he disturbed by another suggestion which the moralists
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Speaker 1: often encounters, that his views were sound in theory but
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Speaker 1: not practical. He well knew that what was unsound in
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Speaker 1: theory must be vicious in practice. Undisturbed by hostile criticism,
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Speaker 1: he did not hesitate to arraign the wrong. He discerned
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Speaker 1: and fastened upon it the mark of Cain. His philanthropy
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Speaker 1: was morality in action. Jenning taught that there was not
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Speaker 1: one code of morals for nations and another for individuals.
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Speaker 1: What was right for one was right for the other.
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Speaker 1: What was wrong for an individual to do was no
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Speaker 1: less a wrong when done by a nation. This truth
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Speaker 1: cannot be too often proclaimed, proceeded the orator in the
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Speaker 1: strain and tone of an anointed prophet. Apostle of humanity, pulpit, press, school, college.
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Speaker 1: All should render it familiar to the ear and pour
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Speaker 1: it into the soul. Beneficent nature joins with the moralist
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Speaker 1: in declaring the universality of God's laws. The flowers of
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Speaker 1: the field, the rays of the sun, the morning and
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Speaker 1: evening dews, the descending showers, the waves of the sea,
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Speaker 1: the breezes that fan our cheeks and bear rich are
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Speaker 1: argacies from short ashore. The careering storm all on this earth,
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Speaker 1: nay more, the system of which this earth is apart,
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Speaker 1: and the infinitude of the universe, in which our system
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Speaker 1: dwindles to a grain of sand, all declare one prevailing law,
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Speaker 1: knowing no distinction of person, number, mass, or extent. Coming
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Speaker 1: directly to the subject of slavery's Sumner pointed out how
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Speaker 1: in defense of African liberty, Channing invoked always the unanswerable
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Speaker 1: considerations of justice and humanity. The argument of economy, deemed
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Speaker 1: by some to contain all that is pertinent, continued, the
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Speaker 1: orator never presented itself to him. The question of profit
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Speaker 1: and loss was absorbed in the question of right and wrong.
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Speaker 1: His maxim was anything but slavery, poverty sooner than slavery.
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Speaker 1: But while exhibiting this institution in blackest colors, as in human, unjust, unchristian,
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Speaker 1: unworthy of an enlightened age and of a republic professing freedom,
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Speaker 1: his gentle nature found no word of harshness for those
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Speaker 1: whom birth, education, and custom bread to its support. He
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Speaker 1: urged the duty, such was his unequivocal language, incumbent on
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Speaker 1: the Northern States to free themselves from all support of slavery.
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Speaker 1: To this conclusion. He was driven irresistibly by the ethical
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Speaker 1: principle that what is wrong for the individual is wrong
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Speaker 1: for the state. No son of the Pilgrims can hold
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Speaker 1: a fellow man in bondage conscience forbids. No son of
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Speaker 1: the Pilgrims can, through government, hold a fellow men in
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Speaker 1: bondage conscience equally forbids. Thus did the Phi Beta Kappa
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Speaker 1: Order seize the occasion to lift up the standard of
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Speaker 1: equality and human brotherhood, to light a fresh beacon fire
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Speaker 1: on the venerable walls of Harvard, sacred to truth, to Christ,
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Speaker 1: and to Church. And in glowing with his great theme,
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Speaker 1: he exclaimed at the end, let the flame pass from
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Speaker 1: steeple to steeple, from hill to hill, from island to island,
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Speaker 1: from continent to com till the long lineage of fires
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Speaker 1: illumine all the nations of the earth, animating them to
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Speaker 1: the holy contests of knowledge, justice, beauty, love. There arose
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Speaker 1: a sympathetic response in the heart of one, at least
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Speaker 1: of his auditors. This particular auditor was, however, a host
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Speaker 1: in himself, for he was no less a personage than
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Speaker 1: John Quincy Adams, who perceived then that in the drama
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Speaker 1: of slavery. Destiny had called Sumner to play a great part.
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Speaker 1: The pleasure with which I listened to your discourse, wrote
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Speaker 1: the old man, eloquent, two days after the delivery of
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Speaker 1: the oration, was inspired far less by the success and
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Speaker 1: all but universal acceptance and applause of the present moment,
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Speaker 1: than by the vista of the future, which is open
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Speaker 1: to my view. Casting my eyes backward no farther than
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Speaker 1: the fourth of July of last year, when you set
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Speaker 1: all the vipers of Alecto a hissing by proclaiming the
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Speaker 1: Christian law of universal peace and love, and then them forward,
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Speaker 1: perhaps not much farther, but beyond my own alloted time.
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Speaker 1: I see you have a mission to perform. I looked
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Speaker 1: from Pisga to the promised land. You must enter upon it,
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Speaker 1: to the motto on my seal called Rara cyculo add
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Speaker 1: to Lunde s Servitas. No need, however, for the parting
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Speaker 1: injunction to Lenda S. Serreteus was already deeply graven on
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Speaker 1: the seal of the Young Reformer. From this moment, his
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Speaker 1: attacks upon the national sin never slackened, but increased in
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Speaker 1: frequency and energy. Four weeks later he renewed the assault
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Speaker 1: in the Whig State Convention of Massachusetts held in for
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Speaker 1: New Year Hall September twenty three, eighteen forty six. But
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Speaker 1: he young and ardent, had his illusions to be dispelled,
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Speaker 1: and one of those was the hope of converting the
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Speaker 1: Whig Party into an anti slavery instrument. He perceived the
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Speaker 1: necessity of an organized political movement devoted to freedom to
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Speaker 1: oppose the political organization devoted to slavery. He knew that
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Speaker 1: great national parties are not made to order, but are
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Speaker 1: born evolved out of circumstances which require their agency in
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Speaker 1: giving direction to public sentiment and solving public problems. There
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Speaker 1: were signs that such a party was forming in the
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Speaker 1: matrix of time, preparations for it, like the Liberty Party,
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Speaker 1: prophecies of it, like the rising growth of anti slavery
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Speaker 1: principles in the body of both of the old parties.
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Speaker 1: But a new party devoted to freedom was not among
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Speaker 1: the political probabilities of the year eighteen forty six. And this,
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Speaker 1: of course, similar well knew, even had he no faith
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Speaker 1: in the ultimate conversion of the Whigs to the espousal
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Speaker 1: of the cause of liberty. But he was evidently in
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Speaker 1: the beginning a strong believer in the anti slavery possibilities
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Speaker 1: of that party, and no wonder for if the party
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Speaker 1: in Massachusetts was to be relied upon in that regard
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Speaker 1: was to be taken as a good example of the
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Speaker 1: anti slavery proti angiologies of the national organization, then Sureley
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Speaker 1: Sumner had reason for his expectation. The anti slavery element
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Speaker 1: in that party in Massachusetts had become an important factor
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Speaker 1: in state politics since the agitation. Preceding and succeeding the
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Speaker 1: annexation of Texas. It comprised some of its a blessed
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Speaker 1: leaders in the state, and it comprised numerical strength as well.
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Speaker 1: It included such veterans as John Quincy Adams, Josiah Quincy,
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Speaker 1: and John G. Palfrey, such young and aggressive spirits as
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Speaker 1: Charles Francis Adams, George S. Hillard, Doctor S. G. Howe,
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Speaker 1: and John A. Andrew, among whom Sumner was as early
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Speaker 1: as eighteen forty six the recognized leader to his double
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Speaker 1: design to let no opportunities slip, to preach the doctrines
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Speaker 1: of human rights to his countrymen, and to graft anti
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Speaker 1: slavery principles upon the Whig Party. Sumner sees the occasion
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Speaker 1: of the Whigs assembling in convention to remote the interests
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Speaker 1: of freedom in those regards. Upon the withdrawal of the
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Speaker 1: committee appointed to report resolutions, he was called upon for
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Speaker 1: a speech. The speech made by him bears the marks
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Speaker 1: of careful preparation, and was, probably, like some performances of his,
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Speaker 1: fully written out and memorized in anticipation of the opening.
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Speaker 1: There was doubtless no accident between the call and the speech.
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Speaker 1: The call came because there was a speech, and the
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Speaker 1: speech was ready, we dare say, because it was expected.
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Speaker 1: It came as an expression of a well defined anti
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Speaker 1: slavery movement within the party in Massachusetts, and from the
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Speaker 1: lips of the boldest and the most eloquent and determined
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Speaker 1: of its younger leaders in the city and Commonwealth. It
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Speaker 1: was Sumner's second political speech, and the subject of the
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Speaker 1: anti slavery duties of the Whig Party. Evinced his early
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Speaker 1: hopes and aims, touching the anti slavery possibilities of that party.
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Speaker 1: No utterance could have been more earnest. It was like
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Speaker 1: the mouth of a furnace through which was seen the conscience,
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Speaker 1: the will, the intellect, of the orator, fervid and flaming
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Speaker 1: over the fierce breadth of an idea, at once imperious
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Speaker 1: and supreme. It was anti slavery, political and moral incarnate.
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Speaker 1: From its opening sentence, in which Sumner expressed his intention
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Speaker 1: to speak of duties, to his closing one, in which right,
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Speaker 1: freedom and humanity resounded like a summons to battle, the
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Speaker 1: speech glowed and blazed with the white heat of a
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Speaker 1: master thought, a master purpose. The Whig Party must be
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Speaker 1: true to its name, must stand for moral ideas, for right, freedom, humanity,
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Speaker 1: not alone for the tariff, internal improvements and a national bank.
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Speaker 1: The Whigs are called conservatives. Let them truly conserve the
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Speaker 1: everlasting principles of truth and liberty in the manly and
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Speaker 1: generous spirit of the Declaration of Independence. It should be
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Speaker 1: the party of freedom, openly energetically. It should be the
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Speaker 1: party opposed to slavery, openly energetically. The time has gone
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Speaker 1: by for the question what has the North to do
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Speaker 1: with slavery? Politically, it has little to do with anything else.
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Speaker 1: Slavery is everywhere under the slave representation clause of the Constitution.
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Speaker 1: It is seated in Congress, applies its traffic and human
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Speaker 1: flesh in the district of Comlumbia, within the legislative jurisdiction
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Speaker 1: of the nation, on the high seas under the national flag,
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Speaker 1: and pursues its flying victims into the sacred precincts of
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Speaker 1: Northern freedom. Nay more, with profane hands. It sees as
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Speaker 1: those who have never known the name of slave freemen
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Speaker 1: of the North, and dooms them to irremediable bondage. It
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Speaker 1: insults and expels from its jurisdiction honored representatives of Massachusetts,
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Speaker 1: seeking to secure for our colored citizens the peaceful safeguard
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Speaker 1: of the Union. It assumes a pleasure to build up
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Speaker 1: new slave holding states, striving perpetually to widen this area,
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Speaker 1: while professing to extend the area of freedom. It has
21:58
Speaker 1: brought upon the country war with Mexico, with its enormous
22:01
Speaker 1: expenditures and more enormous guilt by the spirit of Union
22:05
Speaker 1: among its supporters. It controls the affairs of government, interferes
22:08
Speaker 1: with the cherished interests of the North, enforcing and then
22:12
Speaker 1: refusing protection to her manufactures, makes and unmakes presidents usurps
22:17
Speaker 1: to itself the larger portion of all offices of honor
22:20
Speaker 1: and profit, both in army, and Navy, and also in
22:23
Speaker 1: the civil Department and stamps upon our O come to
22:27
Speaker 1: the character before the world of that monstrous anomaly and markery.
22:31
Speaker 1: A slave holding republic with the living crews of freedom
22:34
Speaker 1: on its lips and the dark mark of slavery on
22:37
Speaker 1: its brow. Massachusetts must wash her hands of all complicity
22:42
Speaker 1: with the acts of this great criminal. If it be
22:45
Speaker 1: wrong to hold a single slave, it must be wrong
22:47
Speaker 1: to hold many. If it be wrong for an individual
22:50
Speaker 1: to hold a slave, it must be wrong for a state.
22:52
Speaker 1: If it be wrong for a state and its individual capacity,
22:55
Speaker 1: it must be wrong. Also in association with other states,
22:59
Speaker 1: repeal of slavery under the Constitution and laws of the
23:03
Speaker 1: national government, ergo should be the rallying cry of the
23:06
Speaker 1: Whigs of Massachusetts. Slavery in the District of Columbia, in
23:11
Speaker 1: the territories, and on the high seas under the National
23:14
Speaker 1: colors may be reached by Congress. Constitutionally, it may be
23:17
Speaker 1: reached by a constitutional amendment. Also, slavery under the Constitution
23:22
Speaker 1: was not designed by its framers to endure perpetually. They
23:25
Speaker 1: looked for its ultimate extinction. That Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin
23:29
Speaker 1: speak for them surely they earnestly desired its early abolishment.
23:34
Speaker 1: It is the duty of the Whigs, professing the principles
23:36
Speaker 1: of the Fathers, to place themselves against the evil, not
23:40
Speaker 1: only against its further extension, but against its longer continuance.
23:43
Speaker 1: Under the Constitution and laws of the Union. Emancipation they
23:47
Speaker 1: should present as the cardinal object of our national policy.
23:52
Speaker 1: The Party must not content itself with a mere paper
23:55
Speaker 1: opposition to slavery through anti slavery resolutions. It must fight
23:59
Speaker 1: the monster with good men and trew who will be
24:02
Speaker 1: not northern men with Southern principles, nor yet northern men
24:05
Speaker 1: under Southern influences, but loyal ever to freedom and humanity,
24:10
Speaker 1: brave enough to stand alone with right. There are few
24:13
Speaker 1: such men in Congress Massachusetts as one venerable and illustrious,
24:17
Speaker 1: whose aged bosom still glows with the inextinguishable fires of liberty,
24:23
Speaker 1: with that all might join him, whom all well know
24:25
Speaker 1: to be that resolute and commanding opponent of slavery on
24:29
Speaker 1: the floor of Congress. John Quincy Adams, then, in an
24:32
Speaker 1: impassioned passage, the young Oratard called upon Webster to add
24:36
Speaker 1: to his title of defender of the Constitution the grander
24:39
Speaker 1: one of defender of humanity and closed. Thus in this
24:44
Speaker 1: heroic strain do my mind. It is clear that the
24:47
Speaker 1: time has arrived when the Whigs of Massachusetts, the Party
24:50
Speaker 1: of Freedom, owe it to their declared principles, to their
24:53
Speaker 1: character before the world, and to conscience, that they should
24:56
Speaker 1: place themselves firmly on this honest ground. They need not
25:00
Speaker 1: fear to stand alone. They need not fear separation from
25:03
Speaker 1: brethren with whom they have acted in concert. Better be
25:06
Speaker 1: separated even from them than from the right. Massachuticus can
25:11
Speaker 1: stand alone if need be. The Whigs of Massachusetts can
25:14
Speaker 1: stand alone. Their motto should not be our party, howsoever bounded,
25:18
Speaker 1: but our party bounded always by the right. They must
25:22
Speaker 1: recognize the dominion of right, or there will be none
25:24
Speaker 1: to recognize the dominion of the party. Let us, then,
25:28
Speaker 1: Infenulia Hall, beneath the images of our fathers, Thou, perpetual
25:32
Speaker 1: allegiance to the right and perpetual hostility to slavery. Ours
25:36
Speaker 1: is a noble cause, nobler even than that of our fathers,
25:39
Speaker 1: inasmuch as it is more exalted to struggle for the
25:42
Speaker 1: freedom of others than for our own. The love of right,
25:46
Speaker 1: which is the animating impulse of our movement is higher
25:50
Speaker 1: even than the love of freedom, but right, freedom and
25:53
Speaker 1: humanity all concur in demanding the abolition of slavery from
26:00
Speaker 1: the Cotton wing of the Whig Convention. The speech met
26:03
Speaker 1: a cold and significant reception. It was Nathan Appleton who
26:07
Speaker 1: remarked to the orator, just as he stepped from the platform,
26:10
Speaker 1: a good speech for a Virginia, but out of place here,
26:13
Speaker 1: to which Sumner quickly responded, If good for Virginia, it
26:16
Speaker 1: is good for Boston, as we have our responsibilities for slavery.
26:20
Speaker 1: Robert c went through, another representative of that wing of
26:24
Speaker 1: the Whigs, at the call of the convention, followed mister Sumner, immediately,
26:28
Speaker 1: doubtless to voice the sentiments of the party contrariant to
26:31
Speaker 1: those of the address, which was understood to embody the
26:34
Speaker 1: views and aspirations of the conscience wing of the Whigs.
26:37
Speaker 1: Twelve days after the delivery of his speech, Sumner received
26:41
Speaker 1: a note from mister Webster which indicated pretty plainly that
26:44
Speaker 1: he was not disposed to act upon the appeal to
26:47
Speaker 1: him by adding to his other titles that a defender
26:50
Speaker 1: of humanity in political affairs, we happened to entertain at
26:54
Speaker 1: the present moment, so ran the words of the Great
26:56
Speaker 1: Man's friendly missed a difference of opinion respecting the relative
27:00
Speaker 1: importance of some of the political questions of the time,
27:03
Speaker 1: and take a different view of the line of duty
27:05
Speaker 1: most fit to be pursued in endeavors to obtain all
27:08
Speaker 1: the good which can be obtained in connection with certain
27:11
Speaker 1: important subjects. Ah Sumner had to learn by repeated failures
27:16
Speaker 1: that with Webster and the Whigs, right and liberty were
27:19
Speaker 1: of less importance than dollars and dividends. But the determined
27:24
Speaker 1: purpose of Summer was not to be deflected so much
27:27
Speaker 1: as the tithe of a hair from his object, either
27:30
Speaker 1: by the cold tone of Appleton or the crafty words
27:32
Speaker 1: of Webster. Some are clearly perceived that in the impending
27:35
Speaker 1: political struggle with slavery, everything depended on the kind of
27:38
Speaker 1: men who were put forward to represent the North in Congress.
27:42
Speaker 1: They were not to be sound and sentiment only they
27:45
Speaker 1: were to possess the courage of their convictions. Also, anti
27:49
Speaker 1: slavery resolutions without the right men behind them were no
27:52
Speaker 1: more than political sounding brass and tinkling symbols. Was the
27:56
Speaker 1: noise of thunder with the electric boat left out. He
28:00
Speaker 1: wanted the thunder to arouse the conscience of the nation,
28:03
Speaker 1: but even more he wanted its bolts to smite the
28:06
Speaker 1: giant wrong. Hence his insistence upon the selection of none
28:10
Speaker 1: but men valiant and true as the representatives of the
28:13
Speaker 1: Whigs in Washington. What he strenuously insisted upon as a
28:17
Speaker 1: member of the Whig State Convention, he sternly enforced immediately
28:21
Speaker 1: afterwards as an individual Whig elector in the case of
28:24
Speaker 1: Robert C. Winthrop and his voting Congress upon the wrongful
28:28
Speaker 1: declaration of war against Mexico. Mister Winthrop was the bright
28:33
Speaker 1: particular star of the younger portion of the Cotton wing
28:37
Speaker 1: of the Whigs of Massachusetts. He had been early chosen
28:40
Speaker 1: to representing Congress the party in Boston. Amiable, eloquent, and accomplished,
28:45
Speaker 1: he had approved himself an honor to Massachusetts and enabled
28:49
Speaker 1: defender of her interests such as were embraced in the
28:51
Speaker 1: bank and teriff questions of the day. He was the
28:54
Speaker 1: young idol of Beacon and State Streets, into all appearances,
28:58
Speaker 1: the destined successor of Webster in the leadership of the
29:01
Speaker 1: great Whig classes of the city and commonwealth, he had
29:05
Speaker 1: not been unmindful of other than their material interests. It
29:08
Speaker 1: must also be recorded to his credit in the matter
29:11
Speaker 1: of the treatment of colored seamen in sundry Southern ports.
29:14
Speaker 1: His manly report upon the subject in Congress will doubtless
29:17
Speaker 1: be recalled by the reader, and also mister Sumner's cordial
29:20
Speaker 1: commendation of it. Besides, mister Winthrop was sincerely opposed to
29:24
Speaker 1: the extension of slavery, and if mere words could have
29:27
Speaker 1: entitled him to an anti slavery character, he certainly would
29:31
Speaker 1: not then have been found wanting in that regard. But
29:35
Speaker 1: in the new test of Office which Summer had proposed
29:38
Speaker 1: to the Whigs in convention assembled, anti slavery words were
29:41
Speaker 1: deemed important, but anti slavery action was rated as indispensable
29:46
Speaker 1: to official fitness. The men chosen to represent the Free
29:49
Speaker 1: States in Congress must not be Northern men with Southern principles,
29:54
Speaker 1: nor northern men under Southern influences. Was as pungent and
29:58
Speaker 1: epigrammatic character as they of the exacting nature of the
30:02
Speaker 1: New test. In a public letter addressed to mister Winthrop
30:05
Speaker 1: on October twenty sixth, eighteen forty six, in which that
30:09
Speaker 1: gentleman probably never forgot or forgave during the lifetime of
30:12
Speaker 1: the author. Sumner applied the new test to the political
30:16
Speaker 1: conduct of the representative from Boston in its relations to
30:19
Speaker 1: the war with Mexico, with a rigor and energy that
30:23
Speaker 1: was impressed almost imposing. After the annexation of Texas, there
30:28
Speaker 1: arose between Mexico and the United States a question of
30:31
Speaker 1: disputed boundary, Mexico on her part, contending that the territorial
30:35
Speaker 1: jurisdiction of Texas extended to the River New SSEs, while
30:40
Speaker 1: the United States insisted that the Rio Grande and not
30:43
Speaker 1: the New Scs formed the line of separation between the
30:46
Speaker 1: two republics. The great object sought to be obtained by
30:50
Speaker 1: the annexation of Texas was the acquisition of additional slave territory,
30:54
Speaker 1: the more the better. From the standpoint of the South.
30:57
Speaker 1: The temptation to add to the prize won by the
31:00
Speaker 1: land included between the New Esses and the Rio Grande
31:04
Speaker 1: was altogether too much for the moral resistance of the
31:06
Speaker 1: slave power, and its speedily and greedily succumbed to its
31:10
Speaker 1: inordinate lust for the possession of that choice. Cantil of
31:14
Speaker 1: Mexican territory. In January eighteen forty six, President Poe courted
31:19
Speaker 1: United States soldiers under the command of General Taylor to
31:22
Speaker 1: proceed to the occupation of this debatable land. Their occupancy
31:26
Speaker 1: brought on a collision with the troops of Mexico and
31:28
Speaker 1: virtually began the war. The United States was planning the aggressor,
31:32
Speaker 1: not Mexico, who was acting wholly on the defense of
31:34
Speaker 1: attempting to repel invaders from her dominion. Such was Sumner's
31:38
Speaker 1: position at this gentture. The cry was craftily raised by
31:43
Speaker 1: the emissaries of the slave power that the American army
31:45
Speaker 1: of occupation was in danger. This was calculated to excite
31:49
Speaker 1: the sympathy and patriotism of the nation, irrespective of sections,
31:53
Speaker 1: and to secure the support of Congress and their requisite
31:56
Speaker 1: military supplies for the successful prosecution of the scheme of
32:00
Speaker 1: Mexicans spoil theation. Ably assisted by the President, the plan
32:04
Speaker 1: for hoodweaking the Free States succeeded. Northern representatives, who had
32:09
Speaker 1: opposed the annexation of Texas as a slave state, were
32:12
Speaker 1: duped by this adroit appeal to their love of country
32:15
Speaker 1: into giving aid and encouragement towards the conduct of a
32:18
Speaker 1: war made for no other cause than the augmentation of
32:21
Speaker 1: the slave soil of the Union. Mister Winter belonged to
32:25
Speaker 1: the number who had fallen into the trap laid for
32:27
Speaker 1: them by the slave power. He had expressed himself anent
32:31
Speaker 1: the annexation of Texas as a slave state as uncompromisingly
32:35
Speaker 1: opposed to slavery or the addition of another inch of
32:37
Speaker 1: slave holding territory to the nation, but tamely enough afterward
32:41
Speaker 1: gave his vote for the prosecution to its speedy and
32:44
Speaker 1: successful termination of a war waived solely for the territorial
32:48
Speaker 1: aggrandizement of Texas as a slave state. In that act,
32:52
Speaker 1: he had proven himself, if not a Northern man with
32:55
Speaker 1: Southern principles, then a Northern man under Southern influences, and
32:59
Speaker 1: therefore unworthy of the confidence of the friends of freedom.
33:03
Speaker 1: Sumner's letter to mister Winthrop was a sharp arraignment of
33:06
Speaker 1: him as a public servant in that regard, and a
33:08
Speaker 1: stern declaration that he has been weighed and found wanting
33:12
Speaker 1: in loyalty to truth, right, liberty, and humanity, and by
33:15
Speaker 1: him the writer somily disowned and rejected as unworthy longer
33:19
Speaker 1: to represent the Whigs of Boston in Congress. A couple
33:22
Speaker 1: of extracts from this letter, which was an event in
33:25
Speaker 1: the politics of Massachusetts in the autumn of eighteen forty six,
33:28
Speaker 1: will convey to the reader an idea of its moral rigor,
33:31
Speaker 1: of tone, and energy of diction. Such, Sir, is the
33:35
Speaker 1: act of Congress, to which, by your affirmative vote, so
33:39
Speaker 1: runs the letter. The people of Boston are made parties
33:42
Speaker 1: through you. They are made to declare unjust and cowardly
33:45
Speaker 1: war with superadded falsehood in the cause of slavery. Through you,
33:50
Speaker 1: they are made partakers in the blockade of Vera Cruz,
33:53
Speaker 1: the seizure of California, the capture of Santa Fe, the
33:56
Speaker 1: bloodshed of Monterey. It were idle to suppose that the
34:00
Speaker 1: soldier or officer only is stained by this guilt. It
34:04
Speaker 1: reaches far back and in carnadines the halls of Congress.
34:08
Speaker 1: Name more, through you, it reddens the hands of your
34:11
Speaker 1: constituents in Boston. Pardon this language, strong as it may seem,
34:15
Speaker 1: it is weak to express the aggravation of this act.
34:19
Speaker 1: Rather than lend your hand to this wickedness, you should
34:21
Speaker 1: have suffered the army of the United States to pass
34:24
Speaker 1: submissively through the caudine forks of Mexican power to perish.
34:28
Speaker 1: It might be like the legions of Verus, their bleeded
34:32
Speaker 1: bones in the distant valleys where they were waging unjust war,
34:35
Speaker 1: would not tell to posterity such a tale of ignominy
34:38
Speaker 1: as this lying act of Congress. Another apology is that
34:44
Speaker 1: the majority of the Whig Party joined with you, or,
34:46
Speaker 1: as it has been expressed, that mister Winter voted with
34:49
Speaker 1: all the rest of the weight of moral character in
34:51
Speaker 1: Congress from the Free States belonging to the Whig Party
34:54
Speaker 1: not included in the Massachusetts delegation, and suggestions are made
34:59
Speaker 1: in disparagement of the fourteen who remained unshaken in loyalty
35:03
Speaker 1: to truth and peace. In the question of right or wrong,
35:06
Speaker 1: it is little importance that a few falliblemen constituting what
35:09
Speaker 1: is called a majority, are all of one mind, supple
35:13
Speaker 1: or insane. Majorities are found in every age to sanction
35:17
Speaker 1: in justice. It was a majority which passed the Stamp
35:20
Speaker 1: Act and t Text which mold upon the persecution of Galileo,
35:24
Speaker 1: which stood about the stake of their Vetus, which administer
35:28
Speaker 1: the hemlock to Socrates, which call for the crucifixion of
35:31
Speaker 1: our Lord. These majorities cannot make us hessitate to condemn
35:35
Speaker 1: such acts in their authors aloft to the throne of God,
35:38
Speaker 1: and not below in the footprints of a trampling multitude
35:41
Speaker 1: are the sacred rules of right, which no majorities can
35:44
Speaker 1: displace or overturn. And the question recurs, was it right
35:48
Speaker 1: to declare unjust and cowardly war with superadded falsehood in
35:52
Speaker 1: the cause of slavery? The answer of the letter was
35:54
Speaker 1: one deep, stern, resounding no. After the appearance of this letter,
36:00
Speaker 1: the opposition in Boston to the return of mister Winthrop
36:03
Speaker 1: crystallized about its author, and a strong disposition arose in
36:07
Speaker 1: the city to run Sumner as an independent candidate for Congress.
36:11
Speaker 1: With his end in view, he was approached again and
36:13
Speaker 1: again by those dissatisfied with the record of mister Winthrop
36:16
Speaker 1: on the Mexican War to allow the use of his
36:18
Speaker 1: name as a candidate, but unwilling to enter public life
36:22
Speaker 1: and to expose himself to the imputation of having been
36:25
Speaker 1: actuated by selfish motives in writing the letter, he repeatedly
36:28
Speaker 1: declined to let himself be nominated, But his fitness was
36:32
Speaker 1: so evident and Supreme that the Friends of Freedom, at
36:34
Speaker 1: a mass meeting in Tremont Temple on October twenty ninth,
36:38
Speaker 1: and during his absence in main filling lecture engagements, nominated him,
36:43
Speaker 1: notwithstanding his repeated refusals to permit himself to be placed
36:46
Speaker 1: in nomination as an independent candidate for Congress. Doctor S. G.
36:52
Speaker 1: Howe called the meeting to order, and Charles Francis Adams
36:55
Speaker 1: was chosen to preside. The high estimation in which mister
36:58
Speaker 1: Sumner was held at the time in the city may
37:01
Speaker 1: be gathered from the report of the committee appointed to
37:03
Speaker 1: draft resolutions and name a candidate, of which John A. Andrew,
37:08
Speaker 1: then a young member of the Suffolk Bar, was chairman.
37:11
Speaker 1: The last of a series of resolutions reported by the
37:13
Speaker 1: committee reads as follows. Resolved that we recommend to the
37:18
Speaker 1: citizens of this district as a candidate for representative in
37:21
Speaker 1: the National Congress. Aman raised by his pure character above reproach,
37:25
Speaker 1: whose firmness, intelligence, distinguished ability, rational patriotism, manly independence, and
37:31
Speaker 1: glowing love of liberty and truth entitle him to the
37:34
Speaker 1: unbought confidence of his fellow citizens. Charles Sumner of Boston,
37:39
Speaker 1: fitted to adorn any station, always found on the side
37:42
Speaker 1: of the right, and especially worthy at the present crisis,
37:45
Speaker 1: to represent the interests of the city and the cardinal
37:47
Speaker 1: principles of truth, justice, liberty, and peace, which have not
37:51
Speaker 1: yet died out from the hearts of our citizens. The
37:55
Speaker 1: nominee returned to Boston late the next evening, and, on
37:57
Speaker 1: learning that he had been put in nomination of our congres,
38:00
Speaker 1: was pended once and gave to the public a positive
38:02
Speaker 1: and explicit withdrawal of his name. Doctor Howe was thereupon
38:06
Speaker 1: selected as a candidate instead, and consented to stand and
38:09
Speaker 1: be shot at. Under the circumstances, Casumner threw himself into
38:13
Speaker 1: the canvas, with his customary earnestness and energy, giving to
38:17
Speaker 1: his friend at a public meeting in Tremont Temple on
38:20
Speaker 1: the night of November fifth and enthusiastic support in a
38:23
Speaker 1: learned and elaborate speech on slavery and the Mexican War,
38:27
Speaker 1: in which he again reviewed mister Winthrop's political conduct with
38:30
Speaker 1: scathing effect, declaring him unfit to represent the feeling perpetrating
38:35
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts Bosom and so often expressed by her legislature
38:39
Speaker 1: on the subject of slavery. In that address, he voiced
38:43
Speaker 1: a truth which was vital then and is vital now.
38:46
Speaker 1: In his vote for the Mexican War, Sumner pointed out
38:49
Speaker 1: in his speech, mister Winthrop was not a week He
38:51
Speaker 1: then left the party for surely, and herein lies the
38:54
Speaker 1: truth vital now as then, For surely, the party is
38:57
Speaker 1: not where numbers prevail, but where it's a recognized Although
39:02
Speaker 1: mister Winthrom was re elected by a large majority of
39:05
Speaker 1: the polls, still the more than thirteen hundred votes which
39:08
Speaker 1: were cast from doctor Howe was an auspicious omen of
39:11
Speaker 1: future advances of the political revolution, which had begun to
39:14
Speaker 1: assume moral and numerical importance in the Olbey State in
39:18
Speaker 1: regard to slavery. Even if we seem to fail in
39:22
Speaker 1: this selection, Sumner had said in his address supporting doctor
39:25
Speaker 1: Howe's candidacy, we shall not fail. In reality. The influence
39:28
Speaker 1: of this effort will help to awaken and organize that
39:31
Speaker 1: powerful public opinion by which this war will at last
39:34
Speaker 1: be arrested. It did not arrest the war, but it
39:37
Speaker 1: did help to awaken and organize that powerful public sentiment
39:41
Speaker 1: by which the spread of slavery to the new national
39:43
Speaker 1: territories acquired. At the close of the war, was at
39:46
Speaker 1: last arrested. Sumner's opposition to the unjust and cowardly war
39:51
Speaker 1: in the cause of slavery as he stigmatized the Mexican War,
39:55
Speaker 1: carried in before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in January
39:58
Speaker 1: eighteen forty seven, with a view to test the validity
40:01
Speaker 1: of enlistments in the Regiment of Volunteers for the war
40:05
Speaker 1: in that state. Before the departure of the regiment for
40:08
Speaker 1: the field of operations, several of the younger volunteers, repenting
40:11
Speaker 1: their precipitate action, applied through council to the Supreme Court
40:15
Speaker 1: of the Commonwealth for their discharge because of the invalidity
40:19
Speaker 1: of their enlistments. At the hearing, Sumner, who appeared for
40:23
Speaker 1: one of the repentant recruits, the Tact the proceedings by
40:26
Speaker 1: which the regiment was organized, denying in the first place
40:29
Speaker 1: that the Act of Congress under which they had it
40:32
Speaker 1: was in accordance with the Constitution, in the second place,
40:35
Speaker 1: that the enlistments were in conformity to the Act, and
40:38
Speaker 1: in the third place, that his client, being a minor,
40:41
Speaker 1: was bound by his contract of enlistment. The court decided
40:44
Speaker 1: against on his first and second points, but in his
40:47
Speaker 1: favor on the third, and accordingly discharged his client from
40:50
Speaker 1: his military engagement. This determined opposition to the war, Sumner
40:55
Speaker 1: followed up a month later in an effective speech and
40:58
Speaker 1: for New ya All demanding the muse withdrawal of the
41:00
Speaker 1: American troops from Mexico and the cessation of hostilities. In
41:05
Speaker 1: his regard, his country was wrong in Mexico right. Therefore
41:08
Speaker 1: it was the duty of his country to retreat at
41:10
Speaker 1: once from the wrong it was committing. Few, if any,
41:14
Speaker 1: of the conspicuous advocates for the maintenance of this war
41:16
Speaker 1: could hesitate, said he, if found wrong in any private transaction,
41:20
Speaker 1: to retreat at once. Such should be the conduct of
41:23
Speaker 1: the nation. For it cannot be said too often that
41:26
Speaker 1: the general rules of morals are the same for individuals
41:29
Speaker 1: and states. Some now during the year eighteen forty seven,
41:33
Speaker 1: not only attacked slavery directly from the political platform, but
41:37
Speaker 1: by a literary stratagem brought his guns to bear upon
41:40
Speaker 1: it from the lecture platform as well. A lecture by him, however,
41:43
Speaker 1: finished ineloquent on the subject of slavery in this country,
41:46
Speaker 1: would not have been tolerated by the lecture licemes before
41:50
Speaker 1: whom he was a frequent speaker. But what was not
41:52
Speaker 1: permitted to him to accomplish by direction he achieved by indirection,
41:56
Speaker 1: and white slavery in the Barbary States, which formed the
41:59
Speaker 1: title and theme of an admirable anti slavery discourse delivered
42:03
Speaker 1: by him in Boston and in many places in Massachusetts
42:05
Speaker 1: before popular audiences. In exposing the barbarism of white slavery
42:10
Speaker 1: in Africa, he exposed the barbarism of black slavery in America.
42:14
Speaker 1: And in arousing among his heroes sympathy for the victims
42:17
Speaker 1: of man's in humanity demand in foreign lance, he was
42:20
Speaker 1: exciting it also for those unhappy wretches of oppression at home.
42:25
Speaker 1: In breeding hatred and abhorrence of the one, he was
42:27
Speaker 1: in fine breeding it at the same time of the other.
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Speaker 1: Also from such as scene, exclaimed the lecturer at the
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Speaker 1: end of a long chapter of horse. From such as
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Speaker 1: scene we gladly turn away, while in the sincerity of
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Speaker 1: our hearts we give our sympathies to the unhappy sufferers.
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Speaker 1: Fain would we avert their fate? Fain would we destroy
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Speaker 1: the system of bondage that has made them wretched and
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Speaker 1: their masters crewe? And yet we must not judge with harshness.
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Speaker 1: The Antgerian slave owner, who beared in a religion of slavery,
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Speaker 1: learned to regard Christians guilty of a skin not colored
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Speaker 1: like his own, as lawful prey, and found sanctions for
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Speaker 1: his conduct in the injunctions of the Koran, the customs
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Speaker 1: of his country, and the instinctive dictates of an imagined
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Speaker 1: self interest. It is then the peculiar institution which we
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Speaker 1: are aroused to execrate, rather than the Algerian slave masters,
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Speaker 1: gloring in its influence nor perceiving their foul disfigurement. The
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Speaker 1: blows of the hero was beginning to fall fast and
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Speaker 1: furious on the many headed scourge of the land. End
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Speaker 1: of Chapter seven