[Speech of Charles Sumner at the sixty-eighth annual dinner of the
New England Society in the City of New York, December 22, 1873. The
President, Isaac H. Bailey, in proposing the toast, "The Senate of
the United States," said: "We are happy to greet on this occasion
the senior in consecutive service, and the most eminent member of
the Senate, whose early, varied, and distinguished services in the
cause of freedom have made his name a household word throughout the
world--the Honorable Charles Sumner." On rising to respond, Mr.
Sumner was received with loud applause. The members of the Society
rose to their feet, applauded and waved handkerchiefs.]
MR. PRESIDENT AND BROTHERS OF NEW ENGLAND:--For the first time
in my life I have the good fortune to enjoy this famous anniversary
festival. Though often honored by your most tempting invitation, and
longing to celebrate the day in this goodly company of which all have
heard so much, I could never excuse myself from duties in another place.
If now I yield to well-known attractions, and journey from Washington
for my first holiday during a protracted public service, it is because
all was enhanced by the appeal of your excellent president, to whom I am
bound by the friendship of many years in Boston, in New York, and in a
foreign land. [Applause.] It is much to be a brother of New England, but
it is more to be a friend [applause], and this tie I have pleasure in
confessing to-night.
It is with much doubt and humility that I venture to answer for the
Senate of the United States, and I believe the least I say on this head
will be the most prudent. [Laughter.] But I shall be entirely safe in
expressing my doubt if there is a single Senator who would not be glad
of a seat at this generous banquet. What is the Senate? It is a
component part of the National Government. But we celebrate to-day more
than any component part of any government. We celebrate an epoch in the
history of mankind--not only never to be forgotten, but to grow in
grandeur as the world appreciates the elements of true greatness. Of
mankind I say--for the landing on Plymouth Rock, on December 22, 1620,
marks the origin of a new order of ages, by which the whole human family
will be elevated. Then and there was the great beginning.
Throughout all time, from the dawn of history, men have swarmed to found
new homes in distant lands. The Tyrians, skirting Northern Africa,
stopped at Carthage; Carthaginians dotted Spain and even the distant
coasts of Britain and Ireland; Greeks gemmed Italy and Sicily with
art-loving settlements; Rome carried multitudinous colonies with her
conquering eagles. Saxons, Danes, and Normans violently mingled with the
original Britons. And in more modern times, Venice, Genoa, Portugal,
Spain, France, and England, all sent forth emigrants to people foreign
shores. But in these various expeditions, trade or war was the impelling
motive. Too often commerce and conquest moved hand in hand, and the
colony was incarnadined with blood.
On the day we celebrate, the sun for the first time in his course looked
down upon a different scene, begun and continued under a different
inspiration. A few conscientious Englishmen, in obedience to the monitor
within, and that they might be free to worship God according to their
own sense of duty, set sail for the unknown wilds of the North American
continent. After a voyage of sixty-four days in the ship Mayflower, with
Liberty at the prow and Conscience at the helm [applause], they sighted
the white sandbanks of Cape Cod, and soon thereafter in the small cabin
framed that brief compact, forever memorable, which is the first written
constitution of government in human history, and the very corner-stone
of the American Republic; and then these Pilgrims landed.
This compact was not only foremost in time, it was also august in
character, and worthy of perpetual example. Never before had the object
of the "civil body public" been announced as "to enact, constitute, and
frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and
offices from time to time as shall be thought most meet and convenient
for the general good of the colony." How lofty! how true! Undoubtedly,
these were the grandest words of government with the largest promise of
any at that time uttered.
If more were needed to illustrate the new epoch, it would be found in
the parting words of the venerable pastor, John Robinson, addressed to
the Pilgrims, as they were about to sail from Delfshaven--words often
quoted, yet never enough. How sweetly and beautifully he says: "And if
God should reveal anything to you by any other instrument of his, be as
ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my
ministry; but I am confident that the Lord hath more light and truth yet
to break forth out of his holy word." And then how justly the good
preacher rebukes those who close their souls to truth! "The Lutherans,
for example, cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw, and whatever
part of God's will he hath further imparted to Calvin, they will rather
die than embrace, and so the Calvinists stick where he left them. This
is a misery much to be lamented, for though they were precious, shining
lights in their times, God hath not revealed his whole will to them."
Beyond the merited rebuke, here is a plain recognition of the law of
human progress little discerned at the time, which teaches the sure
advance of the human family, and opens the vista of the ever-broadening,
never-ending future on earth.
Our Pilgrims were few and poor. The whole outfit of this historic
voyage, including £1,700 of trading stock, was only £2,400, and how
little was required for their succor appears in the experience of the
soldier Captain Miles Standish, who, being sent to England for
assistance--not military, but financial--(God save the mark!) succeeded
in borrowing--how much do you suppose?--£150 sterling. [Laughter.]
Something in the way of help; and the historian adds, "though at fifty
per cent. interest." So much for a valiant soldier on a financial
expedition. [Laughter, in which General Sherman and the company joined.]
A later agent, Allerton, was able to borrow for the colony £200 at a
reduced interest of thirty per cent. Plainly, the money-sharks of our
day may trace an undoubted pedigree to these London merchants.
[Laughter.] But I know not if any son of New England, oppressed by
exorbitant interest, will be consoled by the thought that the Pilgrims
paid the same.
And yet this small people--so obscure and outcast in condition--so
slender in numbers and in means--so entirely unknown to the proud and
great--so absolutely without name in contemporary records--whose
departure from the Old World took little more than the breath of their
bodies--are now illustrious beyond the lot of men; and the Mayflower is
immortal beyond the Grecian Argo, or the stately ship of any victorious
admiral. Though this was little foreseen in their day, it is plain now
how it has come to pass. The highest greatness surviving time and storm
is that which proceeds from the soul of man. [Applause.] Monarchs and
cabinets, generals and admirals, with the pomp of courts and the
circumstance of war, in the gradual lapse of time disappear from sight;
but the pioneers of truth, though poor and lowly, especially those whose
example elevates human nature and teaches the rights of man, so that
government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not
perish from the earth [great applause], such harbingers can never be
forgotten, and their renown spreads coextensive with the cause they
served.
I know not if any whom I now have the honor of addressing have thought
to recall the great in rank and power filling the gaze of the world as
the Mayflower with her company fared forth on their adventurous voyage.
The foolish James was yet on the English throne, glorying that he had
"peppered the Puritans." The morose Louis XIII, through whom Richelieu
ruled, was King of France. The imbecile Philip III swayed Spain and the
Indies. The persecuting Ferdinand the Second, tormentor of Protestants,
was Emperor of Germany. Paul V, of the House of Borghese, was Pope of
Rome. In the same princely company and all contemporaries were Christian
IV, King of Denmark, and his son Christian, Prince of Norway; Gustavus
Adolphus, King of Sweden; Sigismund the Third, King of Poland;
Frederick, King of Bohemia, with his wife, the unhappy Elizabeth of
England, progenitor of the house of Hanover; George William, Margrave of
Brandenburg, and ancestor of the Prussian house that has given an
emperor to Germany; Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria; Maurice, landgrave of
Hesse; Christian, Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg; John Frederick, Duke
of Würtemberg and Teck; John, Count of Nassau; Henry, Duke of Lorraine;
Isabella, Infanta of Spain and ruler of the Low Countries; Maurice,
fourth Prince of Orange; Charles Emanuel, Duke of Savoy and ancestor of
the King of United Italy; Cosmo de' Medici, third Grand Duke of
Florence; Antonio Priuli, ninety-third Doge of Venice, just after the
terrible tragedy commemorated on the English stage as "Venice
Preserved"; Bethlehem Gabor, Prince of Unitarian Transylvania, and
elected King of Hungary, with the countenance of an African; and the
Sultan Mustapha, of Constantinople, twentieth ruler of the Turks.
Such at that time were the crowned sovereigns of Europe, whose names
were mentioned always with awe, and whose countenances are handed down
by art, so that at this day they are visible to the curious as if they
walked these streets. Mark now the contrast. There was no artist for our
forefathers, nor are their countenances now known to men; but more than
any powerful contemporaries at whose tread the earth trembled is their
memory sacred. [Applause.] Pope, emperor, king, sultan, grand-duke,
duke, doge, margrave, landgrave, count--what are they all by the side of
the humble company that landed on Plymouth Rock? Theirs, indeed, were
the ensigns of worldly power, but our Pilgrims had in themselves that
inborn virtue which was more than all else besides, and their landing
was an epoch.
Who in the imposing troop of worldly grandeur is now remembered but with
indifference or contempt? If I except Gustavus Adolphus, it is because
he revealed a superior character. Confront the Mayflower and the
Pilgrims with the potentates who occupied such space in the world. The
former are ascending into the firmament, there to shine forever, while
the latter have been long dropping into the darkness of oblivion, to be
brought forth only to point a moral or illustrate the fame of
contemporaries whom they regarded not. [Applause.] Do I err in supposing
this an illustration of the supremacy which belongs to the triumphs of
the moral nature? At first impeded or postponed, they at last prevail.
Theirs is a brightness which, breaking through all clouds, will shine
forth with ever-increasing splendor.
I have often thought that if I were a preacher, if I had the honor to
occupy the pulpit so grandly filled by my friend near me [gracefully
inclining toward Mr. Beecher], one of my sermons should be from the
text, "A little leaven shall leaven the whole lump." Nor do I know a
better illustration of these words than the influence exerted by our
Pilgrims. That small band, with the lesson of self-sacrifice, of just
and equal laws, of the government of a majority, of unshrinking loyalty
to principle, is now leavening this whole continent, and in the fulness
of time will leaven the world. [Great applause.] By their example,
republican institutions have been commended, and in proportion as we
imitate them will these institutions be assured. [Applause.]
Liberty, which we so much covet, is not a solitary plant. Always by its
side is Justice. [Applause.] But Justice is nothing but right applied to
human affairs. Do not forget, I entreat you, that with the highest
morality is the highest liberty. A great poet, in one of his inspired
sonnets, speaking of this priceless possession, has said, "But who loves
that must first be wise and good." Therefore do the Pilgrims in their
beautiful example teach liberty, teach republican institutions, as at an
earlier day, Socrates and Plato, in their lessons of wisdom, taught
liberty and helped the idea of the republic. If republican government
has thus far failed in any experiment, as, perhaps, somewhere in Spanish
America, it is because these lessons have been wanting. There have been
no Pilgrims to teach the moral law.
Mr. President, with these thoughts, which I imperfectly express, I
confess my obligations to the forefathers of New England, and offer to
them the homage of a grateful heart. But not in thanksgiving only would
I celebrate their memory. I would if I could make their example a
universal lesson, and stamp it upon the land. [Applause.] The conscience
which directed them should be the guide for our public councils. The
just and equal laws which they required should be ordained by us, and
the hospitality to truth which was their rule should be ours. Nor would
I forget their courage and steadfastness. Had they turned back or
wavered, I know not what would have been the record of this continent,
but I see clearly that a great example would have been lost. [Applause.]
Had Columbus yielded to his mutinous crew and returned to Spain without
his great discovery; had Washington shrunk away disheartened by British
power and the snows of New Jersey, these great instances would have been
wanting for the encouragement of men. But our Pilgrims belong to the
same heroic company, and their example is not less precious. [Applause.]
Only a short time after the landing on Plymouth Rock, the great
republican poet, John Milton, wrote his "Comus," so wonderful for beauty
and truth. His nature was more refined than that of the Pilgrims, and
yet it requires little effort of imagination to catch from one of them,
or at least from their beloved pastor, the exquisite, almost angelic
words at the close--
"Mortals, who would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free;
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime.
Or if Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her."
[At the conclusion of Senator Sumner's speech the audience arose and
gave cheer upon cheer.]