“You will of course give to your readers the great speech
of Senator Sumner. His speech is one of the best ever
delivered in the Senate, and it was delivered in the
greatest of causes,--that of Human Liberty. It differs from
the tone so common among so-called ‘Democratic’ orators for
years past, both North and South, inasmuch as it contained
neither abusive, personal, nor vindictive language. But it
was calm, manly, dignified,--full of the subject in hand,
treating it with frankness,--alluding to the opposite
view with fairness, and even respect, while showing up
their errors and weaknesses as one would those of a
wayward child. For historical and legal research, critical
analysis, and logical argument, it is unsurpassed. Concise,
pithy, full of effective and happy illustrations, it was
admirably conceived and presented.”
The correspondent of the Richmond _Republic_, with equal
appreciation, but less faith, wrote:--
“In the Senate, the day was devoted to Sumner. He began
speaking about one o’clock, and concluded his exhaustive
argument in an hour and forty minutes. The burden of the
whole of it was the absolute political and civil equality
of all men, and his peroration was a loftier flight of
majestic eloquence than the Senate has heard since the
best days of Clay and Webster. While very few agree with
Sumner in the present practicability of his ideas, and
still fewer indorse them at all as tenets of political
faith, yet there is but one opinion of the speech he has
been making for two days,--that, simply as a monument of
laborious research and good English, it is unsurpassed.
When he concluded to-night, the densely crowded galleries
could not be restrained, and burst out into vehement
applause; but it was a tribute to the grandly classical
language in which his ideas were clothed, and not to the
ideas themselves. Charles Sumner may possibly be a patriot,
but he is certainly a political philanthropist, and as such
there is no probability that he will live to see his tenets
practically enforced in the legislation of the country.”