An immediate effect of the speech was to hasten yet more the
issue with President Johnson. On the day after its delivery he
was visited by a delegation of colored citizens, who pleaded
especially for the ballot. The President answered with feeling,
that he had always been a friend of the colored race, and
said:--
“I do not like to be arraigned by some who can get up
handsomely rounded periods, and deal in rhetoric, and talk
about abstract ideas of Liberty, who never perilled life,
liberty, or property. This kind of theoretical, hollow,
unpractical friendship amounts to but very little. While I
say that I am a friend of the colored man, I do not want to
adopt a policy that I believe will end in a contest between
the races, which, if persisted in, will result in the
extermination of one or the other.”
The idea of “a contest between the races” recurred in stronger
language, when, alluding to the colored man, he spoke of “the
sacrifice of his life and the shedding of his blood.… I feel
what I say, and I feel well assured, that, if the policy urged
by some be persisted in, it will result in great injury to the
white as well as to the colored man.… The query comes up right
there, whether we don’t commence a war of races.… I do not want
to be engaged in a work that will commence a war of races.… I
feel a conviction that driving this matter upon the people,
upon the community, will result in the injury of both races,
and the ruin of one or the other.”[205]
Shortly afterwards he was reported in the press as saying to a
colored delegation of North Carolina, “I suppose Sumner is your
God”; to which the spokesman replied, “We respect and love Mr.
Sumner, Sir, but no man is our God.”
Then came the incendiary speech of the 22d February, when the
President, standing on the steps of the Executive Mansion,
threw away all reserve.
“I am opposed to the Davises, the Toombses, the Slidells,
and the long list of such. But when I perceive, on the
other hand, men [_A voice, “Call them off!”_]--I care not
by what name you call them--still opposed to the Union,
I am free to say to you that I am still with the people.
I am still for the preservation of these States, for the
preservation of this Union, and in favor of this great
Government accomplishing its destiny.”
Here the President was called upon to give the names of three
of the Members of Congress to whom he had alluded as being
opposed to the Union.
“The gentleman calls for three names. I am talking to
my friends and fellow-citizens here. Suppose I should
name to you those whom I look upon as being opposed to
the fundamental principles of this Government, and as
now laboring to destroy them. I say Thaddeus Stevens, of
Pennsylvania; I say Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts; I say
Wendell Phillips, of Massachusetts.”
Becoming excited in speech, the President followed the charge
of opposition to the fundamental principles of this Government
with an accusation of a different character.
“Are those who want to destroy our institutions and change
the character of the Government not satisfied with the
blood that has been shed? Are they not satisfied with one
martyr? Does not the blood of Lincoln appease the vengeance
and wrath of the opponents of this Government? Is their
thirst still unslaked? Do they want more blood? Have they
not honor and courage enough to effect the removal of the
Presidential obstacle otherwise than through the hands of
the assassin?”[206]
Mr. Sumner never made answer or allusion to this Presidential
attack, but others did. It became the subject of debate in the
House of Representatives of the Massachusetts Legislature,
on resolutions by Hon. George B. Loring, the Representative
of Salem, already mentioned in this Appendix.[207] His
reasons for vindication of Mr. Sumner were private and public,
according to the report of the debate.
“The first men to congratulate him on his change [from the
Democratic party] were John A. Andrew and Charles Sumner;
and he should not forget that Mr. Sumner, against whom he
had warred so long, was the first to extend sympathy to
him, and had led him on till this day.
“Passing now to the public reasons for his advocacy of
the fourth resolution, Mr. Loring paid a high eulogium to
Senator Sumner, who, he said, would live in history with
Adams and Hancock, for his adherence to and courageous
advocacy of great principles, and his remarkable record
since the war of the Rebellion broke out. Men might say
that Mr. Sumner was an impracticable theorist; but it
was to him, more than to any other man, that we owed the
defeat of the iniquitous Louisiana proposition in the last
Congress, the success of which would have established a
precedent fraught with great danger to the nation.”[208]
The resolution, adopted by the House March 14, and the Senate
April 7, 1866, was as follows:--
“_Resolved_, That, while thus expressing our confidence in
our Senatorial and Representative delegations in Congress,
and the determination of the people to stand by them, we
are also impelled to take notice of the recent charges
made by name against one of the Senators of this State,
Hon. Charles Sumner, in the lately published speech of the
President of the United States, and to declare that the
language used and the charges made by the President are
unbecoming the elevated station occupied by him, an unjust
reflection upon Massachusetts, and without the shadow of
justification or defence founded upon the private or public
record of our eminent Senator.”
A copy of the resolutions, containing the foregoing, engrossed
on parchment, was forwarded to Mr. Sumner by the Governor
of Massachusetts, Hon. Alexander H. Bullock, with a letter,
saying, “This I take great personal pleasure in asking you to
accept and preserve.”
The Aldermen of Boston, by a resolution, under date of March
2d, interposed their “indignant conviction of the utter
falsehood” of the charges against Mr. Sumner.[209]
This testimony may be closed by that of a Massachusetts pen. In
the New York _Independent_, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, replying to
the President, said:--
“Let any man capable of forming an opinion independent
of party prejudice look candidly at the whole course of
the Hon. Charles Sumner, and say whether any nation was
ever blessed with a public man intellectually more able
and consistent, and morally more courageous, pure, and
noble. What a tower of strength he has been in times of
difficulty and danger! How brave and steadfast he has been
in the midst of denunciations and threats! How much he
has suffered in the cause of Freedom! and how calmly and
heroically he suffered, never boasting or complaining!
What herculean labor he has performed, and every particle
of that labor to sustain and advance those principles of
justice and freedom which form the only sure basis of a
republic! I am glad to see that Boston has, at last, by the
voice of its city government, shown due appreciation of the
services rendered to the country by that truly great and
good man.”
Such was the conflict then raging, with Truth gaining new
strength daily.