QUINTUS. Prorsus assentior.
CICERO, _De Legibus_, Lib. II. cap. 5.
* * * * *
I have told,
O Britons! O my brethren! I have told
Most bitter truth, but without bitterness.
Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed;
For never can true courage dwell with them
Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look
At their own vices.
COLERIDGE, _Sibylline Leaves: Fears in Solitude_.
* * * * *
’Tis therefore sober and good men are sad
For England’s glory, seeing it wax pale
And sickly.
COWPER, _The Task_, Book V. 509-511.
* * * * *
The Government condemns in the highest degree the conduct of
any of our citizens who may personally engage in committing
hostilities at sea against any of the nations parties to the
present war, and will exert all the means with which the laws
and Constitution have armed them to discover such as offend
herein and bring them to condign punishment.… The practice of
commissioning, equipping, and manning vessels in our ports
to cruise on any of the belligerent parties is equally and
entirely disapproved; and the Government will take effectual
measures to prevent a repetition of it.--JEFFERSON, _Letter to
Mr. Hammond, May 15, 1793_: Writings, Vol. III. p. 559.
* * * * *
One spot remains which oceans cannot wash out. The slavery of
the African race, which the North Americans had inherited from
the ancient monarchy, was adopted and fondly cherished by the
new Republic.… The logic of the Constitution declared that
all men were free: the pride and avarice of the slave-owners,
disowning the image of the Creator and the brotherhood of
nature, degraded men of a dark color, and even all the
descendants of their sons and daughters, to a level with oxen
and horses. But as oxen and horses never combine, and have
no sense of wronged independence, oxen and horses are better
treated than the men and women of African blood.… But neither
the philosophical dogma of the authors of the Constitution,
nor the strict pedantry of law, can stifle the cry of outraged
humanity, nor still the current of human sympathy, nor arrest
forever the decrees of Eternal Justice.--LORD JOHN RUSSELL,
_Life and Times of Charles James Fox_, Vol. I. pp. 364, 365.
* * * * *
To this condition the Constitution of this Confederacy reduces
the whole African race; and while declaring these to be its
principles, the founders claim the privilege of being admitted
into the society of the nations of the earth,--principles
worthy only of being conceived and promulgated by the
inmates of the infernal regions, and a fit constitution for
a confederacy in Pandemonium. _Now, as soon as the nature
of this Constitution is truly explained and understood, is
it possible that the nations of the earth can admit such a
Confederacy into their society? Can any nation calling itself
civilized associate, with any sense of self-respect, with
a nation avowing and practising such principles?_ Will not
every civilized nation, when the nature of this Confederacy is
understood, come to the side of the United States, and refuse
all association with them, as, in truth, they are, _hostes
humani generis_? For the African is as much entitled to be
protected in the rights of humanity as any other portion of
the human race. _As to Great Britain, her course is, in the
nature of things, already fixed and immutable. She must sooner
or later join the United States in this war, or be disgraced
throughout all future time_; for the principle of that
civilization which this Confederacy repudiates was by her--to
her great glory, and with unparalleled sacrifices--introduced
into the code of Civilization, and she will prove herself
recreant, if she fails to maintain it.--JOSIAH QUINCY, _Address
before the Union Club of Boston, February 27, 1863_.
* * * * *
If British merchants look with eagerness to the event of the
struggle in South America, no doubt they do so with the hope of
deriving advantage from that event. But on what is such hope
founded? On the diffusion of beggary, on the maintenance of
ignorance, on the confirmation of slavery, on the establishment
of tyranny in America? No; these are the expectations of
Ferdinand. The British merchant builds his hopes of trade and
profit on the progress of civilization and good government, on
the successful assertion of Freedom,--of Freedom, that parent
of talent, that parent of heroism, that parent of every virtue.
The fate of South America can only be accessory to commerce as
it becomes accessory to the dignity and the happiness of the
race of man.--SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, _Speech in Parliament, on
the Foreign Enlistment Bill, June 10, 1819_.
* * * * *
When a power comparable only to Thugs, buccaneers, and
cannibals tries to thrust its hideous head among nations, and
claims the protection and privileges of International Law,--a
power which rose against the freest rule on earth for the
avowed motive of propagating the worst form of Slavery ever
known, having no legitimate complaint, or, if it had, certainly
trying no constitutional means of redress, but plunging at once
into arms, and that when the arsenals had been emptied and the
fortresses seized by the treason of office-holders,--I hold it
to be an offence against law, order, and public morality for a
statesman whose words carry weight to speak at all of such a
power without declaring abhorrence of it.--PROFESSOR FRANCIS W.
NEWMAN, _Letter to Mr. Gladstone, December 1, 1862_.
* * * * *
I blame men who are eager to admit into the Family of Nations a
state which offers itself to us, based upon a principle, I will
undertake to say, more odious and more blasphemous than was
ever heretofore dreamed of in Christian or Pagan, in civilized
or in savage times. The leaders of this revolt propose this
monstrous thing: that over a territory forty times as large
as England the blight and curse of Slavery shall be forever
perpetuated.--JOHN BRIGHT, _Speech at Birmingham, December 18,
1862_.
* * * * *
We are already culpable for a part of this bloody war; for,
better informed or less indifferent, less selfish or more
adroit, above all, more wise, more sincerely the friends
of what is right, we could, from London and Paris, have
thrown into the midst of the combatants this declaration,
which would have rendered the conflict ephemeral: “Never
will either England or France, Christian nations, liberal
nations, recognize the existence of a people seeking to found
Liberty and Independence on Slavery!” The misfortune of the
times, in obscuring our judgment, in dulling our passion for
the beautiful ideas of Freedom, has, then, already made us
participants, in some respect, in the rebellion of the people
of the South, and, in order to mask what was gross and low in
our voluntary error, we set up vague reasons of commercial
policy and general policy at which our fathers would have
blushed.… The truth is, that the revolt of the South is the
most impudent and most odious insult that has ever been offered
to the ideas of modern Civilization.--JOURNAL DES ÉCONOMISTES,
Avril, 1864, Tom. XLII. p. 88.
The following speech[1] was delivered at the invitation of the
New York Young Men’s Republican Union, at Cooper Institute,
on the 10th of September, 1863. The announcement that Mr.
Sumner had consented to address the citizens of New York on
a subject so momentous attracted an audience numbering not
less than three thousand persons, among whom were most of the
acknowledged representatives of the intelligence, wealth, and
influence of the metropolis. Long before the hour appointed for
the delivery of the speech, the entrance-doors were besieged by
an impatient and anxious crowd, who, as soon as the gates were
opened, filled the seats, aisles, lobbies, and platform of the
vast hall, leaving at least an equal number to return home,
unable to gain an entrance to the building.
Of the following named gentlemen, who were invited to occupy
seats upon the platform, a majority were present, while in
the auditorium were hundreds of equally prominent citizens,
who preferred to retain seats near the ladies whom they had
escorted to the meeting.
Francis Lieber, LL.D., George Bancroft, Major-General Dix,
Horace Greeley, George Griswold, John E. Williams, W. W.
DeForest, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Abram Wakeman, Rev. Dr. Tyng,
Cyrus W. Field, Alexander T. Stewart, Horace Webster, LL.D.,
Joseph Lawrence, John A. Stevens, Pelatiah Perit, James A.
Hamilton, H. B. Claflin, T. L. Thornell, Colonel William
Borden, William Goodell, Rev. Dr. Thompson, Rev. Dr. Gillette,
William Cullen Bryant, Major-General Fremont, A. A. Low,
John Jay, Henry Grinnell, James Gallatin, Cephas Brainerd,
William B. Astor, William H. Aspinwall, Oliver Johnson, W. M.
Evarts, William Curtis Noyes, Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, Shepherd
Knapp, William H. Webb, James W. Gerard, Anson Livingston,
Frank W. Ballard, Isaac H. Bailey, George B. Lincoln, General
Harvey Brown, Rev. Dr. Shedd, Rev. Dr. Durbin, Peter Cooper,
Major-General Doubleday, Charles H. Marshall, Marshall O.
Roberts, Judge Bradford, Charles H. Russell, E. Delafield
Smith, Hamilton Fish, Robert B. Minturn, Rev. Dr. Cheever, F.
B. Cutting, Charles King, LL.D., Rev. Dr. Ferris, Ex-Governor
King, George Folsom, Samuel B. Ruggles, S. B. Chittenden,
Charles T. Rodgers, Mark Hoyt, Lewis Tappan, Rev. Dr. Storrs,
Rev. Dr. Adams, Rev. Dr. Vinton, Daniel Drew, Francis Hall,
George William Curtis, Judge Edmonds, Rev. Dr. Asa D. Smith,
Truman Smith, William A. Hall, Prosper M. Wetmore, B. F.
Manierre, George P. Putnam, E. C. Johnson, Rev. Dr. Osgood,
Elliott C. Cowdin, Rev. T. Ralston Smith, J. S. Schultz, M.
Armstrong, Jr., D. A. Hawkins, Edgar Ketchum, Joseph Hoxie,
Rev. Dr. Bellows, General S. C. Pomeroy, James McKaye, George
F. Butman, David Dudley Field.
David Dudley Field, Esq., who had been selected by the
Committee as Chairman of the meeting, introduced Mr. Sumner to
the audience in the following words.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--At no former period in the history
of the country has the condition of its foreign relations
been so important and so critical as it is at this moment.
In what agony of mortal struggle this nation has passed the
last two years we all know. A rebellion of unparalleled
extent, of indescribable enormity, without any justifiable
cause, without even a decent pretext, stimulated by the
bad passions which a barbarous institution had originated,
and encouraged by expected and promised aid from false men
among ourselves, has filled the land with desolation and
mourning. During this struggle it has been our misfortune
to encounter the evil disposition of the two nations of
Western Europe with which we are most closely associated
by ties of blood, common history, and mutual commerce.
Perhaps I ought to have said the evil disposition of the
governments, rather than of the nations; for in France the
people have no voice, and we know only the imperial will
and policy, while in England the masses have no powers, the
House of Commons being elected by a fraction of the people,
and the aristocratic classes being against us from dislike
to the freedom of our institutions, and the mercantile
classes from the most sordid motives of private gain. To
what extent this evil disposition has been carried, what
causes have stimulated it, in what acts it has manifested
itself, and what consequences may be expected to follow
from it in future, will be explained by the distinguished
orator who is to address you this evening. His position as
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has
given him an acquaintance with the subject equal, if not
superior, to that of any other person in the country. He
needs no introduction from me. His name is an introduction
and a passport in any free community between the Atlantic
and the Pacific seas; therefore, without saying more, I
will give way for CHARLES SUMNER, of Massachusetts.”
Amid the most marked demonstrations of satisfaction, expressed
frequently by long-continued applause and hearty cheers, Mr.
Sumner proceeded in the delivery of his discourse. The meeting
adjourned about an hour before midnight.
Three New York newspapers and two in Boston printed the entire
speech on the day following its delivery.