“Mr. Sumner’s speech is not, therefore, a mere rehearsal
and arraignment of national wrongs already endured. It is
a protest and a warning against those which are imminently
threatened. In showing how deeply, flagrantly, France and
England have already sinned against us, he admonishes
them against persistence in the evil course on which they
have entered, against aggravating beyond endurance the
indignities and outrages they have already heaped upon us.…
Mr. Sumner’s is the authentic voice, not of the mob, but of
the people. He utters the sentiments of the conscientious,
the intelligent, the peace-loving. His inoffensive protest
against the wrongs to which we have been subjected is
utterly devoid of swagger or menace. It is a simple, but
most cogent demonstration, by the application thereto of
the established principles of International Law, of the
systematic injustice to which we as a people have been
subjected. A miracle of historical and statesmanlike
erudition, his address is severe without being harsh,--an
indictment judicial in its calmness, its candor, its
resistless cogency.”