Attacks upon the speech were not prompted exclusively by
friendship to Slavery. Personal opposition to Mr. Sumner, never
mitigated by compromise on his part, found vent, in the hope
of influencing his reëlection as Senator, although this could
not occur till the next year. Such, at least, was the motive of
some. Hon. William Claflin, President of the Senate, wrote as
early as February 7, 1861, when the Crittenden Compromise was
finding support in Massachusetts:--
“The truth is, there is a desperate effort under the
surface to drive you from the Senate next winter, and,
if _nothing_ is done, it is feared by many that the
Conservative force will get so strong as to drive both you
and Andrew from your seats.”
A correspondent of the _Plymouth Memorial_ put this point
strongly.
“It is true, the country press spoke out and denounced this
attack upon Mr. Sumner, and the attempt which is being made
to take him from his place and put in it some weak-backed
quietist, who, afraid to look this thing in the face, would
palter weak commonplaces, and, while the patient writhed
in the paroxysms of pain, would administer soothing drops
instead of strong medicine to cure the disease. Mr. Sumner
struck at Worcester the key-note of an anthem that will,
ay, that is now being taken up by the people, and the sound
of which will put the croaking of these penny trumpets far
out of hearing.”
The _Norfolk County Journal_, by one of its correspondents,
explained the opposition.
“Of course no man with his eyes open needs to be told that
this furious onslaught on Mr. Sumner has very little to do
with this speech. _It is the opening of the war to defeat
his reëlection next fall._ A year ago the same papers made,
if possible, more savage attacks upon Mr. Andrew. Before
he was nominated every one of them opposed him, and after
his nomination not one of them supported him cordially; and
most of them predicted, that, though he might be carried
through by the Presidential election, yet in another year
the reaction would sweep him into oblivion. They will find
themselves equally mistaken about Mr. Sumner.”
Wendell Phillips, alluding to the assaults upon the speech,
wrote:--
“If it had no other advantage, suffice it that it shows you
who your personal enemies are.”
Not content with arraigning the policy proposed by Mr.
Sumner, his assailants became critics of another sort.
They insisted that he was wrong in his illustrations from
history,--misrepresenting the decree of Emancipation at Athens,
and misquoting Plutarch.
The decree of Emancipation can be read, and also the record of
the excitement which followed. That Hyperides at a desperate
moment proposed Emancipation as a measure of defence against a
triumphant conqueror is indisputable, and that such a measure
was already known in Athens among war powers is attested by the
scholiast of Aristophanes,[177] while a candid interpretation
of all the circumstances, including the acceptable peace
unexpectedly offered by Philip, points to the conclusion that
the latter was unwilling to provoke this untried warfare.[178]
This incident is described by a French writer, who gives to it
the same effect as Mr. Sumner:--
“Philippe, au bruit de cette proposition, dont l’adoption
pouvait ébranler la Grèce entière, _s’arrêta, frappé
d’épouvante_.”[179]
The heaviest blows were on account of Plutarch, and here it
is not easy to comprehend the anger displayed. Endeavoring to
present the idea of Emancipation in its proper relief, Mr.
Sumner brought forward the proclamation of liberty to the
slaves, saying nothing of others joining Marius, according to
the familiar translation of Langhorne, well satisfied that
the slaves were the effective force; and the speech was so
reported in the newspapers. Then came the attack, with learned
newspaper _scholia_, garnished with Greek type, insisting that
the husbandmen and shepherds, called “freemen” in Langhorne’s
translation, and not the emancipated slaves, were authors of
the success which carried the illustrious adventurer into the
Roman Forum, there to clutch with dying grasp his seventh
consulate.
The text of Plutarch is the best answer. That interesting
biographer speaks of the slaves first, _putting the
Proclamation of Emancipation foremost_; and this is precisely
what was needed for the argument. Nor was Mr. Sumner alone
in omitting to mention particularly the husbandmen and
shepherds, whether freemen or freedmen. Good scholars had done
precisely the same. Dr. Liddell, head master of Westminster
School, and one of the authors of the favorite Greek Lexicon,
describing this event, gives prominence to the Proclamation of
Emancipation, without mentioning any freemen, saying: “Like
all the partisan leaders of this period, _he offered liberty
to slaves_, and soon found himself at the head of a large
force.”[180] Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography
and Mythology says that Marius “landed at Telamo in Etruria,
and, _proclaiming freedom to the slaves_, began to collect
a large force.”[181] And the great historian Niebuhr, after
referring to his landing on the coast of Etruria, where he
was joined by Etruscan cohorts, adds,--“Marius was not at all
delicate in collecting troops, and even _restored slaves to
freedom on condition of their taking up arms for him_.”[182]
Thus both these authorities, in harmony with Dr. Liddell, treat
the Proclamation as the chief feature, precisely as Mr. Sumner
presented it, and all three leave out of view the “freemen.”
Admitting that there were “freemen,” their part was evidently
secondary, unless in reality they were the new-made “freedmen,”
as a scholar has suggested. The predominance of the latter
is conspicuous in the old English translation by Sir Thomas
North:[183] “_And being landed, proclaimed by sound of
trumpet liberty to all slaves and bondmen that would come to
him._ So the laborers, herdmen, and neat-herds of all that
marsh, for the only name and reputation of Marius, ran to
the seaside from all parts.” It appears also in the historic
fact, that, when Marius landed in Etruria, there were few or
no husbandmen and shepherds already free. They were slaves.
According to Plutarch, the first prompting of Tiberius Gracchus
to his career as a reformer was observation in this very
region. Passing through Etruria, on the way to Spain, he was
troubled to find “scarce any husbandmen or shepherds except
slaves from foreign and barbarous nations.”[184] Niebuhr,
following Plutarch, says that “he saw far and wide no free
laborers, but numbers of slaves in chains.”[185] The language
is strong,--“far and wide no free laborers.” This was 137
years B. C. Somewhat later, 45 years B. C., Julius Cæsar by
positive law required that of herdmen one third should always
be free,[186] thus showing that two thirds at least were then
slaves. It is only reasonable to suppose, that, if slaves were
everywhere at the earlier date, and so numerous at the later
date, it would have been impossible at the landing of Marius,
87 years B. C., to form an army of freemen in a few days. Only
fourteen years later the gladiator Spartacus called the slaves
to his standard, and they came by tens of thousands, so as to
stifle the local power; and here again is testimony to their
comparative numbers.
Nothing is clearer than the diminution of the free population
of Italy at this period. An excellent authority speaks of it
as “the most notorious evil of the times”;[187] and this is
attested by others. It is easy to infer that the freemen must
have been few by the side of the slaves. Naturally, therefore,
did the experienced general make his appeal to this most
numerous and sympathetic class: he knew that so his strength
would be best assured. And this was the very position of Mr.
Sumner. It is evident that Plutarch himself was of the same
opinion; for shortly afterwards, in narrating these events,
he records that the other side did not suffer so much through
incapacity “as by anxious and unseasonable attention to
the laws,”[188] in preventing Emancipation. This important
testimony is most vividly stated in the old translation of
North, when he describes the opponent of Marius in Rome as
failing “not so much for lack of reasonable skill of wars _as
through his unprofitable curiosity and strictness in observing
the law_; for, when divers did persuade him to set the bondmen
at liberty to take arms for defence of the Commonwealth,
he answered, that he would never give bondmen the law and
privilege of a Roman citizen, having driven Caius Marius out
of Rome to maintain the authority of the law.”[189] Here was
passion for consistency, and want of practical sense. Marius
was not troubled in this way.
Another circumstance makes the conclusion yet clearer. On
entering Rome, Marius surrounded himself, according to
Plutarch, “with a guard _selected_ from the slaves that had
repaired to his standard,”[190] or, according to the same
authority in another place, “the slaves, whom he had admitted
his fellow-soldiers,“[191] thus attesting still further their
superior importance. In the troubles that ensued these freedmen
played a bloody part, until they were destroyed by Sertorius;
and here again their numbers appear. According to Plutarch,
the guard ”_selected_ from the slaves that had repaired to his
standard” was four thousand,[192] or not far from the ordinary
complement of a Roman legion, which the accomplished scholar,
Mr. George Long, tells us was the very force collected by
Marius in Etruria.[193] Plainly, therefore, the emancipated
slaves constituted the main body, if not the whole legion.
Whatever may be the text of Plutarch, and supposing freemen
among the recruits, nothing can prevent the conclusion, that
emancipated slaves constituted the decisive force by which
success was achieved. Therefore this example illustrates the
efficacy of a proclamation giving freedom to slaves, and for
this purpose it was adduced.
This discussion seems a diversion now; but at the time of the
speech the criticism was a reality,[194] attracting attention
and helping to arrest the great cause. To cap the climax, it
was gravely argued, that, even if the Proclamation had the
effect attributed to it, we must not imitate Caius Marius,--for
he was no better than a barbarian.