“Although Mr. Sumner, and Massachusetts at his back, are
disposed to move faster than the rest of the North upon the
Slavery Question, there is no doubt that whatever amount of
injury, consistent with the Laws of War, inflicted on the
South, will bring this Rebellion most speedily to an end
will find the next Congress prepared at least to consider
it. Mr. Sumner has proved very conclusively, that, as a
punishment to Rebels and bad citizens, the manumission of
the slaves is fully recognized by those old Roman laws
which the South-Carolinians have been so fond of quoting in
their own behalf. But Mr. Sumner has not proved, we think,
that it would be policy to adopt at once and irrevocably so
extreme a measure as to set at liberty some four millions
of slaves.”
_Le Messager Franco-Américain_, a French journal at New York,
thus balanced the account:--
“Mr. Charles Sumner, the eloquent Senator of Massachusetts,
is indefatigable in his devotion to the cause of Free
Labor. Always in the breach with the ardor of a true
patriot and of a friend of Liberty, he contends without
cessation for the triumph of those great principles
of Right and Justice consecrated by the National
Constitution.… Mr. Sumner is a light of the Antislavery
army. He sees the cause of right and of country in danger.
As a vigilant sentinel, he gives the signal of alarm. Let
the civil war continue, and the cry of Emancipation by Mr.
Sumner will find powerful echoes in the Northern States.
The conservative and honest population at the South should
reflect upon this.”
Crossing the ocean, the same differences appear, with allusions
to the character of the war. Here was evident disposition
to recognize in Mr. Sumner exceptional earnestness against
Slavery, while the country was worse than indifferent. This
view was presented by no less a person than the Earl of
Shaftesbury, in a speech at a public meeting, reported in the
London _Times_, July 25, 1861, where he said:--
“There had, however, been no great feeling in the country
for either one or the other of the parties; for the country
did not believe in the sincerity of either. The North had
conceded everything to Slavery that it could possibly
demand; so the South had certainly no cause for rebellion.
But in the struggle they were entering on, the North never
thought of putting an end to Slavery; for, _if such a
declaration had been made, they would have had the sympathy
of every man in England_: he was almost afraid to say how
far he thought that sympathy would have gone.… There was
no honest feeling on the subject of Slavery in America,
except among the Abolitionists headed by that great and
good man, Charles Sumner.”
Similar expressions of good-will to Mr. Sumner had appeared in
France. Besides allusions in the writings of M. Laboulaye and
M. Cochin, there was a contemporary notice in a letter from
Washington, of August 12, 1861, in the _Opinion Nationale_ of
Paris, evidently by a gentleman who accompanied Prince Napoleon
on his summer tour in the United States.
“I have been present at sessions of the Senate and House
of Representatives. I have had pointed out to me the
most influential members of both parties, … Mr. Sumner,
Massachusetts Senator, acknowledged leader of the
Abolitionists, an amiable, educated man, having travelled
much in France, the friend of De Tocqueville, and very well
versed in our literature.”[195]
In harmony with this testimony was the sketch by Colonel
Ferri-Pisani, aide-de-camp of Prince Napoleon, in his letter
from Washington of August 10, 1861.
“The person with whom the Prince has formed the most
sympathetic relations is Mr. Sumner, Senator of the
State of Massachusetts (Boston), and declared partisan
of the Abolition of Slavery. Mr. Sumner is one of the
most eloquent men of the United States, a mind highly
instructed, very cultivated, especially versed in French
literature, which he studied in France. He was the friend
of De Tocqueville, and is personally connected with a great
number of our writers and thinkers. His manners are as
distinguished as his intelligence. He inspires among the
partisans of the South a furious hate; in return, he passes
for the warmest partisan of the French alliance, and for
the friend of our Legation.”[196]
These testimonies prepare the way for expressions which found
utterance abroad after the speech at Worcester, and help
explain the notice it received.
The London _Times_, always against the Union in its efforts to
put down the Rebellion, said:--
“While statesmen, merchants, and bankers are laboring to
carry on a suicidal war in a conservative spirit, and to
spare the interests and prejudices of the foe, a more
numerous class from the Atlantic to the Mississippi have
no such scruple, and go to the root of the evil. Slavery,
they are told by one of the most eloquent of the agitators,
himself a martyr in the cause, is the original sin of
the Union, the cause of every subsequent dissension, the
occasion of this war, and, what is more, the strength
of the wrong cause, and the weakness of the right. Mr.
Sumner refers to Slavery every misery, every mishap, every
difficulty of the Federal cause,--and tells listening
thousands that all they do, the sacrifices they make, their
taxation, their life-blood, their commercial interests,
everything they have, suffer, do, or hope, is all flung
into that Maelström, never to reappear. The whole American
nation, with all its wealth and all its glory, is flung as
a holocaust before the shrine of this hideous idol. The
remedy he proclaims is to give up the weak scruple which
paralyzes a righteous arm. Mr. Sumner sees in this war not
merely a call to rally round a Constitution, to punish
treason, and reinstate a mighty power; he sees a call to
a higher level of humanity, and a sublimer doctrine. “Not
Union, but Freedom,”[197] is his cry. This is the fated
weapon for the decision of the contest. This alone can
defeat the foe, whose strength is in Slavery.…
“Now all this we have heard before. It is a story in Mr.
Sumner’s mouth, and according to him it is as old as the
Declaration of Independence itself, and the first struggles
of the Commonwealth. What, we have to ask, is its fresh
significance at the present hour? According to Mr. Sumner,
its significance is most critical. Slavery he makes out to
be the very balance on which the fortunes of America now
hang.…
“Every nation in the world has had to give up its
pretensions at one time or another; and the Federal
Government will only follow the example of the most
powerful sovereigns and the wisest ministers, if it
makes peace in time, before it is committed to a treble
war,--with the Confederates, the British, and its own
Abolitionists at home.”
The London _Herald of Peace_, in its opposition to the war,
took pains to insist that it was not Antislavery,--forgetting
that the North, even when failing to demand the abolition of
Slavery, sought its limitation, and that the new Government
openly declared Slavery its corner-stone. After setting forth
Mr. Sumner’s “proposal to use the War Power to proclaim at
once, as respects the Rebels, the emancipation of their
slaves,” and that “the speech was received with many
demonstrations of applause,” it dwells on the circumstances
favoring the effort: that it was in Massachusetts, of all
the States “the most forward in the Antislavery cause”; that
“the subject was presented by one whose judgment they were
most bound to honor, and whose lead they were most likely to
follow,” whom it describes.
“Mr. Sumner is a man of whom Massachusetts might well be
proud. His great abilities, his lofty spirit, his spotless
public life, mark him as a man standing apart, not to be
confounded with the crowd of selfish politicians that
besiege the avenues of power in America. He has stood
forward in evil days to encounter with an undaunted mien
the obloquy and the peril attaching to the avowal of
thorough Antislavery principles, and has been not the
champion merely, but the martyr of the cause.”
After this presentation, it goes on to ask, “Well, and what
was the reception which Mr. Sumner’s proposal met from the
Republican Convention of the State of Massachusetts?” It finds
an answer in the refusal to act on the resolutions of Mr.
Clarke, and then says:--
“After all this, we sincerely hope we shall hear no more
of this war as a war for the liberation of the slave, as a
‘sublime uprising’ of the men of the North for the cause of
Human Freedom.”
The London _Post_, which did not sympathize with the National
cause, said:--
“If the Federal Government are in want of an _ex parte_
defender, they will certainly find one in Mr. Charles
Sumner. When he tells the Republican State Convention
at Worcester, that Rebellion never assumed such a front
since Satan made war upon the Almighty, he used first the
hyperbolical language which the most abject courtier of an
absolute monarch in the Middle Ages could have suggested
in condemnation of some insurrection that had broken out
in one of his provinces.… _Mr. Sumner narrows the question
now dividing the North and South distinctly into a war
of Slavery._ Hence he appeals to European sympathies in
behalf of the North. Now this view is in great part true,
yet it is not wholly true.… It is not simply in respect
of Slavery, as Mr. Sumner represents it, that the South
differs from the North. The leading men of the South
were commonly of different extraction from the leading
men of the North. That difference has developed a broad
distinction in social habits, in political ideas, in
consent to authority, and in other characteristics which
constitute the idiosyncrasy of a nation.… We cannot,
therefore, agree with Mr. Sumner, that the question
is essentially and wholly a slave question, any more
than we can regard the secession as a rebellion against
quasi-Divine authority.”
But the National cause was not without defenders abroad, nor
the speech without sympathy.
The London _Daily News_, in an elaborate leader, with an
abstract of the speech, said:--
“The most remarkable circumstance which we have yet
chronicled is the speech of Mr. Charles Sumner in defence
of the war.… We regard Mr. Sumner’s speech as most
important in every point of view. It is the best answer
which has been yet made on American ground to those who
complain that hitherto the cause of the North has not met
with the sympathy it deserved in Britain. But passing
this, it shows to the Northerners themselves what it is
that paralyzes their arms, what it is that places them so
generally on the defensive and prevents their success.
Let Mr. Sumner’s policy be adopted, and it would not only
strike terror into the hearts of the Rebels, but would
animate the masses of volunteers in the North with a
‘spirit which would render them still more formidable.’”
A London commercial paper, _The Floating Cargoes Evening List_,
published a considerable extract, with a line from the speech
as its caption, “Look at the war as you will, and you always
see Slavery,” and the following notice:--
“The present American war exercises so powerful an
influence upon commercial affairs in general, that the
expression of an opinion on this subject by one of the most
eminent American statesmen deserves special notice.”