SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON THE RATIFICATION OF THE TREATY BETWEEN THE
UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA, APRIL 9, 1867.
Thirteen governments founded on the natural authority of the
people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and
_which are destined to spread over the northern part of that
whole quarter of the globe_, are a great point gained in favor
of the rights of mankind.--JOHN ADAMS, _Preface to his Defence
of the American Constitutions_, dated Grosvenor Square, London,
January 1, 1787: Works, Vol. IV. p. 293.
* * * * *
Barbarous and stupid Xerxes, how vain was all thy toil to
cover the Hellespont with a floating bridge! Thus rather
wise and prudent princes join Asia to Europe; they join and
fasten nations together, not with boards or planks or surging
brigandines, not with inanimate and insensible bonds, but
by the ties of legitimate love, chaste nuptials, and the
infallible gage of progeny.--PLUTARCH, _Morals_, ed. Goodwin,
Vol. I. p. 482.
* * * * *
Late in the evening of Friday, March 29, 1867, Mr. Sumner,
on reaching home, found this note from Mr. Seward awaiting
him: “Can you come to my house this evening? I have a matter
of public business in regard to which it is desirable that I
should confer with you at once.” Without delay he hurried to
the house of the Secretary of State, only to find that the
latter had left for the Department. His son, the Assistant
Secretary, was at home, and he was soon joined by Mr. de
Stoeckl, the Russian Minister. From the two Mr. Sumner learned
for the first time that a treaty was about to be signed for
the cession of Russian America to the United States. With a
map in his hand, the Minister, who had just returned from
St. Petersburg, explained the proposed boundary, according
to verbal instructions from the Archduke Constantine. After
a brief conversation, when Mr. Sumner inquired and listened
without expressing any opinion, they left together, the
Minister on his way to the Department, where the treaty was
copying. The clock was striking midnight as they parted, the
Minister saying with interest, “You will not fail us.” The
treaty was signed about four o’clock in the morning of March
30th, being the last day of the current session of Congress,
and on the same day transmitted to the Senate, and referred to
the Committee on Foreign Relations.
April 1st, the Senate was convened in Executive session by the
proclamation of the President of the United States, and the
Committee proceeded to the consideration of the treaty. The
Committee at the time was Messrs. Sumner (Chairman), Fessenden,
of Maine, Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Harlan, of Iowa, Morton, of
Indiana, Patterson, of New Hampshire, and Reverdy Johnson, of
Maryland. Carefully and anxiously they considered the question,
and meanwhile it was discussed outside. Among friendly
influences was a strong pressure from Hon. Thaddeus Stevens,
the acknowledged leader of the other House, who, though without
constitutional voice on the ratification of a treaty, could
not restrain his earnest testimony. Mr. Sumner was controlled
less by desire for more territory than by a sense of the amity
of Russia, manifested especially during our recent troubles,
and by an unwillingness to miss the opportunity of dismissing
another European sovereign from our continent, predestined,
as he believed, to become the broad, undivided home of the
American people; and these he developed in his remarks before
the Senate.
April 8th, the treaty was reported by Mr. Sumner without
amendment, and with the recommendation that the Senate advise
and consent thereto. The next day it was considered, when Mr.
Sumner spoke on the negotiation, its origin, and the character
of the ceded possessions. A motion by Mr. Fessenden to postpone
its further consideration was voted down,--Yeas 12, Nays 29.
After further debate, the final question of ratification was
put and carried on the same day by a vote of Yeas 37, Nays
2,--the Nays being Mr. Fessenden, and Mr. Morrill, of Vermont.
The ratifications were exchanged June 20th, and the same day
the treaty was proclaimed.
The debate was in Executive session, and no reporters were
present. Senators interested in the question invited Mr. Sumner
to write out his remarks and give them to the public. For some
time he hesitated, but, taking advantage of the vacation, he
applied himself to the work, following precisely in order and
subdivision the notes of a single page from which he spoke.
* * * * *
The speech was noticed at home and abroad. At home, the Boston
_Journal_, which published it at length, remarked:--
“This speech, it will be remembered, coming from the
Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and abounding
in a mass of pertinent information not otherwise accessible
to Senators, exerted a most marked, if not decisive, effect
in favor of the ratification of the treaty. Since then,
the rumors of Mr. Sumner’s exhaustive treatment of the
subject, together with the increasing popular interest in
our new territory, have stimulated a general desire for
the publication of the speech, which we are now enabled
to supply. As might be expected, the speech is a monument
of comprehensive research, and of skill in the collection
and arrangement of facts. It probably comprises about
all the information that is extant concerning our new
Pacific possessions, and will prove equally interesting
to the student of history, the politician, and the man of
business.”
A Russian translation, by Mr. Buynitzky, appeared at St.
Petersburg, with an introduction, whose complimentary character
is manifest in its opening:--
“Senator Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, appears, since
the election of Lincoln, as one of the most eloquent and
conspicuous representatives of the Republican party. His
name stands in the first rank of the zealous propagators of
Abolitionism, and all his political activity is directed
toward one object,--the completion of the glorious act of
enfranchisement of five millions of citizens by a series of
laws calculated to secure to freedmen the actual possession
of civil and political rights. As Chairman of the Senate
Committee upon Foreign Relations, Mr. Sumner attentively
watches the march of affairs in Europe generally; but, in
the course of the present decade, his particular attention
was attracted by the reforms which took place in Russia.
The emancipation of the peasants in our country was viewed
with the liveliest sympathy by the American statesman, and
this sympathy expressed itself eloquently in his speeches,
delivered on various occasions, as well in Congress as in
the State conventions of Massachusetts.”
A French writer, M. Cochin, whose work on Slavery is an
important contribution to the literature of Emancipation, in a
later work thus characterizes this speech:--
“All that is known on Russian America has just been
presented in a speech, abundant, erudite, eloquent, poetic,
pronounced before the Congress of the United States by the
great orator, Charles Sumner.”[1]
On the appearance of the speech, May 24th, Professor Baird, the
accomplished naturalist of the Smithsonian Institution, wrote,
expressing the hope that some Boston or New York publisher
would reprint what he called the “Essay” in a “book-form,”
adding: “It deserves some more permanent dress than that of a
speech from the _Globe_ office.” This is done for the first
time in the present publication.
* * * * *
These few notices, taken from many, are enough to show the
contemporary reception of the speech.