“I now introduce to you Massachusetts’--ay,
Boston’s--honored son. I need not praise him, I need not
eulogize him; but I will simply say, it is CHARLES SUMNER.”
The enthusiasm that followed Senator Sumner’s stepping on the
platform was not surpassed by anything that has been seen in
the Hall since Senator Webster took the same place on _his_
return from Washington years ago. The air below was dark with
waving hats, and along the galleries white with fluttering
kerchiefs. When the applause subsided, a colored man cried out,
“God bless Charles Sumner!” in an earnest, trembling, “tearful”
voice, and the applause was renewed.
The meeting is described as “of much enthusiasm on the part
of the overflowing audience that gathered and tried to gather
within the ancient walls.”
A few sentences from the London _Morning Star_ will show how
this effort was recognized at a distance.
“The Massachusetts Senator has lately had a meeting with
his constituents. Fragments and summaries of his speech
at Faneuil Hall have found their way into most English
newspapers. Let the sympathizers with the South produce,
if they can, from their side of Mason and Dixon’s line,
any utterance to compare with it in all the qualities that
should commend human speech to human audience.…
“This representative of a powerful community addresses
to his fellow-citizens considerations upon the conduct
of a war in which they and he are more deeply interested
than any English constituency has been in any war which
England has waged since the days of Cromwell. It is such
a speech as Hampden might have spoken in Buckinghamshire,
or Pym in the Guildhall. It treats both of principles and
policy,--of the means of success, and of the ends which can
alone sanctify the struggle or glorify success. It breathes
throughout the spirit of justice and of freedom.…
“Throughout his public life, Mr. Sumner has held the same
doctrines, expressed the same spirit.… He is the leader
of a party, as well as the representative of the first
New England State, and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Committee of Congress. Too advanced a thinker and too
pure a politician for office in a Cabinet undecided on
the Slavery Question, he has pioneered its way and shaped
its conclusions. Is he not a man whose name should check
the blustering apologists of Slavery and Secession?… The
Rebellion is just such a blow at the Union as Preston
Brooks struck at Charles Sumner; and yet there are English
hands and voices to applaud the deed, as worthy heroes of
patriotism and civilization.”
In urging Emancipation, Mr. Sumner always felt, that, besides
sustaining the cause of justice, he was helping our country
with foreign nations.