“For more than twenty years, Mr. President and fellow-citizens,
I have been on terms of the closest intimacy with Charles
Sumner. For more than one half that period I have been his
political opponent. It is precisely because I have been, and
now am, his personal friend, and it is precisely because I have
been, and now am, his political opponent, that I have come
here to-night,--not with the intention of speaking upon this
platform, but to listen to the voices of those who are his
political as well as personal friends, in relation to the great
outrage which has brought a stain upon our country.
“I have heard here, Gentlemen, a great deal of sympathy
expressed for Mr. Sumner. As his personal friend, I beg to say
that that feeling is entirely uncalled for, if not to some
extent misplaced. Have sympathy for the great martyrs of the
past, for those who wear the civic crown, if you will,--but I
tell you that that gentleman in Washington who now lies upon a
bed of pain, whose life it may be is hanging in the balance,
needs no sympathy from us. Every drop of blood shed by him in
this disgraceful affair has raised up ten thousand armed men.
[_Applause._] Every gash upon that forehead will be covered
with a political crown, let it be resisted as much as it may
be resisted, here or elsewhere. [_Loud cheers._] This matter
is raised far above and beyond all personal considerations.
It is a matter of trifling consequence to Mr. Sumner. It
makes those who love him love him more,--and no man is more
loved, or more to be considered, so far as the affections or
friendship are concerned. Yet personal feelings are of little
or no consequence in this outrage. It is a blow not merely at
Massachusetts, a How not merely at the name and fame of our
common country; it is a blow at constitutional liberty all the
world over; it is a stab at the cause of Universal Freedom. It
is aimed at all men, everywhere, who are struggling for what
we now regard as our great birthright, and which we intend to
transmit unimpaired to our latest posterity. [_Loud cheers._]
“Whatever may be done in this matter, however, one thing is
certain, one thing is sure. The blood of this Northern man, who
had dared to stand up in the Senate of the United States under
circumstances that would have discouraged a man of less ardor,
less enthusiasm, and less courage,--that blood now stains the
Senate floor; and let me tell you, that not all the water of
the Potomac can wash it out. They may cry, with the great
tragic queen, ‘Out, damned spot!’ but no water of this world
can ever efface it. Forever, forever and aye, that stain will
plead in silence for liberty, wherever man is enslaved, for
humanity all over the world, for truth and for justice, now and
forever. [_Continued applause._]”
The meeting at Cambridge was distinguished for the character of those
who took part in it, many of whom had not sympathized with Mr. Sumner
in his public life. The President was Hon. Joel Parker, formerly
Chief Justice of New Hampshire; and among the Vice-Presidents were
Theophilus Parsons, the eminent law-writer,--C. C. Felton, afterwards
President of Harvard University,--Jared Sparks, the historian,--Henry
W. Longfellow,--Charles Beck, the Latin scholar,--Joseph E. Worcester,
the lexicographer,--Willard Phillips, the law-writer and judge,--Joseph
T. Buckingham, the well-known editor.