“Mr. Sumner gives, within limits as brief as the nature of
the case would permit, the arguments which influenced the
Committee after a laborious investigation of the point in
dispute. He performs this duty in a temperate, lucid, and
convincing manner, rising above all asperity or excitement,
and viewing the question as it affects the best interests
of the human race. At the same time he has steered almost
entirely clear of the track marked out by Secretary Seward,
the great body of his argument being drawn from events and
precedents in the history of our own country.… We take the
greater pleasure in referring to the elaborate arguments
brought forward by Senator Sumner, inasmuch as certain
parties seem to think that Secretary Seward’s able reply
to Lord Lyons on this subject was nothing but a graceful
backing down before superior force,--that he strove to
hunt up precedents on behalf of a position which was in
fact defensible only because our Government could not
accept the gauntlet thrown down by that of Great Britain.
No unprejudiced person, we think, can peruse Mr. Sumner’s
speech without arriving at a different conclusion. It
should rather be an occasion for national congratulation
than humiliation, that Great Britain has, _de facto_,
abandoned her old ground, and planted herself on doctrines
and practice strictly, and for a time almost exclusively,
American.”