MR. CHAIRMAN: I sympathize heartily with the spirit of the resolutions.
The events of the last few years and months and days have taught us
the lessons of centuries. I do not see how a barbarous community and
a civilized community can constitute one state. I think we must get
rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom. Life has not parity of
value in the free state and in the slave state. In one, it is adorned
with education, with skilful labor, with arts, with long prospective
interests, with sacred family ties, with honor and justice. In the
other, life is a fever; man is an animal, given to pleasure, frivolous,
irritable, spending his days in hunting and practising with deadly
weapons to defend himself against his slaves and against his companions
brought up in the same idle and dangerous way. Such people live for the
moment, they have properly no future, and readily risk on every passion a
life which is of small value to themselves or to others. Many years ago,
when Mr. Webster was challenged in Washington to a duel by one of these
madcaps, his friends came forward with prompt good sense and said such
a thing was not to be thought of; Mr. Webster’s life was the property of
his friends and of the whole country, and was not to be risked on the
turn of a vagabond’s ball. Life and life are incommensurate. The whole
state of South Carolina does not now offer one or any number of persons
who are to be weighed for a moment in the scale with such a person as
the meanest of them all has now struck down. The very conditions of the
game must always be,—the worst life staked against the best. It is the
best whom they desire to kill. It is only when they cannot answer your
reasons, that they wish to knock you down. If, therefore, Massachusetts
could send to the Senate a better man than Mr. Sumner, his death would be
only so much the more quick and certain. Now, as men’s bodily strength,
or skill with knives and guns, is not usually in proportion to their
knowledge and mother-wit, but oftener in the inverse ratio, it will only
do to send foolish persons to Washington, if you wish them to be safe.
The outrage is the more shocking from the singularly pure character of
its victim. Mr. Sumner’s position is exceptional in its honor. He had
not taken his degrees in the caucus and in hack politics. It is notorious
that, in the long time when his election was pending, he refused to
take a single step to secure it. He would not so much as go up to the
state house to shake hands with this or that person whose good will was
reckoned important by his friends. He was elected. It was a homage to
character and talent. In Congress, he did not rush into party position.
He sat long silent and studious. His friends, I remember, were told that
they would find Sumner a man of the world like the rest; ‘’tis quite
impossible to be at Washington and not bend; he will bend as the rest
have done.’ Well, he did not bend. He took his position and kept it. He
meekly bore the cold shoulder from some of his New England colleagues,
the hatred of his enemies, the pity of the indifferent, cheered by the
love and respect of good men with whom he acted; and has stood for the
North, a little in advance of all the North, and therefore without
adequate support. He has never faltered in his maintenance of justice and
freedom. He has gone beyond the large expectation of his friends in his
increasing ability and his manlier tone. I have heard that some of his
political friends tax him with indolence or negligence in refusing to
make electioneering speeches, or otherwise to bear his part in the labor
which party organization requires. I say it to his honor. But more to
his honor are the faults which his enemies lay to his charge. I think,
sir, if Mr. Sumner had any vices, we should be likely to hear of them.
They have fastened their eyes like microscopes for five years on every
act, word, manner and movement, to find a flaw,—and with what result?
His opponents accuse him neither of drunkenness nor debauchery, nor
job, nor speculation, nor rapacity, nor personal aims of any kind. No;
but with what? Why, beyond this charge, which it is impossible was ever
sincerely made, that he broke over the proprieties of debate, I find him
accused of publishing his opinion of the Nebraska conspiracy in a letter
to the people of the United States, with discourtesy. Then, that he is
an abolitionist; as if every sane human being were not an abolitionist,
or a believer that all men should be free. And the third crime he stands
charged with, is, that his speeches were written before they were spoken;
which, of course, must be true in Sumner’s case, as it was true of
Webster, of Adams, of Calhoun, of Burke, of Chatham, of Demosthenes; of
every first-rate speaker that ever lived. It is the high compliment he
pays to the intelligence of the Senate and of the country. When the same
reproach was cast on the first orator of ancient times by some caviller
of his day, he said, “I should be ashamed to come with one unconsidered
word before such an assembly.” Mr. Chairman, when I think of these most
small faults as the worst which party hatred could allege, I think I may
borrow the language which Bishop Burnet applied to Sir Isaac Newton, and
say that Charles Sumner “has the whitest soul I ever knew.”
Well, sir, this noble head, so comely and so wise, must be the target for
a pair of bullies to beat with clubs. The murderer’s brand shall stamp
their foreheads wherever they may wander in the earth. But I wish, sir,
that the high respects of this meeting shall be expressed to Mr. Sumner;
that a copy of the resolutions that have been read may be forwarded to
him. I wish that he may know the shudder of terror which ran through all
this community on the first tidings of this brutal attack. Let him hear
that every man of worth in New England loves his virtues; that every
mother thinks of him as the protector of families; that every friend
of freedom thinks him the friend of freedom. And if our arms at this
distance cannot defend him from assassins, we confide the defence of
a life so precious to all honorable men and true patriots, and to the
Almighty Maker of men.[149]