It is a pleasure to be once more among the scenes of home; to look upon
familiar objects,--the State House, the Common, and well-known streets.
It is more pleasant still to behold the countenances of friends. And
all this pleasure, Sir, is enhanced by the welcome which you now give
me, in behalf of the beloved Commonwealth which for five years I have
served, honestly, earnestly, and constantly, in an important field of
duty, to which I was introduced by an unsought suffrage.
Sir, I thank you for this welcome. I thank, also, the distinguished
gentlemen who have honored this occasion by their presence. I thank,
too, these swelling multitudes who contribute to me the strength
and succor of their sympathies; and my soul overflows especially to
the young men of Boston, out of whose hearts, as from an exuberant
fountain, this broad-spreading hospitality took its rise.
My earnest desire, often expressed, has been, that I might be allowed
to return home quietly, without show or demonstration of any kind.
And this longing was enforced by my physical condition, which, though
vastly improved at this time, and advancing surely towards complete
health, is still exposed to the peril of relapse, or at least to the
arrest of those kindly processes of Nature essential to the restoration
of a shattered system. But the spontaneous kindness of this reception
makes me forget my weakness, makes me forget my desire for repose.
I thank you, Sir, for the suggestion of seclusion, and the security
which that suggestion promises to afford.
Something more, Sir, I would say, but I am admonished that voice and
strength will not permit. With your permission, therefore, I will hand
the reporters what I should be glad to say, that it may be printed.
[The remainder of the speech is printed from Mr. Sumner’s
manuscript.]
More than five months have passed since I was disabled from the
performance of my public duties. During this weary period I have been
constrained to repeat daily the lesson of renunciation,--confined at
first to my bed, and then only slowly regaining the power even to walk.
But, beyond the constant, irrepressible grief which must well up in the
breast of every patriot, as he discerns the present condition of his
country, my chief sorrow has been caused by the necessity, to which I
was doomed, of renouncing all part in the contest for human rights,
which, beginning in Congress, has since enveloped the whole land. The
Grecian chief, grievously ill of a wound from the stealthy bite of
a snake, and left behind while his companions sailed to the siege of
Troy, did not repine more at his enforced seclusion. From day to day
and week to week I vainly sought that health which we value most when
lost, and which perpetually eluded my pursuit. For health I strove, for
health I prayed. With uncertain steps I sought it at the seashore and I
sought it on the mountain-top.
“Two voices are there: one is of the sea,
One of the mountains; each a mighty voice:
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen music, Liberty!”[3]
I listened to the admonitions of medical skill, and I courted all the
bracing influences of Nature, while time passed without the accustomed
healing on its wings. I had confidently hoped to be restored so as
to take my seat in the Senate, and to be heard there again, long
before the session closed. But Congress adjourned, leaving me still an
invalid. My next hope was, that I might be permitted to appear before
the people during the present canvass, and with heart and voice plead
the great cause now in issue. Here again I have been disappointed,
and the thread of my disability is not yet spun to the end. Even now,
though happily lifted from long prostration, and beginning to assume
many of the conditions of health, I am constrained to confess that I am
an invalid,--cheered, however, by the assurance that I shall soon be
permitted, with unimpaired vigor, to resume all the responsibilities of
my position.
* * * * *
Too much have I said about myself; but you will pardon it to the
occasion, which, being personal in character, invites these personal
confessions. With more pleasure I turn to other things.
* * * * *
I should feel that I failed in one of those duties which the heart
prompts and the judgment confirms, if I allowed this first opportunity
to pass without sincerest acknowledgment to my able, generous, and
faithful colleague, Mr. Wilson. Together we labored in mutual trust,
honorably leaning upon each other. By my disability he was left sole
representative of Massachusetts on the floor of the Senate, throughout
months of heated contest, involving her good name and most cherished
sentiments. All who watched the currents of debate, even as imperfectly
as I did in my retirement, know with what readiness, courage, and power
he acted,--showing himself, by extraordinary energies, equal to the
extraordinary occasion. But it is my especial happiness to recognize
his unfailing sympathies for myself, and his manly assumption of all
the responsibilities of the hour.
I am not here to indulge in eulogy, nor to open any merit-roll of
service; but the same feeling which prompts these acknowledgments
to my colleague embraces also the Commonwealth from whom we have
received our trust. To Massachusetts, mother of us all,--great in
resources, great in children,--I now pledge anew my devotion. Never
before did she inspire equal pride and affection; for never before was
she so completely possessed by those sentiments which, when manifest
in Commonwealth or citizen, invest the character with its highest
charm, so that what is sown a natural body is raised a spiritual
body. My filial love does not claim too much, when it exhibits her
as approaching the pattern of a Christian Commonwealth, which,
according to the great English Republican, John Milton, “ought to be
but as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth and stature
of an honest man, as big and compact in virtue as in body.”[4] Not
through any worldly triumphs, not through the vaults of State Street,
the spindles of Lowell, or even the learned endowments of Cambridge,
is Massachusetts thus,--but because, seeking to extend everywhere
within the sphere of her influence the benign civilization which she
cultivates at home, she stands forth the faithful, unseduced supporter
of Human Nature. Wealth has its splendor, and the intellect has its
glory; but there is a grandeur in such service which is above all that
these can supply. For this she has already the regard of good men,
and will have the immortal life of history. For this she has also the
reproach and contumely always throughout the ages poured upon those
who have striven for justice on earth. Not now for the first time in
human struggles has Truth, when most dishonored, seemed most radiant,
gathering glory even out of obloquy. When Sir Harry Vane, courageous
champion of the English Commonwealth, was dragged on a hurdle up the
Tower Hill to suffer death by the axe, one of the multitude cried
out to him, “That is the most glorious seat you ever sat on!”[5]
And again, when Russell was exposed in the streets, on his way to a
similar scaffold, the people, according to the simple narrative of his
biographer, imagined they saw Liberty and Virtue sitting by his side.
Massachusetts is not without encouragement in her own history. She has
seen her ports closed by arbitrary power,--has seen her name made a
byword of reproach,--has seen her cherished leaders, Hancock and Adams,
excepted from all pardon by the crown; but then, when most dishonored,
did Massachusetts deserve most, for then was she doing most for the
cause of all. And now, when Massachusetts is engaged in a greater cause
than that of our fathers, how serenely can she turn from the scoff and
jeer of heartless men! Her only disgrace will be in disloyalty to the
truth which is to make her free.
Worse to bear--oh, far worse!--than the evil speaking of others
is the conduct of some of her own children. It is hard to see the
scholarship which has been drawn from her cisterns, and the riches
accumulated under her hospitable shelter, now employed to weaken and
discredit that cause which is above riches or scholarship. It is hard,
while fellow-citizens in Kansas plead for deliverance from a cruel
Usurpation, and while the whole country, including our own soil, is
trodden down by a domineering and brutal Despotism, to behold sons of
Massachusetts in sympathy, open or disguised, with the vulgar enemy,
quickening everywhere the lash of the taskmaster, and helping forward
the Satanic carnival, when Slavery shall be fastened not only upon
prostrate Kansas, but upon all the Territories of the Republic,--when
Cuba shall be torn from a friendly power by dishonest force,--and when
the slave-trade itself, with all its crime, its woe, and its shame,
shall be opened anew under the American flag. Alas, that any child of
Massachusetts, in wickedness of heart, or in weakness of principle, or
under the delusion of partisan prejudice, should join in these things!
With such I have no word of controversy at this hour. But, leaving
them now, in my weakness, I trust not to seem too severe, if I covet
for the occasion something of the divine power
“To bend the silver bow with tender skill,
While, void of pain, the silent arrows kill.”[6]
Gladly from these do I turn to another character, yet happily spared
to Massachusetts, whose heart beats strong with the best blood of
the Revolution, and with the best sentiments by which that blood was
enriched. The only child of one of the authors of American Liberty,
for many years the able and courageous Representative of Boston on the
floor of Congress, where his speeches were the masterpieces of the
time, distinguished throughout a long career by the grateful trust of
his fellow-citizens, happy in all the possessions of a well-spent life,
and surrounded by “honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,” with an
old age which is second youth, JOSIAH QUINCY, still erect under the
burden of eighty-four winters, puts himself at the head of our great
battle,--and never before, in the ardor of youth, or the maturity of
manhood, did he show himself so grandly conspicuous, and add so much to
the heroic wealth of our history. His undaunted soul, lifted already
to glimpses of another life, may shame the feebler spirits of a later
generation. There is one other personage, at a distant period, who,
with precisely the same burden of winters, asserted the same supremacy
of powers. It is the celebrated Dandolo, Doge of Venice, at the age of
eighty-four, of whom the historian Gibbon has said, in words strictly
applicable to our own Quincy: “He shone, in the last period of human
life, as one of the most illustrious characters of the times: under the
weight of years he retained a sound understanding and a manly courage,
the spirit of an hero and the wisdom of a patriot.”[7] This old man
carried the Venetian Republic over to the Crusaders, and exposed his
person freely to all the perils of war, so that the historian describes
him, in words again applicable to our day, saying: “In the midst of the
conflict, the Doge, a venerable and conspicuous form, stood aloft, in
complete armor, on the prow of his galley,” while “the great standard
of St. Mark was displayed before him.”[8] Before the form of our
venerable head is displayed the standard of a greater republic than
Venice, thrilling with its sight greater multitudes than ever gazed on
the standard of St. Mark, while a sublimer cause is ours than the cause
of the Crusaders; for our task is not to ransom an empty sepulchre,
but to rescue the Saviour himself, in the bodies of his innumerable
children,--not to dislodge the Infidel from a distant foreign soil, but
to displace him from the very Jerusalem of our Liberties.
* * * * *
May it please your Excellency, I forbear to proceed further. With
thanks for this welcome, accept also my new vows of duty. In all
simplicity let me say that I seek nothing but the triumph of Truth.
To this I offer my best efforts, careless of office or honor. Show me
that I am wrong, and I stop at once; but in the complete conviction
of right I shall persevere against all temptations, against all odds,
against all perils, against all threats,--knowing well, that, whatever
may be my fate, the Right will surely prevail. Terrestrial place is
determined by celestial observation. Only by watching the stars can
the mariner safely pursue his course; and it is only by obeying those
lofty principles which are above men and human passion that we can make
our way safely through the duties of life. In such obedience I hope to
live, while, as a servant of Massachusetts, I avoid no labor, shrink
from no exposure, and complain of no hardship.
The cavalcade then moved rapidly away, escorting Mr. Sumner to
his home in Hancock Street.
On arriving there, he was again welcomed with unbounded
enthusiasm by a large crowd assembled in the street and on the
sidewalks, the windows being filled on both sides up and down
the street. The crowd cheered vociferously for Mr. Sumner, his
mother, the Governor, Hon. Josiah Quincy, Hon. N. P. Banks, and
Hon. Anson Burlingame. Mr. Sumner and his mother appeared at
the window and bowed their acknowledgments, which called forth
general and enthusiastic plaudits. The multitude then, giving
three parting cheers for the distinguished Senator, separated,
and the ceremonies of reception terminated.
Many of the business firms closed their stores during the
afternoon. The paper agreeing to do so was headed by A. & A.
Lawrence & Co., Gardner Brewer & Co., Parker, Wilder, & Co.,
Denny, Rice, & Gardner, Wilkinson, Stetson, & Co., Blake,
Bigelow, & Co., Pierce Brothers & Flanders, &c.