“We trust that the length of Mr. Sumner’s speech will deter
none from its perusal. It is what it professes to be, an
examination of the institution of Slavery itself,--and we
venture to say a more acute, comprehensive, exhaustive, and
powerful exposition of the whole subject never was made.
Whoever wants to understand what American Slavery is must
read this speech; whoever wants to make headway against the
ripening public feeling by defending Slavery must first try to
answer the arguments of this speech. If he does not, he will
be in danger of imitating the folly of Senator Chesnut, and,
through an exhibition of passion and scurrility, of becoming a
living illustration of its truths.… The nation has certainly
been drifting into a too general acquiescence in the doctrine,
upheld openly or insidiously by both factions of the Democratic
party, that slaves are property, precisely like any other
property known to the Common Law. Any utterance like this of
Mr. Sumner’s, which shall call the American people from this
disgraceful and dangerous conclusion, may well be generously
criticised in other respects.”
The _New Bedford Mercury_ had the following, in a letter from Boston.
“The chief event of interest, certainly to Bostonians, lately,
is the astonishing speech delivered by Charles Sumner, in his
place in the Senate, in which he takes up the Slavery Question
precisely where he left it off, when stricken down by the cane
of the deceased bully Brooks. Offensive as that speech proved
to the Slave-Masters, this one is ten times worse. This speech,
for the first time in the history of Congressional speeches,
sets forth, without the slightest veil or mincing of the
matter, the deformities, obliquities, and immoralities of the
Slavery system.”