“Since I wrote last, we have had the opportunity of reading
Mr. Sumner’s speech entire. I know no instance in which it was
so necessary to have read the whole in order to understand any
part; and certainly I can recall no case in which careless
and conceited critics have cut a more wretched figure in
condemning a production before they understood it. They
supposed themselves on safe ground, when they cited passages
of denunciation, leaving (as such isolated passages must)
an impression that the speaker had outraged the principles
and spirit of legislative debate by personal imputation and
provocation to passion. Mr. Sumner’s own friends here regretted
what they saw, simply because personal accusation and insult
can never do any good, and must, in a crisis like that of your
polity, render a complete rupture inevitable. As soon as we got
the whole speech, however, the aspect of the quoted paragraphs
was entirely changed. Instead of a piece of stimulating
invective, we find the speech to be a chapter of history,
and an exposition, calm and rational, of the workings of a
social institution which is brought forward for discussion,
and so placed on its trial, by Mr. Sumner’s opponents. To me
it appears a production of altogether incalculable importance,
apart from its merits in detail. Till now, if we could have
met with such a phenomenon in England as a person who was not
convinced of the wickedness and folly of Slavery, we should not
have known where to turn for a compact, reliable, serviceable
statement of the modern case of slave and free labor.”
Another testimony, purporting to be “by a distinguished writer of
England,” appeared in the American papers at the time.
“Thanks, many thanks, for Sumner’s noble speech. It has been
read with swelling throats and tearful eyes. It is a mighty
effort towards wiping out the monstrous blot that disfigures
your fair country. I like well the way in which he takes head
after head of the foul Hydra, and severs each as completely
as ever Hercules did; yet his labor was child’s play in
comparison.”
To this English list may be joined a poem prompted by this speech.
The New York _Independent_, where it first appeared in our country,
announced that the initials subscribed to it were those of Mrs. L. W.
Fellowes, a daughter of Rowland Hill, originator of the cheap postage
system in England.
“TO CHARLES SUMNER.
“As one who wandering lone is sudden stirred
With a wild gush of hidden woodland singing,
Doth picture to himself the beauteous bird
That with sweet concord sets the greenwood ringing,
And gazes eager round, and is full fain
To mark the warbler fair, yet gazes still in vain,--
“So I, being melted to my inmost soul
By this thy noble plaint for Freedom’s sake,
Do grieve that ocean-tides between us roll,
And that I ne’er can see thee strive to break
The shackles, e’en more harsh than those that bind
The slave-born limbs,--the shackles of the mind.
“Go on, brave heart! and faint not, though thy way
Be rough and rude, and torn with many a thorn:
All England would thee hail, if some white day
Thou, harassed by thy country’s bitter scorn,
Shouldst seek our friendly shore, and rest awhile
Thy wearied soul in this our happy Isle.
“L. W. F.
“WOLVERHAMPTON, ENGLAND.”
This speech took its place in foreign bibliography. French writers who
discussed American Slavery cited it, among whom was that excellent
ally of our country, M. Édouard Laboulaye, who wrote always with equal
knowledge and friendship. After quoting the famous words by which
Wesley describes and blasts Slavery, he gives a definition from this
speech.
“The Americans of the North, who calculate even to the
beatings of the heart, have summed up this multifold crime
in five axioms. It is, say they, man become the property of
his fellow-man, marriage abolished, paternity destroyed,
intelligence systematically stifled, labor forced and
unpaid,--in other terms, tyranny, confiscation, and robbery.
Such are the essential vices of Slavery, vices independent
of the goodness or the wickedness of the master, vices
irremediable,--for to correct them is to acknowledge that the
Slave has some rights, it is to make a man of him, it is to
commence emancipation. Such, without exaggeration and without
declamation, is the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ as the eloquent
Senator of Massachusetts has justly called it.”