The Sumner family

See Genealogy of the Sumner Family, by William B. Trask. Boston: 1854.

At the age of ten years, Charles Sumner was found qualified to enter the Boston Latin School, then under the charge of the accomplished classical scholar Benjamin A. Gould, and noted, as at present, for its thorough and persistent drill in the inceptive classical studies. Here the tall and slender lad applied himself closely to his lessons; studying Adam's Latin Grammar (which Mr. Gould edited with ability), the Gloucester Greek Grammar, Euler's Algebra, Horne Tooke's Pantheon, Irving's Catechism, and reading Cornelius Nepos, Sallust, Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil; together with Jacobs's Greek Reader, Mattaire's Homer, and other books preparatory to admission to Harvard College. The late Joseph Palmer, M. D., was an assistant instructor in the school, but was not then conscious that he was moulding the spirit of one whom he was afterwards to greet as the leading speaker on behalf of freedom in America. Among his school companions at this period were George T. Bigelow, Robert C. Winthrop, George S. Hillard, James Freeman Clarke, Thomas B. Fox, William H. Channing, Samuel F. Smith the poet, and others who have since attained celebrity. Although Charles Sumner did not hold the highest rank in scholarship on the appointed lessons of his class, he was distinguished for the accuracy of his translations from the Latin classics, and for the brilliancy of his own original compositions. He received in 1824 the third prize for a translation from Sallust; when one of the examiners remarked, If he does this when a boy, what may we not expect of him when a man? Two years later he obtained a prize for a theme in English prose, and also another for a Latin poem. On graduating he was honored with the Franklin Medal. He is remembered by his schoolfellows at this period as being kind-hearted, thoughtful, courteous, though exhibiting some slight consciousness of being to the manor born. This last trait in his character sometimes drew a smile from the members of his family. On his lying in bed one morning until after the household had breakfasted, his mother rather sharply said to him as he came down, Why so late this morning, Charles? Call me Mr. Sumner, mother, if you please, said he, as if his dignity were offended; and so the point of the rebuke was broken.

Another anecdote exhibits the purity of his spirit at this period. A certain lady nearly of his own age was wont to meet him frequently on his way to school; when he would always greet her cheerfully with the salutation, Good morning! Macte Virtute (follow virtue), as if this saying were his creed. Whenever in after life she heard his name, this salutation came to her impressively, knowing as she did the strict integrity of his life.

He continued five years at the Latin School; when, at the age of fifteen, he was found well prepared for entering Harvard College, whose terms of admission were somewhat less exacting than at present.

In the year 1826 he commenced his studies in the classic halls of Cambridge. Among his classmates were, Thomas C. Amory, Jonathan W. Bemis, James Dana, Samuel M. Emery, John B. Kerr, Elisha R. Potter, Jonathan F. Stearns, George W. Warren, and Samuel T. Worcester. The accomplished John T. Kirkland was president of the university; and among the instructors were Edward T. Channing in rhetoric, Levi Hedge in logic, George Otis in Latin, John S. Popkin in Greek, George Ticknor in modern languages, and John Farrar in natural science. His room during his first year was No. 17, Stoughton Hall. In person he was at that time unusually tall for a youth of fifteen summers; and, though one of the six youngest of his class of forty-eight, he stood among his fellows in respect to height conspicuous. When he entered college, one of his classmates writes to me, he was tall, thin, and somewhat awkward. He had but little inclination for engaging in sports or games, such as kicking football on the Delta, which the other students were in almost the daily habit of enjoying. He rarely went out to take a walk; and almost the only exercise in which he engaged was going on foot to Boston on Saturday afternoon, and then returning in the evening. He had a remarkable fondness for reading the dramas of Shakspeare, the works of Walter Scott, together with reviews and magazines of the higher class. He remembered what he read, and quoted passages afterwards with the greatest fluency. He did not study for college rank, as many do, but took a good position in the classics, and was excellent in composition. In declamations he held rank among the best; but in mathematics there were several superior. He was always amiable and gentlemanly in deportment, and avoided saying any thing to wound the feelings of his classmates.

Another member of the class of 1830 communicates to me the following items: Though reasonaably attentive to his college studies, and rarely absent from the recitations, I do not think that Mr. Sumner, as an undergraduate, was much distinguished for close application. Having been much better fitted for college, especially in Latin and in Greek, than the majority of his class, he continued to sustain a high rank in both the ancient and the modern languages throughout his college course. He stood well also in elocution, English composition, and the rest of his rhetorical pursuits. In the last years of his college course, he failed in all the more abstruse and difficult mathematics. His memory was retentive; and it was sometimes said of him that he learned by heart the most difficult mathematical problems, without having a very clear understanding of their import. Morally, so far as I have ever heard, his character was without reproach.

The following incident, which occurred during young Sumner's freshman year, illustrates well that firmness of purpose, and persistent adherence to preconceived opinions, by which his whole course was signalized. At the time our class entered, writes to me the Rev. S. M. Emery, D. D., one of his classmates, undergraduates were required by the college laws to wear a uniform, consisting of an Oxford cap, coat, pantaloons, and vest of the color known as Oxford mixed; but in the summer a white vest was permitted, no fancy colors being allowed. Sumner, probably having in his mind Edmund Burke, who on state occasions wore a buff-colored waiscoat, as Daniel Webster did when he was to speak in the Senate, procured a vest so near to buff color as not likely to be mistaken for white by the observer of the legal color. Now the tutor, proctors, and other teachers, one of whom had his room in each hall, as a sort of police, constituted what was called the parietal board. They held their meetings once or twice a week to consider delinquencies of the students, to report to the faculty at their weekly meetings, and to summon the delinquents before them. Sumner's vest did not escape the keen eyes of this police. He was summoned before the assembled board, to answer to the charge of disobeying the laws by wearing a vest which was not of the lawful color. He protested, in the best-natured way possible, that nothing was farther from his mind than to disobey the college rules in all respects; but that the article of apparel in question was white: it might need the manipulations of a laundress; but it was certainly white. The board dismissed him with the injunction not to appear again in public without a regulation-vest. Conscious that his vest was white, he took no notice of the gentle admonition of the board, but continued to wear the same objectionable garment. Two or three weeks elapsed; and he was again called before the board on the same charge. He maintained with much eloquence that his vest was white. He was told that the board would be obliged to report him to the faculty if he persisted longer in his course, and he was then dismissed with the same advice as before. Disregarding the parietal board, he appeared the next day wearing the same colored vest. This he continued to do for several weeks, when he was again called before the same tribunal, on the double charge of disregarding its admonitions and of disobeying the college laws. The board threatened more earnestly than ever to report him to the faculty, and also to recommend to it a public admonition. He was undismayed, and argued his cause with as much earnestness as he since has many questions in Congress. He left the board this time feeling confident there was no escape from a public admonition. What was his surprise, however, to learn a day or two afterwards, that, as the easiest way of settling the case, the board had voted, That in future Sumner's vest be regarded by this board as white.

He was, continues Dr. Emery,

so well prepared for college at the Boston Latin School, that the lessons in the classical department were mere boy's play to him. His declamations were an outburst of subdued eloquence, showing as much earnestness as he would in addressing the Senate. He had been accustomed to literary society from his youth, and was brought up among books, so that study was with him a kind of second nature. He never studied, as many students do, for college honors, but for the love of study, and for cultivating his mind, already well-disciplined and refined. His good taste, if nothing else, kept him from the company of fast young men and from any bad habits. His greatest pleasure was found in his room, attending to his favorite studies, which were something relating to the humanities.

Many a time has he rushed down to my room and begun a speech, as if in a legislative body: I rise, Mr. President, to present a petition (stating what object), when he would go on with a speech, in which he would introduce quotations from Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal. The quotations were the very same which, thirty years afterwards, I read in some of his congressional speeches; and they were always accurate. I recollect accompanying him to an ecclesiastical council (ex parte) held in the old court-house in Cambridge, to dismiss the Rev. Dr. Holmes. Mr. Hoar of Concord was counsel for the party opposed to Dr. Holmes. We went to hear his argument, in the course of which he quoted the familiar line, Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis. But instead of saying in illis, he said cum illis. Sumner was greatly shocked at the mistake, and turning to me said, A man ought to be ashamed of himself who attempts to quote an author, and does not quote correctly. This slight misquotation condemned the scholarship of Mr. Hoar in his estimation; and he had no confidence in his learning afterwards. He was a person of great self-possession, a trait which he inherited from his father, who when high-sheriff of Suffolk County was called upon to read the Riot Act on the stage of the Federal-Street Theatre, where a riot was in progress, and went steadily through it in the midst of a shower of brickbats.

He delighted in the society of distinguished men, of whom Judge Story was then one of the foremost in Cambridge. He was deeply impressed with the beauty of the Prayer Book of our Church; and I have often heard him read in a very solemn manner many portions of it, especially the burial-service, which he would render with great pathos.

Another of his companions, in a carefully-written letter, says to me, He was more given to study than to companionship. He had the reputation of being a diligent reader out of the course, and was often praised for his themes and forensics. For scholarship he stood among the upper third, but was not remarkable; yet this was true of several of his classmates who have since obtained distinction. As I recall him at the college, in chapel, or in the yard, he was of a height above the average, slender, awkward in his ways and movements, rather shy, and not by any means inclined to merriment.

Those who enter college at a very early age often excel in the classical and rhetorical studies, but, for the want of that maturity of mind which years alone can bring, find themselves unable to grapple successfully with the higher branches of mathematical science and of ethical philosophy. The failure comes not so much from any deficiency in aspiration or of original mental power, as from the need of time for due development. The strength of the contestant is not equal to the armor. This was the condition of Charles Sumner. His tastes and inclinations also led him to the belles-lettres and humanities. He practically took, as every one who means to make the most of his abilities will do, a kind of elective course. He gave himself to the study of history, of rhetoric, eloquence, and poetry. He read with zest and keen avidity the works of the great masters. He was fascinated by the splendid diction of Hume and Gibbon, the charming style of Addison and Goldsmith, the glowing eloquence of William Pitt, of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and of Edmund Burke. His imagination was enkindled by the golden thoughts of Dante, Milton (always with him a favorite), Dryden, Pope, and Shakspeare. With these immortal geniuses he lived, and from them drew his inspiration. He strolled, moreover, into distant and untrodden fields of literature, and, as the bee, selected honey from unnoticed flowers. Here he gathered sweets from some French poet of the medieval ages; here from some neglected Latin or Italian author; here from some Saxon legend, some Highland bard, or some Provencal troubadour. This material afterwards came in to beautify his grand pleas for peace, humanity, and freedom.

It was my fortune, says the Hon. G. W. Warren,

to be one of nine classmates who formed a private society in our senior year, meeting once a week for literary exercises. Of that little circle were Browne, Hopkinson, and Sumner, now departed; and among the surviving are Worcester (formerly representative in Congress from Ohio, having succeeded Senator Sherman) now of Nashua, N. H., and the Rev. Dr. Stearns of Newark, N. J. Those hours spent together (for no one missed a meeting) were indeed literary recreations.

Sumner was also a member of the Hasty-Pudding Club. The records show at least one made by him when temporary secretary, which is characteristic of the style of his later days. The moot court was then the literary exercise of the club; and in his turn he filled the judge's chair, and displayed his legal learning in advance. On his motion the first catalogue of the past and present members was printed, as I well remember; for the principal labor fell upon me as secretary.

Of his appearance and studies in college, the same surviving classmate says, Youngest of his class, he had in college that same manly form, and open, expressive countenance. He was the tallest of his class. His genial companionship was much sought. He was noted also for his retentive memory. A diligent reader of history, and a thorough belleslettres scholar, he never forgot a date of any event, nor made a misquotation. He was, as might be supwere his most intimate companions; and associated with its classic halls were many of his dearest memories. The university now points to him as one of the most brilliant stars in its broad constellation.

On leaving college, at the age of nineteen years, Charles Sumner had a well-developed, manly form, a clear and resonant voice, and a character of unimpeachable integrity. His health was excellent, his aspiration lofty. He at once commenced upon a course of private study, reviewing carefully his college text-books, extending his knowledge of the modern languages, and his course of English reading. lie listened on the sabbath to the eloquent discourses of the Rev. Dr. Greenwood at King's Chapel, and occasionally heard the polished sentences of Edward Everett on the platform, and the solid arguments of Rufus Choate and Daniel Webster at the bar. His father's position as high sheriff of the county gave him ready access to the society of the leading lawyers of the day, and naturally inclined him to adopt the law as his profession. Whether at this period he read Mr. Garrison's uncompromising Liberator, established on the 1st of January, 1831, or sympathized with the rising pulsebeat of that tremendous power of which he was to become a prominent director, and which was to change the destiny of this nation, is not now clearly known: but the immortal works of genius whose spirit he had fondly breathed are instinct with the love of human liberty; and his mind had thus been nurtured for the acceptance and performance of his mission, whenever his day should come. Daniel Webster, even then, in his reply to Col. Robert Y. Hayne (Jan. 26 and 27, 1830) had brought the North up somewhat towards its true position; and as a Whig and genuine admirer of the principles and eloquence of the great senatorial leader, Mr. Sumner must have caught, even at that early day, some glimpses of a grand impending crisis.

Entering the Cambridge Law School in 1831, he came immediately under the instruction of that eminent jurist and accomplished scholar, Joseph Story, Ll.D., who very soon began to appreciate the ability and to gain the affection of his pupil. Mr. Sumner now bestowed his undivided attention upon his legal studies, guided by the eloquent tongue of his distinguished master. He set himself to search from every source available original facts and principles. Not content with the decisions of the courts, he ransacked every nook and corner of historic lore, that he might settle legal questions on the solid grounds of equity and justice. He made himself acquainted with the contents of every volume that the Law-School library, of which he had the charge, contained; and it is said that there was not a book in that valuable collection which he could not lay his hand upon immediately in the dark.

When he entered the Law School, says Judge James Dana, he buckled on his armor and went to his studies with a will, and soon became the leading man in the school, for which he always manifested a strong interest. Mr. Justice Story was a fine belles-lettres scholar, an earnest lover of the beautiful, the good, and true; and remarkable for his conversational powers, as well as for his genial urbanity, his radiant smile, and graceful manner. Between him and Mr. Sumner, whose eager mind was open to the charming influences of such a sweet-tempered and learned jurist, a mutual sympathy at once arose, which gradually deepened into the sincerest friendship. How strong the tie between these two kindred spirits came to be, the reader may infer from the tribute paid to Mr. Justice Story in Mr. Sumner's elegant oration on The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, the Philanthropist, delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University on the twenty-seventh day of August, 1846.

By the attraction of his name, says Mr. Sumner, students were drawn from remote parts of the Union; and the Law School, which had been a sickly branch, became the golden mistletoe of our ancient oak. Besides learning unsurpassed in his profession, which he brought to these added duties, he displayed other qualities not less important in the character of a teacher,--goodness, benevolence, and a willingness to teach. Only a good man can be a teacher,--only a benevolent man, only a man willing to teach. He was filled with a desire to teach. He sought to mingle his mind with that of his pupil. He held it a blessed office to pour into the souls of the young, as into celestial urns, the fruitful waters of knowledge. The kindly enthusiasm of his nature found its response. The law, which is sometimes supposed to be harsh and crabbed, became inviting under his instructions. Its great principles, drawn from the wells of experience and reflection, from the sacred rules of right and wrong, from the unsounded depths of Christian truth, illustrated by the learning of sages and the judgments of courts, he unfolded so as best to inspire a love for their study; well knowing that the knowledge we may impart is trivial, compared with that awakening of the soul under the influence of which the pupil himself becomes a teacher. All of knowledge we can communicate is finite: a few pages, a few chapters, a few volumes, will embrace it. But such an influence is of incalculable power: it is the breath of a new life; it is another soul. Story taught as a priest of the law, seeking to consecrate other priests. In him the spirit spake, not with the voice of an earthly calling, but with the gentleness and self-forgetful earnestness of one pleading in behalf of justice, of knowledge, of human happiness. His well-loved pupils hung upon his lips, and, as they left his presence, confessed a more exalted reverence for virtue, and a warmer love of knowledge for its own sake.

To his association and communion with this distinguished jurist, whose juridical acquirements and decisions commanded the respect even of the English bench, Mr. Sumner was to no small extent indebted for his profound views of equity and of human rights, as well as for those aspirations for the attainment of eminence in legal science, which formed the basis of that solid and enlightened statesmanship for which he subsequently became so signally distinguished. It was under the genial and erudite tuition of Judge Story, and in the moot courts and discussions of the Law School, that Mr. Sumner first began to command the admiration of his fellow-students, as a man of marked ability and rhetorical power.

During his connection with this institution, he wrote several articles, evincing varied learning and profound research, for The American jurist; and on receiving his degree of Ll.B., in 1834, he was considered, both in point of legal science and of oratory, one of the most accomplished of his class. How well Mr. Sumner loved the Law School may be seen from this extract from a report on the condition of that institution, drawn up by him in 1850:--

This library is one of the largest and most valuable, relating to law, to be found in the country. As an aid to study, it cannot be estimated too highly. Here the student may range at will through all the demesnes of jurisprudence. Here he may acquire a knowledge of the books of his profession — learning their true character and value — which will be of incalculable service to him in his future labors. Whoso knows how to use a library possesses the very keys of knowledge. Next to knowing the law, is knowing where the law is to be found.

There is another advantage, of a peculiar character, afforded by the Law School, in the opportunity of kindly and instructive social relations among the students, and also between the students and their instructors. Young men engaged in similar pursuits are professors to each other. The daily conversation concerns their common studies, and contributes some new impulse. Mind meets mind; and each derives strength from the contact. But the instructor is also at hand. In the lecture-room, and also in private, he is ready to afford counsel and help. The students are not alone in their labors. They find an assistant at every step of their journey, ready to conduct them through its devious and toilsome passes, and to remove the difficulties which throng the way. This twofold companionship — of the students with each other, and of the students with their instructors — is full of beneficent influences, not only in the cordial intercours which it begets, but in the positive knowledge which it diffuses, and in its stimulating effect upon the minds of all who enjoy it.

In dwelling on the advantages of the Law School as a seat of legal education, the committee place side by side with the lectures and exercises of the professors the profitable opportunities afforded by the library, and by the fellowship of persons engaged in the same pursuits; all echoing to the heart of the pupil, as from the genius of the place, constant words of succor, encouragement, and hope.

Mr. Sumner read law for some time in the office of Benjamin Rand, Esq., a counsellor distinguished alike for his conversational powers, his love of books, and his knowledge of the law. Every sailing packet which arrived from England brought him the latest legal publications, which he devoured with singular voracity, and then discussed their contents with his brilliant pupil. G. W. Warren and Francis J. Humphrey were his classmates in this office.

He is remembered there, writes the latter gentleman to me, chiefly as a most indefatigable student and lover of books. His personal demeanor was that of a shy and modest maiden. He always greeted me with a cheerful word and a most radiant smile. The notion of arrogance, as a quality in the character of Charles Sumner, can excite in me only the emotion of ridicule.

Mr. Sumner was admitted to the bar at Worcester in 1834, and commenced the practice of law in Boston. Thoroughly prepared as he was for meeting the demands of his vocation, he soon came to enjoy extensive patronage. He was shortly afterwards appointed Reporter to the circuit court of the United States; and while serving in this capacity published the three volumes now known as Sumner's Reports, embodying the important legal decisions

The following compliment was paid by Baron Parke to Mr. Sumner, and his Reports of the Decisions of Mr. Justice Story:--

On an insurance question, before the Court of Exchequer, one of the counsel having cited an American case, Baron Parke, the ablest of the English judges, asked him what book he quoted. He replied, Sumner's Reports. Baron Rolfe said, Is that the Mr. Sumner who was once ,in England? On receiving a reply in the affirmative, Baron Parke observed, We shall not consider it entitled to the less attention because reported by a gentleman whom we all knew and respected.

In the autumn of 1837 Mr. Sumner sailed for Europe, taking with him letters of introduction to distinguished gentlemen abroad, from Mr. Justice Story and other eminent civilians.

Mr. Sumner, says Judge Story in his letter, is a practising lawyer at the Boston bar, of very high reputation for his years, and already giving the promise of the most eminent distinction in his profession: his literary and judicial attainments are truly extraordinary. He is one of the editors, indeed the principal editor, of The American Jurist, a quarterly journal of extensive circulation and celebrity among us, and without a rival in America. He is also the reporter of the court in which I preside, and has already published two volumes of reports. His private character, also, is of the best kind for purity and propriety. But, to accomplish himself more thoroughly in the great objects of his profession,--not merely to practise, but to extend the boundaries in the science of law,--I am very anxious that he should possess the means of visiting the courts of Westminster Hall under favorable auspices; and I shall esteem it a personal favor if you can give him any facilities in this particular. Mr. Sumner was received with enviable distinction into many of the best circles of English society, and was honored with marked attention by the leading members of the bench and bar. He was once invited to sit with the lord chief-justice of the king's bench. A novel point arising during the trial, his lordship, turning to Mr. Sumner, inquired if any American decision touched that point. No, your lordship, Mr. Sumner instantly replied; but the point has been decided in your lordship's court in such a case, which he then cited. This singular promptitude gave him much celebrity with the English bar. During his residence in England, which embraced a period of almost a year, he frequently attended the debate in parliament, and made the acquaintance of the leading speakers and the eminent statesmen of the day. In a letter to him, dated Aug. 11, 1838, Mr. Justice Story says,--

I have received all your letters, and have devoured them with unspeakable delight. All the family have read them aloud; and all join in their expressions of pleasure. You are now exactly where I wish you to be,--among the educated, the literary, the noble, and (though last not least) the learned, of England, of good old England, our mother-land: God bless her! Your sketches of the bar and bench are deeply interesting to me, and so full that I think I can see them in my mind's eye. I must return my thanks to Mr. Justice Vaughan for his kindness to you: it has gratified me beyond measure, not merely as a proof of his liberal friendship, but of his acuteness and tact in his discovery of character. It is a just homage to your own merits. Your Old-Bailey speech was capital, and hit by stating sound truths in the right way. During his residence in London, Mr. Sumner formed the acquaintance of Thomas B. Macaulay, whose wonderful conversation, said he, left on the mind an ineffaceable impression of eloquence and fulness, perhaps without a parallel. Of the manner of his introduction to Richard Monckton Milnes, he gave the following account to his friend James Redpath:--

I was at Sydney Smith's breakfast-table one morning, with perhaps a dozen others, when he suddenly asked me how English literary reputations stood in America. We sometimes presume, said Mr. Sumner,

to rejudge your judgments; to refuse a reputation where you give one, and to bestow a name where you withhold it. An example! An example! exclaimed Mr. Smith in his caressing style. Here I was, a young Yankee Doodle, to use a phrase of Mr. Carlyle, at the table of the greatest wit, probably, that England ever saw, singled out by him to maintain a position which I had advanced. But I did not feel inclined to let the matter go by default, so I said at once:--

Carlyle! Carlyle! said Smith, we don't know him here: what have you got to say of Carlyle? I said, I am not an indiscriminate admirer of Carlyle; I find much in him to criticise: but I have always been impressed by his genius; he seems to me to write as if by flashes of lightning. This declaration seemed to surprise the company, with the exception of one gentleman, whom I observed to listen very attentively. When the conversation was resumed, he rose and placed his card in my hand, saying, Mr. Sumner, I thank you for what you have said of Carlyle. I am the only man here who appreciates him. This is my card; I shall be obliged for yours, and desire to visit you.

It was Richard Monckton Milnes, the poet and member of Parliament. The conversation of Mr. Carlyle resembled in style his published writings. It was racy, suggestive, thoughtful, matterful.

From England Mr. Sumner went to Paris, where he found ready access to the highest literary circles. His knowledge of the French language and literature enabled him to appreciate the brilliant intellectual society of the French capital. He made the acquaintance and secured the friendship of the gifted poet Alphonse de Lamartine, then becoming liberal in his political views; of Victor Hugo, then struggling into fame; of M. Alexis de Tocqueville, who had recently published the first part of his great work on Democracy in America; and of other well-known authors. Not a moment of his time was wasted. He attended the debates of the Chamber of Deputies, and the lectures of all the eminent professors in different departments,--at the Sorbonne, at the College of France, and particularly in the Law School.

In Paris, says Mr. Sumner, in his argument against separate colored schools, Dec. 4, 1849, I have sat for weeks at the Law School on the same benches with colored persons listening, like myself, to the learned lectures of Degerando and of Rossi (the last is the eminent minister who has unhappily fallen beneath the dagger of a Roman assassin); nor do I remember observing, in the throng of sensitive young men by whom they were surrounded, any feeling towards them except of companionship and respect.

During Mr. Sumner's residence in Europe from 1837 until 1840, and for many subsequent years, the slave-power, which had early struck its roots deeply into the councils of the nation, continued to extend its baleful influence even to the contamination of the entire body politic.

Its steady and persisten aim was the complete dominion of the legislation of the country. To resist the encroachments, or even to discuss the principles, of the servile system was deemed fanatical and revolutionary. William Lloyd Garrison, an invicible champion of freedom, was indeed, though the columns of his Liberator, boldly denouncing the inhumanity of the peculiar institution and warning the public of the steady advance of the slavepower; but to accord to him or his compeers any word of sympathy was to forfeit political caste, and to be branded as an agitator and an abolitionist,--reproaches which it then demanded an unflinching heroism to incur. In spite, however, of this general opprobrium, of legislative menace, or the perils of a ruthless mob, the tide of sympathy for our fellowmen in bondage was slowly swelling; and one friend of freedom after another, as Edmund Quincy, Wendell Phillips, William H. Burleigh, and Henry Wilson, son, nobly rose to assert that the aggressions of the slave-power could and must be met. Now where will Mr. Sumner take his stand? He is the pride of the aristocratic circles of Boston, a popular alumnus of Harvard University, an intimate friend of Mr. Justice Story,--who said that he should die content, if his young protege could take his empty chair in the Cambridge Law School,--and of whom Chancellor James Kent declared, He is the only person in the country competent to fill it. He is a gentleman of varied and extensive learning; and his culture is enhanced by foreign travel, and by personal intercourse with the ripest scholars and men of genius of his age. What course will he pursue? On the one hand there is the grand old Whig party, with Daniel Webster, Abbott Lawrence, and Robert C. Winthrop at the head, with fame and fortune in the distance. On the other hand, there are a few radical anti-slavery agitators, who are held by men in power as contemptible disturbers of the public peace, and who may incur the fate of Elijah Parish Lovejoy, murdered by the mob at Alton. Which line of action will this accomplished young civilian take? We shall soon see.

In the summer of 1844 Mr. Sumner had a severe sickness, from which it was feared he would not recover. William Prescott, the historian, thus refers to it in his journal, under the date of Nahant, July 21: Been to town twice last week,--most uncommon for me,--once to see my friend Calderon, returned as minister from Spain; and once to see my poor friend Sumner, who has had a sentence of death passed on him by the physicians. His sister sat by his side, struck with the same disease. It was an affecting sight to see brother and sister thus, hand in hand, preparing to walk through the dark valley. I shall lose a good friend in Sumner, and one who, though I have known him but a few years, has done me many kind offices. His sister Mary, a very amiable and accomplished lady, succumbed to the disease, from which her brother Charles, owing to the unusual vigor of his constitution; soon recovered.

During the administration of John Tyler, himself a slaveholder, the gigantic scheme of annexing Texas to the Union was introduced by Southern members into Congress. This republic, which had declared itself free from Mexican rule in 1835, embraced an area of 237,500 square miles, extending from the Sabine and Red Rivers on the east, to the Rio Grande (as some held), separating it from Mexico, on the west. The acquisition of such a vast extent of territory would give the slave states the command of the Gulf of Mexico, and insure to them the balance of political power. It would give, said Gen. James Hamilton, a Gibraltar to the South; and Texas or disunion! became the Southern war-cry. Mr. Webster, with the Whig party, opposed the annexation; and Mr. Van Buren said it would in all human probability draw after it a war with Mexico. On this question turned the election of James K. Polk, in 1844; and three days previous to the expiration of his term of office, John Tyler signed the bill for the annexation of Texas to the United States. On the 4th of July, 1845, the Texan legislature approved the bill of annexation; and on the same day Charles Sumner first came into the political arena by the delivery of his great speech on the before the authorities of the city of Boston. In this celebrated address — prepared to meet the impending war with Mexico, and the consequent extension of the slave power--Mr. Sumner argues against the ordeal of war, from a Christian stand-point; and establishes his positions by a remarkable affluence of learning, presented with a warm enthusiasm and in a most felicitous diction. The address produced a profound sensation, and was sharply criticised by the advocates of the war-policy, but the English patriot Richard Cobden did not hesitate to pronounce it the most noble contribution made by any modern writer to the cause of peace.

In a letter to Mr. Sumner, Mr. Justice Story says of the oration, It is certainly a very striking production, and will fully sustain your reputation for high talents, various reading, and exact scholarship. There are a great many passages in it which are wrought out with an exquisite finish and elegance of diction and classical beauty.

From Theodore Parker, Mr. Sumner received the following characteristic note, which opened the way to a permanent friendship between these two intrepid advocates of human rights:--

I hope you will excuse one so nearly a stranger to you as myself, for addressing you this note. But I cannot forbear writing. I have just read your oration on the True Grandeur of Nations for the second time, and write to express to you my sense of the great value of that work, and my gratitude to you for delivering it on such an occasion. Boston is a queer little city. The public is a desperate tyrant there; and it is seldom that one dares disobey the commands of public opinion. I know the reproaches you have already received from your friends, who will now perhaps become your foes. I have heard all sorts of ill motives attributed to you, and know that you must suffer attack from men of low morals, who can only swear by their party, and who live only in public opinion.

I hope you will find a rich reward in the certainty that you have done a duty and service to mankind.

The oration abounds in narratives and illustrations of remarkable beauty and impressiveness, as for example:--

In our age, there can be no peace that is not honorable: there can be no war that is not dishonorable. The true honor of a nation is to be found only in deeds of justice and beneficence, securing the happiness of its people,--all of which are inconsistent with war. In the clear eye of Christian judgment, vain are its victories, infamous are its spoils. He is the true benefactor, and alone worthy of honor, who brings comfort where before was wretchedness; who dries the tear of sorrow; who pours oil into the wounds of the unfortunate; who feeds the hungry, and clothes the naked; who unlooses the fetter of the slave; who does justice; who enlightens the ignorant; who, by his virtuous genius, in art, in literature, in science, enlivens and exalts the hours of life; who, by words or actions, inspires a love for God and for man. This is the Christian hero: this is the man of honor in a Christian land. He is no benefactor, nor deserving of honor, whatever his worldly renown, whose life is passed in acts of brute force; who renounces the great law of Christian brotherhood; whose vocation is blood. Well may old Sir Thomas Browne exclaim, The world does not know its greatest men! for thus far it has chiefly discerned the violent brood of battle, the armed men springing up from the dragon's teeth sown by hate; and cared little for the truly good men, children of love, guiltless of their country's blood, whose steps on earth have been noiseless as an angel's wing.

One of the most remarkable passages, however, in this eloquent speech, is Mr. Sumner's declaration of his opposition to the system of slavery. It has been said that he commenced the reading of The Liberator, the guiding star of freedom, anterior to Mr. Wendell Phillips, whose eloquent voice had long before been heard in anti-slavery assemblages; but it appears that this was Mr. Sumner's first open, public avowal of his sentiments in respect to the rights of the colored race. He was led, undoubtedly, to espouse their cause, not from any desire of political advancement or emolument, but simply from his profound sense of justice, and his love of human right and liberty. In reference to the liberation of the slave, he says,--

What glory of battle in England's annals will not fade by the side of that great act of justice by which her parliament, at a cost of one hundred million dollars, gave freedom to eight hundred thousand slaves! And when the day shall come (may those eyes be gladdened by its beams!) that shall witness an act of greater justice still,--the peaceful emancipation of three millions of our fellow-men, guilty of a skin not colored as our own, now, in this land of jubilant freedom, held in gloomy bondage,--then shall there be a victory, in comparison with which that of Bunker Hill shall be as a farthing candle held up to the sun. That victory shall need no monument of stone. It shall be written on the grateful hearts of uncounted multitudes, that shall proclaim it to the latest generation. It shall be one of the famed landmarks of civilization; nay more, it shall be one of the links in the golden chain by which humanity shall connect itself with the throne of God.

This masterly production, though containing some views upon the war-question which Mr. Sumner himself afterwards was led to modify, brought him at once to the front rank of the great orators of his time.

It has been said, that, in making researches for this speech, Mr. Sumner's thoughts were first directed to the dreadful iniquity of the salve system. He found that it implied a state of continual war, and therefore came to the determination to employ in its overthrow whatever ability he possessed.

Although the conditions of annexation had been accepted by its legislature, Texas had not yet actually become a State of the Republic. Strenuous efforts were therefore made by the friends of freedom to prevent the consummation of this slaveholding scheme. Conventions were held, petitions signed, in various sections of our State, and eloquent speeches made by Edmund Quincy, Henry Wilson, Theodore Parker, William Henry Channing, R. W. Emerson, and others, with the design of influencing Congress on the final vote, On the 4th of November, 1845, a large meeting was held in Faneuil Hall in Boston, at which resolutions drawn up by Mr. Sumner were presented, setting forth that the annexation of Texas was sought for the purpose of increasing the market in human flesh, of extending and perpetuating slavery, and of securing political power, and in the name of God, of Christ, and of humanity, protesting against its admission as a slave State. These resolutions were eloquently and earnestly supported by Mr. Sumner, Mr. John G. Palfrey, Mr. Wendell Phillips, Mr. W. L. Garrison, and other Able advocates of freedom.

During his remarks Mr. Sumner eloquently exclaimed:--

God forbid that the votes and voices of the freemen of the North should help to bind anew the fetter of the slave! God forbid that the lash of the slave-dealer should be nerved by any sanction from New England! God forbid that the blood which spurts from the lacerated, quivering flesh of the slave should soil the hem of the white garments of Massachusetts!

In the autumn of this year (1845), Mr. Sumner was called to mourn the loss by death of his beloved friend and counsellor, Chief Justice Story, whom Lord Campbell characterized in the House of Lords as the first of living writers on the law. In The Boston daily Advertiser, Sept. 16, 1845, there appeared from Mr. Sumner's hand a most eloquent and discriminating eulogy of this great American jurist. In it he says, It has been my fortune to know or see the chief jurists of our times in the classical countries of jurisprudence,--France and Germany. I remember well the pointed and effective style of Dupin, on the delivery of one of his masterly opinions in the highest court of France; I recall the pleasant converse of Pardessus, to whom commercial and maritime law is under a larger debt, perhaps, than to any other mind, while he descanted on his favorite theme; I wander in fancy to the gentle presence of him with flowing silver locks, who was so dear to Germany,--Thibaut, the expounder of the Roman law, and the earnest and successful advocate of a just scheme for the reduction of the unwritten law to the certainty of a written text; from Heidelberg I fly to Berlin, where I listen to the grave lecture and mingle in the social circle of Savigny, so stately in person and peculiar in countenance, whom all the continent of Europe delights to honor: but my heart and my judgment, untrammelled, fondly turn to my Cambridge teacher and friend. Jurisprudence has many arrows in her golden quiver; but where is one to compare with that which is now spent in the earth? . . . I remember him in my childhood; but I first knew him after he came to Cambridge as professor while I was yet an undergraduate; and remember freshly, as if the words were of yesterday, the eloquence and animation with which at that time, to a youthful circle, he enforced the beautiful truth that no man stands in the way of another. The world is wide enough for all, he said, and no success which may crown our neighbor can affect our own career.

Mr. Sumner prepared for The Law Reporter of June, 1846, another beautiful tribute, to the memory of the eminent scholar John Pickering, who died on the 5th of May preceding; and, in the course of the eulogy of his friend, indicates the magic of his own success: His talisman, said he,

was industry. He was pleased in referring to those rude inhabitants of Tartary, who placed idleness in the torments of the world to come; and often remembered the beautiful proverb in his Oriental studies, that by labor the leaf of the mulberry-tree is turned to silk. His life is a perpetual commentary on those words of untranslatable beauty in the great Italian poet:--

Seggendo in piuma, In fama non si vien, ne sotto coltre: Senza la qual chi sua vita consuma. Cotal vestigio in terra di se lascia, Qual fumo in áere ed in acqua la schiuma. Dante, Canto XXV.

On the twenty-seventh day of August, 1846, Mr. Sumner pronounced his splendid oration on The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, the Philanthropist, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University; in which he eloquently portrays the characters, and commemorates the names, of his illustrious friends, John Pickering, Joseph Story, Washington Allston, and William Ellery Channing, each of whom had but recently finished his career. This oration abounds with singular affluence of illustration, and with glowing thoughts clothed in choice and elegant language. From it the authors of our best school reading-books have drawn several passages as models for the student. At the dinner following the delivery of this admirable discourse, John Quincy Adams justly gave this sentiment: The memory of the scholar, the jurist, the artist, the philanthropist; and not the memory, but the long life, of the kindred spirit who has this day embalmed them all.

In characterizing the eloquence of Channing, the orator unconsciously described himself: His eloquence had not the character and fashion of forensic efforts or parliamentary debates. It ascended above these, into an atmosphere as yet unattempted by the applauded orators of the world. Whenever he spoke or wrote, it was with the loftiest aims,--not for display, not to advance himself, not for any selfish purpose, not in human strife, not in any question of pecuniary advantage; but in the service of religion and benevolence, to promote the love of God and man. In these exalted themes are untried founts of truest eloquence.

His peroration glows with hope, and seems almost prophetic:--

Go forth into the many mansions of the house of life. Scholars, store them with learning; jurists, build them with justice; artists, adorn them with beauty; philanthropists, let them resound with love. Be servants of truth, each in his vocation; doers of the word, and not hearers only. Be sincere, pure in heart, earnest, enthusiastic. . . . Like Pickering, blend humility with learning. Like Story, ascend above the present in place and time. Like Allston, regard fame only as the eternal shadow of excellence. Like Channing, bend in adoration of the right. Cultivate alike the wisdom of experience, and the wisdom of hope. Mindful of the future, do not neglect the past: awed by the majesty of antiquity, turn not with indifference from the future. True wisdom looks to the ages before us as well as behind us. Like the Janus of the Capitol, one front thoughtfully regards the past, rich with experience, with memories, with the priceless traditions of virtue: the other is earnestly directed to the All Hail Hereafter, richer still with its transcendent hopes and unfulfilled prophecies.

We stand on the threshold of a new age, which is preparing to recognize new influences. The ancient divinities of violence and wrong are retreating to their kindred darkness. The sun of our moral universe is entering a new ecliptic, no longer deformed by those images Cancer, Taurus, Leo, Sagittarius, but beaming with mild radiance of those heavenly signs, Faith, Hope, and Charity. There's a fount about to stream; There's a light about to beam; There's a warmth about to glow; There's a flower about to blow; There's a midnight blackness changing Into gray: Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way! Aid the dawning, tongue and pen; Aid it, hopes of honest men; Aid it, paper; aid it, type; Aid it, for the hour is ripe, And our earnest must not slacken Into play: Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way!

The age of chivalry has gone. An age of humanity has come. The horse, whose importance, more than human, gave the name to that early period of gallantry and war, now yields his foremost place to man. In serving him, in promoting his elevation, in contributing to his welfare, in doing him good, there are fields of bloodless triumph nobler far than any in which Bayard or Da Guesclin ever conquered. Here are spaces of labor wide as the world, lofty as heaven. Let me say, then, in the benison once bestowed upon the youthful knight: Scholars, jurists, artists, philanthropists, heroes of a Christian age, companions of a celestial knighthood, Go forth; be brave, be loyal, and successful.

In a letter to Mr. Sumner dated September, 1846, Theodore Parker says:--

I thank you most heartily for your noble and beautiful Phi Beta Kappa Address. It did me good to read it. I like it, like it all, all over and all through. I like especially what you say of Allston and Channing. That sounds like the Christianity of the nineteenth century, the application of religion to life. You have said a strong word, and a beautiful, planted a seed out of which many and tall branches shall arise, I hope. The people are always true to a good man who truly trusts them. You have had opportunity to see, hear, and feel the truth of that oftener than once. I think you will have enough more opportunities yet: men will look for deeds noble as the words a man speaks. I take these words as an earnest of a life full of deeds of that heroic sort.--See vol. i., p. 316.

Mr. Sumner was no revolutionist. He held in profound reverence the organic law of the land. He would meet the commanding question of slavery on constitutional grounds alone. He believed that the provisions of the constitution in favor of the slaveholder were merely temporary, and that the instrument itself, which nowhere speaks of the slave as a chattel or recognized slavery as an institution, was framed in the expectation that the inhuman traffic in flesh and blood would be soon abandoned.

There is, said he, in an able speech before the Whig State Convention at Faneuil Hall, Sept. 23, 1846, no compromise on the subject of slavery, of a character not to be reached legally and constitutionally, which is the only way in which I propose to reach it. Wherever power and jurisdiction are secured to Congress, they may unquestionably be exercised in conformity with the constitution. And even in matters beyond existing powers and jurisdiction, there is a constitutional method of action. The constitution contains an article pointing out, how, at any time, amendments may be made thereto. This is an important element, giving to the constitution a progressive character, and allowing it to be moulded to suit new exigencies and new conditions of feeling. The wise framers of this instrument did not treat the country as a Chinese foot,--never to grow after its infancy,--but anticipated the changes incident to its growth.

Assuming as a watchword, repeal of slavery under the Constitutional laws of the Federal government, he said: The time has passed when this can be opposed on constitutional grounds. It will not be questioned by any competent authority that Congress may by express legislation abolish slavery, first in the District of Columbia; second in the Territories, if there should be any; third, that it may abolish the slave-trade on the high seas between the States; fourth, that it may refuse to admit any new State with a constitution sanctioning slavery. Nor can it be questioned that the people of the United States may, in the manner pointed out by the Constitution, proceed to its amendment. It is, then, by constitutional legislation, and even by amendment of the Constitution, that slavery may be reached.

Mr. Sumner then paid this brief, but memorable compliment to John Quincy Adams, the old man eloquent, who, as a true representative of the anti-slavery sentiment of the North, was fearlessly opposing the aggressions of the slaveholding power: Massachusetts has a venerable representative, whose aged bosom still glows with inextinguishable fires, like the central heats of the monarch mountain of the Andes beneath its canopy of snow. To this cause he dedicates the closing energies of a long and illustrious life. Would that all would join him! He then, in this bold apostrophe, addresses Daniel Webster of the Senate, and points out a policy which it had. been well for the imperious leader of the old Whig party to have heeded: Dedicate, sir, said Mr. Sumner,

the golden years of experience happily in store for you, to the grand endeavor, in the name of freedom, to remove from your country its greatest evil. In this cause you shall find inspirations to eloquence higher than any you have yet confessed.

To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.

Do not shrink from the task. With your marvellous powers, and the auspicious influences of an awakened public sentiment, under God, who always smiles upon conscientious labors for the welfare of man, we may hope for beneficent results.

Assume, then, these unperformed duties. The aged shall bear witness to you; the young shall kindle with rapture as they repeat the name of Webster; and the large company of the ransomed shall teach their children's children, to the latest generation, to call you blessed; while all shall award to you yet another title, which shall never be forgotten on earth or in heaven,--Defender of Humanity; by the side of which that earlier title shall fade into insignificance, as the constitution, which is the work of mortal hands, dwindles by the side of man, who is created in the image of God.

In a characteristic letter to Robert C. Winthrop, dated Oct. 25, 1846, Mr. Sumner sharply criticises that gentleman's course in respect to the Mexican War; charging him with want of sympathy with those who seek to carry into our institutions that practical conscience which declares it to be equally wrong in individuals and in states to sanction slavery. Through you, continues Mr. Sumner, they [the Bostonians] have been made to declare an unjust and cowardly war with falsehood in the cause of slavery. Through you they have been made partakers in the blockade of Vera Cruz, in the seizure of California, in the capture of Santa Fe, in the bloodshed of Monterey. It were idle to suppose that the poor soldier or officer only, is stained by this guilt. It reaches far back, and incarnadines the halls of Congress; nay, more,--through you it reddens the hands of your constituents in Boston; and he concludes the letter by the assertion that more than one of his neighbors will be obliged to say,--Cassio, I love thee, But never more be officer of mine.

In this forcible letter, the writer uses these memorable words indicating the eternal source of rectitude as the guide for the settlement of the great political question: Aloft on the throne of God, and not below in the footprints of a trampling multitude of men, are to be found the sacred rules of right, which no majorities can displace or overturn.

In a speech against the Mexican War at a public meeting in November following, when Dr. Samuel G. Howe was brought forward as a Congressional candidate in opposition to Mr. Winthrop, Mr. Sumner said, It is with the Whigs that I have heretofore acted, and may hereafter act; always confessing a loyalty to principles higher than any party ties.

On this solid platform of conscience and of duty, dealing his blows against the peculiar institution, Mr. Sumner proudly stood. He clearly saw and openly rebuked the subservience of his party to the slaveocracy of the South; and though not then an aspirant for political power, he caught prophetic glimpses of a rupture in the Whig organization, and of the ultimate triumph of the right. With the uncompromising Garrison he had not yet come into sympathy; but within the constitution of the United States, he declared himself an eternal foe to slavery. His wing of the party soon received the title of Conscience Whigs; and conscience over might or cotton will eventually prevail.

Mr. Sumner was not for a moment idle. In January, 1847, he made a very able argument before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, against the validity of enlistments in the regiment of volunteers raised by the State for the Mexican War. As counsel for one of the petitioners, he argued that the act of Congress of 1846, providing for the officering of the companies, was in some of the provisions unconstitutional, that the enlistments were not in accordance with that act, that the militia acts of Massachusetts had been fraudulently used in forming the regiment, and also that a minor could not be held by his contract of enlistment under the act. The validity of proceedings was sustained; but the minors were discharged. On the 4th of February following, he made a short but telling speech in Faneuil Hall, for the withdrawal of the American troops from Mexico, in which he said, The war is not only unconstitutional: it is unjust; it is vile in its object and character. It has its origin in a well-known series of measures to extend and perpetuate slavery. It is a war which must ever be odious in history, beyond the common measure allotted to the outrages of brutality which disfigure other nations and times. It is a slave-driving war. In its principle, it is only a little above those miserable conflicts between the barbarian chiefs of Central Africa, to obtain slaves for the inhuman markets of Brazil. Such a war must be accursed in the sight of God. Why is it not accursed in the sight of man?

Let a voice, he eloquently closing said, go forth from Faneuil Hall to-night, awakening fresh echoes throughout the kindly valleys of New England, swelling as it proceeds and gathering new reverberations in its ample volume, traversing the whole land, and still receiving other voices, till it reaches our rulers at Washington, and in tones of thunder demands the cessation of this unjust war.

On the 17th of the same month he read before the Boston Mercantile Library Association a curious and brilliant paper on White slavery in the Barbary States.

Taking up its origin, history, and character brings into his subject a surprising wealth of learning and of illustration, drawn from English, French, and Spanish literature, and traces with a masterly hand the iniquities of slavery in the Barbary States from the earliest times until its final extinction by Lord Exmouth, under the direction of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent of England, in 1816. In this discourse he adroitly aims a blow at slavery at home. The theme was new, the speaker's heart in sympathy with it: his researches were exhaustive; and he so graphically portrays the horrors of the slave system, and so breathes the spirit of humanity and Christian love into his lecture, as to render it a study worthy of the enlightened philanthropist and historian.

As gleams of golden light upon the thunder-cloud, so Mr. Sumner's tender sympathies relieved the gloomy scenes which he presents. Thus glowingly, in a charming passage, his kind regard for the unfortunate breaks forth: Endeavors for freedom are animating; nor can any honest nature hear of them without a throb of sympathy. As we dwell on the painful narrative of the unequal contest between tyrannical power and the crushed captive or slave, we resolutely enter the lists on the side of freedom; and as we behold the contest waged by a few individuals, or perhaps by one alone, our sympathy is given to his weakness as well as to his cause. To him we send the unfaltering succor of our good wishes. For him we invoke vigor of arm to defend, and fleetness of foot to escape. The enactments of human laws are vain to restrain the warm tides of the heart. We pause with rapture on those historic scenes in which freedom has been attempted or preserved through the magnanimous self-sacrifice of friendship or Christian aid. With palpitating bosom we follow the midnight flight of Mary of Scotland from the custody of her stern jailers; we accompany Grotius in his escape from prison in Holland, so adroitly promoted by his wife; we join with Lavalette in France in his flight, aided also by his wife; and we offer our admiration and gratitude to Huger and Bollman, who, unawed by the arbitrary ordinances of Austria, strove heroically, though vainly, to rescue Lafayette from the dungeons of Olmutz.

This admirable production, every page of which proclaims the scholar and the friend of human liberty, was beautifully printed in 1853, by John P. Jewett and Company, in a volume with elegant illustrations by Edwin T. Billings, and should find a place in every library.

While abroad, Mr. Sumner's attention was naturally drawn to the condition of European prisons; and he availed himself of the opportunities afforded him by intercourse with distinguished friends of humanity, to study their various systems of discipline. On returning he continued his investigations on this subject; and in connection with Dr. Samuel G. Howe, the Rev. Francis Wayland, and other gentlemen, became deeply interested in the course of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, and in the improvement of the condition of the prisons of our own country. Of the various systems in vogue, Mr. Sumner deprecated that of the promiscuous commingling of prisoners in one company, and also that of absolute solitude, endangering the health and preventing reformation. With the distinguished M. de Tocqueville, he favored the Pennsylvania system which embraced these element,--separation, labor in the cell, exercise in the pen air, visits, and books, together with moral and religious instruction. In a speech of much power before the Boston Prison Discipline Society, at the Tremont Temple, June 18, 1847, he criticised the partial and inefficient course of that body, and presented his enlightened views upon the subject, which gave fresh impulse to the efforts made for the amelioration of the systems of our penal institutions.

The next notable literary effort of Mr. Sumner was an address entitled Fame and glory, delivered before the literary societies of Amherst College, at their anniversary, Aug. 11, 1847. Although the theme was commonplace, the genius of the speaker unfolded it from such a lofty standpoint, and so affluently illustrated it with classic lore, as to impart to it the charm of novelty, and to secure the warm approval of the college and the public. As in his oration on The true grandeur of nations, so in this, he condemned the art and the atrocities of war, and breathed forth his aspirations for the reign of universal peace and brotherhood. His positions, founded on the eternal principles of good — will to man, of truth and justice, were in advance of time, and by some persons, deemed Utopian; but he was introduced into the world to be a leader, not a follower; and, as William Cullen Bryant nobly says,--

After passing in review the career of warriors, as Alexander, drunk with victory and wine; Caesar, trampling on the liberties of Rome; Frederick of Prussia, playing the game of robbery with human lives for dice,--he beautifully says, There is another and a higher company, who thought little of praise or power, but whose lives shine before men with those good works which truly glorify their authors. There is Milton, poor and blind, but bating not a jot of heart or hope; in an age of ignorance, the friend of education; in an age of servility and vice, the pure and uncontaminated friend of freedom, tuning his harp to those magnificent melodies which angels might stoop to hear, and confessing his supreme duties to humanity in words of simplicity and power. I am long since persuaded, was his declaration, that to say or do aught worth memory and imitation, no purpose or respect should sooner move us than love of God and mankind. There is St. Vincent de Paul of France, once in captivity in Algiers. Obtaining his freedom by a happy escape, this fugitive slave devoted himself with divine success to labors of Christian benevolence, to the establishment of hospitals, to visiting those in prison, to the spread of amity and peace. Unknown, he repaired to the galleys at Marseilles, and, touched by the story of a poor convict, personally assumed his heavy chains, that he might be excused to visit his wife and children. And, when France was bleeding with war, this philanthropist appears in a different scene. Presenting himself to her powerful minister, the Cardinal Richelieu, on his knees he says, Give us peace: have pity upon us; give peace to France. There is Howard, the benefactor of those on whom the world has placed its brand, whose charity — like that of the Frenchman, inspired by the single desire of doing good — penetrated the gloom of the dungeon as with angelic presence. A person of more ability, he says with sweet simplicity, with my knowledge of facts, would have written better; but the object of my ambition was not the fame of an author. Hearing the cry of the miserable, I devoted my time to their relief. And, lastly, there is Clarkson, who while yet a pupil of the university commenced those life-long labors against slavery and the slave-trade, which have embalmed his memory. Writing an essay on the subject as a college-exercise, his soul warmed with the task; and at a period when even the horrors of the middle passage had not excited condemnation, he entered the lists, the stripling champion of the right.--He has left a record of the moment when this duty seemed to flash upon him. He was on horseback, on his way from Cambridge to London. Coming in sight of Wade's Mill, in Hertfordshire, he says, I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the roadside, and held my horse. Here a thought came over my mind, that, if the contents of my essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end. Pure and noble impulse to a beautiful career!

After such exalted models Mr. Sumner formed the ideal for his own life. In the Whig State Convention at Springfield, Sept. 29, 1847, he made a stirring speech against supporting any pro-slavery man for the presidential chair, and urging uncompromising resistance against the extension of slavery to any territory to be acquired from Mexico.

The Missouri compromise, the annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, said he,

are only a portion of the troubles caused by the slave-power. It is an ancient fable, that the eruptions of Etna were produced by the restless movements of the giant Enceladus, who was imprisoned beneath. As he turned on his side, or stretched his limbs, or struggled, the conscious mountain belched forth flames, fiery cinders, and red-hot lava, carrying destruction and dismay to all who dwelt upon its fertile slopes. The slavepower is the imprisoned giant of our constitution. It is there confined and bound to the earth. But its constant and strenuous struggles have caused, and ever will cause, eruptions of evil to our happy country, in comparison with which the flames, the fiery cinders, and red-hot lava, of the volcano are trivial and transitory. The face of nature may be blasted; the land may be struck with sterility; villages may be swept by floods of flame, and whole families entombed alive in its burning embrace: but all these evils shall be small by the side of the deep, abiding, unutterable curse of an act of national wrong.

Let us, then, pledge ourselves in the most solemn form, by united exertions at least to restrain this destructive influence within its original constitutional bounds. Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of slavery, and the strengthening of the slave-power. Our opposition must keep right on, and not look back. Like to the Pontic Sea, Whose icy current and compulsive course Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on To the Propontic and the Hellespont.

In this contest, let us borrow from the example of the ancient Greek, who when his hands were cut off fought with his stumps, and even with his teeth. . . .

Loyalty to principle is higher than loyalty to party. The first is a heavenly sentiment, from God: the other is a device of this earth. Far above any flickering light or mere battle-lantern of party is the everlasting sun of truth, in whose beams are displayed the duties of men.

Early in 1848, a small company of reformers, among whom were Henry Wilson, Stephen C. Phillips, John A. Andrew, and Horace Mann, used to assemble frequently in the rooms of Mr. Sumner in

Mr. Sumner neither had nor cared to have much legal practice at this period. His time was, for the most part, spent either among his books — in close communion with the liberty-loving John Milton, with Nature's darling child William Shakspeare, with that glorious Florentine, the God-gifted Dante, with the genial, quick-eyed Horace, with the blind old Homer, and other grand classical authors, from whom he drew fresh inspiration for the conduct of his life — in writing lectures for literary associations, or in the consideration of the commanding civil and political questions of the day. Occasionally he prepared an article for The Christian Examiner, or addressed a lyceum; but he had no desire to enter into the struggle for political place. His ambition was to be an independent thinker, entirely free from the trammels of office, and, in his own private way, to do something for the liberation of his fellowmen from bondage. He was called a theorizer and a visionary; but his thoughts were in advance of his age; and his opinions rested on the solid basis of eternal truth and equity. He had reached a higher level than the mercenary politicians of his time; and hence they could not understand him. Much learning doth make thee mad, said they; and so, alike unmindful of the ground-swell underneath and of the stars above, they went on drifting hard against the fatal breakers.

If our aims, said Mr. Sumner, in speaking of his views on peace, are visionary, impracticable, Utopian, then the unfulfilled promises of the prophecies are vain; then the Lord's Prayer, in which we ask that God's kingdom shall come on earth, is a mockery; then Christianity is an Utopia. Let me not content myself by reminding you that all the great reforms by which mankind have been advanced have encountered similar objections; that the abolition of the punishment of death for theft was first suggested in the Utopia of Sir Thomas More; that the efforts to abolish the crime of the slave-trade were opposed, almost in our day, as impracticable and visionary: in short, that all the endeavors for human improvement, for knowledge, for freedom, for virtue, that all the great causes which dignify human history, which save it from being a mere protracted war-bulletin, a common sewer, a Cloaca Maxima, flooded with perpetual uncleanliness, have been pronounced Utopian; while, in spite of distrust, of prejudice, of enmity, all these causes have gradually found acceptance as they gradually became understood; and the Utopias of one age have become the realities of the next.

In a letter dated Oct. 26, 1848, in which he most reluctantly accepts the nomination as the congressional candidate of the Free-soil party, Mr. Sumner says, I have never held political office of any kind, nor have I ever been a candidate for any such office. It has been my desire and determination to labor in such fields of usefulness as are open to every private citizen, without the honors, the emoluments, or the constraints of office. I would show by my example (might I so aspire!) that something may be done for the welfare of our race without the support of public sanction, or the accident of popular favor. In this course I hoped to be allowed to persevere unto the end. . . . The principles of Washington, of Jefferson, and of Franklin; the security of our constitution; the fair fame of our country; the interests of labor; the cause of freedom, of humanity, of right, of morals, of religion, of God,--all these are now at stake. Holier cause has never appeared in history. Let me offer to it, not my vows only, but my best efforts, wherever they can be most effectual.

An ardent advocate of peace and good-will, Mr. Sumner delivered before the American Peace Society, on the 28th of May, 1849, a splendid oration on The war systems of the Commonwealth of nations. In this celebrated effort he displays the riches of a ripe scholarship, and a highly-cultivated imagination, to great advantage. Though some lack of logical method in arrangement, as in almost all his speeches, is observable, the positions taken are in harmony with the teachings of Christianity, and illustrated by a wealth of learning truly admirable. His pictures of the blessings attendant on peace, as well as of the horrors of land and naval warfare, are drawn with the skill of a master. They are beautiful poems in prose, and are considered models in this kind of style. In his eloquent exordium he thus refers to the felicities of peace:--

Peace is the grand Christian charity, the fountain and parent of all other charities. Let peace be removed, and all other charities shall sicken and die. Let peace exert her gladsome sway, and all other charities shall quicken into celestial life. Peace is a distinctive promise and possession of Christianity: so much is this the case, that, where peace is not, Christianity cannot be. There is nothing elevated which is not exalted by peace. There is nothing valuable which does not contribute to peace. Of Wisdom herself it has been said, that all her ways are pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Peace has ever been the longing and aspiration of the noblest souls, whether for themselves or for their country. In the bitterness of exile, away from the Florence which he has immortalized by his divine poem, pacing the cloisters of a convent, in response to the inquiry of the monk, What do you seek? Dante said, in words distilled from his heart, Peace, peace. In the struggles of civil war in England, while king and parliament were rending the land, a gallant supporter of the monarchy, renowned for the bravery of battle, the chivalrous Falkland, cried, in words which consecrate his memory more than any feat of arms, Peace, peace, peace! Not in aspiration only, but in benediction, is this word uttered. As the apostle went forth on his errand, as the son left his father's roof, the choicest blessing was, Peace be with you. As the Saviour was born, angels from heaven, amidst quiring melodies, let fall that supreme benediction, never before tasted by the heathen tribes, addressed to all nations, and to all children of the human family, Peace on earth, and good — will towards men.

He thus vividly portrays the atrocities of war upon the land:--

I need not dwell now on the waste and cruelty of war. These stare us wildly in the face like lurid meteor-lights, as we travel the page of history. We see the desolation and death that pursue its demoniac footsteps. We look upon sacked towns, upon ravaged territories, upon violated homes: we behold all the sweet charities of life changed to wormwood and gall. Our soul is penetrated by the sharp moan of mothers, sisters, and daughters, of fathers, brothers, and sons, who, in the bitterness of their bereavement, refuse to be comforted. Our eyes rest at last upon one of those fair fields where Nature in her abundance spreads her cloth of gold, spacious and apt for the entertainment of mighty multitudes; or, perhaps, from the curious subtlety of its position, like the carpet in the Arabian tale, seeming to contract so as to be covered by a few only, or to dilate so as to receive an innunerable host. Here, under a bright sun, such as shone at Austerlitz or Buena Vista, amidst the peaceful harmonies of nature, on the sabbath of peace, we behold bands of brothers, children of a common Father, heirs to a common happiness, struggling together in the deadly fight with the madness of fallen spirits; seeking with murderous weapons the lives of brothers who have never injured them or their kindred. The havoc rages. The ground is soaked with their commingling blood: the air is rent by their commingling cries. Horse and rider are stretched together on the earth. More revolting than the mangled victims, than the gashed limbs, than the lifeless trunks, than the spattering brains, are the lawless passions which sweep tempest-like through the fiendish tumult. Nearer comes the storm and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on. Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost and who has won? “Alas! alas! I know not: friend and foe together fall. O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sister, for them all.”

Horror-struck, we ask, Wherefore this hateful contest? The melancholy but truthful answer comes, that this is the established method of determining justice between nations.

His word-painting of warfare on the sea is still more vivid:--

The scene changes. Far away on the distant pathway of the ocean two ships approach each other, with white canvas broadly spread to receive the flying gales. They are proudly built. All of human art has been lavished in their graceful proportions and in their well-compacted sides, while they look in dimensions like floating happy islands of the sea. A numerous crew, with costly appliances of comfort, hives in their secure shelter. Surely these two travellers shall meet in joy and friendship: the flag at the mast-head shall give the signal of fellowship; the happy sailors shall cluster in the rigging, and even on the yard-arms, to look each other in the face, while the exhilarating voices of both crews shall mingle in accents of gladness uncontrollable. It is not so. Not as brothers, not as friends, not as wayfarers of the common ocean, do they come together, but as enemies. The gentle vessels now bristle fiercely with death-dealing instruments. On their spacious decks, aloft on all their masts, flashes the deadly musketry. From their sides spout cataracts of flame, amidst the pealing thunders of a fatal artillery. They who had escaped the dreadful touch of merchant-marring rocks, who had sped on their long and solitary way unharmed by wind or wave, whom the hurricane had spared, in whose favor storms and seas had intermitted their immitigable war,--now at last fall by the hand of each other. The same spectacle of horror greets us from both ships. On their decks reddened with blood, the murderers of St. Bartholomew and of the Sicilian Vespers, with the fires of Smithfield, seem to break forth anew, and to concentrate their rage. Each has now become a swimming Golgotha. At length these vessels — such pageants of the sea, once so stately, so proudly built, but now rudely shattered by cannon-balls, with shivered masts and ragged sails — exist only as unmanageable wrecks, weltering on the uncertain waves whose temporary lull of peace is now their only safety. In amazement at this strange, unnatural contest away from country and home, where there is no country or home to defend, we ask again, Wherefore this dismal duel? Again the melancholy but truthful answer promptly comes, that this is the established method of determining justice between nations.

In his peroration these grand and hopeful ideas are most eloquently presented:--

Tell me not, then, of the homage which the world yet offers to the military chieftain. Tell me not of the glory of war: tell me not of the honor or fame that is won on its murderous fields. All is vanity. It is a blood-red phantom, sure to fade and disappear. They who strive after it, Ixionlike, embrace a cloud. Though seeming for a while to fill the heavens, cloaking the stars, it must, like the vapors of earth, pass away. Milton has likened the early contests of the Heptarchy to the skirmishes of crows and kites; but God, and the exalted Christianity of the future, shall regard all the bloody feuds of men in the same likeness; and Napoleon and Alexander, so far as they were engaged in war, shall seem to be monster crows and kites. Thus shall it be as mankind ascend from the thrall of brutish passions by which they are yet degraded. Nobler aims, by nobler means, shall fill the soul; a new standard of excellence shall prevail; and honor, divorced from all deeds of blood, shall become the inseparable attendant of good works alone. Far better, then, shall it be, even in the judgment of this world, to have been a door-keeper in the house of peace, than the proudest dweller in the tents of war.

There is a legend of the early Church, that the Saviour left his image miraculously impressed upon a napkin which he placed upon his countenance. The napkin has been lost; and men now attempt to portray that countenance from the heathen models of Jupiter and Apollo. But the image of Christ is not lost to the world. Clearer than in the precious napkin, clearer than in the colors of the marble of modern art, it appears in every virtuous deed, in every act of self-sacrifice, in all magnanimous toil, in every recognition of the brotherhood of mankind. It shall yet be supremely manifest, in unimagined loveliness and serenity, when the commonwealth of nations, confessing the true grandeur of peace, shall renounce the wickedness of the war system, and shall dedicate to labors of beneficence all the comprehensive energies which have been so fatally absorbed in its support. Then, at last, shall it be seen that there can be no peace that is not honorable; and there can be no war that is not dishonorable.

Planted on the solid ground of opposition, under and within the constitution, to slavery and its extension, the Free-soil party commended itself more and more to the profound convictions of the Northern people, and, under the direction of such clearheaded men as Henry Wilson, Stephen C. Phillips, Charles A. Phelps, and Charles Sumner, gradually acquired position and commanding influence. At a convention of the party held at Worcester, Sept. 12, 1849, Mr. Sumner, calling the members to order, said,--

It was the sentiment of Benjamin Franklin, that great apostle of freedom, uttered during the trials of the Revolution, that Where liberty is, there is my country. I doubt not that each member of this convention will be ready to respond, in a similar strain, Where liberty is, there is my party.

A long and able address by Mr. Sumner to the citizens of Massachusetts on the Free-soil movement, was adopted by this convention, and widely circulated. Contrasting its position with the double dealing of the Whig party, he says, Wherever we exist, in all parts of the country, East and West, North and South, we are truly a national party. We are not compelled to assume one face at the South, and another at the North; to blow hot in one place, and blow cold in another; to speak loudly of freedom in one region, and vindicate slavery in another,--in short, to present a combination in which the two extreme wings profess opinions on the great issue before the country, diametrically opposed to each other. We are the same everywhere; and the reason is, because our party, unlike the other parties, is bound together in support of certain fixed and well-defined principles. It is not a combination fixed by partisan zeal, and kept together, as with mechanical force, by considerations of political expediency only; but a sincere, conscientious, inflexible union for the sake of freedom.

Of the leading question of the party, he remarks, It is an everlasting link in the golden chain of human progress. It is a cause which, though long kept in check throughout our country, as also in Europe, now confronts the people and their rulers, demanding to be heard. It can no longer be avoided or silenced. To every man in the land it now says, with clear, penetrating voice, Are you for freedom, or are you for slavery? And every man in the land must answer this question when he votes.

Towards the close of the year (Dec. 4) Mr. Sumner made a strong argument before the Supreme Court of the State, against the constitutionality of separate colored schools, establishing his positions both by the constitution and the legislation of the State, as well as by the decisions of the bench. In the course of the argument he said, in reference to the distinction between the Ethiopian and Caucasian races:

Each has received from the hand of God certain characteristics of color and form. The two may not readily intermingle; although we are told by Homer that Jupiter Did not disdain to grace The feast of Ethiopia's blameless race.

One may be uninteresting or offensive to the other, precisely as different individuals of the same race and color may be uninteresting or offensive to each other; but this distinction can furnish no ground for any discrimination before the law.

We abjure nobility of all kinds; but here is a nobility of the skin. We abjure all hereditary distinctions; but here is an hereditary distinction, founded not on the merit of the ancestor, but on his color. We abjure all privileges derived from birth; but here is a privilege which depends solely on the accident, whether an ancestor is black or white. We abjure all inequality before the law; but here is an inequality which touches not an individual, but a race. We revolt at the relation of caste; but here is a caste which is established under a constitution declaring that all men are born equal.

Closing his earnest plea for the rights of the slave, he nobly said, Which way soever we turn, we are brought back to one single proposition,--the equality of men before the law. This stands as the mighty guardian of the rights of the colored children in this case. It is the constant, ever-present, tutelary genius of this Commonwealth, frowning upon every privilege of birth, upon every distinction of race, upon every institution of caste. You cannot slight it or avoid it. You cannot restrain it. God grant that you may welcome it! Do this, and your words will be a charter and freehold of rejoicing to a race which, by much suffering, has earned a title to much regard. Your judgment will become a sacred landmark, not in jurisprudence only, but in the history of freedom, giving precious encouragement to all the weary and heavy-laden wayfarers in this great cause. Massachusetts will then, through you, have a fresh title to regard, and be once more, as in times past, an example to the whole land.

The South was steadily pressing for dominion; the Whig party of the North, weakened by the desertion from its ranks of many of the advocates of freedom, step by step gave way; and Daniel Webster, led on by a hope which dotage only could have entertained, of rising to the chief executive chair, in his fatal senatorial speech of March 7, 1850, bowed in most abject submission to the slaveholding interest. Keenly it was said by an honest farmer, as this mighty leader of the Whigs went down, The masters never pay their slaves; and never, after that false play for power, could his. words, once so grandly eloquent, reach the Northern heart.

By the death of President Taylor, July 9 of the same year, the executive power devolved on Millard Fillmore, who called Mr. Webster from the Senate to his cabinet. On the 18th of September following Mr. Fillmore signed the infamous Fugitive-Slave Bill. The North, said one, will never submit to this; and we shall make the breaking-point. The sentiment of the lovers of freedom was aroused; and as a pent — up stream breaks through the dam arresting it, so the full torrent of indignation came rolling forth. In a speech at the Free-soil State Convention, held in Boston on the third day of October, 1850, Mr. Sumner denounced, in words of scathing power, the iniquity of this bill. The walls of Faneuil Hall had never echoed to more impassioned strains of eloquence. The words came from the heart, as winged with a celestial fire. A prophet greater than Daniel had come to judgment. The soul sickens, exclaimed Mr. Sumner,

in the contemplation of this outrage. In the dreary annals of the past there are many acts of shame; there are ordinances of monarchs, and laws, which have become a by-word and a hissing to the nations. But, when we consider the country and the age, I ask fearlessly, What act of shame, what ordinance of monarch, what law, can compare in atrocity with this enactment of an American Congress? I do not forget Appius Claudius, the tyrant decemvir of ancient Rome, condemning Virginia as a slave; nor Louis XIV. of France, letting slip the dogs of religious persecution by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes ; nor Charles I. of England, arousing the patriot-rage of Hampden by the extortion of ship-money; nor the British Parliament, provoking in our country spirits kindred to Hampden, by the tyranny of the Stamp Act and the tea-tax. I would not exaggerate; I wish to keep within bounds: but I think no person can doubt that the condemnation now affixed to all these transactions and to their authors must be the lot hereafter of the Fugitive-Slave Bill, and of every one, according to the measure of his influence, who gave it his support. Into the immortal catalogue of national crimes this has now passed, drawing after it, by an inexorable necessity, its authors also, and chiefly him who as president of the United States set his name to the bill, and breathed into it that final breath without which it would have no life. Other presidents may be forgotten; but the name signed to the Fugitive-Slave Bill can never be forgotten. There are depths of infamy, as there are heights of fame. I regret to say what I must; but truth compels me. Better for him had he never been born! Better far for his memory, and for the good name of his children, had he never been president! Under this detestable, Heaven-defying bill, not the slave only, but the colored freeman of the North, may be swept into ruthless captivity; and there is no white citizen, born among us, bred in our schools, partaking in our affairs, voting in our elections, whose liberty is not assailed also. Without any discrimination of color, the bill surrenders all who may be claimed as owing service or labor to the same tyrannical judgment. And mark once more its heathenism: by unrelenting provisions it visits with bitter penalties of fine and imprisonment the faithful men and women who may render to the fugitive that countenance, succor, and shelter which Christianity expressly requires. Thus, from beginning to end, it sets at nought the best principles of the constitution, and the very laws of God.

I will not dishonor the home of the Pilgrims and of the Revolution by admitting, nay, I cannot believe,--that this bill will be executed here. Individuals among us, as elsewhere, may forget humanity in a fancied loyalty to law; but the public conscience will not allow a man who has trodden our streets as a freeman to be dragged away as a slave. By his escape from bondage, he has shown that true manhood which must grapple to him every honest heart. He may be ignorant and rude, as he is poor; but he is of a true nobility. The fugitive slaves of the United States are among the heroes of our age. In sacrificing them to this foul enactment of Congress, we should violate every sentiment of hospitality, every whispering of the heart, every dictate of religion. . . . But let me be understood: I counsel no violence. There is another power, stronger than any individual arm, which I invoke: I mean that invincible public opinion, inspired by love of God and man, which, without violence or noise, gently as the operations of nature, makes and unmakes laws. Let this opinion be felt in its Christian might, and the Fugitive-Slave Bill will become everywhere upon our soil a dead-letter. No lawyer will aid it by counsel: no citizen will become its agent. It will die of inanition, like a spider beneath an exhausted receiver. Oh! it were well the tidings should spread throughout the land, that here in Massachusetts this accursed bill has found no servants. Sire, I have found in Bayonne honest citizens and brave soldiers only, but not one executioner, was the reply of the governor of that place to the royal mandate of Charles IX. of France, ordering the massacre of St. Bartholomew.

But it rests with you, my fellow-citizens, by your works and your words and your example, by your calm determinations and your devoted lives, to do this work. From a humane, just, and religious people shall spring up a public opinion, to keep perpetual guard over the liberties of all within our borders. Nay, more: like the flaming sword of the cherubim at the gates of Paradise, turning on every side, it shall prevent any slave-hunter from ever setting foot in this Commonwealth. Elsewhere he may pursue his human prey, he may employ his congenial blood-hounds, and exult in his successful game; but into Massachusetts he must not come. And yet, again I say, I counsel no violence. I would not touch his person. Not with whips and thongs would I scourge him from the land. The contempt, the indignation, the abhorrence, of the community shall be our weapons of offence. Wherever he moves, he shall find no house to receive him, no table spread to nourish him, no welcome to cheer him. The dismal lot of the Roman exile shall be his. He shall be a wanderer without roof, fire, or water. Men shall point at him in the streets, and on the highways. Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang on his pent-house lid; He shall live a man forbid. Weary seven nights, nine times nine, Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.

The villages, towns, and cities shall refuse to receive the monster: they shall vomit him forth, never again to disturb the repose of our community. . . .

We demand, first and foremost, continued he,

the instant repeal of the Fugitive-Slave Law.

We demand the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

We demand the exercise by Congress, in all Territories, of the time-honored power to prohibit slavery.

We demand of Congress to refuse to receive into the Union any new slave State.

We demand the abolition of the domestic slave-trade so far as it can be constitutionally reached, but particularly on the high seas under the national flag.

And, generally, we demand from the federal government the exercise of all its constitutional power to relieve itself from the responsibility for slavery.

And yet one thing further must be done: the slave-power must be overturned, so that the federal government may be put openly, actively, and perpetually on the side of freedom.

Referring to his own future course, he indicates that line of action which he undeviatingly pursued until the close of life:--

To vindicate freedom, and to oppose slavery, so far as I might constitutionally, with earnestness, and yet, I trust, without any personal unkindness on my part, has been the object near my heart. Would that I could impress upon all who now hear me something of the strength of my own conviction of the importance of this work! Would that my voice, leaving this crowded hall to-night, could traverse the hills and valleys of New England, that it could run along the rivers and the lakes of my country, lighting in every humane heart a beacon-flame to arouse the slumberers throughout the land! In this cause I care not for the name by which I may be called. Let it be Democrat or Loco-foco, if you please: no man who is in earnest will hesitate on account of a name. I shall rejoice in any associates from any quarter, and shall ever be found with that party which most truly represents the principles of freedom. Others may become indifferent to these principles, bartering them for political success, vain and short-lived, or forgetting the visions of youth in the dreams of age. Whenever I shall forget them, whenever I shall become indifferent to them, whenever I shall cease to be constant in maintaining them, through good report and evil report, in any future combinations of party,--then may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!--may my right hand forget its cunning!

In the summer of this year, Mr. Sumner was called to lament the loss of his brother Horace, who was drowned in his endeavor to escape from the wreck of the ship Elizabeth, which was driven by a violent gale upon the beach of Fire Island early in the morning of the 16th of July. He was of a poetical temperament, and had been residing at Rome and Florence, for the sake of regaining his health, in the family of the gifted Margaret Fuller d'ossoli, who, on the 17th of May, with her husband, their child Angelo, and Mr. Sumner, embarked at Leghorn for New York. On the 15th of July the ship arrived in sight of land on the Jersey coast; but, the wind arising during the night, it was driven past Rockaway, and, early the next morning, struck upon the sand, and soon went to pieces in full sight of the people on the shore. In attempting to reach the land upon a plank, Mr. Sumner was lost; while the Ossoli family, remaining in the vessel, shared the same melancholy fate.

By a famous coalition of the Free-soil and Democratic parties, effected mainly through the agency of Henry Wilson in the legislature, 1851, Mr. Sumner was elected, over Robert C. Winthrop, the Whig candidate, to the Senate of the United States. The contest, commencing on the 16th day of January, was long and acrimonious. Mr. Winthrop had much experience in public affairs, and was an intimate friend of Daniel Webster. Mr. Sumner would make no pledges: he had never held, nor did he desire to hold, any political office.

Mr. Sumner said in a conversation with James Redpath, written at the time, that committee after committee waited on him during the election, to get even verbal promises relative to tariff, and to ease off on the slave question; but he uniformly declined to satisfy them, saying that the office must seek him, and that he would not walk across the room to secure the election.