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Carolina to guard the work of John Gaillard and William Lowndes.
I appeal to the senators from Maryland to uphold the Compromise which elicited the constant support of Samuel Smith, and was first triumphantly pressed by the unsurpassed eloquence of Pinkney.
I appeal to the senators from Delaware to maintain the landmark of freedom in the Territory of Louisiana early proposed by Louis McLane.
I appeal to the senators from Kentucky not to repudiate the pledges of Henry Clay.
I appeal to the senators from Alabama not to break the agreement sanctioned by the earliest votes in the Senate of their late most honored fellow-citizen, William Rufus King.
Sir, I have heard of honor that felt a stain like a wound.
If there be any such in this Chamber,—and surely there is,—it will hesitate to take upon itself the stain of this transaction.
The speech was listened to with the closest attention from the beginning to the end: and the galleries applauded the description of ‘a Northern man with Southern principles.’
1 The seats of senators were filled, and
Sumner received congratulations from many of them, even from
Badger and
Butler.
2 Even the extreme Southern men made no objection to the style and temper of his treatment of the question.
C. F. Adams wrote, February 26:—
I am much obliged to you for an early copy of your speech, which I have read with the greatest pleasure and satisfaction.
After the miserable specimen presented by your colleague,—a copy of which I am confident he was ashamed to send me, though Mr. Edmunds3 has not been afraid to do it,—I am glad that Massachusetts has had a voice to redeem her character in the Senate and before the country—It is cause of congratulation that his labors have not satisfied the public mind here. . . Keep up a good heart, and do not mind the profligacy around you; your position is infinitely improved by the present state of things.
Wilson, who had read
Sumner's speech while engaged in an election campaign in
New Hampshire, wrote, February 26:—
You may be assured that I read it with pleasure and pride.
Since my return home I have again read it and I am sure that it is the noblest effort
