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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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E 458 
 
 Sll)e Hebcllinn : — 3ts ©dgiu aub illam-S}3ring. 
 
 AN ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 HON. CHAELES SUMNEE 
 
 V 
 
 UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE 
 
 YOUXG MEFS REPUBLICAN UNION OF NEW YORK, 
 
 NOVEMBER 2T, 1861. 
 
 IS" E W y O E K : 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE YOUNCr MEN'S REPUBLICAN UNION, 
 
 OFFICE OF ''THE REBELLION RECORD;' 5S2 BROADWAY. 
 
 1861. 
 
YOUNG MEN'S REPUBLICAN UNION, 
 
 Organized June, 185G, as the "FREMONT & DATTON CENTRAL UKION." 
 
 HEAD-QUARTERS, STUYVESANT INSTITUTE, 659 Broadway, New York. 
 
 This organization was the first in the country to inscribe the name of Lincoln on its banner, and the 
 first to ratify the Chicago nominations in Now York. It organized the first company of Wide-Awakes in 
 the Empire State, and published and circulated 3,961,000 pages of Campaign documents, among which 
 were the Illustrated Life of Lincoln, in German, and Mr. Lincoln's Cooper Institute Speech, with notes. 
 
 Officers of the Union. 
 
 CHARLES T. RODGERS, President, 
 DEXTER A. HAWKINS, Vice-President, 
 ERASMUS STERLING, Secretary, 
 WILLIAM M. FRANKLIN, Treasurer. 
 
 Executive Committee. 
 
 CEPHAS BRATNERD, Chairman, 
 BENJAMIN F. MANIERRE, 
 CHARLES C. NOTT, 
 FRANK W. BALLARD, 
 THOMAS L. THORNELL, 
 
 JAMES H. WELSH, 
 E. C. JOHNSON, 
 CHARLES H. COOPER, 
 P. G. DEGRAW, 
 LEWIS M. PECK. 
 
 Advisory Board. 
 
 WM. CULLEN BRYANT, 
 
 Hon. HORACE GREELEY, 
 
 Hon. HAMLTON FISH, 
 
 Hon. HIRAM BARNEY, 
 
 Hon. WILLIAM V. BRADY, 
 
 DANIEL DREW, 
 
 Hon. benjamin F. MANIERRE, 
 
 FRANCIS HALL, 
 
 Hon. CHARLES A. PEABODY, 
 
 RICHARD c. Mccormick, 
 
 WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES, 
 Hon. GEORGE FOLSOM, 
 JAMES KELLY, 
 EDGAR KETCHUM, 
 GEORGE W. BLUNT, 
 Hon. ABIJAH MANN, Jk. 
 HENRY A. HURLBUT. 
 
 A fine edition of Abraham Lincoln's Speech at the Cooper Institute, New York, 
 1860, with Notes, may be had of G. P. Putnam, 532 Broadway. Price, 10 cents. 
 
 THE REBELLION RECORD, edited by Frank Moore, and publislied by 
 G. P. Putnam, 532 Broadway, contains every Official Document, and all other 
 Public Papers, Narratives, and Facts of interest connected with the present 
 Crisis. 
 
 Tfie First Volume., now complete, contains a vast amount of important infor- 
 mation of permanent value ; with a full collection also of the humorous and 
 characteristic Incidents, Anecdotes, Poetry, etc., both loyal and rebel. Illus- 
 trated with maps and portraits on steel. Price, $3 V5. ' 
 The 8eco7id Volume will be ready early in January. It is also continued in 
 Weekly Numbers, price 10 cents, and in Monthly Parts, price 50 cents. 
 
 ( 
 
Wxe lltidlimi :— Jis ©rijiii ami Ipain-^^riiij. 
 AN ORATION 
 
 Delivered before the Citizens of New York, 
 
 CXDEU THE AUSPICES OF 
 
 The New York Young Men's Eepublican Union, 
 
 AT COOPER INSTITUTE, 
 ON WEDNESDA-Y EATEISTHSTG, NOV. S7, 1861, 
 
 By Hon. CHARLES SUMNER, 
 
 UNITED 8TATE8' 8ENAT0K FROM M ASS ACnu 8 ETT8 . 
 
 The assemblage before wliich this oration was delivci'od was remarkable in num- 
 bers and in character. Long before the hour named for the meeting, the immense 
 ball was crowded, and notwithstanding that the evening was stormy, the proportion 
 of ladies present was larger than ever before seen in New York on such an occasion. 
 Upon the platform were seated many distinguished Americans, among whom 
 may be named Hon. Willirim Pennington, Ex-Governor of New Jersey, and Ex- 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives ; Hon. Schuyler Colfax, of Lidiana; Hon. 
 Lot C. Morrill, of Vermont ; Cliarles King, LL.D., President of Columbia College ; 
 Professor Francis Lieber ; David Dudley Field, Esq., William M. Evarts, Esq., John 
 . Jay, Esq., Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, D.D., Rev. William Hague, D.D., Rev. George B. 
 Cheever, D.D., Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, Rev. Alfred Cookman, John H. Griscom, 
 M.D., Hon. John W. Edmonds, Gen. Prosper M. Wetmore, Lewis Tajipan, Rev. 
 William Goodell, Hon. Charles A. Peabody, Rev. Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., Rev. 
 Henry M. Field, Hon. Thomas B. Stillman, Hon. Benjamin F, 31anierre, R. M. 
 Blatchford, Esq., William Pitt Palmer, Esq., D. A. Harsha, Esq., George P. Put- 
 nam, Esq., Elliott C. Cowdin, Esq., Hon. William B. Taylor, Postmaster of New 
 York, Hon. Rufus F. Andrews, Surveyor of the Port, Hon. H. B. Stanton, Deputy 
 Collector, Hon. Joseph Hoxie, Major A. A. Selover, U. S. Army, Oliver Johnson, 
 Esq. 
 
 Charles T. Rodgers, Esq., President of the " Union," introduced William Curtis 
 Noyes, Esq., as the j^residiug officer of the meeting, and a list of Vice-Presidents 
 and Secretaries was unanimously adopted. 
 
 Mr. Notes, upon taking the chair, delivered the following address : — 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — Thanking you, as I do, gratefully for the kindness wliicli has 
 called me to preside over this meeting, let me remind you that within the modest chapel wliich 
 impresses with devotional emotions every visitor to Mount Aubiu-n — that most beautiful of 
 American cemeteries — stands a marble statue of one of the patriot loaders of tlie American 
 Revolution. Its simple dignity arrests attention and commands admiration and respect. Stern 
 resolve and unflinching courage are depicted in lineament and attitude. We see him volun- 
 tarily renouncing a high professional office under the crown to take his place in the forum as a 
 private citizen, to oppose, without reward, the odious violations of the liberties of the people by 
 means of writs of assistance. His exordium startles the ])reiudicod judges : — 
 
 Let the consequences be what they will, I am determined to proceed. The only principles of public 
 conduct that are worthy of a gentleman or a man, arc to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and 
 even life, to the sacred calls of country. These principles, in private life, make the good citizen ; in public 
 life, the patriot and the hero. 
 
 Then, rising with the progress of his groat theme, he continues : — 
 Every man in a state of nature is an independent sovereign, subject to no law but the law written upon 
 his heart and revealed to him by his Maker. His right to his life, his liberty, and his property, no created 
 being can rightfully contest ; these rights are inherent and inalienable. 
 
 We watch the effect of liis indignant words — they convince and awe, and yet the royal tri- 
 bunal dare not decide. It prevaricates and postpones, but the victory is won ; the odious meas- 
 ure is abandoned for ever, and the orator's utterances have liglited up a flame which inde- 
 pendence alone can ever quench. 
 
 We go with him from this first theatre of triumph through many long years of toil and 
 anxiety, in shaping the measures which led to the great conflict with the mother country, to 
 
PRELIMIXARY PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 the General Court, guided by his skill and political sagacity ; to the popular assembly alike 
 aroused to turbulence and hushed to repose by his burning eloquence. We see him hurling de- 
 fiance at the minions of power who, witb secret malevolence, assailed his reputation. We wit- 
 ness their malignant liatred, and their deadly assault upon his person when alone and unarmed. 
 We see him fall, covered with wounds, and carried bleeding to his liome. 
 
 Thenceforward, to the actual opening of the Revolutionary drama, and during its progress, 
 this act of regal barbarism obscured, but did not wholly extinguish, the light of the great in- 
 tellect which it sought to destroy, but all tliat remained was a wreck, reminding only of the 
 glories of the past. The crime against tlie person added to its atrocity a greater crime against 
 the soul, dooming it to pursue its earthly career in sadness and gloom. Conscious of being only 
 a monument of decay, well miglit the gradually expiring patriot wish that when C4od, in his 
 righteous Providence, should call him from time into eternity, it might be by a flash of light- 
 ning. Wo may rejoice that his prayer was answered, and tliat — too noble to be permitted to 
 die a common death — in a manner equally affecting and sublime, JAMES OTIS (applause) was 
 removed to the mansions of eternal felicity. 
 
 It is the necessary result of barbarism, in all its phases, to furnish historic parallels by re- 
 producing itself in viler forms. Not a century elapsed, and a similar atrocity is enacted in the 
 Senate Chamber of the United States. The ruffians were actuated by as deadly a hate, their 
 malice was as foul and murderous, their defiance of law was as manifest, their victim was also 
 the friend and advocate of universal freedom, and as much distinguished and feared, and he also 
 fell beneath the blows of assassins in heart and conduct. 
 
 Bat here the parallel ends. Tliis outrage did not impair the intellect which it sought to 
 destro}'; that survived tlie trial — enlarged, strengthened, purified — to set forward in a new and 
 more glorious career in the cause of freedom and humanity. Instead of the lightning's flash to 
 remove it to heaven, a divine influence, equal in potency, has emanated thence, inspiring it with 
 a larger love of freedom, more zeal in the cause of the oppressed, and a more earnest conviction 
 that human slavery produces only evil, and that it should be forever eradicated. (Enthusiastic 
 applause.) 
 
 Happy, then, for us, and for our country, has been the suflfering of these martyrs in the cause 
 of freedom. The name of James Otis has descended to posterity on the brightest pages of our 
 history, associated with those of Hancock, and Adams, and Jay, and Jefferson, and Henry, and 
 Rutledge, and there it will remain forever. 
 
 The name of that other martyr in the cause of truth and justice, will find equal distinction in 
 future ages on the roll of philanthropists, with those of Howard, and Clarkson, and Wilberforce, 
 and others of that glorious company, " of whom the world was not worthy." 
 
 But history has also its retributions. The infamous actors in these tragedies passed away 
 under the scorn and contempt of mankind, their names only searched for and remembered 
 among the persecutoi's and slayers of their race. They who countenanced and approved the 
 last — by a fitting gradation — became the betrayers and assassins of their country, and two of 
 these — the highest in station and basest in conduct — are now awaiting the punishment due to 
 their crimes in a prison within the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument, (applause,) which indig- 
 nantly frowns upon them from base to summit. 
 
 In the reality of the present, behold the promise of the future, when all traitors like them 
 shall meet a similar doom. Still devoting himself to the cause of his country and to the free- 
 dom of the oppressed, the advocate and friend of all, of whatever rank or condition of color, the 
 scholar, the ithilanthropist, tlie martyr, the statesman, has come again among us, and it is with 
 equal pride and i>leasure that I present to you the Hon. Charles Sumner, not of Massachusetts, 
 but of the United States of America, one and indivisible. 
 
 Mr. SujrxER thou came forward, and Avas received by the vast audience with 
 tnniultuons applause, in which tlie ladies joined with every manifestation of delight. 
 Tlie cheers, and waving of hats, and handkerchiefs lasted several minutes. 
 
 At the conchision of Mr. Sumner's oration, the following resolutions were offered 
 and adopted by acclamation : 
 
 Resolced, That the doctrine enunciated by Major-Gencral Fremont with respect to the eman- 
 cipation of the slaves of rebels, and the more recent utterances of General Burnside, Senator Wil- 
 son, and the Hon. George Bancroft, in this city ; and of Col. John Cochrane and the Hon. Si- 
 71)011 Cameron at Washington, foreshadowing the eventual rooting out of slavery, as the cause of 
 the rebellion, indicate alike a moral, ])olitical, and military necessity ; and, in the judgment of 
 this meeting, the i)ublic sentiment of the North is now fully in sympathy with any yiracticable 
 scheme which may be presented for the extirpation of this national evil, and will accept such 
 result as the only consistent issue of this contest between civilization and- barbarism. 
 
 liesolved, That the thanks of this meeting be, and are hereby, tendered to the Hon. Charles 
 Sumner, the distinguished orator of this evening, for his reassertion and eloquent enforcement 
 of the political principle herein indorsed. 
 
SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 Mr. President : — It is my nature to be more 
 touched by the kindness of friends tlitm by the 
 mahgnity of enemies ; and I know something 
 of both. Yon make me feel tliat I am among 
 friends. It gives me much ]ileasnre to be 
 welcomed by the KepubHcan Union, first, as 
 you represent tlie young men who are the 
 hope and strength of the country, and, second- 
 ly, as you constitute an association which has 
 already rendered signal service in savhig the 
 country from the rule of the Skive Oligarchy. 
 It was under your auspices, that our candidate 
 for the Pi'osidency, known and honored in Illi- 
 nois, became equally known and honored in 
 New York. Nor is it too much to say that the 
 masterly speech which he made at your invita- 
 tion in this very hall, was needed to complete 
 those titles to regard which caused his nomina- 
 tion at Chicago, and his election by the people. 
 It was he wlio did the work; but you supplied 
 the opportunity. 
 
 Fellow- Citizens of Xeio YorTc: — 
 
 In the presence of such an audience, so genial 
 and almost so festive in character — assembled 
 for no purpose of party or even of politics, in 
 the ordinary sense of that term — I incline nat- 
 urally to some topic of literature, of history, 
 of science, of art, — to sometliing, at least, which 
 makes for peace. But at this moment, when 
 our whole continent is begiiniing to shake with 
 the tread of mustering armies, the voice re- 
 fuses any such theme. The ancient poet, long- 
 ing to sing of Achilles and the house of x\trens, 
 found that he could only sing of love, — and he 
 snatched from his lyre its bloody string. Alas ! 
 for me the case is all changed. I can speak to 
 you only of war ; but do not forget that if I 
 speak of war, it is because unhappily war has 
 become to us the only way of peace. 
 
 The present is too apt to appear trivial and 
 unimportant, while the past and the future are 
 grand. Rarely do men know the full signifi- 
 cance of the period in wliich they live, and we 
 are all inclined to sigh for something better in 
 the way of opportunity — such as was given to 
 the hero of the past, or such as our imagination 
 allots to the better hero of the future. But 
 there is no occasion for such repining now. 
 There is nothin;; in the past, and it is diflicult 
 to imagine any thing in the future, more in- 
 spiring than our present. Even with the cur- 
 tain yet slightly lifted, it is easy to see that 
 events are now gathering, which, in their de- 
 velopment, must constitute the third great 
 epoch in the history of this Western Hemi- 
 sphere ; — the first being its discovery by Chris- 
 topher Columbus, and tlie second being tlie 
 American Revolution. . And now it remains to 
 be seen that this epoch of ours may not surpass 
 in grandeur either of its two predecessors, so 
 that the fame of the Discoverer and the fame 
 
 of the Liberator — of Columbus and of "Washing- 
 ton — may be eclipsed by the mild efi'ulgenco 
 beaming from an act of god-like justice, which, 
 within its immediate inlhience, will create a new 
 heaven and a new earth, wliile in other lauds 
 its life-giving example will be felt so long as 
 men struggle for rights denied, so long as any 
 human being wears a chain. 
 
 War is always an epoch. Unhappily, history 
 counts by wars. Of these, some have been wars 
 of ideas — like that between the Catholics and 
 Huguenots in France ; between the Catholics 
 and Protestants in Germany ; between tlie ar- 
 bitrary crown of Charles I. and the Puritanism 
 of Oliver Cromwell ; and like that between our 
 fathers and the mother country, when the De- 
 claration of Independence was put in issue. 
 Some have originated in ([uestious of form ; 
 some in the contentions of families ; some in 
 the fickleness of ])rinces, and some in the ma- 
 chinations of politicians. England waged war 
 on Holland, and one of the reasons o])enly as- 
 signed was an ofi'ensive picture in the tovai 
 hall of Amsterdam. France hurled her armies 
 across the Rhine, carrying fire and slaughter 
 into the Palatinate, and involving great nations 
 in a most bloody confiict, and all this wicked- 
 ness has been traced to the intrigue of a minis- 
 ter, who sought in this way to divert the atten- 
 tion of his sovereign. But vre are now in the 
 midst of a war, which, whatever may be the 
 reasons assigned by the unhappy men who be- 
 gan it, or by those who sympathize with them 
 elsewhere, has an origin and main-spring so 
 clear and definite as to be beyond question. 
 Ideas are sometimes good and sometimes bad; 
 and there may be a vrar for evil as well as for 
 good. Such was that earliest rebellion waged 
 by the fallen spirits against the Almighty 
 Tlirone ; and such, also, is that now waged by 
 the fallen slave-masters of our Republic against 
 the national Government. 
 
 If you will kindly listen, I shall now endeav- 
 or to unmask this rebellion, in its origin and 
 main-si)riug. It is only when these are known 
 that you can determine how the rebellion is 
 to bo treated. Your cflbrts will naturally be 
 governed by the cliaractcr of the adverse force 
 — whether regarded as a motive power or as a 
 disease. A steam-engine is stopped at once by 
 stopping the steam. A ghastly cancer which 
 has grap]ded the very fibres of the human 
 frame, and shot its poison through every vein, 
 will not yield to lip-salve or rose-water. 
 
 Pifef.sco do-jpcmt'c grown 
 
 By deBnerato appliances are relieved, 
 
 Or not at all. 
 
 On the Gth November last, the people of the 
 United States, acting in pursuance of the Con- 
 stitution and laws, chose Abraham Lincoln 
 
6 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 President. Of course tbis choice was in every 
 particulur completely constitutional and legal. 
 As such it was entitled to the respect and ac- 
 quiescence of every good citizen. It is vain to 
 say that the candidate represented opinions 
 obnoxious to a considerable section of the coun- 
 try, or that he was chosen by votes confined to 
 a special section. It is enough that he was 
 duly chosen. You cannot set aside or deny 
 such an election without assailing, not only the 
 whole frame-work of the Constitution, but also 
 the primal principle of American institutions. 
 You become a traitor at once to the existing 
 Government, and also to the very idea of pop- 
 ular rule. You snatch a principle from the red 
 book of despotism, and openly substitute the 
 cartridge-box for tlio ballot-box. 
 
 And yet, scarcely had this intelhgence been 
 flashed across the country, before the mutter- 
 ings of sedition and treason began to reach us 
 from the opposite quarter. The Union was 
 menaced ; and here the first distinct voice 
 came from South Carolina. A Senator from 
 that State, one of the largest slaveholders of 
 the country, and a most strenuous partisan of 
 slavery — Mr. Hammond — openly declared, in 
 language not easily forgotten, that before the 
 18th December South Carolina would bo " out 
 of the Union higli, and dry, and forever." These 
 words heralded the outbreak. With the per- 
 tinacity of demons its leaders pushed forward. 
 Their avowed object was the dismemberment 
 of the Republic by detaching State after State, 
 in order to found a slave-holding Confederacy. 
 And here the clearest utterance came from a 
 late Re])resentative of Georgia— Mr. Stephens 
 — noAV Vice-President of the rebel States, who 
 did not hesitate to proclaim " that the founda- 
 tions of the new Government are laid upon the 
 great truth, that slavery — subordination to the 
 superior race — is the negro's natural and moral 
 condition; that it is the first Government in 
 the histoi-y of the world based upon this great 
 physical, philosophical, and moral truth ; and 
 that the stone which was rejected by the first 
 builders is in the new edifice become the chief 
 stone of the corner.''' Here is a savage frank- 
 ness which sliows an insensibility to shame. 
 Surely the object avovi^ed is hideous in every 
 aspect, whether vre regard it as treason to our 
 paternal Government, as treason to the idea 
 of American institutions, or as treason also to 
 those commanding principles of economy, 
 morals, and Christianity, without which civili- 
 zation is changed into barbarism. 
 
 And now we stand face to face in deadly 
 conflict with this double-headed, triple-headed 
 treason. Beginning with those States most 
 peculiarly interested in slavery, and oi)erating 
 always with an intensity proportioned to the 
 prevalence of slavery, it has fastened upon 
 other States less interested — Tennessee, North 
 Carolina, Virginia— and witii much difliculty 
 has been prevented from enveloping every State 
 containing slaves, no matter how few ; for 
 such is the malignant poison of slavery that 
 
 only a few slaves will constitute a slave State 
 with all the sympathies and animosities of 
 slavery. This is the rebellion which I am to 
 unmask. But bad as it is on its face, it becomes 
 aggravated when we consider its origin, and 
 the agencies by which it has been conducted. 
 It is not merely a rebellion, but it is a rebellion, 
 begun in conspiracy ; nor, in all history, ancient 
 or modern, is there any record of conspiracy so 
 vast and so wicked, ranging over such spaces 
 both of time and territory, and contemplating 
 such results. A conspiracy to seize a castle or 
 to assassinate a prince is petty by the side of 
 this enormous protracted treason, where half a 
 continent studded with castles, fortresses, and 
 public edifices, is seized, where the Govern- 
 ment itself is overthrown, and where the Presi- 
 dent, on his way to the national capital, nar- 
 rowly escaped a most cruel assassination. 
 
 But no conspiracy could have ripened into 
 such wicked fruit, if it were not rooted in a soil 
 of congenial malignity. To appreciate properly 
 this influence, we must go back to the beginning 
 of the Government. 
 
 South Carolina, which has taken so forward 
 a part in this treason, hesitated originally, as 
 is well known, wdth regard to the Declaration 
 of Independence. Once her vote was recorded 
 figainst that act ; and when it finally prevailed, 
 lier vote was given for it only formally and for 
 the sake of seeming unanimity. But so little 
 was she inspired by the Declaration, that, in 
 the contest which ensued, her comnfissioners 
 made a proposition to the British commander, 
 which has been properly characterized by an 
 able historian as " equivalent to an offer from 
 the State to return to the British crown." 
 The same hesitation shown with regard to 
 the Declaration of Independence was renewed 
 with regard to the Federal Constitution, and 
 here it was shared by another State. It is no- 
 torious that both South Carolina and Georgia, 
 Vi'hich, Avith the States carved out their origi- 
 nal territory — Alabama and Mississippi — con- 
 stitute the chief seat of the conspiracy — hesi- 
 tated to become parties to the Union, and 
 stipulated expressly for the recognition of the 
 slave-trade in the Federal Constitution as an 
 indispensable condition. In the Convention, 
 Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, while oppos- 
 ing a tax on the importation of slaves, said : 
 " The true (juestion at present is, whether 
 Souther?! States shall or shall not be parties to 
 the Union." Mr. Pinckney, also of South Caro- 
 lina, followed Avith the unblushing declaration : 
 " South Carolina can never receive the plan [of 
 the Constitution] if it j)rohibits the slave- 
 trade.'''' I quote now from Mr. Madison's 
 authentic rei)ort of these important debates. 
 (See Elliot's Debates, vol. v., p. 457.) ^ With ♦ 
 shame let it be confessed, that, instead of repel- 
 ling this disgraceful overture, our fathers sub- 
 nfitted to it, and in that submission you will 
 find the beginning of our present sorrows. The 
 slave-trade, whose aggregate iniquity no tongue 
 can tell, was placed for twenty years under the 
 
SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 safeguard of the Constitution, thus giving to 
 slavery itself increase, support, and sanction. 
 The language was modest, but the intent was 
 complete. South Carolina and Georgia were 
 pacitied, and took their places in the Union, to 
 which they were openly bound only by a most 
 revolting tie. Regrets for the past are not en- 
 tirely useless, if out of them we get wisdom 
 for the future, and learn to be bravo. It is 
 easy now to see that, had the unnatural pre- 
 tension of these States been originally encoun- 
 tered by a stern resistance wortliy of an honest 
 people, the present conspiracy would have been 
 crushed before it saw the light. Its whole suc- 
 cess, from its distant beginning down to this 
 hour, has been from our timidity. 
 
 But there was also another sentiment, of a 
 kindred perversity, which prevailed in the same 
 quarter. This is vividly portrayed by .John 
 Adams, in a letter to General Gates, dated at 
 Philadelphia, 23d March, 1776 : 
 
 " However, my dear friend Gates, all our misfor- 
 tunes arise from a single source ; the resistance of the 
 Southern colonics to Republican Government." * 
 * * (John Adams' Works, vol. i., p. 207.) 
 
 And he proceeds to declare in strong lan- 
 guage that " popular principles and axioms 
 were abhorrent to the inclinations of the barons 
 of the South." This letter was written in the 
 early days of the Revolution. At a later period 
 of his life John Adams testifies again to the 
 discord between the North and the South ; and 
 he refers particularly to the period after the 
 Federal Constitution, saying : " The Northern 
 and the Southern States were invariably fixed 
 in opposition to each other." (See letter to 
 James Lloyd, 11th Feb., 1815, John Adams' 
 Works, vol. X., p. 19.) This was before any 
 question of tariff, or of free trade, or before t!ie 
 growing fortunes of the North had awakened 
 Southern jealousy. The whole opposition had 
 its root in slavery — as also had the earlier re- 
 sistance to Republican Government. 
 
 In the face of these influences the Union 
 was formed, but the seeds of conspiracy were 
 latent in its bosom. Tlie spirit already revealed 
 was scarcely silenced ; it was not destroyed. 
 It still existed, rankling, festering, burning to 
 make itself manifest. At the mention of sla- 
 very it always appeared full-armed, with bar- 
 barous pretensions. Even in the first Congress 
 under the Constitution — at the presentation of 
 that famous petition where Benjamin Franklin 
 simply called upon Congress to step to the verge 
 of its powers to discourage eveiy species of 
 traffic in our fellow-men — this spirit broke 
 forth in violent threats. With a kindred law- 
 lessness it early embraced that extravagant 
 dogma of State rights which has been ever 
 since the convenient cloak of treason and of 
 conspiracy. At the Missouri question in 1820, 
 it openly menaced a dissolution of the Union. 
 Instead of throttling the monster, we submitted 
 to feed it with new concessions. Meanwliile 
 the conspiracy grew, until, at last, in 1830, 
 
 under the influence of Mr. Calhoun, it assumed 
 the defiant front of nullification ; nor did it 
 yield to the irresistible logic of Webster or the 
 stern will of Jackson without a compromise. 
 Tlio pretended ground of complaint was the 
 tarifi"; but Andrew Jackson, hhnself a patriot 
 slaveholder — at that time President — saw the 
 hoUowness of the complaint. In a confidential 
 letter, which has only recently been brought to 
 light, dated at Washington, 1st May, 1833 — and 
 which, during the last winter, I had the honor 
 of reading and holding up before the conspira- 
 tors of the Senate, in the original autograph, 
 he says : 
 
 " The tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and 
 a Soutberu Confederacy the real object, llie next 
 pretext will be the negro or slavery question.''^ 
 
 Jackson was undoubtedly right ; but the 
 pretext which he denounced in advance was 
 employed so constantly afterwards as to become 
 threadbare. At the earliest presentation of 
 abolition petitions — at the Texas question — at 
 the compromises of 1850 — at the Kansas ques- 
 tion — at the probable election of Fremont — on 
 all these occasions, tho Union was threatened 
 by the angry slave-masters. 
 
 But the conspiracy has been unblushingly 
 confessed by recent parties to it. Especially 
 was this done in the rebel Convention of South 
 Carolina. 
 
 Mr. Packer said : '• Secession is no spasmodic 
 effort that has come suddenly upon us. It has 
 hecn gradually culminating for a long scries of 
 years.'''' 
 
 Mr. Inglis said : " Most of us have had this 
 subject under consideration for the last twenty 
 years.'''' 
 
 Mr. Keitt said : " I have been engaged in 
 this movement ever since I entered political 
 life:' 
 
 Mr. Rhett, who was in the Senate when I 
 first entered that bod,v, and did not hesitate 
 then to avow himself a Disunionist, said, in 
 the same Convention : " It is nothing produced 
 by Mr. Lincoln's election or the non-execution 
 of the fugitive slave law. It is a matter which 
 has been gathering head for thirty years.''^ 
 
 The conspiracy thus exposed by Jackson 
 and confessed by recent parties to it, was 
 quickened by the growing passion for slavery 
 througliout the slave States. The well-known 
 opinions of the fiithers, the declared convictions 
 of all who were most eminent at tlie foundation 
 of the Government, and the example of Wash- 
 ington were all discarded, and it was reckless- 
 ly avowed that slavery is a divine institution — 
 the highest type of civilization — a blessing to 
 master and slave alike — and the very key-stone 
 of our national arch. A generation has grown 
 up with this teaching, so that it is now ready 
 to say with Satan, 
 
 Evil lie thou my sood ; hy theo at least 
 
 Divided empire v:\lh heaven's kiner I hold ; 
 
 As man ere long and this new world shall know. 
 
 It is natural that a people thus trained should 
 
SPEECH OF HOX. CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 listen to the voice of conspiracy. Slavery it- 
 self i> a constant conspiracy, and its supporters, 
 whether in the slave States or elsewhere, easily 
 hecoine indiflerent to all rights and principles 
 by which it may be constrained. 
 
 But this rage for slavery was itself quick- 
 ened by two influences, which have shown 
 themselves since the formation of our Union ; — 
 one economical and the other political. The 
 first was found in the unexpected importance 
 of the cotton-cro]), which, through the labor of 
 slaves and the genius of a New England inven- 
 tor, has passed into an extraordinary element 
 of wealth and of imagined strength, so that we 
 have all been sunmioned to do homage to cot- 
 ton as king. The second of tiiese influences 
 was found in the temptations of political power 
 — than v/hich no influence is more potent — for 
 it became obvious that this power could be 
 assured to slavery only through the permanent 
 preponderance of its Eepresentatives in the 
 Senate; so that the continued control of all 
 ofnces and honors was made to depend upon 
 the extension of slavery. Thus, through two 
 strong aj)petites — one for gain and the other 
 for power — was slavery stimulated ; but the 
 conspiracy was strong only through slavery. 
 
 But even this conspiracy, thus supported 
 and nurtured, would have been more wicked 
 than strong, if it had not found perfidious aid 
 in the very cabinet of the President. The 
 Secretary of the Treasury, a slave-master from 
 Georgia ; the Secretary of the Interior, a slave- 
 master from Mississippi ; the Secretary of War, 
 the notorious Floyd, a slave-master from Vir- 
 ginia ; and, I fear, also the Secretary of the 
 Xavy, who was a Northern man with Southern 
 jjrinciples, lent their active exertions. Through 
 these eminent functionaries the treason was 
 organized and directed, while their important 
 posts were prostituted to its infamy. Here, 
 again, you see the extent of the conspiracy. 
 Never before, in any country, was there a simi- 
 lar crime, which embraced so many persons in 
 the highest places of power, or which took 
 withinits grasp so large a theatre of human 
 action. In anticipation of the election of Mr. 
 Lincoln, the Cabinet conspirators had prepared 
 the way for the rebellion : 
 
 First. The army of the United States was 
 so far dispersed and exiled, that the com- 
 mander-in-chief found it difficult during tlie 
 recent anxious winter to bring together a 
 thousand trooi)S for the defence of the national 
 ca])ita], menaced by the conspirators. 
 
 Secondly. The navy was so far dispersed 
 or dismantled, that on the 4th March, when 
 the new Administration came into power, 
 there were no ships to enforce tlie laws, collect 
 the revenues, or protect tlie national property 
 in the rebel ports. Out of 72 vessels of war, 
 then counted as our navy, it appears that our 
 whole available force at home was reduced to 
 the steamer Brooklyn, carrying 25 guns, and the 
 store-ship Relief, carrying 2 guns. 
 
 Thirdly. The forts on the extensive South- 
 
 ern coast were so far abandoned by the public 
 force, that the larger part — counting upwards 
 of 1,200 cannons, and built at a cost of upM'ards 
 of six million dollars — became at once an easy 
 prey to the rebels. 
 
 Fourthly'. National arms were transferred 
 from Northern to Southern arsenals, so as to 
 disarm the free States and to equip the slave 
 States. This was done on a large scale. Up- 
 wards of 115,000 arms, of the latest and most 
 approved pattern, were transferred from the 
 Springfield and Watervliet arsenals to difter- 
 ent arsenals in the slave States, where they 
 have been seized by the rebels. And a quar- 
 ter of a million percussion muskets were sold 
 to various slave States for $2.50 a musket, 
 when they v\'ere worth, it is said, on an av- 
 erage, $12. Large quantities of cannon, mor- 
 tars, ])owder, ball, and shell received the same 
 direction. 
 
 Fifthly. The national Treasury, which so 
 recently had been prosperous beyond example, 
 was disorganized and plundered even to the 
 verge of bankruptcy. Upwards of six millions 
 are supposed to have been stolen, and much of 
 this treasure doubtless went to help the work 
 of rebellion. 
 
 Thus, even before its outbreak, the conspir- 
 acy contrived to degrade and despoil the Gov- 
 ernment, so as to secure a free course for the 
 projected rebellion. The story seems incred- 
 ible. But it Avas not enough to disperse the 
 army, to disperse the navy, to abandon forts, 
 to disarm the free States, and to rob the Treas- 
 ury. The President of the United States, sol- 
 emnly sworn to execute the laws, was won into 
 a system of inactivity amounting to a practical 
 abdication of his important trust. He saw 
 treason plotting to stab at the heart of his 
 country; ho saw conspiracy, daily, hourly, 
 putting on the harness of rebellion, but, 
 though warned by the watchful commander- 
 in-chief, he did nothing to arrest it, standing 
 always 
 
 like a p;iir.ted Jove, 
 
 "With idle thunder iu hia lifted hand. 
 
 Aye, more ; instead of those instant lightnings 
 smiting and blasting in their fiery crash, which 
 an indignant patriotism would have hurled at 
 the criminals, he nodded sympathy and acquies- 
 cence. No page of history is more melancholy, 
 because nowhere do we find a ruler who so 
 completely abandoned his country ; not Charles 
 I. in his tyranny, not liOuis XVI. in his weakness. 
 Mr. Buchanan had been advanced to power 
 by slave-masters, who knew well that he could 
 be used for slavery. The -slave-holding con- 
 spirators were encouraged to sit in his Cabinet, 
 v.iiere they doubly betniyed their country, 
 first by evil counsels, and then by disclosing 
 what jiassed to their distant slave-holding con- 
 federates. The sudden act of Major Ander- 
 son, in removing from Fort Moultrie to Fort 
 Sumter, and the sympathetic response of an 
 aroused people, compelled a change of policy, 
 and the rebellion received its first check. It 
 
SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 was decided at last, after a painful struggle, 
 that Fort Sumter should be maintained. It 
 is difficult to exaggerate tlie importance of 
 that decision, which, I believe, was duo mainly 
 to an emient democrat — General Cass. Tiiis, 
 at least, is true : it saved the national capital. 
 
 Meanwhile the conspiracy increased iu ac- 
 tivity, mastering State after State, gathering 
 its forces and bnildli)?^ its batteries. The time 
 had come for the tragedy to begin. " At Not- 
 hingliam," says the great English historian, 
 Gpeaking of King Charles I., " he erected his 
 royal standard, the open signal of discord and 
 civil war throughout the kingdom." The same 
 open signal now came from Ciiarleston, when 
 tho conspirators ran up the rattle-snake Ihig, 
 and directed their wicked cannonade upon the 
 small, lialf- famished garrison of Sumter. 
 
 Were all this done in the name of revolu- 
 tion, or by virtue of any revolutionary princi- 
 ple, it would assume a familiar cliaracter. But 
 this is not tho case. It is all done under the 
 pretence of constitutional right. The forms 
 of the Constitution are seized by the conspira- 
 tors — as they have already seized every tiling 
 else — and wrested to the purposes of treason. 
 It is audaciously declared that, under the exist- 
 ing Constitution, each State, in the exercise of 
 its own discretion, may withdraw from the 
 Union ; and this asserted riglit of secession is 
 invoked as the cover for a rebellion begun in 
 conspiracy. The election of Mr. Lincoln is 
 made the occasion for the exercise of this pre- 
 tended right. Certain opinions at the North 
 on the subject of slavery are maile the ipretext. 
 
 Who will not deny that this election can be 
 a just occasion? 
 
 "Who will not condemn tha pretext ? 
 
 But both occasion and jireti-'xt are determined 
 by slavery, and thus testify to the part it has 
 constantly performed. 
 
 And the pretended right of secession is not 
 less monstrous than the pretext or the occa- 
 sion ; and this, too, testiOes to slavery. It 
 belongs to that brood of assumptions and per- 
 versions, of which slavery is the prolific 
 parent. Wherever slavery prevails, this pre- 
 tended right is recognized, and generally with 
 an intensity proportioned to the prevalence of 
 slavery ; as, for instance, in South Carolina 
 and Mississippi, more intensely than in Ten- 
 nessee and Kentucky. It may be considered 
 a fixed part of the slave-holding system. A 
 pretended right to set aside the Constitution 
 to tlie extent of breaking up the Government, 
 is the natural companion of the pretended 
 right to set aside human nature to the extent 
 of making merchandise of men. They form 
 a well-matched couple, and travel well together 
 — destined to perish together. If we do not 
 overflow toward the first with the same indig- 
 nation which we feel for the latter, it is because 
 its absurdity awakens our contempt. An 
 English poet of the last century exclaims, in 
 mocking verses — 
 
 Crowned bo the man ■with lasting praise, 
 
 Who tii'ist contrived the piu, 
 To loose ni:id liorses from the chain, 
 
 And save the works within. 
 
 But this is the impossible contrivance which 
 has been attemjited. Nothing is clearer than 
 that this pretension, if acknowledged, leaves to 
 every State the right to play at will " the mad 
 horse," but with very little chance of saving 
 any thing. It takes from the Government not 
 merely the unity, but even the possibility of 
 continued existence, and reduce*; it to the 
 shadow of a naiuj, or, at best, a mere tenancy 
 at will — an unsubstantial form, liahle to be de- 
 composed at the touch of a single State. Of 
 course, such an anarcluc.al pretension — so in- 
 stinct with all the lawlessness of slavery — must 
 be encountered ])eremptorily. It is not enough 
 to declare our dissent from it. We must see 
 that our conduct is such as not to give it any 
 recognition or foothold. [Applnitse.^ 
 
 But instead of scouting this pretension, and 
 utterly spurning it from the Government, new 
 concessions to slavery were gravely propound- 
 ed as the means of pacification — like a new 
 sacrifice oft'ered to an obscene divinity. It 
 was argued that in this way the Border States 
 at least might be ])reservcd to the Union, and 
 some of tlie Cotton States, perhaps, be won 
 back to their duty; in other words, that in 
 consideration of such concessions these States 
 would consent to waive the present exercise of 
 the pretended right of secession. Against all 
 such propositions — without considering their 
 character — there was on the threshold one ob- 
 vious and imperative objection. It was clear 
 that the very bargain or understanding, wheth- 
 er express or implied, was a, recognition of 
 this pretended right, and that a State yielding 
 only to this appeal and detained through con- 
 cessions, practically asserts this claim, and 
 holds it for future exercise, tanqvam glafJinm 
 in vagina. Thus a concession called small be- 
 comes infinite, for it concedes the pretended 
 right of secession and makes the permanence 
 of the national Government impossible. Amidst 
 all the grave responsibilities of the hour it be- 
 longs to us to take care that the life of the Ke- 
 public is sacredly preserved. But this would 
 be sacrificed at once, did we submit its ex- 
 istence to the conditions sought to be im- 
 posed. 
 
 But looking at the concessions proposed, I 
 have always found them utterly unreasonable 
 and indefensible. I should not expose them 
 now, if they did not constantly testify to the 
 origin and main-spring of this rebellion. Sla- 
 very was always the single subject-matter, and 
 nothing else. Slavery was not only an in- 
 tegral part of every concession, but the single 
 integer. The single idea was to giye some 
 new security — in some form — to slavery. That 
 brilliant statesman, Mr. Canning, in one of 
 those eloquent speeches which charm so much 
 by the style, said that he was " tired of being 
 a security -grinder," but his experience was not 
 
10 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 comparable to ours. "Security-grinding," in 
 the name of slavery, lias been for years the 
 way in which we have encountered this con- 
 spiracy. [Laughter and apjjlause.] 
 
 The propositions at the last Congress began 
 with the President's Message, which in itself 
 was one long concession. You do not forget 
 his sympathetic portraiture of the disaffection 
 throughout the Slave States, or his testimony 
 to the cause. Notoriously and shamefully his 
 heart was with the conspirators, and he knew 
 intimately the main-spring of their conduct. 
 He proposed nothing short of a general sur- 
 render to slavery, and thus did he proclaim 
 slavery as the head and front — the very causa 
 causaits — of the whole crime. 
 
 You have not forgotten the Peace Confer- 
 ence — as it was delusively styled — convened 
 at Washington on the summons of Virginia, 
 with John Tyler in the chair, where New 
 York as well as Massachusetts was represented 
 by some of her ablest and most honored citi- 
 zens. The sessions v/ere with closed doors ; 
 but it is now known that throughout the pro- 
 ceedings, lasting for weeks, nothing was dis- 
 cussed but slavery. And the propositions 
 finally adopted by the Convention were con- 
 fined to slavery. Forbearing all details, it will 
 be enough to say that they undertook to give 
 to slavery positive protection in the Constitu- 
 tion, with new sanction and immunity — mak- 
 ing it, notwithstanding the determination of 
 our fathers, national instead of sectional; and 
 even more than this, making it one of the 
 essential and permanent parts of our repub- 
 lican system. But slavery is sometimes as de- 
 ceptive as at other times it is bold ; and these 
 propositions were still further offensive from 
 their studied uncertainty, amounting to posi- 
 tive duplicity. At a moment v.'hen frankness 
 was needed above all things, we were treated 
 to phrases pregnant with doubts and contro- 
 versies, and were gravely asked, in the name 
 of slavery, to embody them in the Constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 There was another string of propositions 
 much discussed during the last winter, which 
 bore the name of the venerable Senator from 
 whom they came — Mr. Crittenden, of Ken- 
 tucky. These also related to slavery and noth- 
 ing else. They were more obnoxious even 
 than those from the Peace Conference. And 
 yet there v>'ere petitioners from the North — 
 and even from Massachusetts — who prayed for 
 this great surrender to slavery. Considering 
 the character of these ])ropositions — that they 
 sought to change the Constitution in a manner 
 revolting to tlie moral sense ; to foist into 
 the Constitution the idea of property in man ; 
 to protect slavery in all present territory south 
 of 3G° 30', and to carry it into all territory here- 
 after acquired south of that line, and thus to 
 make our beautiful Stars and Stripes in their 
 southern march the flag of slavery ; consider- 
 ing tliat they further sought to give new con- 
 stitutional securities to slavery in the national 
 
 capital and in other places within the exclu- 
 sive Federal jurisdiction ; that they sought to 
 give new constitutional securities to the tran- 
 sit of slaves from State to State, opening the 
 way to a roll-call of slaves at the foot of Bun- 
 ker Hill or the gates of Faneuil Hall ; and that 
 they also sought the disfranchisement of more 
 than 10,000 of my fellow-citizens in Massachu- 
 setts, whose rights are fixed by the Constitu- 
 tion of that Commonwealth, drawn by John 
 Adams ; considering these things, I felt at the 
 time, and I still feel, that the best apology of 
 these petitioners was that they were ignorant 
 of the true character of these propositions, and 
 that in signing the petition they knew not 
 Vi'hat they did. But even in their ignorance 
 they testified to slaverj^ while the propositions 
 were the familiar voice of slavery crying, 
 " Give, give." 
 
 There was another single proposition which 
 came from still another quarter, but like all 
 the others, it related exclusively to slavery. 
 It was to insert in the text of the Constitution 
 a stipulation against any future amendment by 
 which Congress might be authorized to inter- 
 fere with slavery in the States. If you read 
 this proposition you Avill find it crude and ill- 
 shaped — a jargon of bad grammar — a jumble 
 and hodge-podge of words — calculated to har- 
 monize poorly with the accurate text of our 
 Constitution. But even if tolerable in form, it 
 was obnoxious, like the rest, as a fresh stipula- 
 tion in favor of slavery. Sufficient surely in 
 this respect is the actual Constitution. Beyond 
 this I cannot, I will not, go. What Washing- 
 ton, Franklin, and Jay would not insert we 
 cannot err in rejecting. [Ap2jhmse.] 
 
 I do not dwell on other propositions, because 
 they attracted less attention ; and yet among 
 these was one to overturn the glorious safe- 
 guards of freedom set up in the free States, 
 known as the Personal Liberty Laws. Here 
 again was slavery — with a vengeance. But 
 there is one remark which I desire to make 
 Avith regard to all these propositions. It was 
 sometimes said that the concessions they of- 
 fered to slavery were " small." What a mis- 
 take is this ! No concession to slavery can bo 
 " small." Freedom is priceless, and in this 
 simple rule alike of morals and jurisprudence, 
 you will find the just measure of any conces- 
 sion, how small soever, by which freedom is 
 sacrificed. Tell me not that it concerns a few 
 only. I do not forget the saying of antiquity, 
 that the best government is where an injury 
 to a single individual is resented as an injury 
 to the whole State ; nor do I forget that mem- 
 orable instance of our own recent history, 
 where, in a distant sea, the thunders of our 
 navy with all the hazards of war were aroused 
 to protect the liberty of a solitary person who 
 claimed the rights of an American citizen. 
 By such examples let mo be guided rather 
 than by the suggestion that human freedom, 
 whether in many or in few, is of so little value 
 that it may be put in the market to appease a 
 
SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 11 
 
 traitorous conspiracy or to soothe those who, 
 without such concession, threaten to join the 
 conspirators. 
 
 But the warnings of the past, like the sug- 
 gestions of reason and of conscience, were all 
 aguinrit concession. Timid counsels have al- 
 ways been an encouragement to sedition and 
 rebellion. If the glove be of velvet, the hand 
 must bo of iron. An eminent master of 
 thought, in some of his most vivid words, 
 seems to have spoken for us. Hero they are : 
 
 " To expect to tranquillize and benefit a country 
 by gratifying its agitators, would be like the practice 
 of the superstitious of old witli their sympathetic 
 powder and ointments ; who, instead of applying 
 medicaments to the wound, contented themselves 
 with salving the sword which liad inflicted it. Since 
 the days of Dane-gelt downv/ards, nay, since the 
 world was created, nothing but evil has resulted from 
 concession made to intimidation." — Whately's Es- 
 says of Bacon, Essay 15, p. 134. 
 
 These words are most applicable to these 
 times, when it has been so often proposed to 
 salve the sword of secession. 
 
 In the same spirit spoke the most eminent 
 practical statesman in English history, Mr. 
 Fox. Here are his words : 
 
 " To humor the present disposition p.nd temporize, 
 is a certain, absolutely certain confirmation of the 
 evil. No nation ever did or ever can recover from 
 slavery by such methods." — Charles James Fox, 
 Letter to Lord Holland, I8tk June, 1804. 
 
 Pardon me if I express a regret, profound 
 and heartfelt, that the pretensions of slavery, 
 whether in its claim of privilege or in its doc- 
 trine of secession, were not always encountered 
 boldly and austerely. Alas! it is ourselves 
 that have encouraged the conspiracy and made 
 it strong. Secession has become possible only 
 through long-continued concession. In pro- 
 posing concession we have encouraged seces- 
 sion, and while professing to uphold the Union, 
 we have betrayed it. It seems now beyond 
 question tliat the concessionists of the North 
 have from the beginning played into the hands 
 of the secessionists of the South. I do not 
 speak in harshness or even in criticism, but 
 simply according to my duty in unfolding his- 
 torically the agencies, conscious and uncon- 
 scious, which have been at work, while I hold 
 them up as a warning for the future. They 
 all testify to slavery, which from the earliest 
 days has been at the bottom of the conspiracy 
 and also at every stage of the efforts to arrest 
 it. It was slavery which fired the conspira- 
 tors, and slavery also which entered into every 
 proposition of compromise. Secession and con- 
 cession both had their root in slavery. 
 
 And now after this review, I am brought 
 again to the significance of that Presidential 
 election with which I began. The slave-mas- 
 ters entered into that election with Mr Breck- 
 inridge as their candidate, and their platform 
 claimed constitutional protection for slavery 
 in all Territories, whether now belonging to 
 
 the Republic or hereafter acquired. This con- 
 cession was the ultimatum on which was staked 
 their continued loyalty to the Union — as the 
 continuance of tlie slave-trade had been the 
 original condition on wliich South Carolina 
 and Georgia had entered into the Union. And 
 the reason, though wicked, was obvious. It 
 was because without such opportunity of ex- 
 pansion slavery would be stationary, while the 
 Free States, increasing in number, would ob- 
 tain a fixed preponderance in the national 
 Government, assuring to them the political 
 power. Thus at tliat election the banner of 
 the slave-masters had for its open device — not 
 the Union as it is, but the extension and per- 
 petuation of human bondage. The popular 
 vote was against further concession, and the 
 conspirators proceeded with their crime. The 
 occasion so long sought had come. The pretext 
 foreseen by Jackson, was the motive power. 
 
 But here mark well that, in their whole con- 
 duct, the conspirators acted naturally under the 
 instincts implanted by slavery ; nay, they acted 
 logically even. Such is slavery that it cannot 
 exist unless wTio'e it oicns the government. An 
 injustice so plain can find protection only from 
 a government which is a reflection of itself. 
 Cannibalism cannot exist except under a gov- 
 ernment of cannibals. Idolatry cannot exist 
 except under a government of idolaters. And 
 Slavery cannot exist except under a govern- 
 ment of slave-masters. This is positive, uni- 
 versal truth — at Petersburg, Constantinople, 
 Tirabuctoo, or Washington. The slave-masters 
 of our country sav/ that they were dislodged 
 from the national Government, and straight- 
 way they rebelled. The Republic which they 
 could no longer rule they determined to ruin. 
 
 But though thus audaciously wicked, they 
 are not strong in numbers. The whole quan- 
 tity of slavc-ovrners, great and small, according 
 to the recent census, is not more than four 
 hundred thousand ; out of whom there are not 
 more than one hundred thousand who are 
 interested to any considerable extent in this 
 peculiar species of property ; and yet this pet- 
 ty oligarchy — itself controlled by a squad still 
 more petty — in a population of many millions, 
 has aroused and organized this gigantic rebel- 
 lion. But this success is explained by two 
 considerations. First, the asserted value of 
 the slaves, reaching to the enormous sum total 
 of two thousand millions of dollars, constitutes 
 an overpowering property interest — one of the 
 largest in the world ; to whicli may be added 
 the intensity and unity of purpose naturally 
 belonging to the representatives of such a sum 
 total, stimulated by the questionable character 
 of the jiropcrty. But, secondly, it is a phe- 
 nomenon attested by the history of revolutions, 
 that all such movements — at least in their 
 early days — are controlled by minorities. This 
 is because a revolutionary minority once em- 
 barked, has before it only tho single simple 
 path of unhesitating action. While others 
 doubt or hold back, the minority strikes and 
 
12 
 
 SPEECH or HON. CHARLES STJMNER. 
 
 goes forward. Audacity then counts more 
 than numbers, and crime counts more than 
 virtue. This phenomenon has been observed 
 before. "Often have I reflected with awe," 
 says Coleridge, " on tlie great and dispropor- 
 tionate power wliich an individual of no extra- 
 ordinary talents or attainments may exert by 
 merely throwing otf all restraint of conscience. 
 =^= * 'The abandonment of all principle of 
 right enables the soul to choose and act upon 
 a principle of wrong, and to subordinate to 
 this one principle all the various vices of hu- 
 man nature.''— (Coleridge's Friend, Essay 16.) 
 These are remarkable words. But a French 
 writer, Condorcet, the philosopher of the 
 French Ee volution, who sealed his principles 
 by his death, urged this very phenomenon for 
 a'practical purpose. In a pamphlet addressed 
 to the Parliamentary Eeformers of England, 
 he sougtit to enlist them in a revolutionary 
 movement, and, by way of encouragement, he 
 boldly announces that " revolutions must al- 
 ways be the work of the minority — that every 
 revolution has been the work of a minority — 
 that tho French Eevolution itself was accom- 
 plished by the minority." And Brissot de 
 Warville, another partaker and victim also in 
 this great Eevolution, declared that it was car- 
 ried by not more than twenty men. These 
 declarations were made the subject of a debate 
 shortly afterwards in the British Parliament, 
 where Sheridan bore a brilliant part. They are 
 most suggestive — even if they do not explain 
 the early success of our conspirators. The fu- 
 ture historian will record that the present re- 
 bellion — nowithstanding its protracted origin, 
 the multitudes it has enlisted, and its extensive 
 sweep — was at last precipitated by fewer than 
 twenty men ; Mr. Everett says by as few as 
 ten. It is certain that thus far it has been the 
 triumph of a minority ; but of a minority 
 moved, inspired, combined, and aggrandized 
 by slavery. 
 
 And now this traitorous minority, putting 
 aside all the lurking, slimy devices of conspi- 
 racy, steps forth in the full panoply of war. 
 Assuming to itself all the functions of a gov- 
 ernment, it organizes States under a common 
 head — sends ambassadors into foreign countries 
 — levies taxes — borrows money — issues letters 
 of marque — and sets armies in the field sum- 
 moned from distant Georgia, Louisiana, and 
 Texas, as well as from nearer Virginia, and 
 composed of the whole lawless population — 
 the poor who cannot own slaves as well as the 
 rich who own them — throughout the extensive 
 region where,with satanic grasp, this slavehold- 
 ing minority claims for itself 
 
 ample room and verge enough 
 
 Tlie characters of hell to trace. 
 
 Pardon the language wliich I employ. The 
 words of the poet do not picture too strongly 
 the object proposed. And now these parricidal 
 hosts stand arrayed openly against that pater- 
 nal Government to which they owed loyalty, 
 
 protection, and affection. Never in history 
 did rebeUion assume such a front. Call their 
 numbers 400,000 or 200,000— what you will— 
 they far surpass any armed forces ever before 
 marshalled in rebellion ; they are among the 
 largest ever marshalled in war. 
 
 And all this is in the name of slavery, and 
 for the sake of slavery, and at the bidding of 
 slavery. The profligate favorite of the English 
 monarch — the famous Duke of Buckiugham — 
 was not more exclusively supreme — even ac- 
 cording to those words by which he was ex- 
 posed to the judgment of his contemporaries — 
 
 Who rnles the kinpilom ? The King. 
 Who rules the Kuig? The Duke. 
 Who rules the Duke ? The Devil. 
 
 The prevailing part here attributed to the 
 royal favorite belongs now to slavery, which 
 in the rebel States is a more than royal favor- 
 ite. 
 
 Who rules tho rehol States ? The President. 
 
 Who rules the President ? Slavcrj*. 
 
 Who rules Slavery ? 
 
 The latter question I need not answer. But 
 all must see — and nobody can deny — that 
 slavery is the ruling idea of this rebellion. It 
 is slavery Avhich marshals these hosts and 
 breathes into their embattled ranks its own 
 barbarous fire. It is slavery which stamps its 
 character alike upon officers and men. It is 
 slavery which inspires all, from the general to 
 the trumpeter. It is slavery which speaks in 
 the word of command and which sounds in the 
 morning drum-beat. It is slavery wliich digs 
 trenches and btiilds hostile forts. It is slavery 
 which pitches its white tents and stations its 
 sentries over against the national capital. It 
 is slavery which sharpens the bayonet and 
 casts the bullet ; which points the cannon and 
 scatters the shell, blazing, bursting with death. 
 "Wherever this rebellion shows itself — what- 
 ever form it takes — whatever thing it does — 
 whatever it meditates — it is moved by slavery ; 
 nay, it is slavery itself, incarnate, living, act- 
 ing, raging, robbing, murdering, according to 
 the essential law of its being. [Aj'2)lause.] 
 
 But this is not all. The rebelHon is not 
 only ruled by slavery, but owing to the pecu- 
 liar condition of the slave States, it is for the 
 moment, according to their boast, actually re- 
 enforced by this institution. As the fields of 
 the South are cultivated and labor generally 
 is performed by slaves, the white freemen are 
 at liberty to play the part of rebels. The 
 slaves toil at home, while the masters work at 
 rebellion, and thus by a singular fatality is this 
 doomed race actually engaged, without taking 
 up arms, in feeding, supporting, succoring, in- 
 vigorating those who are now battling for their 
 enslavement. Full well I know that this is an 
 element of strength only tlirough the indul- 
 gence of our own Government; but I speak 
 now of things as they are ; and that I may not 
 seem to go too far, I ask your attention to the 
 testimony of a Soutliern journal : 
 
■V 
 
 SPEECH OF HOX. CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 13 
 
 The Slaves as a Military Element in the 
 South. — The total white population of the eleven 
 States now comprising the Conf'edcrac)', is 6,000,000, 
 and, therefore, to fill up the ranks of the proposed 
 army, (600,000,) about ten per cent, of the entire 
 white population will bo required. In any other 
 country than our own, such a draft could not be met, 
 but the Southern States can furnish that number of 
 men and still not leave the material interests of the 
 country in a suffering condition. Those who are in- 
 capacitated for bearing arms can oversee the planta- 
 tions, and the negroes can r/o on undisturbed in their 
 nsual labors. In the North the case is different ; 
 the men who join the army of sulijugation are the 
 laborers, the producers, and the factory operatives. 
 Nearly every man from that section, especially those 
 from the rural districts, leaves some branch of indus- 
 try to suffer during his absence. The institution of 
 slaveri/ in the South alone enables her to place in the 
 field a force much larger in proportion to her white 
 population than the JVorth, or indeed an}' country 
 which is dependent entirely on free labor. The in- 
 stitution is a tower of strength to the South, partieu- 
 larli/ at the present crisis, and our enemies will bo 
 likely to find that t'.io " moral cancer," about which 
 their orators are so fond of prating, is really one of 
 the most elective weapons employed af;ai)ist the Union 
 hi the South. Whatever number of men may be 
 needed for this war, we are confident our people 
 stand ready to furnish. We are all enlisted for the 
 war, and there must be no holding back until the 
 independence of the South is fully acknowledged. — 
 Ilontgomery {Ala.) Advertiser. 
 
 As the rebels liave already confessed the con- 
 spiracy which led to the rebellion, so in this 
 article do they openly confess the main-spring 
 of their strength. With triumphant vaunt, 
 they declare slavery to be the especial source 
 of their belligerent power. 
 
 But slavery may be seen not only in what it 
 has done for the rebellion of which it is the 
 indisputable head — the fountain and life — but 
 also in what it has inflicted upon us. There is 
 not a community, not a family, not an indi- 
 vidual, man, woman, or child, who does not feel 
 its heavy, bloody hand. Yv'hy these mustering 
 armies ? Why this drum-beat in your peaceful 
 streets ? Why these gathering means of war ? 
 Why these swelling taxes ? Why these unpre- 
 cedented loans ? Why this derangement of 
 business? Wiiy among us the suspension of 
 the habeas corpus, and the prostration of all 
 safeguards of freedom? Why this constant 
 solicitude visible in all your faces ? The an- 
 swer is clear. Slavery is the author, the agent, 
 the cause. The anxious hours that you pass 
 are darkened by slavery. The habeas corpus, 
 and all those safeguards of freedom which you 
 deplore have been prostrated by slavery. The | 
 business whicli you have lost has been filched j 
 by slavery. The millions of money now amass- 
 ed by patriotic offerings are all snatched by 
 slavery. The taxes now wrung out of your 
 diiiiinished means are all consumed by slavery. 
 And all these gathering means of war — this 
 drum-beat in your peaceful streets — and these 
 mustering armies — are on account of slavery 
 and nothing else. Do the poor feel constrained 
 
 to forego their customary tea, or coffee, or 
 sugar, now burdened by increased taxation? 
 let them pledge themselves anew against the 
 criminal giant tax-gatherer. Docs any com- 
 munity mourn gallant men, who, going forth 
 joyous and proud beneath tlieir country's flag, 
 have been brought home cold and stiff, with its 
 folds wrai)ped about them for a shroud ? Let 
 all who truly mourn the dead be aroused 
 against slavery. Does a mother drop tears for 
 a son in the flower of his days cut down upon 
 the distant battle-field whicli he moistens with 
 his youtliful, generous blood ? Let her know 
 that slavery dealt the deadly blow which took 
 at once his life and her peace. [Sensation.] 
 
 But I hear a voice saying that all this pro- 
 ceeds not from slavery — oh no ! — but from 
 anti-slavery ; that the Republicans, who hate 
 slavery, — that the Abolitionists — are the au- 
 thors of tliis terrible conflagration. Surely you 
 may well suspect the sense or loyalty of him 
 who puts forth this irrational and utterly 
 wicked imputation. As well say that the early 
 Christians were the authors of the heathen 
 enormities against which they bore their mar- 
 tyr testimony, and that the cross, the axe, the 
 gridiron, and the boiling oil by which they 
 suffered were a part of the Christian dispensa- 
 tion. But the early Christians were misrepre- 
 sented and falsely charged with crime, even as 
 you are. The tyrant Nero, after setting Rome 
 on fire and dancing at the conflagration, de- 
 nounced the Christians as guilty of this wick- 
 edness. Here are the authentic words of the 
 historian Tacitus : 
 
 " So for the quieting of this rumor, Nero judicially 
 charged with the crime, and punished with most 
 studied severities, that class, bated for their general 
 wickedness, whom the vulgar call Christians. The 
 originator of that name was one Christ, who, in the 
 reign of Tiberius, suffered death by sentence of the 
 procurator Pontius Pilate. The baneful superstition, 
 thereby repressed for the time, again broke out, not 
 only over Judea, the native soil of that mischief, but 
 in the city also, where from every side all atrocious 
 and abominable things collect and flourish." {Annal. 
 XV. 44.) 
 
 The writer of these remarkable words was 
 the wisest and most penetrating man of his 
 generation, and he lived amidst the events 
 which he describes. Perhaps in listening to 
 him you may find an apology for tliose among 
 us who heap upon contemporaries a similar 
 obloquy. The Abolitionists need no defence 
 from me. It is to their praise — destined to fill 
 an immortal page — that from the beginning 
 they saw the true character of slavery and 
 warned their country against its threatening 
 domination. Tlirough them the fires of liberty 
 have been kept alive in the United States — as 
 Hume is constrained to confess that these same 
 fires were kept alive in England by the Puri- 
 tans, whom tliis great historian never praised 
 if lie could help it. And yet they are charged 
 with this rebellion. Can this be serious? 
 Even at the beginning of the Republic the 
 seeds of the conspiracy were planted, and in 
 
14 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 1820, and then again in 1830, it sliowed itself 
 — while nearly thirty years ago Jackson de- 
 nounced it, and one of its leading spirits has 
 recently boasted that it has been gathering 
 head for this full time, thus — not only in its 
 distant embryo, but in its well-attested devel- 
 opment — ante-dating those Abolitionists whose 
 prophetic patriotism is now made the apology 
 for the crime. As well, where the prudent 
 passenger has warned the ship's crew of the 
 fatal lee-shore, arraign him for the wreck 
 which has engulfed all ; as well cry out that 
 the jihilosoplier who foresees the storm is re- 
 sponsible for the desolation that ensues, or that 
 the astronomer who calculates the eclipse is 
 the author of the darkness which covers the 
 earth. [Entlmsiastic apjylcntse.l 
 
 And now, that I may give a practical char- 
 acter to this whole history, let me bring it 
 all to bear upon our present situation and 
 its duties. You have seen Slavery even be- 
 fore the Federal Union, not only a disturbing 
 influence, but an actual bar to Union except 
 on condition of surrender to its immoral be- 
 hests. You have seen Slavery at all times mili- 
 tant whenever any proposition was brought 
 forward with regard to it, and more than once 
 threatening a dissolution of the Union. You 
 have seen Slavery for many years the animating 
 principle of a conspiracy against the Union, 
 while it matured its tlagitious plans and obtain- 
 ed the mastery of Cabinet and President. And 
 when the conspiracy had wickedly ripened, 
 you have seen that it was only by concessions 
 to Slavery, that it was encountered, as by sim- 
 ilar concessions it had from the beginning been 
 encouraged. You now see Rebellion every- 
 where throughout the Slave States elevating its 
 bloody crest and threatening the existence of 
 the National Government, and all in the name 
 of Slavery, while it proposes to establish a new 
 government whose corner-stone shall be Sla- 
 very, [ffisscs, and cries of IN'ercr ! ] 
 
 Against this rebellion we wage war. It is 
 our determination, as it is our duty, to crush 
 it ; and this will be done. The region now 
 contested by the rebels belongs to the United 
 States by every tie of government and of 
 right. Some of it has been bought by our 
 money, while all of it — with its rivers, harbors, 
 and extensive coast — has become essential to 
 our business in peace and to our defence in 
 war. Union is a geographical — economical — 
 commercial — political — military — and if I may 
 so say — even a fluvial necessity. Without 
 union, peace on this continent is impossible ; 
 but life without peace is impossible also. 
 
 Only by crushing this rebellion can union 
 and peace be restored. Let this bo seen in its 
 reality, and who can hesitate? If this were 
 done instantly — without further contest — then 
 besides all the countless advantages of every 
 kind obtained by such restoration, two esi)ecial 
 goods will be accomplished — one political and 
 the other moral as well as political. First, the 
 pretended right of secession, with the whole 
 
 pestilent extravagance of State Sovereignty, 
 which has supplied the machinery for this re- 
 bellion and aftorded a delusive cover for treason, 
 will be trampled out — never again to disturb 
 the majestic unity of the republic. And, sec- 
 ondly, the unrighteous attempt to organize a 
 new confederacy solely for the sake of slavery 
 and with slavery as its corner-stone, will be 
 overthrown. These two pretensions, one so 
 shocking to our reason and the other so shock- 
 ing to our moral nature, will disappear forever. 
 And with their disappearance will commence a 
 new epoch, the beginning of a grander period. 
 But if by any accident the rebellion should 
 prevail, then just in proportion to its tri- 
 umph, whether through concession on our 
 part, or through successful force on the other 
 ])art, will the Union be impaired and peace be 
 impossible. Therefore, in the name of the 
 Union and for the sake of peace are you sum- 
 moned to the work. 
 
 But how shall the rebellion be crushed? 
 That is the question. Men, money, munitions 
 of war, a well-supplied commissariat, means of 
 transportation ; — all these you have in abun- 
 dance — in some particulars beyond the rebels. 
 You have too the consciousness of a good cause, 
 which in itself is an army. And yet thus far — 
 until within a few days — the advantage has not 
 been on our side. The explanation is easy. 
 The rebels are combating at home on their 
 own soil, strengthened and maddened by Sla- 
 very, which is to them an ally and a fanaticism. 
 More thoroughly aroused than ourselves — more 
 terribly in earnest — with every sinew vindic- 
 tively strained to its most perfect work — they 
 freely use all the resources that God and na- 
 ture put into their hands; raising against us, 
 not only the whole white population, but 
 enlisting the Avar-whoop of the Indians — 
 cruising upon the sea in pirate ships to despoil 
 our commerce and, at one swoop, confiscating 
 our property to the extent of hundreds of mil- 
 lions of dollars, while all this time their four 
 millions of slaves undisturbed at home are freely 
 contributing by their labor to sustain the war, 
 which without them must soon expire. 
 
 It remains for us to encounter the rebellion 
 calmly and surely by a force superior to its 
 own. But to this end something more will be 
 needed than men or money. Our battalions 
 must bo reenforced by ideas, and we must 
 strike directly at the origin and main-spring 
 of the rebellion. I do not say now in Avhat 
 way or to what extent ; but simi)ly that wo 
 must strike ; it may be by the system of a Mas- 
 sachusetts General — Butler ; it may be by that 
 of Fremont, [here the audience rose and gate 
 long-conti7iucd cheers ;] or it may be by the 
 grander system of John Qnincy Adams. Rea- 
 son and sentiment both concur in this policy, 
 which is only according to the most connnon 
 principles of human conduct. In no way can we 
 do so much at so little cost. To the enemy such 
 a blow will be terror ; to good men it will be an 
 encouragement, and to foreign nations watching 
 
SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 15 
 
 this contest, it will be an earnest of something 
 beyond a mere carnival of battle. There has 
 been the cry " On to Richmond," and still an- 
 other worse cry " On to England." Better than 
 either is the cry, " On to Freedom." [Tremen- 
 dous cheering.] Let this be heard in the voices 
 of your soldiers ; aye — let it resound in the 
 purposes of the Government, and victory must 
 be ours. By this sign concpier. 
 
 It is with no little happiness that I now an- 
 nounce that this cry is at last adopted by the 
 Government. You will find it in the instruc- 
 tions from the Secretary of War, dated War De- 
 partment, Oct. 14th, 1801, and addressed to the 
 general commanding the forces which have just 
 effected a successful landing in South Carolina. 
 Here are the important words : 
 
 " You will, however, in general avail yourself of 
 the services of any persons, whether fugitives from 
 labor or not, who may ofter them to the National 
 Government ; you will employ such persons in such 
 services as they may be fitted for, cither as ordinary 
 employees or, if special circumstances seem to require 
 it, iu any other capacity, with such organization, in 
 squads, companies or otherwise, as you deem most 
 beneficial to the service. This, however, not to mean 
 a general arming of them for military service. You 
 will assure all loyal masters that Congress will pro- 
 vide just compensation to them for the loss of the 
 services of the persons so employed." 
 
 These words have not the positive form of a 
 proclamation ; but, analyze them, and you will 
 find them fall of meaning. First, martial law 
 is hereby declared ; for the powers committed 
 to the discretion of the general are derived 
 from that law and not from the late Confis- 
 cation Act of Congress. Secondly, fugitive 
 slaves are not to be surrendered. TJurdly, all 
 coming within the camp are to be treated as 
 freemen. Fourthly, they may be emj)loyed iu 
 such service as they may be fitted for. Fifthly, 
 in squads, companies or otherwise, with the 
 single limitation that this is not to mean " a 
 general arming of them for military service." 
 And, sixthly, com[)en3ation, through Congress, 
 is promised to loyal masters ; saying nothing 
 of rebel masters. All this is little short of a 
 Proclamation of Emancipation — not unlike that 
 of old Cuius Marius, when he landed on the 
 coast of Etruria, and, according to Plutarch, 
 proclaimed liberty to the slaves. As such I 
 do not err when I call it the most important 
 event of the war — the more important because 
 it is understood to have the deliberate sanction 
 of the President as well as of the Secretary of 
 War, and therefore marks the policy of the Ad- 
 ministration. That this policy should be first 
 applied to South Carolina is just. As the great 
 rebellion began in this State, so should the 
 great remedy. [Ap2}lanse and cheers.] 
 
 Slavery is the inveterate culprit — the tran- 
 scendent criminal — the persevering traitor — the 
 arch rebel — the open outlaw. As the less is 
 contained in the greater, so the rebellion is all 
 contained in Slavery. The tenderness which 
 you show to Slavery is, therefore, tenderness to 
 
 the rebellion itself. [Applait,ie.] The pious cau- 
 tion with which you avoid harming Slavery is 
 like that ancient superstition, which made the 
 wolf sacred among the Romans and the croco- 
 dde sacred among the Egyptians; nor shall I 
 hesitate to declare that every surrender of a 
 slave by your soldiers back to bondage is an 
 offering of human sacrifice — whose shame is too 
 great for any army to bear. That men should 
 still hesitate to strike at Slavery is only another 
 illustration of human weakness. The English 
 republicans, in their bloody contest with the 
 Crown, hesitated for a long time to fire upon the 
 king; but under the valiant lead of Cromwell, 
 surrounded by his well-trained Ironsides, they 
 banished all smih scruple, and you know well 
 the result. The king was not shot, but his head 
 was brought to the block. 
 
 The duty which I suggest, if not urgent now, as 
 a MILITARY IsECEiiSlTY, in just self -defence, 
 will present itself constantly on other grounds, as 
 our armies advance in the Slave States or land 
 on their coasts. If it does not stare ns in the 
 lace at this moment, it is because unhappily we 
 are still everywhere on the defensive. As we 
 begin to be successful it must rise before us for 
 practical decision ; and you cannot avoid it. 
 There will be slaves in your camps or within 
 your extended lines whose condition you must 
 determine. There will be slaves also claimed 
 by rebels, whose continued chattelhood you 
 will scorn to recognize. The decision of these 
 two cases will settle the whole great question. 
 Nor can the rebels complain. They challenge 
 our armies to enter upon their territory in the 
 free exercise of all the i)owers of war — accord- 
 ing to which, as you well know, all private in- 
 terests are subordinated to the public safety, 
 which for the time becomes the supreme law 
 above all other laws and above the Constitu- 
 tion itself. If everywhere under the flag of the 
 Union, — in its triumphant march, — Freedom is 
 substituted for Slavery, this outrageous rebel- 
 lion will not be the first instance in history 
 where God has turned the wickedness of man 
 into a blessing; nor will the example of Sam- 
 sou stand alone when be gathered honey out 
 of the carcass of the dead and rotten lion. 
 [Che ere] 
 
 Pardon me if I speak only in hints, and do 
 not stop to argue or explain, Not now, at the 
 close of an address, devoted to the rebellion in 
 its origin and main-spring, can I enter upon this 
 great question of military duty in its details. 
 There is anotlicr place where this discussion will 
 be open forme. [Cheers.] It is enough now 
 if I indicate the simple principle which will bo 
 the natural guide of all who are really in ear- 
 nest — of all whose desire to save their country 
 is stronger than their desire to save Slavery. 
 You will strike where tlic blow will be most 
 felt ; nor will you miss the precious opportu- 
 nity. The enemy is before you ; nay he has 
 come out in ostentatious challenge, and his name 
 is Slavery. You can vindicate the Union only 
 by his prostration. Slavery is the very Goliah 
 
16 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 of the rebellion, armed with a coat of mail, 
 with a helmet of brass upon liis head, greaves 
 of brass upon his legs, a target of brass between 
 his shoulders, and witli the staff of his spear like 
 a weaver's beam. But a 8toue from a simple 
 sling will make the giant fall upon his face to 
 the earth. [Prolonged cheering.] 
 
 Thank God! our Government is strong; 
 but thus far all signs denote that it is not 
 strong enough to save the Union and at the 
 same time to save slavery. One or the other 
 must suffer ; and just in proportion as you reach 
 forth to protect slavery, do you protect this 
 accursed rebellion ; nay, you give to it that 
 very aid and comfort, which under our Consti- 
 tution is treason itself. Perversely and pitifully 
 do you postpone that sure period of re(!oncilia- 
 tion, not only between the two sections — not 
 only between the men of the North and the 
 men of the South, but, more beautiful still, be- 
 tween the slave and his master, without which 
 that true tranquillity, which we all seek, cannot 
 be permanently assured to our country. Be- 
 lieve it ; only through such reconciliation, un- 
 der the sanction of Freedom, can you remove 
 all occasion of contention hereafter; only in 
 this way, can you cut off the head of this great 
 rebellion, and at the same time extirpate that 
 principle of evil, which, if allowed to remain, 
 must shoot forth in perpetual discord, if not in 
 other rebellions; only in this way can you 
 command that safe victory — without winch this 
 contest will be vain— which will have among 
 its conquests Indemnity for the Past and Se- 
 curity for the Future— the noblest indenmity 
 and the strongest security ever won — because 
 founded in the redemption of a race. [Cheers.] 
 
 Full well I know the doubts, cavils, and mis- 
 representations to which this argument for tlic 
 integrity of our Government is exposed ; but I 
 turn with confidence to the people. The heart 
 of the people is right, and all great thoughts 
 come from the heart. All who hate Slavery 
 and who are true to Freedom will join instinct- 
 ively in this effort, paying with person, time, 
 talent, purse. They are the minute men of 
 this war— always ready ; and yet more ready 
 just in proportion as the war is truly inspired. 
 They at least are sure. It only remains that 
 others who do not share in this animosity to 
 Slavery — that merchants who study their leg- 
 crs — that bankers who study their discounts — 
 and that politicans who study success — should 
 see that only by a prompt and united eliort 
 against Slavery can this war be brought to a 
 speedy and triumphant close, without which 
 merchant, banker, and politician will all suffer 
 alike. Leger, discount, and political aspiration 
 will be of small value if the war continues its 
 lava flood, slirivelling and stilling every thing 
 but itself. Therefore, under the xpur of self- 
 interest, if not under the necessities of self- 
 defence, we must act together. Humanity too 
 joins in tliis appeal. Blood enough has been 
 already shed — victims enough have been offered 
 
 at the altar — even if you are willing to continue 
 to Slavery the tribute we are now paying of 
 more than a million of dollars a day. 
 
 Events too, under Providence, will be our 
 masters. For the rebels there can be no suc- 
 cess. Every road for them leads to disaster. 
 Defeat for them will be bad ; but victory 
 will be worse ; for then will the North be in- 
 spired to a sublimer energy. The i)roi)osition 
 of emancipation which shook ancient Athens 
 followed close ujjon the disaster at Cheronoea ; 
 and the statesman who moved it afterwards 
 vindicated hhnself by saying that it proceed- 
 ed not from him but from Cherona'a. The 
 Act of Congress i)unishing the rebels by giving 
 freedom to their slaves employed against vs — 
 familiarly knov\-n as the Confiscation Act — 
 passed the Senate on the morning after the 
 disaster at Manassas. In the providence of 
 God there are no accidents ; and this seeming 
 reverse thus helped the way to the greatest vic- 
 tory which can be won. 
 
 There is a classical story of a mighty hunter, 
 whose life in the Book of Fate, had been made 
 to depend upon the preservation of a brand 
 which was burning at his birth. The brand, 
 so full of destiny, was snatched from the flames 
 and carefully ])reserved by his prudent mother. 
 Meanwhile the hunter became powerful and 
 invulnerable to mortal weapons. But at lengtli 
 the mother, indignant at his cruelty to her own 
 family, flung the brand upon the flames and the 
 hunter died. The story of that hunter, so 
 powerful and invulnerable to mortal weapons, 
 is now repeated in this rebellion, and Slavery 
 is the fatal brand. Let our Government, 
 which has thus far preserved Slavery with 
 maternal care, simply fling it upon the flames 
 which itself has madly aroused, and the rebel- 
 lion will die at once. [Se^isation.] 
 
 Amidst all the jierils which now surround us, 
 there is one only which I dread. It is the peril 
 which comes from some new surrender to Sla- 
 very — some fresh recognition of its power — 
 some present dalliance with its intolerable pre- 
 tensions. "Worse than any defeat or even the 
 flight of an army would be such abandonment 
 of principle. From all such peril, good Lord 
 deliver us! And there is one icay of safety, 
 clear as sunlight— pleasant as the paths of 
 Peace. Over its brorfd and open gate is written 
 simply, JUSTICE. There is victory in that 
 word. Do justice, and you will be twice- 
 blessed ; for so you will subdue the rebel master 
 while you elevate the slave. Do justice frank- 
 ly, generously, nobly, and you will find strength 
 instead of weakness, while all seeming responsi- 
 bility will disappear in obedience to God's ever- 
 lasting law. Do justice, though the Heavens 
 fall ; but they will not fall. Every act of jus- 
 tice becomes a new jnllar of the Universe, or it 
 may be a new link of that 
 
 coition everlasting chain 
 
 Wlioso BtroiiR eiiibraco holds Ueaven and 
 earth and muiu. * 
 
 LiBRftRV OF CONGRESS 
 
LIBRARY 
 
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