“The Massachusetts Senator has lately had a meeting with his constituents. Fragments and summaries of his speech at Faneuil Hall have found their way into most English newspapers. Let the sympathizers with the South produce, if they can, from their side of Mason and Dixon’s line, any utterance to compare with it in all the qualities that should commend human speech to human audience.…
“This representative of a powerful community addresses to his fellow-citizens considerations upon the conduct of a war in which they and he are more deeply interested than any English constituency has been in any war which England has waged since the days of Cromwell. It is such a speech as Hampden might have spoken in Buckinghamshire, or Pym in the Guildhall. It treats both of principles and policy,--of the means of success, and of the ends which can alone sanctify the struggle or glorify success. It breathes throughout the spirit of justice and of freedom.…
“Throughout his public life, Mr. Sumner has held the same doctrines, expressed the same spirit.… He is the leader of a party, as well as the representative of the first New England State, and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Congress. Too advanced a thinker and too pure a politician for office in a Cabinet undecided on the Slavery Question, he has pioneered its way and shaped its conclusions. Is he not a man whose name should check the blustering apologists of Slavery and Secession?… The Rebellion is just such a blow at the Union as Preston Brooks struck at Charles Sumner; and yet there are English hands and voices to applaud the deed, as worthy heroes of patriotism and civilization.”
In urging Emancipation, Mr. Sumner always felt, that, besides sustaining the cause of justice, he was helping our country with foreign nations.
Meetings of the people in ancient Athens were opened with these words: “May the gods doom to perdition that man, and all his race, who, on this occasion, shall speak, act, or contrive anything against the Commonwealth!” With such an imprecation all were summoned to the duties of the citizen. But duties become urgent in proportion to perils. If ever there were occasion for these solemn words, it is now, when the country is in danger, when the national capital itself is menaced, when all along the loyal border, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Territories west of the Mississippi, barbarian hordes, under some Alaric of Slavery, are marshalling forces, and death is knocking at the doors of so many happy homes. If ever there was occasion when country might claim the best and most self-forgetful effort of all, it is now. Each in his way must act. Each must do what he can: the youthful and strong by giving themselves to the service; the weak, if in no other way, by scraping lint. Such is the call of patriotism. The country must be saved.