A precious incident in the life of one whom our country has delighted to honor furnishes an example for imitation. When Napoleon, already at the pinnacle of military honor, but lusting for perpetuity of power, caused a vote to be taken on the question, whether he should be First Consul for life, Lafayette, at that time in retirement, and only recently, by his intervention, liberated from the dungeons of Olmütz, deliberately registered his _No_. Afterwards revisiting our shores, the scene of his youthful devotion to freedom, and receiving on all sides that beautiful homage of thanksgiving which is of itself an all-sufficient answer to the sarcasm that republics are ungrateful, here in Boston, this illustrious Frenchman listened with especial pride to the felicitation addressed to him as "the man who knew so well how to say _No_." Be this the example for Massachusetts; and may it be among her praises hereafter, that on this occasion she knew so well how to say NO! EQUAL RIGHTS IN THE LECTURE-ROOM. LETTER TO THE COMMITTEE OF THE NEW BEDFORD LYCEUM, NOVEMBER 29, 1845. After accepting an invitation to lecture before the Lyceum at New Bedford, Mr. Sumner, learning that colored persons were denied membership and equal opportunities with white persons, refused to lecture, as appears in the following Letter, which was published in the papers of the time. Shortly afterwards the obnoxious rule was rescinded, and Mr. Sumner lectured. BOSTON, November 29, 1845. My Dear Sir,--I have received your favor of November 24, asking me to appoint an evening in February or March to lecture before the New Bedford Lyceum, in pursuance of my promise. On receiving the invitation of your Lyceum, I felt flattered, and, in undertaking to deliver a lecture at some time, to be appointed afterwards, I promised myself peculiar pleasure in an occasion of visiting a town which I had never seen, but whose refined hospitality and liberal spirit, as described to me, awakened my warmest interest. Since then I have read in the public prints a protest, purporting to be by gentlemen well known to me by reputation, who are members of the Lyceum, and some of them part of its government, from which it appears that in former years tickets of admission were freely sold to colored persons, as to white persons, and that no objection was made to them as members, but that at the present time tickets are refused to colored persons, and membership is also refused practically, though, by special vote recently adopted, they are allowed to attend the lectures without expense, provided they will sit in the north gallery. From these facts it appears that the New Bedford Lyceum has undertaken within its jurisdiction to establish a distinction of _Caste_ not recognized before.