Mr. Sumner was then introduced, and spoke for two hours and a quarter, with the marked attention of a very large audience. This speech was reported at length in the papers, and was afterwards printed in a pamphlet. It particularly discussed the Slave Oligarchy and its usurpations,--the outrages in Kansas,--the different political parties,--the rights of our foreign-born population,--and the Republican party. Several of these topics, being treated in other speeches, are omitted here. The part relating to our foreign-born population attracted attention at the time, and has been often quoted since. Among the audience were many persons of the Know-Nothing party, pledged against the foreign-born, who were there to create difficulty; but Mr. Sumner was allowed to proceed uninterrupted. The papers speak of “rapturous applause.” In this vindication of our foreign-born population, he acted only according to his convictions and all his votes in the Senate. Although the Know-Nothing party prevailed in Massachusetts, Mr. Sumner refused all association with it; and yet, such was the recklessness of misrepresentation, that the Richmond _Enquirer_ announced him as “the head of the Northern Know-Nothing party.” The following speech is sufficient answer to this assertion. In the course of this speech Mr. Sumner gives his personal testimony as to Slavery, founded on what he saw in a short journey he had made through Kentucky as far as Nashville in Tennessee. FELLOW-CITIZENS OF BOSTON:-- Are you for Freedom, or are you for Slavery? This is the question which you are to answer at the coming election. Above all other questions, national or local, it lifts itself directly in the path of every voter. There it is. It cannot be avoided. It cannot be banished away. It cannot be silenced. Forever sounding in our ears, it has a mood for every hour,--stirring us at times as with the blast of a trumpet, then visiting us in solemn tones, like the bell which calls to prayer, and then again awaking us to unmistakable duty, like the same bell, when at midnight it summons all to stay the raging conflagration. And yet there are persons among us who seek to put this great question aside. Some clamor for financial reform, and hold up a tax-bill; others clamor for a modification of the elective franchise, and they hold up the Pope; some speak in the name of old parties, calling themselves Democrats or Whigs; others in the name of a new party, which shall be nameless at present. Surely the people of Massachusetts will not be diverted from the true issue, involving Freedom for broad territories and Freedom for themselves, by holding up a tax-bill or by holding up the Pope. The people of Massachusetts are intelligent and humane. …