“It is creditable to Mr. Sumner that he has been able to present so conclusive an historical argument in opposition to the view of this subject taken by legists and publicists so able and erudite as Mr. Everett, Mr. Cushing, Professor Parsons, and Chief-Justice Bigelow, of his own State, and most of the public journals in all parts of the country. The error of these writers has consisted in an undue deference to the British admiralty decisions,--decisions against whose validity on the points involved in this controversy our Government has always protested. “Mr. Sumner’s argument plainly sustains Mr. Seward in his surrender of the Rebel commissioners, but not in his delaying to do so till they were demanded by the English Government. The thanks of the country are due to Mr. Sumner for his convincing argument that the national honor has suffered no detriment by their surrender.” The _New York Commercial Advertiser_ said:-- “Mr. Sumner gives, within limits as brief as the nature of the case would permit, the arguments which influenced the Committee after a laborious investigation of the point in dispute. He performs this duty in a temperate, lucid, and convincing manner, rising above all asperity or excitement, and viewing the question as it affects the best interests of the human race. At the same time he has steered almost entirely clear of the track marked out by Secretary Seward, the great body of his argument being drawn from events and precedents in the history of our own country.… We take the greater pleasure in referring to the elaborate arguments brought forward by Senator Sumner, inasmuch as certain parties seem to think that Secretary Seward’s able reply to Lord Lyons on this subject was nothing but a graceful backing down before superior force,--that he strove to hunt up precedents on behalf of a position which was in fact defensible only because our Government could not accept the gauntlet thrown down by that of Great Britain. No unprejudiced person, we think, can peruse Mr. Sumner’s speech without arriving at a different conclusion. It should rather be an occasion for national congratulation than humiliation, that Great Britain has, _de facto_, abandoned her old ground, and planted herself on doctrines and practice strictly, and for a time almost exclusively, American.” The _Burlington Daily Times_, of Vermont, said:--