“The contrast between his present position and that which he held on first entering the Senate is instructive. Then an arrogant Democratic majority with unequalled effrontery declared him outside of any healthy political organization, excluded him from the Committees, denied him parliamentary courtesies, and withheld the common civilities of social intercourse and acquaintance. There were hardly three or four Senators in Congress who were in any degree identified with his opinions. He declared them none the less boldly, and his speeches for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, on the Nebraska Bill, and on the Crime against Kansas finally exasperated the slaveholding oligarchy into personal violence, and for words spoken in orderly debate he was brutally assaulted on the floor of the Senate and seriously injured. This outrage, and the enthusiastic approval with which it was received throughout the South, were largely instrumental in rousing the North to a right estimate of the system and the political power which sought such means of defence.” The _Liberator_, by the pen of its faithful and able editor, William Lloyd Garrison, gave expression to the sentiments of those most enlisted against Slavery. “Thus has Massachusetts nobly vindicated her name and fame as the foremost State of all the world in the cause of free institutions, and trampled beneath her feet the malignant aspersions cast upon the political reputation of her gifted Senator by the minions of a traitorous Slave Oligarchy. The vote is an overwhelming one, notwithstanding the desperate efforts of Mr. Sumner’s enemies to make his defeat a sure event. Such enemies only serve to prove his personal worth and public usefulness, and their factious and profligate character. “Mr. Sumner’s friends in Washington proposed, last week, to give him a serenade in honor of his reëlection to the Senate; but, hearing of their intention, he declared that the compliment was not in accordance with the present condition of public affairs, and intimated that he preferred that the funds subscribed for the music should be donated to the Massachusetts Soldiers’ Relief Association, which was done.” In Mr. Sumner’s reëlection the cause of Emancipation triumphed, and Massachusetts was fixed irrevocably on that side. THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION OUR CORNER-STONE. LETTER TO FELLOW-CITIZENS AT SALEM, OCTOBER 10, 1862. BOSTON, October 10, 1862. GENTLEMEN,--I feel flattered by your invitation, where I recognize so many excellent names, and shall be happy to take advantage of the opportunity with which you honor me.