Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 10 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
History
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 10 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
“I have read it with great attention, and with the
highest pleasure, for the principles it announces, the
facts it narrates, and the firm and manly discussion
of them. As an explanation of the great principles of
International Law applicable to the nefarious Rebellion, it
will open the eyes of the American people to the important
fact, that, in all its disguises, English and French policy
has wilfully ignored the principles of justice and liberty
which the Government of the United States are struggling to
maintain.”
Hon. Horatio J. Perry, Secretary of Legation at Madrid, wrote:--
“Your noble effort was well timed. I have had portions of
it reproduced in the Spanish press with the best effect.
Another part will reappear here in a more durable form,
which I shall take pains to send you.
“These admonitions of yours to the European powers have
always been of the highest possible service. Whatever
necessity there may have been (and there has been
necessity) for our diplomatic representatives to act
with consummate prudence in our direct intercourse with
the courts hostile to us, it was no less necessary that
the voice from home, the utterances of our Houses of
Congress, of our leading Senators, should be bold and
unsubdued,--confidence in ourselves and in our cause, above
all, the consciousness of right, and the evidence that we
were not afraid.”
Professor Charles D. Cleveland, Consul at Cardiff, wrote from
his consulate:--
“I need hardly say with what pleasure I read your recent
speech at New York. Though Earl Russell did not like some
things in it, _it evidently did him much good_. I think I
saw clearly that he FELT the force of your arguments; for,
if you will notice, it was not till after your speech had
reached this country, and after quotations were made from
it in papers friendly to us, that the more decided orders
were given to stop the Rebel rams in the Mersey.”
The latter statement is confirmed by a despatch of Mr. Adams to
Mr. Seward, dated October 16, where he says: “The Government
has, within the past week, adopted measures of a much more
positive character than heretofore to stop the steam-rams.”[168]
Hon. T. O. Howe, Senator of the United States, wrote from
Wisconsin:--
“Stopping here, where I am to speak this evening, I cannot
refrain from telling you that I approve it. How much I
approve it I am utterly unable to tell you.
“Such conciseness of statement, such fulness of research,
such wealth of illustration, such iron logic, heated, but
unmalleable, I really do not think are to be found in any
other oration, ancient or modern.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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