Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 4

[281] through fiery trials and at the risk of martyrdom. Wendell Phillips wrote of the speech with equal enthusiasm and gratitude. Whittier thought the argument ‘irresistible, iron-linked throughout,’ and ‘sure to live as long as the country has a history.’ Henry Ward Beecher, who did not agree with the senator's objection to the language of the amendment, recognized the merit of the speech as ‘rising far above the occasion and object for which it was uttered, and covering a ground which will abide after all temporary questions of special legislation have passed away.’ Others, of more conservative temperament, were not less emphatic in their approval. The response to the speech was made, however, rather to its general scope and spirit—its ideal of national duty—than to its particular treatment of the pending measure or of questions of constitutional law.

The President was greatly incensed at certain passages of the speech. The next day, in an interview with the colored people, he referred to its ‘rounded periods,’ and intimated that its doctrines would bring on ‘a contest between the races.’ Later on (February 22), he broke out, in the harangue at the White House already referred to, into unseemly language, and associated Sumner with the chiefs of the rebellion. Sumner took no notice of the outburst; but the Massachusetts Legislature, by a resolution passed almost unanimously, pronounced it without ‘the shadow of justification or defence,’ and other public bodies took similar action.¹ The President's language found an echo in threats of violence against the senator, originating with the partisans of the former's policy.²

The debate continued for more than a month, Fessenden being the leader in favor of the amendment, and Henderson, Yates, and Pomeroy among Republicans opposing it. Sumner spoke twice after his first speech, on March 7 and on the 9th, when the vote was taken.³ Some of the epithets applied by him to the committee's proposition, which, though short-sighted, was well meant, exceeded the measure of the occasion. He was perhaps led to make them the stronger by the treatment he received from Fessenden, who without any due provocation descended into personalities, and pursued Sumner with unconcealed bitterness.⁴ Sumner followed with a reply which was made in