C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

[387] the District of Columbia. I trust I am not dreaming; but the events taking place seem like a dream. If slavery is really dead in the District of Columbia, and merely waiting the ceremony of ‘Dust to dust’ by the President, to you, more than to any other American statesman, belongs the honor of this great triumph of justice, liberty, and sound policy. I rejoice for my own freed brothers, —and, sir, I rejoice for you. You have lived to strike down in Washington the power that lifted the bludgeon against your own free voice. I take nothing from the good and brave men who have co-operated with you. There is, or ought to be, a head to every body; and whether you will or not, the slaveholder and the slave look to you as the best embodiment of the Anti-Slavery idea now in the councils of the nation. May God sustain you!

I shall never forget how Mr. Sumner's face brightened, and his eyes swam in the luxury of gratitude, whenever he received such letters, exclaiming with fervor, as he rose and shook himself, walking the floor—‘Thank God we have such opportunities to do good! And where on earth will you find hearts that so readily melt with gratitude, as in the negro breast?’ And yet his severest trial, during these days, was in—as he expressed it— ‘screwing Old Abe up to the sticking point.’ And then, with considerable impatience, he broke out, ‘How slow this child of Freedom is being born! If other children found as much difficulty in getting into the world, the earth would be depopulated with this generation. The idea of a man having to buy himself! We voted the money however, only as a ransom, as nations redeemed their citizens from Algerine slavery. But this business of buying men into, or out of slavery will cease very soon.’