Xix.
In the Senate,
Mr. Sumner was to appear in the list as a Free-Soiler.
There were but two others who claimed that distinction—
Salmon P. Chase, from
Ohio, and
John P. Hale, from
New Hampshire.
These were but the morning-stars of the great day of emancipation that was so soon to dawn upon a redeemed country, and a disenthralled race.
In his letter to the Legislature of the State, accepting the honor of Senatorship, he speaks of the appointment finding him in a private station, and he accepts the office with ‘a grateful consciousness of personal independence;’ as an honor that had come to him unsought and undesired.
‘I accept it,’ he continued, ‘as the servant of
Massachusetts, mindful of the sentiments solemnly uttered by her successive Legislatures, of the genius which inspires her history, and of the men,—her perpetual pride and ornament,—who breathed into her that breath of liberty which early made her an exampie
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to her sister States.
With me, the union is twice blessed—first, as the powerful guardian of the repose and happiness of thirty-one sovereign States, clasped by the endearing name of country: and next, as the model of that all-embracing federation of States by which unity, peace and concord will finally be organized among the nations.’
He declares himself fully resolved to oppose any effort to introduce ‘the sectional evil of slavery into Free States.’
He would follow the example of the great triumvirate of American Freedom,
Washington,
Franklin and
Jefferson; and in the words of the first, he concludes his letter:—‘I see my duty that in standing up for the liberties of my country, whatever difficulties and discouragements lie in my way, I dare not shrink from it; and I rely on that Being who has not left to us the choice of duties, that while I shall conscientiously discharge mine, I shall not finally lose my reward.’
