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

[196] Opinion, which, in its irresistible might, shall blast with contempt, indignation and abhorrence, all who consent to be its agents. Thus did our fathers blast all who became the agents of the Stamp Act; and surely their motive was small compared with ours. The Slave-hunter who drags his victim from Africa is loathed as a monster; but I defy any acuteness of reason to indicate the moral difference between his act and that of the Slave-hunter who drags his victim from our Northern free soil. A few puny persons, calling themselves the Congress of the United States, with the titles of Representatives and Senators, cannot turn wrong into right—cannot change a man into a thing—cannot reverse the irreversible law of God—cannot make him wicked who hunts a slave on the burning sands of Congo or Guinea, and make him virtuous who hunts a slave in the colder streets of Boston or New York. Nor can any acuteness of reason distinguish between the bill of sale from the kidnapper, by which the unhappy African was originally transferred in Congo or Guinea, and the certificate of the Commissioner, by which, when once again in Freedom, he was reduced anew to bondage. The acts are kindred, and should share a kindred condemnation.

One man's virtue becomes a standard of excellence for all; and there is now in Boston, a simple citizen, whose example may be a lesson to Commissioners, Marshals, Magistrates; while it fills all with the beauty of a generous act. I refer to Mr. Hayes, who resigned his place in the city police rather than take any part in the pack of the Slave-hunter. He is now the doorkeeper of the public edifice which has been honored this winter by the triumphant lectures on Slavery. Better be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than a dweller in the tents of the ungodly. For myself, let me say, that I can imagine no office, no salary, no consideration, which I would not gladly forego rather than become in any way an agent for the enslavement of my brother-man. Where, for me, would be comfort or solace after such a work! In dreams and waking hours, in solitude and in the street, in the study of the open book and in conversation with the world,—wherever I turned, there my victim would stare me in the face; while from the distant rice-fields and sugar plantations of the South, his cries beneath the vindictive lash, his moans at the thought of liberty once his, now, alas! ravished away, would pursue me, repeating the tale of his fearful doom, and sounding —forever sounding—in my ears, ‘Thou art the man.’ Mr. President, may no such terrible voice fall on your soul or mine!

Yes, sir, here our duty is plain and paramount. While the Slave Oligarchy, through its unrepealed Slave Bill, undertakes to enslave our