Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 3

[187] other details, and had invited persons to address the delegates. As chairman of a committee appointed for the purpose, he reported an address and resolutions which he had previously prepared, and which occupied an hour in the reading.¹ The address was a full argument justifying the continued support of the party, and putting in a strong light the issues which divided it from its adversaries. It reviewed the aggressions of the slave-power, and showed how it had governed the nation; insisted that the policy of the national government should be reversed so as to place it on the side of freedom openly, actively, and perpetually; and vindicated the necessity of the Free Soil party as a permanent national organization.² In the treatment of some local questions he referred to the resistance which the money-power of the city of Boston had made to the antislavery opinions of the people,— a power all the more effective because concentrated in elections by a general ticket which then prevailed. This was a grievance which tended to bring the two opposition parties—the Free Soil and the Democratic-into co-operation for the defeat of the Whigs. He said:—

The efforts to place the national government on the side of freedom have received little sympathy from corporations, or from persons largely interested in them, but have rather encountered their opposition,—sometimes concealed, sometimes open, often bitter and vindictive. It is easy to explain this. In corporations is the money-power of the Commonwealth. Thus far the instinct of property has proved stronger in Massachusetts than the instinct of freedom. The money-power has joined hands with the slave-power. Selfish, grasping, subtle, tyrannical, like its ally, it will not brook opposition. It claims the Commonwealth as its own, and too successfully enlists in its support that needy talent and easy virtue which are required to maintain its sway.

Sumner was one of the speakers at a Free Soil meeting in Tremont Temple, Nov. 9, 1849. He condemned Taylor's policy as hostile to the Wilmot Proviso, and insisted on the insertion of a provision in the constitution of new States prohibiting slavery.³ He expressed himself in favor of the unions then forming between the Free Soilers and the Democrats in the State senatorial districts.⁴ At the election the party succeeded well in keeping