Elias Nason, The Life and Times of Charles Sumner: His Boyhood, Education and Public Career.

[203] freedom. They were stigmatized as “Black Republicans,” and held as members sent for the reception of the ridicule and invective of the dominant party; but they well understood its weakness, and by a kind of inspiration prophesied its coming dissolution. Their own cause, they as clearly saw, stood on the immutable basis of the gospel: they heard afar the rolling of the tidal wave; they caught faint glimpses of the dawn of a new day. “A forlorn hope,” said politicians on the lower plane. But the feet of Sumner and of Wilson touched the rock: their temples felt the breeze of an incoming power. Shoulder to shoulder they, beneath the aegis of the constitution, defiantly confronted their opponents, and with burning words denounced the usurpations of the partisans of slavery. They were heroes; and men now accord to them this appellation.

Referring to the course pursued by Mr. Sumner in Congress, Theodore Parker says, in a letter to Henry Wilson, dated Feb. 15, 1855,--

What a noble stand Sumner has taken and kept in the Senate! He is one of the few who have grown morally as well as intellectually by his position in Congress. But his example shows that politics do not necessarily debase a man in two years. I hope the office may do as much for you as for your noble and generous colleague.