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

[187] themselves, that they dwell now as never before under the keen observation of an ever-wakeful Public Opinion, quickened by an ever-wakeful Public Press. Nor is this all. Only lately propositions have been introduced into the Legislatures of different States, and countenanced by Governors, to mitigate the existing law of Slavery; and, almost while speaking, I have received the drafts of two different memorials,—one addressed to the Legislature of Virginia, and the other to that of North Carolina,—asking for the slave three things, which it will be monstrous to refuse, but which, if conceded, will take from Slavery its existing character;—I mean, first, the protection of the marriage relation; secondly, the protection of the parental relation; and, thirdly, the privilege of knowledge. Grant these, and the girdled Upas tree soon must die. Sir, amidst these tokens of present success, and the auguries of the future, I am not disturbed by any complaints of seeming damage. ‘Though it consume our own dwelling, who does not venerate fire, without which human life can hardly exist on earth,’ says the Hindoo proverb; and the time is even now at hand when the Anti-Slavery Enterprise, which is the very fire of Freedom, with all its incidental excesses or excitements, will be hailed with a similar regard.