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

[208] confederacy in spoliation; and constituting in itself a magnum latrocinium; while it degrades the Free States to the condition of a slave plantation, under the lash of a vulgar, despised and revolting overseer.

There is nothing in the National Government which the Slave Oligarchy does not appropriate. It entered into and possessed both the old political parties, Whig and Democrat—as witness their servile resolutions at Baltimore—making them one in subserviency, though double in form; and renewing in them the mystery of the Siamese twins, which, though separate in body and different in name, were constrained, by an unnatural ligament, to a community of exertion. It now holds the keys of every office, from that of President down to the humblest Postmaster, compelling all to do its bidding. It organizes the Cabinet. It directs the Army and Navy. It manages every department of public business. It presides over the census. It controls the Smithsonian Institution, founded by the generous charity of a foreigner, to promote the interests of knowledge. It subsidizes the national press, alike in the national capital and in the remotest village of the North. It sits in the chair of the President of the Senate, and also in the chair of the Speaker of the House. It arranges the Committees of both bodies, placing at their head only the servitors of Slavery, and excluding therefrom the friends of Freedom, though entitled to such places by their character and the States they represent; and thus it controls the legislation of the country.

In maintaining its power, the Slave Oligarchy has applied a test for office very different from that of Jefferson, ‘Is he honest? Is he capable? Is he faithful to the Constitution?’ These things are all forgotten now in the single question, ‘Is he faithful to Slavery?’ With arrogant ostracism it excludes from every national office all who cannot respond to this test. So complete and irrational has this tyranny become, that at this moment, while I now speak, could Washington, or Jefferson, or Franklin, once more descend from their spheres above, to mingle in our affairs and bless us with their wisdom, not one of them, with his recorded, unretracted opinions on Slavery could receive a nomination for the Presidency from either of the political parties calling themselves national; nor, stranger still, could either of these sainted patriots, whose names alone open a perpetual fountain of gratitude in all your hearts, be confirmed by the Senate of the United States for any political function whatever, not even for the office of Postmaster. What I now say, amidst your natural astonishment, I have often said before in addressing the people, and more than once uttered from my seat in the Senate, and no man there has made answer, for no man who sat in