these lines are secretly written, and within which hundreds of human hearts this moment feel the crushing weight of the 'Barbarism' you have so faithfully illustrated. If these poor slaves were permitted to give you thanks, their dark and gloomy prisons for once would be made vocal with praise, and their tears of sorrowing and bitterness be changed to tears of joy.

"If you knew the deep and secret interest which these people take in the great battle now waging, you would be stimulated in your efforts to hasten the day when we white men of Virginia could unite with the colored slave to celebrate our common emancipation....

"Some of the Northern Republicans affect to think that your speech was ill-timed; but I think it was just in time, and not a moment too soon. The Southern party demand that the area of Slavery shall be extended, — that the system shall be protected by Congressional legislation backed by the whole power of the Government; is it not, therefore, right and proper that the people of the Free States should know what that system is which they are required to perpetuate and protect? You have torn off its mask and exhibited to them its hideous features, and now let them say whether they will crush it beneath their feet, or foster, caress, and protect it."

William Rabé, Secretary of the Republican Central Committee of California, wrote from San Francisco:

"We have republished your speech..... I have the honor to hail from Mr. Chesnut's State, but am extremely sorry to be obliged to disagree with him, and to be obliged to indorse the reasoning of your speech, notwithstanding, or, in fact, in consequence of, my having been a planter in South Carolina for years. . . . . It may not be for me to eulogize you and your speeches; but that you have created an enthusiasm and opened the door for free talk on the subject of Slavery no one will deny, and the effect has already been electric."

From the press, and from correspondence, it is plain, that, whatever the efforts or desires of politicians, the question of Slavery had reached a crisis. Nothing touched the universal heart so strongly, and the interest extended abroad. For years the South had been growing passionate for this Barbarism, and determined on its extension. It now appeared that in the North there was a passion the other way. The Presidential election turned on Slavery, and nothing else. The precise point in issue was its limitation by preventing its spread into the Territories; but this issue, even in its moderate form, involved the whole character of Slavery, and the supremacy of the Slave Power in the National Government.

The speeches during the canvass were on this issue. Politicians were swept into the irresistible current. This appeared in the pressure upon

Mr. Sumner to speak. At the close of the session of Congress, only a brief period after his exposure of the Barbarism of Slavery, on the invitation of the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, he delivered an address at Cooper Institute, on "The Origin, Necessity, and Permanence of the Republican Party," where he presented anew the argument against Slavery. This was followed by urgent requests to speak in other places. Hon. Hannibal Hamlin, the Republican candidate for Vice-President, wrote from Maine: "We want you much, very much. . . . . Will you come? Don't say, No." Hon. William P. Fessenden, learning that he was coming, wrote: "The news has rejoiced all our hearts." Hon. Neal Dow urged: "You may say all that is in your heart, relying fully upon the entire sympathy of the people." And John A. Andrew, who was visiting there, reported: "Your name will draw like a thousand elephants." There were other States where there was similar urgency. A private letter from Thurlow Weed, at Albany, hoping it would be in Mr. Sumner's power to visit New York, was followed by a formal letter from the New York State Republican Central Committee, pressing him to address the electors of this State, and saying: "The Committee are very urgent in this request, and hope you will consent to speak for us as much as possible"; and this was followed by a special appeal from Simeon Draper, Chairman of the State Committee. A similar call, with the same urgency, came from Illinois,

and here the agents were Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, of the Repubican Congressional Committee at Washington, and Hon. N. B. Judd, Chairman of the Illinois Republican State Committee. In pressing the invitation, the latter said: "We can promise you such welcome as Western Republicans can give to laborers in the cause of Freedom"; and then again, in another letter: "The people expect you, and know that no personal motive or interest induces you to come, -only a deep conviction of the necessity for the election of Mr. Lincoln, and the triumph of the principles of which he is the representative." Another ardent Republican wrote from Chicago: "A glorious reception is awaiting you."

During the canvass, Mr. Sumner spoke several times in Massachusetts, treating different heads of the Great Question, as will appear in the course of this volume; but after his address at New York, he did not speak out of his own State. The appeals from other States attest that his method was not discarded by the people. As the Rebellion began to show itself, the Barbarism of Slavery was more and more recognized.

A VICTORY OF PRINCIPLE IN THE PRESIDENTIAL

ELECTION.

LETTER TO A PUBLIC MEETING AT MIDDLEBOROUGH, MASSACHUSETTS, JUNE 11, 1860.

SENATE CHAMBER, June 11, 1860. EAR SIR,- It would give me pleasure to mingle

pledges of earnest support to our candidates recently nominated at Chicago, but duties here will keep me away.

Be assured, however, of the sympathy, which I offer more freely because I find in the Platform declarations full of glorious promise. Our victory will be worth having, only as it is a victory of principle; but such a victory I expect.

Because I believe that our candidates hate the fiveheaded Barbarism of Slavery, and will set their faces against all its irrational and unconstitutional pretensions, I am earnest for their success.

Accept my thanks for the honor of your invitation, and believe me, dear Sir,

Faithfully yours,

CHARLES SUMNER.

F. M. VAUGHAN, Esq., Secretary, &c., &c.

REFUSAL TO COLORED PERSONS OF RIGHT OF PETITION.

NOTES OF UNDELIVERED SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON RESOLUTION REFUSING TO RECEIVE PETITION FROM CITIZENS OF MASSACHUSETTS OF

AFRICAN DESCENT, JUNE 15, 1860.

JUNE 5, 1860, Mr. Sumner presented a petition of citizens of Massachusetts, of African descent, praying the Senate to suspend the labors of the Select Committee appointed to investigate the facts of the late invasion and seizure of public property at Harper's Ferry, and that all persons now in custody under the proceedings of such Committee be discharged, which was duly referred to the Select Committee.

June 15, Mr. Mason submitted a report from the Committee, accompanied by the following resolution:

:

"Resolved, That the paper purporting to be a petition from 'citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, of African descent,' presented to the Senate by Charles Sumner, a Senator of Massachusetts, on the 5th of June, instant, and on his motion referred to a Select Committee of the Senate, be returned by the Secretary to the Senator who presented it."

This resolution was never called up for consideration, but it stands on the Journal of the Senate in perpetual testimony of the assumption of the Slave Power and its tyrannical hardihood. Anticipating its discussion, Mr. Sumner prepared the notes of a speech upon it, which are here preserved precisely as sketched at the time.

would treat a direct proposition of Atheism. "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God"; but it was only in his heart; the fool in Scripture did not

openly declare it. Had he openly declared it, he would have been in a position hardly more offensive than your Committee.

There is a saying of antiquity, which has the confirming voice of all intervening time, that "whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." And now, Sir, while humbled for my country that such a proposition should be introduced into the Senate, I accept it as the omen of that madness which precedes the fall of its authors.

At this moment the number of free persons, African by descent, in the United States, is almost half a million, being a population two thirds larger than the white population in South Carolina, more than one third larger than the white population in Mississippi, and six times larger than the white population in Florida. I mention these facts in order to show at the outset the number of persons whose rights are now assailed.

Already, in several States, free negroes are threatened with expulsion, under the terrible penalty of being sold into Slavery. The Supreme Court of the United States has stepped forward, and by cruel decree declared that they are not citizens, and therefore are not entitled to sue in the courts of the United States. And now, to complete their degradation and exclusion from all rights, it is proposed to declare that their petitions cannot be received by the Senate.

The right of petition is not political, but personal, born with Humanity, and confirmed by Christianity,belonging to all, but peculiar to the humble, the weak, and the oppressed. It belongs even to the criminal; for it is simply the right to pray.