The real successor to John Quincy Adams as the protagonist of the anti-slavery cause in Congress proved to be not Seward but Charles Sumner of Massachusetts.This newcomer entered the Senate without previous legislative experience but with an unusual equipment for the role he was to play.A graduate of Harvard College at the age of nineteen, he had entered upon the study of law in the newly organized law school in which Joseph Story held one of the two professorships.He was admitted to the bar in 1834, but three years later he left his slender law practice for a long period of European travel.This three years' sojourn brought him into intimate touch with the leading spirits in arts, letters, and public life in England and on the Continent, and thus ripened his talents to their full maturity.He returned to his law practice poor in pocket but rich in the possession of lifelong friendships and happy memories.
Sumner's political career did not begin until 1847, when as a Whig he not only opposed any further extension of slavery but strove to commit his party to the policy of emancipation in all the States.Failing in this attempt, Sumner became an active Free-Boiler in 1848.He was twice a candidate for Congress on the Free-soil ticket but failed of election.In 1851 he was elected to the United States Senate by a coalition between his party and the Democrats.This is the only public office he ever held, but he was continuously reelected until his death in 1874.
John Quincy Adams had addressed audiences trained in the old school, which did not defend slavery on moral grounds.Charles Sumner faced audiences of the new school, which upheld the institution as a righteous moral order.This explains the chief difference in the attitude of the two leaders.Sumner, like Adams, began as an opponent of pro-slavery aggression, but he went farther: he attacked the institution itself as a great moral evil.
As a constitutional lawyer Sumner is not the equal of his predecessor, Daniel Webster.He is less original, less convincing in the enunciation of broad general principles.He appears rather as a special pleader marshaling all available forces against the one institution which assailed the Union.In this particular work, he surpassed all others, for, with his unbounded industry, he permitted no precedent, no legal advantage, no incident of history, no fact in current politics fitted to strengthen his cause, to escape his untiring search.He showed a marvelous skill in the selection, arrangement, and presentation of his materials, and for his models he took the highest forms of classic forensic utterance.
Sumner exhibited the ordinary aloofness and lack of familiarity with actual conditions in the South which was characteristic of the New England abolitionist.He perceived no race problem, no peculiar difficulty in the readjustments of master and slave which were involved in emancipation, and he ignored all obstacles to the accomplishment of his ends.Webster's arraignment of South Carolina was directed against an alleged erroneous dogma and only incidentally affected personal morality.The reaction, therefore, was void of bitter resentment.Sumner's charges were directed against alleged moral turpitude, and the classic form and scrupulous regard for parliamentary rules which he observed only added to the feeling of personal resentment on the part of his opponents.Some of the defenders of slavery were themselves devoted students of the classics, but they found that the orations of Demosthenes furnished nothing suited to their purpose.The result was a humiliating exhibition of weakness, personal abuse, and vindictiveness on their part.
There was a conspiracy of silence on the slavery question in 1852.Each of the national parties was definitely committed to the support of the compromise and especially to the faithful observance of the Fugitive Slave Law.Free-soilers had distinctly declined in numbers and influence during the four preceding years.Only a handful of members in each House of Congress remained unaffiliated with the parties whose platforms had ordained silence on the one issue of chief public concern.It was by a mere accident in Massachusetts politics that Charles Sumner was sent to the Senate as a man free on all public questions.
While the parties were making their nominations for the Presidency, Sumner sought diligently for an opportunity in the Senate to give utterance to the sentiments of his party on the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act.But not until late in August did he overcome the resistance of the combined opposition and gain the floor.The watchmen were caught off guard when Sumner introduced an amendment to an appropriation bill which enabled him to deliver a carefully prepared address, several hours in length, calling for the repeal of the law.
