“After his return, under the influence of Dr. Channing, and in sympathy with Dr. Howe and others, he devoted much of his time to the great philanthropic and social problems of the day,--Slavery, Pauperism, Crime, and Prison Discipline,--and gradually the overshadowing social, political, and national importance of the Slave question drew him first before the people and into public life. When his sentiments on the Slave question were to be sustained at the risk of his ease, his interests, his friendships, and his popularity, he put them all to the hazard. When proposed as candidate for the Senate, the highest office Massachusetts can give, while his election hung trembling in the balance week after week, when one or two votes would secure it, and this or that thing said or done it was thought would gain them, nothing would induce Charles Sumner to take one step from his regular course from his house to his office to speak to any man; he would not make one bow the more, nor put his hand to a line, however simple or unobjectionable, to secure the result. I know--I have right to say this--I know that in this course he resisted temptations and advice and persuasions which few men would not have yielded to. He was elected. It was a tribute to character and talent.
“When he went to Washington, to fight almost alone, with only two or three allies, discountenanced by colleagues and cried down by the great majority, to fight the fight for Freedom, he determined not to speak on the subject of Slavery until he had done all in his power to secure the confidence and good-will of his opponents. So far did he carry this, that his friends here feared that he was bending before the idol, as others had bent. He secured his footing as well as it could be secured. All but fanatics for Slavery admitted his claims to personal affection and public respect. On this basis he took his stand for Freedom. You have seen the result. Few men in America have ever had, perhaps no one man now has, so many readers as he. His opponents say that he burns the midnight lamp. He does. And
‘How far that little candle throws his beams!’
His opponents, too, burn the midnight lamp; but, as you remember, Sir, the great Athenian said, there is a difference between the objects on which their lamp throws its glare and his.”