Rumors of compromise in certain quarters and menaces from the South increased the anxiety of the more earnest to take advantage of every opportunity for demonstration against Slavery. To all suggestions of concession the North made haste to answer in the negative. Already began that fidelity under which the Rebellion finally succumbed and Slavery disappeared.
Mr. Sumner was especially pleased at the appreciation of this Address as an effort against compromise,--shown by a letter from a citizen of Kansas, who was present:--
“How timely and impressively that bright example teaches adherence to Liberty and Principle, and resistance to concession and compromise, at the present crisis!”
A patriot citizen who heard it at Philadelphia, where it was given before an immense audience, wrote:--
“Your Lecture has done more good than words can tell. There is no such thing as calculating its value to our city.”
The _Pennsylvanian_ of Philadelphia, after entitling it “Clear Grit Abolitionism,” said:--
“The People’s Literary Institute Lecture, at Concert Hall, last evening, was by that perfect ensample of Abolitionism, Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts. The hall was crowded, negroes occupying the front seats and other prominent places. Sumner’s nominal subject was ‘Lafayette,’ but he made his sketch of the noble Marquis a vehicle for the expression of the most ardent wishes and aspirations after negro equality. The audience applauded the most radical passages, although a stray hiss now and then betrayed the whereabouts of a ‘Conservative.’”
MR. PRESIDENT,--I am to speak this evening of one who early consecrated himself to Human Rights, and throughout a long life became their representative, knight-errant, champion, hero, missionary, apostle,--who strove in this cause as no man in history has ever striven,--who suffered for it as few have suffered,--and whose protracted career, beginning at an age when others are yet at school, and continued to the tomb, where he tardily arrived, is conspicuous for the rarest fidelity, the purest principle, and the most chivalrous courage, whether civil or military. There is but one personage to whom this description is justly applicable, and you have anticipated me when I pronounce the name of Lafayette. As in Germany Jean Paul is known as “the Only One,” so would I hail Lafayette as “the Faithful One.” If Liberty be what philosophy, poetry, and the human heart all declare, then must we treasure the example of one who served her always with a lover’s fondness and with a martyr’s constancy, nor demand perfections which do not belong to human nature. It is enough for unstinted gratitude that he stood forth her steadfast friend, like the good angel,--