There is not one English paper that I have seen which has not either suppressed or falsified the material facts of this case, because they know, that, properly understood, they would not support the hostile feeling against this country the…
Charles Sumner
The Public Record
Charles Sumner was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery, and after the war he was a key figure in the Reconstruction era, during which he and other Radical Republicans successfully fought to end slavery and ensure basic rights for Black Americans. He continued advocating for racial equality until his death, lobbying in his final days for a civil rights bill that served as a model for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians credit Sumner with coining the phrase "equality before the law," which he first used as part of an early attempt to integrate Boston's public school system.
gutenberg.org
I have just read your speech on the Trent affair, and cannot refrain from expressing my thanks for its able and conclusive vindication of the position of our Government on that subject.
If any reasoning can reconcile the American mind to the restitution of the two emissaries to British protection, your arguments and the calm and convincing presentation of facts must do it.
All my assertions that the Trent affair would not lead to war were received here with incredulity, by the Government, by my colleagues, by all parties.
The London Times, while criticizing your speech and denying its conclusions, writhes under it, and its arguments are a severer rebuke to England than any philippics or denunciations could be.
It produced an excellent effect here, and still better in England, if one may judge by the ill-humor in which it put the Times.
The impotent venom of that journal, under the circumstances, was more complimentary than its praise could have been.
I have to thank you for a copy of your very able speech on the Trent affair, which has been very much read, and in all quarters I hear it spoken of with admiration.
How my heart rejoices that the affair of the Trent is thus amicably settled! but--and I must say so--I have little faith in the good feeling of the Government of England, and the leading influences here, towards our country.
How indignant have I felt the last six weeks at the tone of the leading papers towards our country!
I was always the friend of England, and few have written or spoken more in commendation of her; but I must in truth say that my feelings have changed since I have been here.
She sees our growing greatness, and envies and fears it.
It seems to me that England, in the excitement of the moment, and with the sudden impulse of redressing a fancied wrong, has not foreseen the inevitable result to which her own action has brought her.
She will find, however, that not only the United States, but France, and all Europe, will hold her to the consequences which you have so clearly demonstrated flow from her own action.
This will show England that a British ministry have much more to fear from her mobs than the Administration of this Government have to fear from our people.
The public opinion, as far as I know it here, is in accordance with the positions set forth in your speech, and your speech will tend to illustrate and render it more general.
Its wise candor and its steadfast adherence to the landmarks of maritime freedom cannot fail to make a profound impression upon the liberal minds of Europe; while disclaiming the thought of her dishonor, you have lifted the Republic to the…
The affair has been put to rest, but simply on legal grounds.… The Trent will tell more terribly upon England than the ghost of Cæsar upon Brutus at Philippi.
The tone of the speech is so quiet and dignified, that it will have the effect, I think, of a severe rebuke on the hasty and unjustifiable conduct of the English Cabinet in demanding a reparation and a surrender of the captives with…
I am rejoiced that you have been able, while vindicating the course of the Administration in making the surrender of Mason and Slidell, to add so much to your reputation as a statesman.
The affair has given rise to no paper so entirely satisfactory to me, nor to one calculated, in my judgment, to be so truly and permanently useful.
I think, moreover, you have spoken the sober, sound thought of the country; and while they are indignant at the inconsistent annoyance of the ministry and the press of England, they feel that the course taken is not only the wise and…
It vindicates the honor of our baited and abused country.
It will be a well-remembered document in the diplomacy of the world, settling as it does forever the immunity of neutrals from the insulting pretension of the right to seize persons on their ships merely upon the ground that they owe…
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
