New-York daily tribune., 1856-05-24

The assault on Senator Sumner reverberates
through the land, causing throughout the Free
States the ntensest excitement and Indignation
Other men have been as causelessly assailed, and
as wantOnly, if not as savagely, beaten; but the
knocking. down and beating to bloody blindness and
unconsciousness Of an American Senator while
writing at bis deck in the Senate Chamber is
novel illustration of the ferOcous Southern spirit.
1t carries home to myriads of Understandings q
more vivid, if not wholly original perception, of
the degradation in which the Free States have
consented for years to exist. The degradation was
.s real wears ago, but never before palpable as
now. When q citizen OF Northern State so
thoroughly subservent to the Slave Power as
Edward Everett could be opposed in the Senate
and well nigh rejected as Minister to England,
because he had once, under the pressure OF strong
local feeling, ayowed, a candidate for Congress,
some abstract opposition to Slavery, it was high
time for the North to unite in declaring that this
sort Of inquisition must be stopped-that, so long
as devotion to Slavery was not made barrier to
Executive station, devotion TO Freedom should not
be- But the North has always lacked manly self
assertion. especially in the Senate, where a ma
q
few weeks since TO kick out the petition of Free
Kansas for admission, on some paltry preteXt of
informaty and surrender her citizens 10 the un-
checked brutaltes and inflamed indignation of the
Border Ruffans.
The beating Of private citizens or the bu.chery
of Irish walters by the Southern OGgarchy, have
made no impression on the public mind at all
comparable in breadth or vividness with that which
has been and will be produced by the assault of
which Mr.. Sumner has been the victim. Widely
known in both hemispheres as among the first of
American scholars and orators, his career as a
Senator has conferred renO~n even on the glorious
commonwealth Of which he is the foremost repre-
sentative. Elected as the champion Of no interest,
no clique, party but simply of the great idea of
Impartial Freedom, he has been eminently faithful
10 his high calling. Nobody could infer from his
votes or speeches that be was ever in the party
sense. q Whig or a Democrat; but no one can
doubt tha, he is al earnest and fearless cOntemner
of Slavery. But four years in public life he has
already done much TO redeem the term Abolitionist
from the urmerited odium which an age of basel
ness. seli.seebug and in6delity to Revolutionary
tradition and Republican principle has con,riyed 70
cast upon il. He has elevated the range and
wideped the scope Of Senatorial debate, summonine
Poetry and Literature to the elucds.iop Of
the grayest and dryest political propositions
while BY careful preparation and finished orstorv
be has attracted thousands TO hear and TO consider
elemental truths with the enuncation of which
the corrupt aDd seryile atmosphere of the Federal
metropolis has been sgitated far too seldom. There
is no man now living who within the last five YEAR,
has rendered the American People greater service
or won for himself nobler fame than Chsrls.
Sumner.
#, Ii is high time that this People should take q
stand not only sgainst she immediate perpetrators
II ruffan assaults but against their confederate.
and apologsts in public life and in the Press. A..
long as words sincerely spoken can be pleaded a.
an apology for blows, We .hall be regarded by i'm.
martial observers as bsrbarisns-and Justly so re-
csrded so long as our truly civilized and refined
communities succunb to the rule of the barbarian
elements in our political system We must De Judged
bv the character and conduct of our accepted mas.
ters. The youth trained to knock down hi, human
cb,.,els for "insolence is, for any sort Of
resistance 10 bis good pleasure-wil thereafter
knock down AID beat other human beins. who