Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1858-06-16

ms time, we would recommend perusal OF
the following able and truthful article from
the New York Tribune:
If General in the army of the Republic
had fallen grievously wounded in the fore
front of battle, and had thence been compel
led to retire for season from active service,
that his wounds might, if possible, be healed,
the legislator, journalist, or bar-Ioom polti-
clan, who should thereupon suggest that he
ought to resign and allow some one to replace
him who could do the work for which he was
receiving pay, would hear his suggestion
greeted with one universal hiss of scorn and
detestation. Yet the doughfsce journals aud
politicians do not scruple 10 urge the resgna-
ton of Charles Sumner, under circumstances
nowise dissimllar, save that, being eminently
a civilian and engaged in service not sup
posed to involve the contingency of death or
manning by violence, his case is by so much
stronger than that of the wounded soldier.
Mr.. Sumner was elected to the Senate dis
tinctly as a representative Of the anti-slavery
sentiment of his State. Other elements en-
tered iuto the canvass which placed the seat
within his reach, but he embodied only this.
AS radical, Incorporating anti slavery
man he was presented; as such was he elect
ed; as such he entered the Senate and such
he has continued to be without abatement or
alloy. Others may be as earnestly hostile to
the slave power as he; but they have other
ideas, regard other interests as we'll; Mr..
Sumner regards all other questions as trivial,
or at leas subordinate to that OF the over
throw of the dominion of the slave oligarehy.
Hence he was personally assaied from the
hour of his first participation in the debates
of the Senate; hence was he socially as well
90 Dolifipa1Iu toh hx afr bof
body. With reputation that calumny might
indeed assail but could not tarnish men,
tai cultivation and scholarship fitting him to
adorn and delight the best society of the fed
eral metropolis a manner and diction so pol.
ished as to disarm ordinary rudeness, it was
from the first instinctively recognized by a
majority Of his fellow Senators that brow
beating and bullying were the only arts by
which he could be worsted. Accordingly,
before he had even uttered one sentence that
could, with any color of FEASIBILITY, be re-
garded as personal, he had been treated with
several exhibitions Of plantation manners
from the representatives OF human chattel-
hood, and been given by them distinctly to
understand that he was, simply because of
his nti-slavery convictions, to lie habitually
dealt with by them as one not SO much 10 be
answered as to be kicked.
When, therefore, the conspiracy to enslave
Kanzas had ripened into the unchecked pre-
dominance of fraud and usurpation, signaliz-
ed and upheld by means of chronic robbery,
arson, and murder, and Mr.. Sumner rose to
pour out his whole soul in remonstrance
against that hideous regime, could he be ex-
pected to handle daintily those through whose
instigation and by whose votes he had seen
this great crime against humanity contriyed
and matured! Knowing as he did that it
had its origin in the Senate-that one of its
master spirits had vacated the chair of the
Senate expressly to consumnate it, was he
to spend hts strength on such obscure and
paltry instruments as Sheriff Jones, Clay
Pate, and the Stringfellowsf Assaulted and
vituperated as he had been for years, wholly
without provocation, almost without reply,
was be bound to leave the chief criminals un-
exposed and unrebuked because they were d.
reetly under his eye, and had been banded to
ostracise and degrade him Mr.. Sumner
thought not, and as he thought he spoke
But the weapon he welded was no meat-ax,
but blade of Damascus He dealt with their
acts as senators, not with their lives or char
acters as men. From beginning to end of his
famous speech, there is no word calculated to
give pain or even cause irritation in the breast
of brother senator. He dealt uniformly
with principles, with measures, with speech
es, never with senators in their personal quail.
tiles or private relations.
But Mr.. Sumner was bold, aud hence, ac-
cordiDg to the logic OF slavery, required chas-
iisement; he was i'll passages severe, sarcas-
tic, whitening, IN his exposure aud Teprehen-
sion OF public wrongs, and the natural an
swer of the slave power was the bludgeon.
Hence he was made the victim OF conspira-
ey of American Legislators, and, several days
after the delivery of his speech, was assailed in
the Senate Chamber while seated, cramped,
unarmed, unsuspicious of danger, struck to
the floor, and there beaten bloody, senseless,
and to the verge of the grave. Two years
have elapsed since that time, yet Mr..
Mr.. Summer, though he has been uniformly
careful and has avoided mental effort and ex-
citement to the utmost, is still an invalid. The
best physicians say he cannot recover but his
constitution is naturally strong, his temper
sanguine, and he still hopes and endeavors to
regain the ability to perform the duties which
Massachusetts, with unprecedented unanimity,
has assigned him. The session being SO near
its end that further discussion of principles
must be internitted and little but routine
business transacted, he has sailed second
time for Europe in quest of health and
bIehBtn. DE cOHHOeHtly expects 10 De well
and in his seat at or near the opening of the
next session we fear ne may not be. That
he will be, if able, is doubted by none.
Such being the leading facts in Mr.. Sum-
ners case, the public will judge whether the
sneers at has ''broken head, which find utter.
aDce through the administration journals
mingled with complaints of his absence from
Washington by those who represent his almost
every act and vote when there as detrimen-
tai to the public veal if not perilous to the
Union, are or are not deserving of marked
reprobation. And, whether it was wise in
him to say it or not, we believe that Mr.. SUM
ner's "vacant chair" is more useful to his
country than many of the full ones in that
chamber. For that chair testiies silently but
impressively in behalf of human liherty-lib-
erty from shackles on the limbs and fettters
on the tougue-of freedom alike from the lash
of the overseer and the club of the Honorable
rutian. The chair stands a memorial of the
brutal barbarism that is passing away and Of
the humaner freer, juster civilization that is
noiselessly supplanting it. And if remorse
or shame impes some to wish that chair ban
ished and forgotten. let us hope that these per.
turbations are the outward symbols OF an in
ward struggle which will eventuate in peni-
tence and reformation.
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AN ANTI DOUGLAS DEMOCRAT OF ILLINOIS.
II n =. u rp.---.e..