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Title: Oration on Charles Sumner, Addressed to Colored People

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ORATION ON CHARLES SUMNER, ADDRESSED TO COLORED PEOPLE ***

Oration on Charles Sumner, Addressed to Colored People.

Oration On Charles Sumner, Addressed To Colored People.

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me:

Write!

Blessed are the dead which die

In the Lord!

That they may rest from their labors,

And their works

Do follow them."—REV. xiv., 13.

By EVANGELINE.

ALBANY:

WEED, PARSONS & CO., PRINTERS.

1874.

CHARLES SUMNER.

In Memoriam.

The nation's heart is sad!

Her best beloved son,

The great and good!

Has winged his flight from earth,

And white robed angels

Shift the gorgeous scenery of the sky

To let his soul pass onward

To his God!

Who sent his messenger to bid him "Come."

Sumner is dead!

Oh! many moons must come

And many go

Ere we be comforted again,

Or hush the sighs

That follow him up the golden stair,

Echoing through all the shining corridors

Of heaven,

Where our beloved one has gone to rest!

Sumner is dead!

Oh, sad refrain!

In which the teeming earth

Doth find a voice,

And nature's gentle hands

Are laid within the clasping of our own;

Stilling the joyous songs of long silent

Birds,

That no awakening sound disturb our grief!

She casts her snow white mantle

O'er the whispering grass!

And hushes the hasty footfall

Of coming spring!

Calling to the swift March wind

To carry along the golden clouds

To waiting angels

The mournful tidings of our woe!

Sumner is dead!

O sad repeating words!

That beat upon our hearts

Like showers of frozen hail!

Melting in tears!

That swell the tidal wave of sorrow,

Sweeping adown the great Pacific slopes,

Rushing along

To the sorrowful shores of the broad Atlantic.

Sumner is dead!

And bitter tears

From our sad eyes

Doth make us little recompense

For his most noble life! Though

The nations of the earth rise up to comfort us;

The glorious Orient and the kindly Occident

Stretch forth their hands

To us

Across the spaces of the earth!

Sumner is dead!

And the tears of heaven

Are mingling with the tears of earth,

Above his new made grave.

Showers of stormy rain

Descend upon the grave of our beloved dead,

Whose most honored dust

Is heirloom

To all the sorrowing nations of the earth!

Sumner is dead!

O mournful hearts,

At whose red-lintel doors

The angel of sorrow knocks,

And knocks again!

O tear filled eyes! upon whose drooping fringes

The heavy foot of sorrow presses hard

Be comforted!

For God shall wipe the tears from your sad eyes.

Oration.

There is a word,

When once spoken,

Fixes its meaning upon every human brain,

And finds a habitation,

Within the sacred chambers of the soul;

A word,

Whether spoken on the shores of the Orient,

Lying in slumbrous dreams

A-near the sun!

Or the land of the snow and ice,

Where gorgeous temples arise,

Whose translucent walls are

Builded without the sound of hammer or chisel!

Whether spoken

In the halls of learning or at the fireside,

On the ship's deck

Or the soldier's camp,

Finds an echo

In every human heart!

A word,

At whose sound

The pages of history open,

And the stirring deeds of our forefathers

Are marshaled forth to meet us!

Thousands of trusty swords leap from their scabbards,

And the hillsides

Are populous with rising life;

Long lines of shadowy soldier-forms

Start up,

Forming in dense array along the valleys,

Bearing evidence

Of the word,

Whose meaning

Has never been changed since

The Almighty traced the boundaries of the sea.

And bid the earth come forth

From the womb of waters!

THAT WORD IS FREEDOM!

A word

Fraught with deepest meaning

To ye,

O ye down-trodden nation!

Who stood alone

Under the sombre shadow of the past, waiting

For the angel of the future, the sound

Of whose foot-falls made the present tremulous

With coming tidings!

A word,

Pregnant with joys to the poor fettered slave,

Toiling in the heat and burthen of the day

In southern fields,

Where the snowy cotton

Unfurls its fleecy banner to the breeze!

Or in the luxuriant tropics,

Where forests

Are all ablaze with gorgeous flowers, and birds,

And the odorous air

Is laden with orange and spice!

Or toiling

In northern latitudes,

Where his best efforts

And upward tendencies are clogged!

His life burdened with sorrow,

And ill-requited toil!

O ye men!

Over whose helpless nakedness

He cast the mantle of liberty, woven out!

Woof and weft!

Of the threads of his very life!

Ye men!

Whose faces were never so black as not to show

Behind their dark surface

The features of a brother!

Whose hands, unstained by crime, were never so black

As to be unfit for his grasp!

In loving token of a long lost

Brotherhood!

O ye men!

Whom he discovered

Prone in the valley of tribulation!

Looking with infinite longing, and sad yearning eyes,

At the solemn vault of heaven,

Where stars

Take their nightly course

Around a mysterious centre!

Wondering,

If within the folding of those azure doors,

There was room for you!

Ye men!

For whom this great apostle of liberty

Stretched forth the rod of justice,

And smote,

With a fearless blow, the stony rock of national caste,

Till all the waters of liberty

Flowed forth!

And he gave you to drink!

Ye may well

Stand with uncovered heads,

Above his new made grave,

Bowed down with a weight of woe—

A sense of loss too great for human expression!

For the good man,

Whom God called in the morning of his life,

To be a modern Moses

To an oppressed and down-trodden nation,

Upon whose lives

The iron-foot of bondage made its impress!

For the hand

That bore aloft the proud banner of freedom,

And scaled the walls of deep-rooted prejudice,

To demand

From the custodians of human liberty,

The scroll of your birth-right!

Lies cold and still

In death!

The strong right arm

That smote the pillar of

Your wrongs in the dust! Calling back

Fleeting generations, before whose revelations

The white faces of the earth

Stood still!

Trembling before outraged heaven.

Upon whose faithful pages every oppression,

Every lash of the whip,

Every tear

From long suffering eyes were registered

For future reference!

"Beware!"

Said Sumner in his great appeal to humanity,

"Of the groans of wounded souls;

Oppress not to the uttermost

A single heart!

For one solitary sigh has power to overset

A whole world!"

O, ye freed people!

Scarce had the name of

Fillmore

Traced its guilty lines upon the page

Of that most consummate act

Of cruelty,

When a hundred guns from Boston's classic heights

Belched forth their teeming fire

In ratification

Of the great treaty of blood!

Like a ponderous knell!

Their jarring sound boomed out your death cry,

Upon the soul of Sumner!

And all the night, of that most lurid day,

Alone with his God.

His fast retreating and coming footsteps

Made his silent chamber eloquent with his agony.

And kept their mournful rhythm

With the throes of his soul!

This true man

Who stood up in your midst

Like a pillar of light!

Endowed with power to emit a radiance

All its own!

When friend and foe alike

Refusing the succor and protection

Of a common humanity;

Would force back the hapless,

Fugitive slave

To the hell of slavery;

"Thus openly DEFYING

Every sentiment of justice, humanity and christian duty."

Leaving to coming generations

A record of human wrongs,

"Amongst the crimes of history, another

Is about to be recorded,

Which no tears can blot out!"

Said the upright statesman.

As he stood

Amidst the surging tide

Of calumny and misconception,

Bearing up

Against the pressure of the waves of "caste."

His solemn words echoing through the senate:

"By the supreme law

Which commands me to do justice;

By the comprehensive

And conscientious law

Of brotherhood;

By the constitution

I have sworn to support,

I am bound to disobey this act!

And never,

In any circumstance, can I render voluntary aid to it!

Pains and penalties I will endure!

This great wrong I will not do.

Better be the victim,

Than the instrument of wrong!"

Fired!

With Athenian eloquence,

Towering aloft in his noble manhood!

Bearing the grand proud form

Of a Cret'an hero!

Hurling!

The thunder of heaven

Upon the guilty heads

Of your inhuman and infamous oppressors,

Who would enslave

The very freedom of his speech!

And hang

The fetters of party strife

Upon his independent thoughts!

But he rose up in his giant strength,

Raising the prostrate column

Of your rights,

Manfully fighting for it, block by block,

Every inch of the ground

Contested!

What wonder

That common minds,

Lacking the moral vertebræ (backbone)

Of a grand and noble humanity, should deem him

Passionate!

Yet, "what is life

Without passionate feeling

To false sentiment?

It is, indeed, a dangerous auxiliary;

But no true sentiment is complete

Without it."

And truer sentiments

Never lit the fires of eloquence in a purer breast

Than Sumner's!

A breast that heaved with indignation

For your bitter wrongs,

And the piteous spectacle of human nature

That Taney's mandate presented

To the eyes of the world!

That,

"The black man

Has no rights the white man is bound to respect."

O! omnipotent

And omnipresent God!

Who made us in thine own image,

Breathing

Thine own pure breath

Into our dust-created bodies!

Giving of thine own life

A semblance

So great in all its purity so grand in all its fulness,

That our humanity can scarce contain it!

So, whether our faces be black, or whether

They be white,

If we but retain thy semblance,

And keep within

The sacred

Cloister of our souls

The lamp that thou didst consecrate

And gave

Into our most solemn keeping

To illuminate the fair pages of our lives,

And shed

Its holy light upon the path

That lies along the shimmering moon-beams of the sky,

Upon whose silver stair

Expectant angels wait;

Whose luminous wings enfold us round about,

Bearing our happy souls

Beyond the sapphire gates

To the home

From whence we came

We are as one to thee!

And all the thinking, reasoning nations

Of the earth!

Once only

In the history of this nation,

The floor of the senate chamber

Dedicated to justice and liberty,

Is stained with the blood

Of a martyr!

He lay helpless and lifeless along that floor,

Like an Athenian warrior

Slain upon the altar of his country!

His grand, proud head

Dyed with the crimson tide

Of his own life blood!

His pale, cold face, and white soundless lips

Appealing in their speechless agony

To the banner of his country, that hung in starry folds

Above his head!

The hand that smote him to the earth,

Severed the life-chord of his

Physical well-being!

But,

Out of the blood,

Out of the turmoil, the warfare and

Passionate strivings,

Out of the pain and anguish,

Out of the ruin and solitude,

Out of the great silence that lay upon his life,

There rose up

A spirit of grandeur

With the thews and sinews of Divine wisdom!

A grander, nobler, truer manhood

Wrought out of the fires

Of anguish and pain!

A wisdom that has gone its slow, sure round

Upon the wheels of time,

Calling out of your own nation a full man

To sit in the chair

Of him who smote your patriot and friend

At his post of duty!

Out

From the ruin wrought

By a thoughtless and passionate hand!

Sumner, the Christian statesman

Arose grander than ever!

Daring to speak the truth

Having the moral courage to wear it proudly

Upon his lips!

Flooding its glorious light

Upon the actions of his life!

Oh ! How we revere

The man who speaks the truth!

Whose words and actions

Call no unhealthy effort to the mind!

In winnowing out the one bright grain

Of truth

From the chaff of shiftless falsehood!

The tired brain, weary with analyzing

Sought rest in his statements, nor placed them

Within its crucible!

O, truth!

Thou art born of God!

On thy fair brow

The jeweled crown of purity gleams!

Thy garments

Are luminous with shimmering star-light

O truth!

Thou semblance of the living God!

What have we not borne, what suffered

For thee!

Misconception

Darkens thy fair features!

Misconstruction covers thee with her shadowy mantle!

Throwing wide

The flood-gates of sorrow

That rush from the bitter fountain

Of the grieved soul!

In thy right hand is a crown

Of glory! In thy left

A crown of thorns!

Truth

Is a spirit of glory!

A body of transcendent grandeur!

Sinewy and tenacious

For the human mind to grasp!

The nations of the Earth

Stand forth to honor

A man of truth,

And lay their tribute at his feet!

Alas! too often

After his human ear,

Strained to the utmost tension to catch

The far off sound,

After his throbbing heart!

Hungering for human sympathy, thirsting

For the cup of love

Starving for the kindly hand-grasp,

Tired, and worn, and weary,

Lays down to die!

And

The dread Saul's march

Thrilling its weird music

Above his grave,

Is but an echo of dead expectancy and woe!

That fall upon our hearts

Like the rustling leaves of autumn!

Ah!

There are human faces

Meeting our eyes each day,

Which,

If they lay cold and still

The air would rend with our lamentations

And sorrow!

And our sad tears would vainly try

To wash the lines of care

From their dead faces!

That fill the haunted chamber of our souls

For evermore!

Yet!

No word of sympathy,

No outstretched hand,

Bore to their full expectant hearts

A token!

No kindling glance

Of sympathetic brotherhood;

Bore to their asking eyes

"I have a care of thee!"

Thus we go on day after day, wrapping

The mantle of selfishness round our humanity!

Looking so earthward,

The tears of our grieving brother

Fall upon our feet!

O, have a care that

No such sin as this be recorded in Heaven's register

To burthen your free souls

As ye go upward!

When

The weary day

Lays down her tired head

Upon the dreamy pillow of the past,

Closing the silent gates of night

On her departing foot-falls!

Throwing back upon our thrilling senses

The curtains of mystery!

That float upon the silence and hush

Of the night season!

Making the soundless air

Tremulous with life!

'Tis then,

And not till then.

Pervaded by a divine restlessness

We kneel

And loose our earthly shoes from off our feet

For the ground whereon we stand

Is holy!

Alone,

With the divine sculptor,

Whose unerring chisel,

Rounds off the uneven curves and awkward corners

Of our erring nature,

The heroic statue

Is wrought out of roughest marble!

So, the good man

Is moulded out of his very faults!

Thus the great master hand

With divine precision

Measured the breadth and depth and height

Of Sumner!

To fill with honor and credit

The royal shrine;

The grand and noble niche prepared for him

In heaven,

And in the stirring history

Of the world!

There are men

So utterly narrow-minded,

So wanting in moral vertebræ

And grand human nature, that they are never greatly

Tempted!

Satan,

With discriminating acumen, seeks higher

Prey than these!

They are all too flimsy, weak, and crude

For his purposes!

But,

Upon the men of moral breadth, of depths

Of human pity;

Of height of divine abiding! Some prince

Of the sons of the earth,

Whom God has chosen

For some great epoch in our history,

The whole artillery of hell

Is brought to bear!

Men

Tried and trusted of God!

Fitted to go down to the arena,

"To fight the great fight," from the going down

To the rising of the sun!

Struggling with some deadly temptation that has

Locked him

In its sinewy embrace;

Or taking some wild passion

By the throat,

And strangling it out of existence.

These,

The large-hearted, square-headed, high minded,

Men of history,

Are his best stock in trade!

To these temptation comes! and if they fall,

He lashes them to his chariot wheels,

And carries them in triumph

Into hell!

But Sumner,

The man of princely integrity,

Accepted no defeat, acknowledged no tempter!

The lobbyist,

Engaged in tunneling under human nature,

Fled from before his face!

The briber,

Whose soft insinuating palm

Takes kindly to the hands of his fellow man!

He,

Who cometh with a smile,

And asketh for no receipt!

He,

Whose loosened purse strings, bind

The tender conscience

With cords, gripped by the sinewy hand

Of Satan,

Turns aside to let Sumner pass on;

The utterly incorruptible!

'Tis thus,

Viewing the great

Defender of the constitution surrounded

By an atmosphere of bribery and corruption

Of men

Selling the very sinews of their country

For just so many dollars

Of bitter enemies,

Of unstable friends;

Of hurry and rush

Of weak legislation;

Of "the groans of wounded souls;"

Of falsehood and moral contagion

That we love him best.

For amidst the soulless throng

He stood up in his peerless manhood

Like a pillar of truth,

And carried with him the brightest

Stars of the age!

'Twas not in vain

He sat,

A studious disciple

At the royal feet of wisdom!

Culling the sweets of knowledge from her tomes!

Not in vain

Did he visit other lands, and other climes,

Filling up

The vast storehouses of his mind,

With the rarest

And richest gems of culture,

The grand position he had taken in the great

Human family

Needed this!

He stood like a great tree in the forest,

The branches of which stretched out

So far

As to cover the oppressed ones

Of the whole world!

Let us all

Kindle our aspirations

At his shrine! For the loftiest ideas

Flow from him!

This our modern Solomon who challenged

The admiration of the world!

Whose wise and pure character

Stands out before us to-night

As one

That fills the void in our highest ideas

Of manhood!

The light of his example

Throws its clear defining ray along

The pathway of our lives;

Keeping our eye upon that beacon of light

We shall not stumble,

But fulfill our duties truthfully, manfully,

And with a pure heart!

His character,

In its human and divine greatness,

Has a wondrous completeness!

Comprehensive

In its compact firmness, its grasp of justice.

Vital

In its rounded purity, its magnanimous

Humanity!

Subtle

In its fine intuitive sympathy!

Grand

In its lofty ideas of duty!

He

Has left us a rich inheritance not in lands

Or tenements,

But in jewels of silver, jewels of gold,

And precious stones!

Heir-looms that shall crown our lives

With honor!

These jewels

Dived for, in fathoms deep of the waters

Of tribulation,

Are our common heritage!

His

Nobility of character, caught from divine communing!

His

Devotion to truth and integrity of purpose!

His

Allegiance to pure principles and honor!

His

Grand moral and physical courage,

And his great humanity!

Towering in strength, like a giant tree

In the forest,

These are the casket of gems

He has willed to our keeping,

To adorn our lives!

We stand amazed

At the pyramid of work,

Of toilsome labors, he has raised up!

Labors

Associated with your rise, progression,

And preservation!

The pages of his life are illuminated with

The records of his toil!

These facts

Should pass into your lives, elevating and ennobling

Your efforts!

Raising you upward to

The true dignity of daily labor!

Ye diggers of the soil,

Remember that he was a digger amongst

The roots of wisdom!

Remember that he was pre-eminently

A laborer,

Whose deeds have passed securely

Into the history

Of the world!

His

Work is done!

The temple is built all but the crest,

And to tender and loyal hands he has left

The finishing thereof!

He has fulfilled the mission to which

God called him!

He,

With the bright band of thinkers

And laborers,

Has brought you out of bondage, of Egyptian

Darkness

To the glorious noon day of freedom,

The promised land

Is yours by divine and human right!

From his immense altitude, with the eyes

Of prophesy,

He could see you possessed of

Its every corner!

His

Wreath is woven!

Not upon the garniture of costly

Sepulchre,

But upon the loving and sorrowing hearts

Of four millions of freed people!

Not upon

The marble statue,

But upon the appreciative consciousness

Of the world at large!

His wreath is woven!

Every leaf bedewed with tears!

Every flower wreathed in with lamentations!

Tied with the heart-strings of a nation's love!

But, "we mourn not as one without hope!"

For "I am the resurrection and life

"Saith the Lord!

He who believeth in me, though he were dead

Yet shall he live."

Ye women!

Upon whose kindly bosoms

Lisping children nestle!

Remember!

For the eyes that saw deepest into your human

Woe,

And trembled in humid tenderness

For your degraded humanity,

Are closed for ever!

Remember!

For the lips

That broke your galling fetters

With the fiery thunder of his manhood's

Eloquence!

Re-adjusting,

In all its God-given symmetry,

The disjointed framework

Of your human lives,

Are stilled!

Ye women!

Who stood alone,

On the outer fringes of proud

Humanity!

Appealing in your helpless degradation

To the pity of the world!

Remember!

For the hand

That made room for you

Amongst the nations of the earth,

And placed a seat

For you

In the halls of civilization!

Remember!

For the hand,

That dug out of the shifting sands

Of public opinion

The gem you wear proudly upon your bosoms,

Lies cold in death!

Ye women,

Remember!

As ye take a last lingering look

At the face

Of your dead martyr,

On which the surging tide of calumny

And misconception

Have left their harrowing traces,

That he was

The great high priest of your nation,

Ministering

To its highest aspirations!

Remember!

The hand

That lies with such pathetic attitude

Above his quiet bosom,

Opened wide the gates of freedom

To your weary footsteps,

And let you in!

O ye women!

Remember!

And take heed

What influence ye bring to bear upon

The coming generation!

For ye, too,

Form a strong link

In the chain of our civilization!

Woman, in all ages, in all climes,

White and black,

Have swayed an influence over the world

For evil or for good,

Which has swept the black tide of iniquity,

Whose waters reach down to the uttermost depths

Of hell;

Or the gentle waves of good, freighted with

A nation's blessings!

Upon the waves, whose reflex actions

Are the currents that flow

From heaven!

O ye women!

Remember!

And forget not!

Your great patriot and friend

Left to your keeping

The jewels of divine and human greatness

Washed with his tears!

Brightened with his love!

Remember!

And forget not!

The intertwining of your prayer extended hands

Forms a stairway

By which your nation hope

To reach all greatness,

All purity, all grandeur,

And at last

To follow your leader up the shining stair

To heaven!

As

The voice of sympathy

Hath a thousand tongues,

Making the silent mystery of night

Eloquent with gentle whisperings,

So, out of the seclusion of my quiet life,

To ye

O ye millions of freed people, I have come!

To ye my sympathies go forth to-night.

Sympathies,

At whose fountain head, the angel of purity sits;

And from her sacred niche, beholds

The coming and the going thereof.

For ye

Whom he called his children, were knit in

With every fibre of his heart;

And your wrongs echoed

To the innermost chamber of his soul,

To ye

His loss is greatest!

O ye men!

Who loved him

With a love past telling!

Be the better for his noble efforts!

Let the picture of his glorious life

Hang ever before your eyes!

Sanctifying your efforts, ennobling your aspirations!

He suffered

In the throes of agony to give birth

To a higher manhood!

Be that manhood!

True, you have been buffetted and

Rudely tossed,

But that has passed into the oblivion of

The receding age!

The present and future

Are open to you as never before!

Helping hands are extended to you!

Take care of your opportunities!

Ye men

Cultivate truth!

For honor and independence

Follow quickly upon its footsteps!

'Tis true

The standard of Sumner is high!

But a-down the ladder of his life there are

Steps of granite mould

That will bear you upward

And onward!

Be ye governed by no ignoble motives!

The time is not far distant when the missing

Fringes

Of the glorious mantle of liberty

Will be sewn on by loving hands!

Be prepared for it!

Receive it upon your knees,

With uncovered heads!

Remembering whose hand had

Wrought it out!

Be ye sure

It is borne to ye

Within the folding of an angel's wing!

'Tis yours!

By the voice of heaven!

'Tis yours!

By the voice of earth!

The pinnacle of your temple of freedom!

The flag that will flutter freely o'er its top!

"O, my bill! My bill!!"

He cried in the last agonies of death!

"Take care of my civil rights bill!"

Were his solemn words,

As the messenger of death stood upon

His threshold!

"O, don't let the bill fail!"

Was his dying injunction, as he sought out

With his glazing eye, the friend

Who kissed his hand in token of

The solemn covenant!

"Take

Care of your rights!"

Comes across the ocean of eternity,

A solemn message from your friend

And benefactor!

Be worthy of him!

Raise the standard of your people higher,

And higher still!

To-day is yours!

Grasp firm hold of it, for it cometh not

Again! Let the world see and note

The heroic fibre

Of which you are made!

Remember the gates of a great future

Are open to you!

Educate yourselves, your women and your children,

Inaugurate and carry on

Reform within yourselves;

Enlarge your minds! Quicken your

Intelligence, and follow in the footsteps

Of Sumner!

Ye men,

Look well and wisely

To your political welfare!

Let not the foul fingers of bribery

And corruption

Pollute the pure scroll of your

Birthright!

Remember the loving laborers upon the walls

Of liberty's republican temple.

A temple built on free soil!

"Its corner stone," said Sumner, "is freedom;

Its broad, all sustaining arches,

Truth, justice and humanity!

Like the ancient Roman capitol, at once

A temple and a citadel!

Fit shrine for the genius of American institutions."

A shrine at whose high Altar

The best and noblest of the land doth minister!

A temple wherein the lamp of human pity

Suspended by the chain of universal brotherhood

Swings its perpetual light!

Adieu

Charles Sumner!

Thou friend of humanity, Adieu!

Never! Till the sun

Folds up his gorgeous mantle!

Hiding his burning head

In the dark valley of chaos!

Never!

Till the moon's pale hand

Forgets to throw her silver shower

A-down the ether track!

Never!

Till the angels forget

To replenish the glistening starlight

In the sky!

Never!

Till the great surging deep recedes

To the mysterious outlet,

From whence the voice of God

Called it forth!

Never!

Till the murmuring shells

Lying along the sunny shores

Forget their music!

Never!

Till the flowers hide their heads

Upon the dying heart of nature,

Sighing out the requiem

"There is no more life!"

And the birds go silently to their death!

Never!

Till human hearts

Throb out their last breath

Shalt thou be forgotten!

Nay! Not even then! For

As we go upward on our last journey

We'll see thy name with the names of the just

Written in letters of gold

Across the sky!

Finis.

"It will take a long time to get the whole truth told about that noble man, and many voices to tell it."

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

CAMBRIDGE, May 11, 1874.

Transcriber's Notes:

Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.

Typographical errors were silently corrected.

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Table of Contents

Oration on Charles Sumner, Addressed to Colored People.

CHARLES SUMNER.

In Memoriam.

Oration.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE