He did not think of the sacrifices which this obedience to his moral impulses might cost him. For, at that time, abolitionism was by no means a fashionable thing. An anti-slavery man was then, even in Boston, positively the horror of a large portion of polite society. To make anti-slavery speeches was looked upon, not only as an incendiary, but a vulgar occupation. And that the highly refined Sumner, who was so learned and able, who had seen the world and mixed with the highest social circles in Europe; who knew the classics by heart, and could deliver judgment on a picture or a statue like a veteran connoisseur; who was a favorite with the wealthy and powerful, and could in his aspirations for an easy and fitting position in life count upon their whole influence, if he only would not do anything foolish,—that such a man should go among the abolitionists, and not only sympathize with them, but work with them, and expose himself to the chance of being dragged through the streets by vulgar hands with a rope round his neck, like William Lloyd Garrison,—that was a thing at which the polite society of that day would revolt, and which no man could undertake without danger of being severely dropped. But that was the thing which the refined Sumner actually did, probably without giving a moment's thought to the possible consequences.
He went even so far as openly to defy that dictatorship which Daniel Webster had for so many years been exercising over the political mind of Massachusetts, and which then was about to exert its power in favor of a compromise with slavery.
But times were changing, and only six years after the delivery of his first popular address he was elected to the Senate of the United States by a combination of Democrats and Free-Soilers.
Charles Sumner entered the Senate on the 1st day of
