Elias Nason, The Life and Times of Charles Sumner: His Boyhood, Education and Public Career.

[275] on his way to Philadelphia, the Sixth Regiment, which was called that day, while passing through the infuriated city of Baltimore, to sprinkle the altar of freedom with its blood. On arriving at New York, he visited the Third Battalion of the Massachusetts Rifles, to whom he made an encouraging address.

As the Southern States, one after another, swung away from allegiance to the government, and as the great drama of the war, opened by the Sumter guns, proceeded, an immense amount of hard and active service was demanded in the halls of Congress, as well as on the battle-field. True to his past record, Mr. Sumner brought himself up grandly to the new questions, and guarded with untiring vigilance the rights of the colored race. Through storm and through sunshine, he stood forth the learned, the eloquent, the indomitable defender of the slave. Had he been called to reconcile his peace principles with the musterings of the squadrons of the grand army, his reply would have been,--

“Slavery is a state of war. To secure peace, we must stand rock-like to the constitution, and under its broad folds remove the cause of war.”

On the opening of the Thirty-seventh Congress, July 4, 1861, he was at his post; and the volumes of the Congressional Globe disclose the active part he