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

[73] termination of his life. He had made the liberation of the slave a most profound constitutional and legal study. He had prepared himself to invest the question with the charms of eloquence and poetry. He had access to the halls of learning. He had gained position as an orator and a scholar; and therefore his assumption of the advocacy of human freedom was of immense importance to the cause. In him the prophet saw the leader of the young men of culture and of learning in the coming crusade against oppression; and through his voice the advanced heralds of human freedom spoke. Bitter opposition he encountered; but his course was chosen.