[said Mrs. Gage][57] bring in new issues. I sat in the
Senate Chamber last winter."

And now I beg pardon of my honorable friend from Massachusetts,
the other Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner], for any
offence that I may do to his modesty; but when I come to consider
the recent change which has taken place in his life and habits, I
am the better assured that he will endure it. At any other time I
should not have dared to introduce this quotation: "I sat in the
Senate Chamber last winter [said Mrs. Gage. Last winter,
remember] "and heard Charles Sumner's grand speech, which the
whole country applauded."

And Mr. President, they did, too, and they did it properly. It
was a great, a grand, and a glorious speech; it was the ultimate
of all speeches in that direction; and I too applauded with the
country, although I too might not have agreed with every part of
the speech. I might not have agreed with the speech in general,
but it was a great, grand, proud, high, and intellectual effort,
at which every American might applaud, and I pardon Mrs. Gage for
the manner in which she speaks of it. She has not excelled me in
the tribute which I offer here to the honorable Senator from
Massachusetts, and which I am glad to lay at his feet: "I sat in
the Senate Chamber last winter, and heard Charles Sumner's grand
speech which the whole country applauded; and I heard him declare
that taxation without representation was tyranny to the
freedman."

That was the ring of that speech; that was its key-note; it was
the same key-note which stirred his forefathers in 1776; it was
the same bugle-blast which called them to the field of Lexington
and Bunker Hill ninety years ago; and it is no wonder that Mrs.
Gage picks that out as being the residuum, that which was left
upon her ear of substance after the music of the honorable
Senator's tones had died away, after the brilliancy of his
metaphors had faded, after the light which always encircles him
upon this subject had gone away. It is no wonder that all that
remained of it was that taxation without representation was
tyranny. Let me commend it to the honorable Senator, with his
keen eye, his good taste, his appreciation of that which is
effective, and that which strikes the American heart to the core;