another party created--a _Political Abolition
Party_--for the suppression of slavery.

In 1848, Mr. Sumner left the Whig party, and gave his magnificent
energies and splendid talents to the organization of the _Free-Soil
Party_, upon the principles he had failed to educate the Whigs to
accept.

Charles Sumner was in the United States Senate, where "his words were
clothed with the majesty of Massachusetts." The young lawyer who had
upbraided Winthrop for his indifference respecting the slave, and
opposed the Mexican war, was consistent in the Senate, and in harmony
with his early love for humanity. He closed his great speech on
FREEDOM NATIONAL, SLAVERY SECTIONAL, in the following incisive
language:--

"At the risk of repetition, but for the sake of clearness, review
now this argument, and gather it together. Considering that
slavery is of such an offensive character that it can find
sanction only in positive law, and that it has no such 'positive'
sanction in the Constitution; that the Constitution, according to
its Preamble, was ordained to 'establish justice,' and 'secure
the blessings of liberty'; that in the convention which framed
it, and also elsewhere at the time, it was declared not to
'sanction'; that according to the Declaration of Independence,
and the address of the Continental Congress, the nation was
dedicated to 'Liberty' and the 'rights of human nature'; that
according to the principles of common law, the Constitution must
be interpreted openly, actively, and perpetually for Freedom;
that according to the decision of the Supreme Court, it acts upon
slaves, _not as property_, but as _persons_; that at the first
organization of the national government under Washington, slavery
had no national favor, existed nowhere on the national territory,
beneath the national flag, but was openly condemned by the
nation, the Church, the colleges, and literature of the times;
and finally, that according to an amendment of the Constitution,
the national government can only exercise powers delegated to it,
among which there is none to support slavery;--considering these
things, sir, it is impossible to avoid the single conclusion that
slavery is in no respect a national institution, and that the
Constitution nowhere upholds property in man."

This speech set men in the North to thinking. Sumner