atin Europe moved his roving, robber
prototypes eleven centuries before. It stirred every drop of his
sea-wolf's blood to get possession of it.

His "Squatter Sovereignty Dogma" was in truth a pirate boat which carried
consternation to many an anxious community in the free states.

It was with such an ally that the slave power undertook the task of
repealing the Missouri Compromise. The organization of the northern
section of the Louisiana Purchase into the territories of Kansas and
Nebraska was made the occasion for abolishing the old slave line of 1820.
That line had devoted all of that land to freedom. Calhoun, bold as he
was, had never ventured to counsel the abrogation of that solemn covenant
between the sections. The South, to his way of thinking, had got the worst
of the bargain, had in fact been overreached, but a bargain was a bargain,
and therefore he concluded that the slave states should stand by their
plighted faith until released by the free. That which the great Nullifier
hesitated to counsel, his disciples and successors dared to do. The
execution of the plot was adroitly committed to the hands of Douglas,
under whose leadership the movement for repeal would appear to have been
started by the section which was to be injured by it. Thus the South would
be rescued from the moral and political consequences of an act of bad
faith in dealing with her sister section.

The Repeal fought its way through Congress during four stormy months of
the winter and spring of 1854. Blows fell upon it and its authors fast and
furious from Seward, Chase, Wade, Fessenden, Giddings and Gerrit Smith.
But Sumner was the colossus of the hour, the flaming sword of his section.
It was he who swung its ponderous broadsword and smote plot and plotters
with the terrible strength of the northern giant. Such a speech, as was
his "Landmarks of Freedom," only great national crises breed. It was a
volcanic upheaval of the moral throes of the times, a lavatide of
argument, appeal, history and eloquence. The august rights and wrath of
the northern people flashed and thundered along its rolling periods.

"Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself," is the cry of humanity ringing
forever in the soul of the reformer. He must needs bestir himself in
obedience to the high behest. The performance of this task is the special
mission of great men. It was without doubt Sumner's, for he stood for the
manhood of the North, of the slave, of the Republic.