Later, several of Sumner’s contemporaries said his November 6 speech was the oratory that made him senator. Before hundreds of Free Soilers who greeted him with a raucous welcome, Sumner declared that the Fugitive Slave Law was unconstitutional on its face, that the people had a duty to resist this “legalized outrage,” much as their Revolutionary ancestors had risen up against the Stamp Act. He refused to even call it a “law,” which cloaked it with false legitimacy, instead insisting on calling it a “bill.”
