Sumner

“ Of all men in the Senate-chamber, Sumner was probably least aware that the thing he did, required pluck. He simply did what he felt it his duty to his cause to do. It was to him a matter of course. He was like a soldier who, when he has to march upon the enemy's batteries, does not say to himself, “Now I am going to perform an act of heroism,” but who simply obeys an impulse of duty, and marches forward without thinking of the bullets that fly around his head. ”

“ In England, young Sumner, only feeling himself standing on the threshold of life, was received like a man of already achieved distinction. Every circle of a society, ordinarily so exclusive, was open to him. ”

“ Sumner proved to be the seed of liberty, for although he so far recovered as to be able to resume his seat in that body, when he returned, he went with a feeble constitution, but a stronger will and a greater soul, where both he and the blood he shed so profusely, plead the cause of the oppressed. From that time till the overthrow of slavery, Mr. Sumner spoke to man but his blood spoke to God, Mr. Sumner cried to earth but his blood cried to Heaven, Mr. Sumner plead in the Senate but his blood plead in the skies. ”

“ Sumner’s character is one of the most extraordinary pictures of opposing elements ever combined in one person. He is so possessed by Sumner that there is really no room for the fair existence of another in his world. Position, popularity, domestic happiness, health, have one by one been cut away from him, but he still stands erect, with as large a faith in Sumner and with as determined a look toward the future as if it beckoned him to glory and happiness. ”

“ Sumner display the majesty of a statesman, and dwell in such convincing power as he did on giving the negro the ballot. Here he showed the resources of his exhaustless intellect as no other statesman living did or could. He challenged the world—he met our foes from every clime and of every dialect, he rebutted their objections by quotations from the reformers of all nations, he made the moralists, the poets, the theologians, the jurists, the scientialists, and the axiomatics of every age and clime contribute to this object. ”

“ Charles Sumner finds no expression in words, no relief in tears, and no comfort in the sighs of millions.
A statesman who stood head and shoulders above any of his day and generation. A scholar who had no superior in legal lore or moral ethics. A philanthropist whose capacious affections and great heart encircled the children of every race, clime, and nationality. A citizen whose character was untarnished, a reformer who stood as a watch tower in the van-guard of a revolutionary host. ”

“ Sumner marshalled the armies of the nation against the institution of slavery, but his blood marshalled the armies of heaven.
The trio of so-called fanatics above referred to, Sumner, Chase and Hale, could not have made the impression in years with the most learned and elaborate arguments that was made in a day after Sumner fell by the fatal-aimed blow of a ruffian, and wallowed in his own blood.
Mr. Sumner was no politician, he was every whit a statesman; like Webster, he was an orator, but unlike Webster he was inflexible; like Everit he was a philosopher, learned and sagacious ”

“ Mother of American liberty! a brilliant light you have given to illuminate this world of sin and vice; a true friend of humanity; nobly hast thou repaid us for the blood of Chrispus Attucks, that baptised thy bosom in 1770, by the noble deeds of chaste Charles Sumner, whom we have lost. ”

“ He cherished in his mind a high ideal of what this Republic and its government should be: a government composed of the best and wisest of the land; animated by none but the highest and most patriotic aspirations; yielding to no selfish impulse; noble in its tone and character; setting its face sternly against all wrong and injustice; presenting in its whole being to the American people a shining example of purity and lofty public spirit. Mr. Sumner was proud of his country; there was no prouder American in the land. He felt in himself the whole dignity of the Republic. ”

“ But you will take notice that he did not incur any corporal punishment for his idleness: his industry was just sufficient to protect him from disgrace. All the while Sumner and I saw in him vestiges of a superior intellect. His eye, his countenance, his general manner, were striking. His answers to any common question were prompt and acute. We knew the esteem, and even admiration, which, somehow or other, all his school-fellows felt for him. He was mischievous enough, but his pranks were accompanied by a sort of vivacity and cheerfulness, which delighted Sumner and myself. ”

“ Sumner died.
About twenty-three years ago, a tall, spare looking man crowned with a majestic brow, and presenting the aspects of great natural ability and the highest acquirable attainments, walked into the senate of the United States, possibly to the consternation of many, and after taking the oath of office, sat down in the midst of those he was destined to eclipse both in glory and renown in a few years. ”

“ But the next autumn his friend stepped into an omnibus in New York in which Sumner was sitting, and, entirely forgetting the breach, greeted him with the old warmth. Sumner responded as warmly, and at once the old intimacy was completely restored. From envy or any form of ill-nature he was wholly free. No man was more constant and unsparing in the warfare with slavery and in the demand of equality for the colored race; but no soldier ever fought with less personal animosity. He was absolutely fearless. ”

“ Upon its summit was a figure representing Charles Sumner holding his Kansas speech in his right hand. On either side were the figures of Justice and Freedom, crowning him with a wreath of laurels. A winged genius sits at his feet, and is inscribing his name on a tablet. Figures representing Victory are upon the arms of the vase, heralding the triumph of Freedom. Above the inscription to Mr. Sumner, and in the centre, was the coat of arms of Massachusetts. ”

“ Sumner! Who shall say that God has not spared him from the bludgeon of the murderer, not only to defend the poor negro in his God-given rights, but to vindicate our country from the insolence of England, and pronounce judgment against her past wrongs, while according forgiveness to the tardy penitent?
“You said that the correspondence closed with Governor Seward’s letter to Lord Lyons. True; but his annotator is not less illustrious. Par nobile fratrum! I am curious to see how your speech will be received in England.” ”

“ Sumner having witnessed the first great aim of his life in the extinction of slavery, turned his mighty intellect to the bestowal of the full rights of citizenship, and the recognition of the equality of all men before the law, with the fullest guarantee of civil and political rights upon the emancipated colored men of the country. ”

“ There stood up in the Senate a man who was no politician; but who, on the highest field of politics, with a concentrated intensity of feeling and purpose never before witnessed there, gave expression to a moral impulse, which, although sleeping perhaps for a time, certainly existed in the popular conscience, and which, once become a political force, could not fail to produce a great revolution.
Charles Sumner possessed all the instincts, the courage, the firmness and the faith of the devotee of a great idea. ”

“ That Sumner displayed great ability, and showed that in oratorical talent he was no unworthy successor of Adams, Webster, and Everett, no one who heard him will deny. In vigor and richness of diction, in felicity and fecundity of illustration, in breadth and completeness of view, he stands unsurpassed. He laid the classics, the Gothic mythology, the imaginative literature of Europe, and the Bible under tribute for imagery or quotation. That he had the great speech of Cicero and the greater speech of Burke in his mind’s eye, there can be no doubt. ”

“ He seems to say, too, that he will rest quietly in the bosom of free Massachusetts soil, at lovely Mount Auburn cemetery; we, in the bosom and brains of living, progressive America, until the time when the schools, colleges and seminaries shall send us forth to illustrate the wisdom of universal liberty and equality. Defend her institutions and our rights, for truly Mr. Sumner's examples and ways of living were like God's—pleasantness and peace. ”

“ Sumner's career in the Senate is fresh in the recollection of our readers. His culture, industry, singleness of purpose, and perfect integrity made him a true representative of the new North. When he spoke it was with a moral force surpassing that of all others. The world listened with respect. The opposition, enraged, struck back with brute force, to the injury of its own cause. ”

“ It was a blow struck at the very Tree of Liberty. It speaks to us in words not to be mistaken. It says to us that Northern men shall not be heard in the halls of Congress, except at the peril of the bowie-knife, the bludgeon, and revolver. Nor is this any new thing.
“The bludgeon, heretofore only brandished, has at last been brought down; and now is the time for the North to fight. Charles Sumner needs not our sympathy: if he dies, his name will be immortal,—his name will be enrolled with the names of Warren, Sidney, and Russell; if he lives, he is destined to be the light of the nation.” ”

“ I feel this need of extending our enterprise the more strongly because I believe that a great deal of Sumner's writing has not grown old, and is not destined to grow old. It has been impressed upon me, as I have become more familiar with his essays of twenty and thirty years ago, that the issues which he treated, as he treated them, are always and everywhere with us. They are not of one time or one place. They are always with us because they are part of what Sumner so often calls "life here on earth." ”

“ And yet, have you thought of it? if he had died in those dark days, when so many clouds hung over him,—would not then the much vilified man have been the same Charles Sumner, whose death but one year later afflicted millions of hearts with a pang of bereavement, whose praise is now on every lip for the purity of his life, for his fidelity to great principles, and for the loftiness of his patriotism? ”

“ At last, April 24, 1851, standing among the silent crowd in the gallery, Henry heard the vote announced which gave Sumner the needed number. Slipping under the arms of the bystanders, he ran home as hard as he could, and burst into the dining-room where Mr. Sumner was seated at table with the family. He enjoyed the glory of telling Sumner that he was elected; it was probably the proudest moment in the life of either. ”

“ God grant them wisdom! for they are dressing the wounds of a mighty empire, and of uncounted generations.” The mad act of Brooks had done for Sumner what similar madness had done for similar victims—magnified immensely his influence secured forever his position as an imposing, historic figure. Ah! it was indeed the old, wonderful story. The miracle of miracles was again performed, the good man’s blood had turned into the seed-corn of his cause.
No need to retell the tale of his long and harrowing fight for health. There were two sprains of the spine, besides the terrible blows on the head. ”

“ In the presence of evidence of such incessant and unswerving industry, scarcely interrupted by the ill-health that overtook Sumner at about the age of fifty, an ordinary person feels a sense of oppression and of bewilderment, and is almost willing to subscribe to the old, hopeless tradition that “there were giants in those days.” ”

“ At the head of the school was Doctor Robert Sumner, a man of fine talents, but, unfortunately, one of those who have passed away without leaving any trace behind, except in the admiring recollection of their contemporaries. His taste is said to have been of a purity almost perfect, combining what are seldom seen together, that critical judgment which is alive to the errors of genius, with the warm sensibility that deeply feels its beauties. ”

“ Sumner did not feel that white men needed his help like the poor negro whose mouths were locked and whose hands were tied, yet, his great abilities were not by any means restricted to our race, for when the nation stood in need of one to champion her cause, measure arms with the diplomats of the world, and vindicate her honor with foreign powers, to whom did she look but to Charles Sumner? ”

“ Sumner's, three such years of travel and study spent in the society of men eminent in all departments of intellectual, social, and public life, and amid the historic associations of the Old World, had the most happy effect. ”

“ For when he issued his Emancipation Proclamation, the South too was weighing the military necessity of a similar measure. Justice was Sumner’s solitary expedient, right his unfailing sagacity. Of no other American statesman can they be so unqualifiedly affirmed. ”

“ Sumner so long and so honorably held as one of the giant minds of the nation,—his intimate connection with and leadership in the great measure of the abolition of slavery, and all the great questions of the civil war and those involved in a just settlement of the same, rendered it a desideratum that these volumes should be published.
Aside from their value as contributions to political history, the works, particularly the orations, of Mr. Sumner belong to the literature of America. ”

“ The manner of the orator on this occasion, a manner which marked all of his utterances, was that of a man who defers to no one, prefers no one to himself—the imperious manner of a man, conscious of the possession of great powers and of ability to use them. Such a man the crisis demanded. God made one American statesman without moral joints when he made Charles Sumner. He could not bend the supple hinges of the knee to the slave power, for he had none to bend. He must needs stand erect, inflexible, uncompromising, an image of Puritan intolerance and Puritan grandeur. ”