XXXV.

THE DEATH OF CHARLES SUMNER.

No American statesman was more closely fashioned after the best British model than Charles Sumner. His education was of the thorough English type. I write, of course, only of his training, not of his opinions or his convictions. If Boston resembles an English town, Charles Sumner resembled a cultivated English gentleman. His complete experience in the famous Massachusetts University, Harvard, was followed by careful self-study and years of foreign travel. He became that exceptional character in this country, a man of society, a fin ished scholar, and a profound philosopher. Few excelled him in the graces of the mind and the person. His fine manners were not more captivating than the charms of his conversation. In his youth, he was, according to the pictures and the busts in his library, unusually prepossessing. "I can see him now," said Henry S. Washburn, in his speech before the Massachusetts Legislature, February 11, 1874, in favor of rescinding the resolutions of censure: "I can see him now, when he spoke in the Tremont Temple, July 4, 1847, as he stood before me then, by Nature physically formed and fashioned with a grace and beauty such as she has seldom conferred upon any man of any age." "When I met him first," said my old friend, Dr. John B. Blake, one of the pioneers of Washington, "on his visit to the national city as the guest of the illustrious Joseph Story, of the Supreme Court of the United States, the noble dignity of his presence and the peculiar wealth of his intellect led me to predict that he would one day be Chief-justice of that high court." I heard Mr. Muhlenberg remark that he had met him while he (Muhlenberg) was American Minister at the Prussian Court, and that the young student and traveller attracted universal admiration. In Paris and London he was an object of equal interest in every circle.

I met Charles Sumner in 1846, while he was on a visit to Philadelphia, and there formed an acquaintance that gradually ripened into friendship. The struggle in the Democratic party on the Kansas question, and the election of General Banks as Speaker of the House, after the long contest from December, 1855, to February, 1856, while I was the presiding officer, threw us into very close relations. On the 22d of May following, he was struck down in the Senate, and we got the news at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, just as we were starting to Cincinnati to make Buchanan the Democratic candidate for President. have always believed that that outrage secured the nomination for Buchanan. He was openly committed to fair play in Kansas. In fact, he was the representative of the strong antislavery sentiment burning and growing in the Democratic party; and the excitement produced by the attack on Mr. Sumner naturally aided his cause. How little he profited by his promise and his opportunity is told in the record of his unhappy Administration.

I

Mr. Sumner resumed his seat and leadership in the Senate in December, 1859; and then began that extraordinary crusade against slavery which has no parallel. All that had gone before was mere preparation. He was the unconscious marshal of the movement. Political captains there were many-older Abolitionists like Giddings and Lovejoy; but the vigorous Massachusetts statesman, by his varied gifts, was specially armed for the struggle. His imposing form, sonorous voice, and unwearied industry were auxiliaries of a rare memory, a full mind, incessant study, and deep and passionate convictions. Intensifying these attributes was the spectre of a great personal wrong, which, even if he had been disposed to forget-and he never once referred to it—was kept alive by frequent physical suffering. In July of 1861 I was chosen Secretary of the United States Senate, and had occasion to see and study the He was in no sense an advocate of war; yet, neverthe

man.

less, accepted it as the only solution of slavery. He never engaged in personal disputes while Rebellion was knocking at the gates of the Capitol. He subordinated everything to the one great object. All his energies, mental and otherwise, were organized in that direction. His knowledge of books and of men became the ready agent of his earnest convictions. His speeches were the product of an aroused conscience in arms against slavery; and they were rich in historic lore and splendid illustration. Like some of the ancient vestures, they were literally loaded with gems. But they were never heavy or weary. Antithesis and epigram were favorite weapons, wielded with equal skill and grace. His logic was irresistible; for his cause was mighty. It is a mistake to say that Sumner was not a ready debater. I have heard him in more than one discussion sprung upon the Senate, and he was never at fault. But he wrote out most of his elaborate productions, and no lapidary more carefully polished his treasures. Hence, what he has left is a marvellous storehouse, the best record of a great life, and the loftiest monument of unparalleled public services.

When he took the house at the corner of Vermont Avenue. and H Street, and removed his works of art from Boston, his books and his antiquities, and furnished it with the elegance characteristic of his tastes-then the world saw Charles Sumner under his own roof-tree. But he never lost sight of his mission. His table was often the centre of the first minds of the nation. The foreign ministers sought his society, and he returned their hospitalities with equal refinement and almost equal magnificence. His plate and his wines were the result of long experience and industrious researches abroad and at home, and his attendants were trained in his own soft and gentle ways. It will be seen that he did not care for money. His hands were unsoiled by corruption. He earned what he expended, and he expended it the more freely because it was

honestly his own, and because he enjoyed the company he collected around him. But he never lowered his flag. He never concealed, and never obtruded, his convictions. Conversing easily in several languages, and specially devoted to foreign affairs, he liked to enlighten strangers and travellers and the ministers of other nations by courteous vindications of the policy of the Government against the Rebellion, and the absolute necessity for the overthrow of slavery. Such an influence was wide and enduring; and the more so because it was as free from the arts of the demagogue as from the display of ill-gained riches.

The war ended, Mr. Sumner did not lose sight of his original purpose―amnesty to the rebel, and complete civil liberty to the negro. His declaration in favor of removing the names of the battles in the late civil war from the standards of the regular army was the fearless sign of his sincerity in the first, and his determined efforts to secure civil rights to the colored race only ceased with his life. His example will keep alive the double duty until that duty is fully discharged.

It is fashionable just now to say harsh things over the grave of a great man, and to select weaknesses which were lost in the splendor of his life; and Mr. Sumner has not escaped. He had his faults, and one most dwelt upon by those who can find no other cause of censure is his alleged arrogance and dogmatism, and a certain self-sufficiency. Beyond a somewhat stubborn adherence to his opinions, and a lofty defiance of adverse public sentiment, I have never known a more tolerant and generous man. That which some call arrogance and selfsufficiency was perhaps a consciousness of superior intelligence, and a restive discontent under the success of notorious inferiority. To be compelled to bear the galling rule of party, not always sensible of the merit of those who serve it best, and to see men elevated to places for which they are confessedly incompetent, was a hard trial to such a spirit; but nothing so

marked Charles Sumner as his general magnanimity and his individual respect for the judgments of others. Had he not been most resolute, had he not broken away from politicians-nay, had he not led his party by sheer force of will in the right direction, his name would not be cherished as the foremost leader of his time.

And now that he is gone, there is something in his complete vindication grander, perhaps, than his complete record. He dies at exactly the right moment. The measure of his work is nearly full. The great State that censured him for an act of supreme forgiveness to the South-for an act looking to the obliteration of all traces of resentment-only a few days before his death sent back to the Senate her act of honorable regret and recantation. The people of both sections, and of all parties, testify to the purity of his life and the nobility of his career. The President of the United States sat at the head of his coffin as chief mourner, surrounded by his Cabinet; and it can do no offence to General Grant, nor to his constitutional advisers, to say that if they owed anything to the great Senator lying dead before them, it was the expression of their gratitude because over two years ago he had boldly and bravely protested against the acquisition of San Domingo; but for which protest that scheme would have succeeded, and, as recent events have painfully proved, would to-day be the source of endless expense and increasing irritation. Apart from Mr. Sumner's heroic hostility to slavery, apart from his persevering insistence of full civil liberty to the enfranchised races, nothing will stand more enduringly to his credit than his determined hostility to the acquisition of San Domingo. But. I have neither time nor heart to write more, and perhaps I cannot close this hasty tribute to one who was to me something more than a friend than by quoting the following letter to the Hon. Samuel Hooper from a distinguished Englishman residing near the national capital: