Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Charles Sumner by United States Congress
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Title:Memorial addresses on the life and character of Charles Sumner, (a senator of Massachusetts,) delivered in the Senate and House of representatives, Forty-third Congress, first session, April 27, 1874, with other congressional tributes of respect. Pub. by order of Congress.

Author:United States. 43d Cong., 1st sess., 1873-1874.

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Print Source:Memorial addresses on the life and character of Charles Sumner, (a senator of Massachusetts,) delivered in the Senate and House of representatives, Forty-third Congress, first session, April 27, 1874, with other congressional tributes of respect. Pub. by order of Congress.

United States. 43d Cong., 1st sess., 1873-1874.

112 p., front. (port.) 28 cm.

Washington,

Govt. printing office,

1874.

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X (K I/ , -1 d aIt 4”: IEMORIAL ADDRESSES ON THE IFE AND CHARACTER OF

CHARLES SUMNER, (A SENATOR OF MASSACHUSETTS,) DELIVERED IN THE ENATE AND

-OUSE OF ~EPESENTATIVES, i, -), FORTY-THIRD CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION, APRIL

27, X874, WITH OTHER CONGRESSIONAL TRIBUTES OF RESPECT. PUBLISHED BY ORDER

OF CONGRESS. WASIIINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. I18 74. 1% Al ‘ I -

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ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DEATH OF CHARLES SUMNER, A SENATOR OF MASSACHUSETTS.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. Thursday, March 12, I874. Rev. BYRON

SUNDERLAND, D. D., Chaplain of the Senate, offered up the following prayer: 0 Lord God, our Father in heaven, we all do fade as a leaf before Thee; one generation cometh and another goeth; and so Thou standest this day to plead with this Thy great people. Two honored heads lie low, and the sighing of sister cities responding in their grief is heard in all the land. The grave must receive her own; we bow in silence and submission to Thy stroke; Christ is our only shield. Amen. Mr. ANTHONY, of Rhode Island.

Mr. President: In the absence of the Senator to whom this saddest duty appertains, and who is detained from the Senate by illness, the surviving Senator from Massachusetts, I have beenrequested to make to you the formal announcement of an event which my heart refuses to accept, and which my lips hesitate to declare. It is an event which needs not to be announced, for its dark shadow rests gloomily upon this chamber, and not only upon the Senate and the capital, but upon the whole country, and the intelligence of which, borne on the mysterious wires that underlie the seas, has been already carried to the remotest lands, and has aroused profoundest sympathy wherever humanity weeps for a friend, wherever liberty deplores an advocate. The oldest member of this body in continuous service, he who yesterday was the oldest, beloved for the graces and the virtues of his personal character; admired for his genius and his accomplishments; reverenced for the fidelity with which he adhered to his convictions; illustrious for his services to the republic and to the world, has crossed the dark river that divides us from the “undiscovered country.” Charles Sumner died yesterday. To-day, in humble submission to the divine will, we meet to express our respect for his character, our veneration for his memory. Tomorrow, with solemn steps and with sorrowing hearts, we shall bear him to the 9 i

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ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE Massachusetts which he served so faithfully and which loved him so well; and to her soil, precious with the dust of patriotism and of valor, of letters and of art, of statesmanship and of eloquence, we shall commit the body of one who is worthy to rest by the side of the noblest and the best of those who, in the centuries of her history, have made her the model of a free commonwealth. But the great deeds which illustrated his life shall not be buried with him, and never shall the earth cover the immortal principles to which he devoted every energy of his soul-the consummation and vindication of which, as his highest reward, a grac ous God permitted him to witness. Mr. President, this is not the time, nor is the office mine, to pronounce the words that are due to this event. A future hour and more fitting utterances shall interpret to the American people the affectionate respect of the Senate for our dead associate, the homage which it renders to his life and character. Mr.

President, I offer the following resolutions: Resolved, That a committee of six members be appointed by the President of the Senate pro tenJzpore, to take order for superintending the funeral of CIARI.ES SUMNER, late a member of this body, which will take place to-morrow (Friday) at half-past twelve; and that the Senate will attend the same. ]?esolved, As a further mark of respect entertained by the Senate for the memory of CHARLES

SUMNER, and his long and distinguished services to his country, that his remains be removed to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in charge of the Sergeantat-Arms, and attended by a committee of six Senators, to be appointed by the President of the Senate pro tempore, who shall have full power to carry this resolution into effect. Aesolved, That, as an additional mark of respect to the memory of the deceased, the Senate do now adjourn. Mr. SCHURZ, of Missouri. I can say nothing to-day, but offer the following as an amendment to the resolutions: Resolved, That the Secretary communicate these proceedings to the House of Representatives, and invite the House of Representatives to attend the funeral ceremony in the Senate Chamber to-morrow, at half-past twelve o’clock. Mr. ANTHONY. I accept the amendment. Mr. CONKILING, of New York. Mr. President, the absence of a committee of the Senate to follow the bier to-day of one who once presided here, is enough alone to warn us of the fitness of pausing for a space from the din and business of life. It was my purpose to move that the Senate adjourn in observance of the funeral of Mr. FILLMORE; but meanwhile we are covered by the shadow of a nearer grief. A vacant chair is here, long held by a Senator of distinguished eminence, and one of the most illustrious of Americans. Surely it is fit that we should arrest the business of the Senate and pay tribute to the long and remarkable life now closed. No honor will be paid to the dead statesman in which I would not join in sincerity and respect, and I second the resolutions moved by the Senator from Rhode Island without attempting to add a word to the graceful and eloquent thoughts which have fallen from him. The PRESIDENT prO
temp;ore, [Mr. CARPENTER, of Wisconsin.] Then the question is, Will the Senate accept the resolutions as modified? The resolutions were agreed to unanimously. The PRESIDEF:T pro teimpore. The Senate stands adjourned until to-morrow at twelve o’clock. 4

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DEATH OF CHARLES SUMNER. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Tziursday, March I2, i874. The proceedings of the Senate on the announcement of the death of CHARLES SUMNER, late a Senator of Massachusetts, were communicated to the house, and were, by direction of the Speaker, read. Mr. E. R. HOAR, of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker: The event which the resolutionfs of the Senate announce fell upon the ear of this House and of the country yesterday with startling suddenness. Wherever the news of it spreads through this broad land, not only in this city, among his associates in the public councils; not only in the old Commonwealth of which he was the pride and ornament, but in many quiet homes, in many a cabin of the poor and lowly, there is to-day inexpressible tenderness and profound sorrow. There are many of us who have known and loved the great Senator, whom this event unfits for public duties, or for any thoughts other than those of that pure life, that faithful public service, that assured immortality. In response to the invitation of the Senate I offer these resolutions Resolved, That this House will attend the funeral of CHIARLIES SUMNER, a Serator from Massachusetts, in the Senate Chamber, to-morrow, at half-past twelve o’clock, and upon its return to this Hall the Speaker shall declare the House adjourned. Pc’solved, That a committee of nine members be appointed, who, with the members of the House from Massachusetts, shall accompany the body of the deceased Senator to its place of burial in that Commonwealth.

Resolved, That, as a testimonial of respect for the memory of the deceased, the members and officers of this House will wear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days. The question being taken on the resolutions, they were unanimously adopted, and, on motion of Mr. E. R. HOAR, the House adjourned. 5

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FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF THE FUNERAL CEREMONIES. The Congressional Funeral Ceremonies over the remains of Charles Sumner were performed in the Senate Chamber on Friday the I3th of March, under the direction of the committee of arrangements, Senators ANTHONY, SCHURZ, FRELINGHUYSEN, MORRILL of Maine, STEVENSON, and SHERMAN. The members of the House of Representatives, headed by its Speaker and Clerk; the President of the United States and the members of his Cabinet; the Diplomatic Corps; the Supreme Court; officers of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, with other officials; the personal friends of the deceased and the Massachusetts delegation in Congress, were assigned seats on the floor of the Senate. At half past twelve the remains were brought from the rotunda into the Senate Chamber, preceded by the Sergeant-atArms of the Senate and the committee of arrangements, and escorted by the pall-bearers, Senators ANTHONY, SCHURZ, SARGENT, OGLESBY, STOCKTON, and MCCREERY. Rev. J. G. BUTLER, Chaplain of the House of Representatives, read I Cor., xv., 22-28, and then offered the following prayer: Great God, we bow reverently in Thy presence. Thou hast done it. Teach us wisdom as we walk among the open graves. Bless the millions whose hearts gather tenderly around this coffin to-day. Bless our own great land, and give unto us continued victories of truth and righteousness. We ask these mercies in the name and for the sake of Him who hath taught us, when we pray, to say: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for Thine is thekingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. Rev. BYRON SUNDERLIAND, D. D., Chaplain of the Senate, read Psalm xxxix, 5-I3, and Psalm xc, and offered the following prayer: Let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God, before Whom the world, and all that it contains, is as the dust of the balance; before Whom change and time flee away like a shadow; yet art Thou the confidence of all the ends of the earth; for it is in Thee that we live, and move, and have our being; because Thou hast made of one blood all men who dwell on the face of the earth; because Thou hast formed and fashioned us, and placed us in our lot. Thou hast appointed the bounds of our habitation, and Thou hast numbered all our days: and it has pleased Thee, 0 Lord, our God, in the fullness of Thine own time, to send among us Thy son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Lord God manifest in the flesh, to bring to us the expectation of light and life, and of immortality. And so with Him, in the successive centuries, it has pleased Thee to raise up the prophets and apostles, the heroes and princes of the world. It has pleased Thee, in the conflict and turmoil of this our mortal state, to 6

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CHARLES SUMNER. send forth the ministers of Thy grace and providence, endowed and panoplied for their mighty task. And so, in all the crises of the times, when enormous evils had to be encountered; when the old order of things had to be overthrown; when the new conditions for the new energies of the human race had to be created, Thou hast planted Thy workmen at every point, and Thou hast fitted, and guarded, and upheld them with courage and with strength. 0, Lord our God, how marvelous are all Thy works and ways! How marvelous dost Thou still continue this day before us and before all men, as much in removing away Thy servants from their field of labor as in sending them into it when Thou wilt; so that the day of our death is fuller of meaning than the day of our birth, because it is a grander lesson of our manhood, because it is a chapter far advanced in the book of human destiny. And now Thou hast removed away from us a man who had stood so long as a prince of the earth, a man whose name and life and character and fame are forever linked with all that is sacred in human institutions, and all that is dear to human hearts. 0 Lord, our God, we are all bereaved together. The Senate, the Congress, the capital, the country, all have been made desolate. And the old Plymouth State, where so long ago the Pilgrims came-she sits to-day in mourning, a mother weeping for her prostrate son; and the white men and black men, and all men of every name and race throughout the world, shall this day be touched with the grief of this sudden stroke of Thy providence. But we can say nothing against it before Thee, 0 Thou righteous Judge and Supreme Ruler of mankind. Yet peradventure Thou wilt vouchsafe Thine ear to hear the prayer of Thy servants now for all those who have been afflicted in this dispensation, for the surviving but scattered members of his own family and kindred, for those who were so near to his person and in his presence through all the phases of his private and public life; for those children of that enduring race for whose advancement his great powers have been so long employed; for all his companions and contemporaries in the high and lofty circles of human civilization, both at home and abroad; for his colleagues and fellow-Senators in this chamber, and for the Representatives, the people, and the authorities of his native State; and for all those in every class and in every condtion who this day so sincerely lament his loss. 0, grant to all these the grace and the consolation of Thy Spirit. Sanctify to them and to this nation this most impressive instruction of Thy providence. And now we beseech Thee, 0 Lord, bless Thy servant the President of the United States, and the members of his Cabinet; bless the governors and legislatures of the States; and, we beseech Thee, bless the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, and all the magistrates in the land. Bless the officers and men of the Army and Navy of the United States. Bless all that are in positions of responsibility, of trust, and of honor among this great people. Bless the teachers and instructors of the nation. Bless those who have the charge of the transmission of intelligence, and the conductors of the public press.

And we beseech Thee, 0 Lord, bless all that are engaged in any walk or pursuit of life, in any department of human labor or enterprise, for the promotion of the race and the comfort of this world. And we beseech Thee, 0 Lord, bless any that may be under the pains and penalties and burdens of this life, to cheer, to comfort, to strengthen, and to uphold them. ! ‘t 3

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FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF And now, we beseech Thee, to give to us, one and all, a sense of true humility and unfeigned contrition for our sins. Fill us with the spirit of repentance toward Thee and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Pardon our iniquities, and blot out our transgressions before Thee; and accept us, one and all, as Thy sons and daughters, through whom alone, and Thy work of atonement and effectual intercession, we shall be saved. And now, O Lord our God, be graciously pleased to go with those who shall bear away forever from this place the body of our lamented friend.

Give them safe conduct in the sad journey; and we beseech Thee, in Thy kind providence, let all the arrangements for his obsequies be fittingly made among that noble but now stricken people who await the arrival of the funeral-train by the old Cradle of Liberty. O God, the God of our fathers, bless this nation and all the nations. Bless us and all men together. And, when we come to die, open Thou for us the portals of eternity, and crown every soul with a pure, a blessed, and a glorious immortality. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen. The PRESIDENT Pro tenpore, [Senator CARPENTER, of Wisconsin.] The services to be performed by the committee of arrangements having been terminated, the Senate of the United States intrusts the mortal remains of CHARLES SUMNER to its Sergeantat-Arms and a committee appointed by it, charged with the melancholy duty of conveying them to his home, there to be committed, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. in the soil of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Peace to his ashes! The remains were then escorted by many of those present to the station of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad, where they were placed on a special train, which left at 3 o’clock, conveying also the Senate committee of arrangements-Senators ANTHONY, ScHURZ, SARGENT, OGLESBY, STOCKTON, and MCCREERY, with the House committee: Repsesentatives HURLBURT, I-IALE, FOSTER, RAINEY, CLAYTON, SCUDDER, RANDALL, BECK and HANCOCK; the Chaplain of the Senate; the physician, the private secretary, the former committee-clerk, and an executor of the deceased; and the members of the Massachusetts delegation in Congress, attended by the Sergeantat-Arms of the Senate. Proper tributes of respect were paid at Philalelphia, New York, New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, Worcester, and intermediate stations. When the funeral-train entered the State of Connecticut, Colonel Chanley, of the military staff of Governor Ingersoll, and W. T. Ingersoll, the governor’s private secretary, presented a letter in which the governor, in testimony of the public respect for the mournful duty of the Congressional committee, had ordered those members of his official family to accompany them through the State. At Springfield, Colonels Storer and Palfrey, of the staff of Governor Washburn, of Massachusetts, with a committee of the State legislature, met the funeral-train to accompany the Congressional committee to Boston. Arriving at Boston, the remains, with their escort, were taken to the State-house, and were borne into Doric Hall, where a catafalque had been prepared for their reception. The Shaw Guard, an infantry company composed of colored men, were posted as a guard of honor about the catafalque, and around it stood Governor Washburn, with his staff, members of the legislature, and many distinguished citizens of Massachusetts. 8

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CHARLES SUMNER. Senator ANTHONY, chairman of the Senate committee, having been presented to Governor WASHBURN by Colonel STORER, of his staff, said: May it please Your Excellency: We are commanded by the Senate to render back to you your illustrious dead. Nearly a quarter of a century ago, you dedicated to the public service a man who was even then greatly distinguished. He remained in it, quickening its patriotism, informing its counsels, and leading in its deliberations, until, having survived in continuous service all his original associates, he has closed his earthly career. With reverent hands, we bring to you his mortal part, that it may be committed to the soil of the renowned commonwealth that gave him birth.

Take it; it is yours. The part which we do not return to you is not wholly yours to receive, nor altogether ours to give. It belongs to the country, to mankind, to freedom, to civilization, to humanity. We come to you with the emblems of mourning, which faintly typify the sorrow that swells the breasts which they cover. So much we must concede to the infirmity of human nature. But, in the view of reason and philosophy, is it not rather a matter of high exultation that a life so pure in its personal qualities, so high in its public aims, so fortunate in the fruition of noble effort, has closed safely, without a stain, before age had impaired its intellectual vigor, before time had dimmed the luster of its genius! May it please Your Excellency: Our mission is completed. We commit to you the body of CHARLES SUMNER. His undying fame the Muse of History has already taken into her keeping. Governor WASHBURN, advancing towards the Senate committee, replied: Gentlemen: It becomes my painful duty to receive from your hands all that remains of our Great Senator. I wish to thank you, in the name of the State, for your labor of love, in thus transmitting to our keeping this precious dust. We receive it at your hands with the assurance that it shall be guarded most tenderly, and the spot to which it shall be borne for its final resting-place, being baptised by such precious blood, shall ever hereafter be looked upon as consecrated ground. In the mean time, I commit it to the careful keeping of the committee of our legislature, selected for this special purpose. Permit me to welcome you to the hospitalities of our State, and to assure you that no effort of ours shall be wanting to make your brief stay with us as agreeable as possible under the circumstances which have brought you hither. Thanking you again for your marked sympathy in this hour of sore trial, I bid you all a hearty welcome, with the assurance that your tender regard on this occasion shall never be forgotten. The remains of CHARLES SUMNER lay in state on Sunday and on Monday morning in the Doric Hall, at the state-house. On Monday, at 3 o’clock p. m., they were removed to the King’s Chapel, followed by the Congressional committees, the VicePresident of the United States, the Massachusetts delegation in Congress, the Governor and the Legislature of Massachusetts, and many other distinguished persons. At the King’s Chapel the funeral-services were performed, and the remains were then escorted to the cemetery at Mount Auburn, where, after the final ceremonies, they were interred. 9

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ADDRESSES ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES SUMNER. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED

STATES, MONDAY, APRIL 27, 1874. Rev. BYRON SUNDERLAND, D. D., Chaplain of the Senate, offered the following PRAYER: Almighty and Everlasting God, on this day of solemn conference we come to bow before Thee in deep humility, for the memory of the distinguished dead of this Senate comes freshly before us now; the shadow of life’s great mystery still lingers here; and sacred and melting thoughts are in the air around us, and kindly voices seem to be telling us of the tokens and admonitions of Thy will. O, may the vacant place and this solemn pause in this Chamber to-day impress their rightful lessons on every heart, for great and small are all alike before Thee, and men from every station must go the way of all the earth; Thou only remainest the same and Thy years fail not; and so, 0, Lord God, we pray that we may all live and all die in Thee. Have Thou the charge of these services to-day; have Thou the charge of all these Thy servants, and of all men; and grant that we may be prepared, when this life is over, to see Thy face in peace. Through Jesus Christ. Amen.

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12 ADDRESS OF MR. BOUTWELL ON THE DDRESS OF MPR. POUTWELL, OF,MASSACHUSETTS. Mr. PRESIDENT, agreeably to notice already given, I now submit to the Senate two resolutions designed to furnish an opportunity for the Senate and House of Representatives to offer appropriate tributes to the character and public services of CHARLES SUMNER, and I ask for their present consideration. The Chief Clerk read the resolutions, as follows: Resolved by fie Senate, That, as an additional mark of respect to the memory of CHARLES SUMNER, long a Senator from Massachusetts, business be now suspended, that the friends and associates of the deceased may pay fitting tribute to his public and private virtues. Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate communicate these resolutions to the House of Representatives. The resolutions were adopted unanimously. Mr. PRESIDENT, the time that has passed since the death of Mr. SUMNER has assuaged the bitterness of our grief, but the first feeling of sadness rests with undiminished weight upon every heart. Here and by us, more than elsewhere and by others, his presence will be missed. For nearly twenty-three years he was a member of the Senate, and for a considerable period its senior.

To all of us he was an acquaintance, and to many of us an intimate friend.

To the cultivated classes of Europe and America he was known as a ripe scholar, a sincere philanthropist, an ardent and consistent lover of liberty and defender of the right, an experienced statesman, trained especially in English and American constitutional history, and the traditions, genius, and practice of European and American diplomacy; a lover of art; an orator fully equipped, according to the requirements mentioned by Cicero, for the forum in which his maturer years were spent; and, more than all, a man of pure purposes in private and public affairs.

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. For nearly twenty-five years I enjoyed his acquaintance, and for more than half that period his intimate friendship. Forgetting for the moment my relations to him, it is to be said that his friendships were first moral and intellectual, to which he added with a liberal hand the civilities, amenities, and blessings of cultivated social life. He came to the Senate not only as the representative of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but as the representative of an idea to which the State was even then already pledged. The men who supported him in I851 were, with a few exceptions, his supporters in 1857, 1863, and i869. Mr. SUMNER was at times in advance of the people of the State, but in his hostility to the institution of slavery, in his efforts for its abolition and the reconstruction of the Government upon the basis of freedom, he never misrepresented Massachusetts. In the cause of liberty lie was apostle, martyr, and finally conqueror. In this cause, and by nature as well, he was self-reliant, self-asserting, and aggressive, and, therefore, his life, as he often said, was a life of controversy. His nature was imperious, he made little allowance for the diversities among men, and often he dealt harshly with those who opposed or failed to accept his views. It is, however, a happy memory for his friends and countrymen that after his return from Europe he had only kind wofds for all, even for those with whom he had most differed upon personal and public questions. First of all, Mr. SUMNER was devoted to liberty; not to English liberty or to American liberty, but to liberty. He accepted, in their fullest meaning, the words of Kossuth, “Liberty is Liberty, as God is God.” In his efforts to establish liberty in America he gave a free construction to the original Constitution for the purpose of securing right and justice to all who were within its jurisdiction; and the powers of a constitution may well be construed liberally in the cause of right 13

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14 ADDRESS OF MR. BOUTWELL ON THE and justice, but they can never be too much circumscribed in the service of wrong and oppression. There are limitations to every form of human greatness. Mr. SUMNER was a follower of ideas. A general declaration is the fullest expression of ideas; and Mr.

SUMNER was inclined to trust general declarations, and to embody them in the Constitution and laws. Institutions, indeed, are often unsatisfactory when tested by the ideas they are designed to represent. I speak rather of what has been than of our hopes of the fiture. Our own Constitution is now a near approach to the Declaration of Independence, and we may anticipate the time when local governments and independent nations, in the discharge of their duties and the exercise of their powers, will conform practically to the best ideas of justice and peace. Mr. SUMNER was impatient of delay, and hence he accepted reluctantly those amendments to the Constitution which to others seemed sufficient for the protection of personal and public rights. It is, therefore, to be admitted that in the business of government, and for the time in which he lived, Mr. SUMNER was not always a practical statesman. The world is usually too busy to concern itself with the men of the past unless they have special claims to consideration.

The immortal few in politics and government are thore who have led in proceedings in which men of all times are interested. The American Revolution gave a few such names to the country and the world; the contest for the overthrow of slavery added others. Among these we may venture to place CHARLES SUMNER, whose labors, fidelity, and sufferings can never be omitted from the history of the contest. As the influence of that contest widens and deepens in the current of universal human life, the services of the men engaged in it will be more appreciated throughout the world. The blow struck at slavery in America will prove as effectual against slavery in every other country. While slavery existed with us, and suffrage was limited, and the

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. truths of the Declaration of Independence were not realized in the Government, monarchies and aristocracies had a defense in the admitted failure of the great Republic.

That defense is now taken away, and, one after another, personal and class governments must fall. Thus will Mr. SUMNER justly claim consideration in other lands and from future times. There is, however, an immortality not personal which is even more enduring. The power of a great life, of a superior human intellect, spreads far beyond the knowledge of names, and is transmitted to generations that have no means of tracing the influences to their source. These influences become woven into the civilization, literature, and politics of nations, control their fortunes, shape their destinies, and work out good or evil results of the most important character. It cannot be denied that in the efforts made by Mr. SUMNER in behalf of human liberty and universal peace he has given new force to the most benign influences, or that his power, mingled with numerous other contributions of the past, present, and the future, will contribute to the general welfare of the human race. But whether his name be remembered or forgotten, his power will continue. VWhen a person has disappeared from the stage of human action, his name, even if known to future generaions, is of little consequence to them; the influence of his life is all of value that remains.’/ Thus has Mr. SUMNER bound himself to his countrymen of two races, and to the civilized world, by cords that may be traced through the ages as long as justice shall find defenders or the divine spirit of liberty shall animate mankind. But these thoughts relate to the uncertain future. We are called in the present to accept the solemn truth that the death of CHARLES SUMNER is a signal loss to the Senate and people of the United States, alleviated in some degree by the belief that his life, character, and public services, especially in favor of human liberty and universal 15

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i6 ADDRESS OF MR. THURMAN ON THE peace, will ever be held in grateful remembrance by his countrymen, and the knowledge thereof transmitted to posterity as an example for future generations. ‘DDRESS OF )7MR. THURMAN, OF PHIO. Mr. PRESIDENT, my personal acquaintance with CHARLES SUMNER began a few days after I took my seat in the Senate five years ago. It soon ripened into relations approaching intimacy, and a personal friendship resulted that was never marred for a moment by any political differences, however great and decided. Therefore it is that I speak to-day; and speak not so much of the politician or statesman as of the man. I leave to those who coincided with him in public affairs to delineate his public services in such terms as to them seems just. I offer a humble tribute to his personal character. It appears to me that one of the most striking peculiarities of Mr. SUMNER’S mind was breadth rather than accuracy; a predominance of the ideal over the practical; a devotion to a great idea without due regard to its unavoidable limitations. That this intellectual bent sometimes led him to overlook what should have been seen, to disregard obstacles that a more practical rlan would have felt bound to respect, to advance theories that, however beautiful in the abstract, were hedged about by limitations in the concrete, and often made him-especially upon constitutional and legal questions-an inexact and inconclusive reasoner, must be admitted, I think, by even his most ardent admirers. Who of us has forgotten how he, in effect, placed the Declaration of Independence above the Constitution, and deduced from it powers of government that no one but himself ever thought were conferred by the fundamental law? Who can forget his immeasurable demands upon Great Britain by reason of her conduct during our civil war? Who does not remember his oft-repeated I

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. idea that the islands of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf should be wholly abandoned to the African race?

But in all these and other instances that might be nanied his views, however impracticable they seemed to others, were in accordance with a lofty ideal that was satisfactory to himself, and from which he would not willingly depart. Another trait of Mr. SUMNER was his love of discussion.

He never within my knowledge shrunk from it; and he was the determined opponent of all attempts to limit debate in the Senate by a previous question or other restrictive rule. He spoke often and elaborately himself, and he was the best, and perhaps the most courteous, listener among us to the speeches of others. He placed a very high estimate upon the power and effect of discussion, often in conversation citing instances of measures being carried or defeated by a thorough debate. And it so happens that the last words he ever spoke to me (just after an adverse vote on a bill he had opposed) were these: “Thurman, this is another instance of the good effects of debate. Had the vote been taken on this bill without discussion it would have passed almost unanimously.” It is an old saying, that the foundation of politeness is benevolence; which leads us to contribute to the happiness of others and avoid everything that could give them pain. All who knew Mr. SUMNER in social life will bear witness that he exemplified the truth of this saying. I never knew him in a mixed company to introduce any topic that might prove disagreeable to any one present; and when, by inadvertence or otherwise, such a topic was introduced by others, he was always one of the first to divert the conversation to some other subject. And I can bear witness that he could sit down with a political opponent and discuss political questions, upon which they differed most widely, without for a single moment losing his temper or manifesting a want of respect for the views of his adversary.

This, in my opinion, Mr. President, deserves to be ranked among the virtues; and when we add that in the conversation of the deceased there never 17

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I8 ADDRESS OF’.MR. THURMAN ON THE was anything low or vulgar, but, on the contrary, intellect, refinement, and taste marked all that was said, we contemplate a character whose amiability, high breeding, and politeness will ever command our respect and admiration. It has been very common to say that Mr. SUMNER was an egotist, and this I suppose is the popular opinion. It may be true that, tried by the standard of modern manners, he was egotistical; but tried by that ancient standard with which his learning had made him so familiar, compared for example with Demosthenes or Cicero, he was a modest man. I must say that in five years of somewhat intimate acquaintance I never knew him offensively egotistical. That he found pleasure in speaking of the part he had borne in public affairs is undoubtedly true; but what man ever lived who had been long in public life, and who had arrived at that age when retrospection becomes a habit of the mind, who did not often speak of himself and of what he had said and done? If we listen with pleasure and respect to the aged veteran who “Shoulders his crutch, and shows how fields were won,” why should we censure the aged statesman who recounts his great exploits and narrates his hard-earned victories? I apprehend, however, that it was egoism rather than egotism of which his critics meant to accuse the deceased. But what man ever achieved success in a long struggle against formidable opposition, or adverse circumstances, without some confidence in his own powers? And if this confidence, fed by success, becomes inordinate, what does it prove save that even the greatest intellects are not free from imperfections? Mr. President, there is a proverb almost as old as mortuary monuments, that describes an improbable story as being “false as an epitaph.” And so of funeral orations it has often been said, that the quality by which they are most distinguished is exaggeration. Observing the charitable maxim, ” nil mortiis nisi bonumn,” the faults of

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LIFE AND CHARACTER ()F CHARLES SUMNER. the dead are buried out of sight; while, on the other hand, disregarding that other maximn, “nilz mortlis iisi verzum,” he is exalted by eulogy above the lot of humanity and placed in the ranks of angels or gods. This was not the idea of what a funeral discourse should be in the opinion of CHARLES SUMNER. In that most touching and beautiful address delivered by him on the occasion of the death of Senator Davis, of Kentucky, while paying the highest tribute to the virtues of the deceased, and recognizing the moderation of judgment upon the character of our adversaries that is begotten by time and experience, he yet stood fast by his own well-settled convictions.

Following that example, I speak over his grave my belief, that he was great in intellect, profound in learning, sincere in his convictions, true in his friendships, urbane and amiable in his intercourse, and wholly unassailable by corruption. All this I can truly say, and more than this he would not, if living, wish me to say. He would not ask me to surrender my well-matured opinions, or to applaud his views or his course when they were opposed to the deliberate judgment of my own mind. )DDRESS OF AMR.

SPENCER, OF TLABAMA. Mr. PRESIDENT, having been honored with the confidence and friendship of the late distinguished Senator firom Massachusetts, I esteem it a high privilege to offer a modest tribute to his memory and worth. Deferring to his large experience in national affairs, and appreciating the extent of his culture and learning, I have often, in the hour of need and uncertainty, sought his advice, anzd never in vain. To his generous sympathy and wise counsel I attribute much that I have been enabled to accomplish toward the happiness and wellbeing of a large class of citizens of the State of Alabama, once bond but now free.

In their name and on their behalf, as well as my own, ig i.i

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ADDRESS OF MR. SPENCER ON TIE I lay the garland of gratitude upon the bier of CHARLES SUMNER, one of the greatest of the many great tribunes of Massachusetts. When these bondmen were dulllb, and in their behalf men were silent, HE SPOKE; and they can never cease to honor him who found voice for the voiceless and gave helI) to the helpless. That voice was never silenced in their behalf until there fell upon it the enforced silence of death; nor can they.ever forget that the last dying utterance of their great champion was a whispered plea to cherish their cause. Now, when their tongues are unloosed, and all men may speak for them, in God’s fit providence, his voice alone is silent. Yet how true it is that, “being dead, he speaketh.” Not because of his scholarship do these grateful freedmen honor this great schlolar; not because of his statesmanship do they revere the memory of this dead Senator; not for his acquisitions of learning, nor for his pride of place, but only that he had pity for their sorrows, and found it in his heart to plead ever for the poor and for the oppressed. His career thus furnishes an illustrious example of the truth Of the proverb, “The heart of the wise teacheth his moutQ., and addeth learning to his lips.” Called from his post of duty in the acme of his usefulness, he lived to that epoch when to advocate the cause of universal freedom left no taint upon name and fame, and when to beseech succor for the oppressed and downtrodden constituted no crime, inviting and extenuating violence, or palliating denunciation and social ostracism. In the very face of contumely and disdain he calmly, but no less determinedly, waged his battle against the oppressor’s wrong, gathlering strength from every repulse and honor from every defeat, until the victory was won; a conquest in the simple interests of peace and human happiness, with no aggrandizement other than the enlargement of the area of freedom.

During the period of African slavery, Mr. President, free speech in the Senate existed only in name-a precept without the practice-the 20

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. merest mockery of a privilege! The abrogation of slavery gave birth to many blessings, but none greater or more important to the American people than the right to freely express convictions on public affairs, and to be permitted to maintain these opinions in good faith, in accordance with the principles of republican form of government. To CHARLES SUMNER, as much as to any other, are we indebted for the practical and unrestricted exercise of the privilege of free speech in the Senate of the United States. The day has happily dawned when the argument of violence finds no favor in the public sight, and when the people recognize that through faith and love, and not by arms, can the work of national amelioration be accomplished. It is now the auspicious era of fide et amorenon armis, and in this good work is CHARLES SUMNER
bealo memorie. Other Senators, more familiar with his career, will recall the incidents of his early life, his college days, his legal studies, his foreign travel, his friendships for the learned in his own and in other lands, his companionship with the wise and good-all that experience which resulted in the rare culture, and which made him at once the peer of the most cultivated, qualities which lent such a charm to his associations and fitness to his surroundings. It is my purpose rather to speak of those virtues without which all these gifts and attainments would have been worthless in comparison. The lesson of his life testifies to the value of “integrity of purpose,” that integrity which honors cannot suborn nor threats terrify, and which resists alike the blandishments of friends and the batteries of foes-vitamn iizOendere vero. It was of little interest to the poor hunted slave whether CHARLES SUMNER stood high in scholarship at Harvard; but it was of mighty import to all these dumb black millions that the scholar should have had the moral firmness to stand before the volunteer militia of Boston, at a civic Fourth of July celebration, and deliver to those 21

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ADDRESS OF MR. SPENCER ON THE listeners (expectant of the glowing periods of the orator, to set forth the “pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war”) his weighty arguments agaiiist all war! It doubtless seemed to the impatient politicians, during the weary weeks of vain balloting for a successor to the seat of Daniel WTebster, that Mr. SUMNER jeopardized a great prize for a very little and unimportant matter, when he steadfastly refused to do the slightest action which even seemed in the least degree to compromise his position. But had he been of yielding stuff, of what worth would he have been amid the storms and strifes of the Senate? His whole public life, from the day of that oration on peace, through all the momentous scenes of the twenty-three years of his senatorial career-years so crowded with events, years the most important since the adoption of the Constitution-his whole life is but a commentary and a repetition of that rare courage which impelled him to differ from friends for the sake of truth and conscience. In those early days of bitterness, in these later days of calumny, no voice ever breathed a word against the spotless integrity of the man. To those familiar with the history of the times, there can be uttered no higher eulogy! Realizing, in the very words of Mr.

SUMNER, that a “seat in the Senate is a lofty pulpit, with a mighty sounding-board, and the whole wide-spread people is the congregation,” I am deeply sensible, Mr. President, of my inability to properly eulogize his greatness or to fitly exalt his memory. But I would fail in my duty to my constituents, and be untrue to the settled principles of my life, as well as recreant to the deep affection and veneration which I bore him, were I to remain silent upon this solemn occasion. Far be it from me to advert to error and frailty, and from which none are free; but, in his own language, employed in eulogy of the late Senator Fessenden, I may repeat that “the error and frailty which belonged to him often took their color from virtue itself.” 22 0

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. He has followed from this Chamber, in quick succession to the grave, the column of stalwart champions of liberty-Fessenden, Seward, Chase, and Hale-all of whom, through the infinite mercy of Providence, were permitted life to reap the harvest of freedom, and to behold our land happy in the enjoyment of universal liberty. His motto was “Ducit amoat,atriwe,” and no nobler epitaph can be graven on his tomb! ,ADDRESS OF jMR. JORRILL, OF YERMONT. Mr. PRESIDENT, here our numbers are not so large, nor our differences of any sort so great, that we do not feel, when death enters this Chamber, something of the bereavement of the broken family-circle. Associated here for a prolonged term of years, often including the prime and ripest portion of our lives, statedly meeting in the workshops of committees and in daily debate, hearing our names repeated in the frequent roll-calls, it is not strange that it should give our hearts a pang to part with the humblest name when it passes away forever to the “starry court of eternity.” But now when we part with a conspicuous member of the Senate, conspicuous by length of service, by eminent ability, and established renown, each one of us must confess to more or less of a personal loss as well as to the greater loss of the Senate itself. CHARLES SUMNER, under the higher law, has responded to the last roll-call, and here the familiar sound of his voice is forever silenced. His imposing presence on the crowning outer circle of the Senate will no longer attract attention. Only the memory remains to us of one whose words and bearing, with minor qualifications, so well comported with the dignity of his office as to have fairly earned the title of a model Senator. Mr. SUMNER for four years had been a member of the Senate when it was my fortune, in i855, first to hold a seat in the House of Representatives. For words spoken in debate, in i856, he was brutally 23

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24 ADDRESS OF MR. MORRILL ON THE assaulted by Preston S. Brooks, a member of the House, and it was not until after this that my personal acquaintance with him began. For some years I was more familiar with what was then known as his “vacant chair” than with the Senator to whom it belonged, who was abroad ready to invoke heroic remedies, if only they led to health. During these years he returned for a short period, but bore little or no part in’the Senate. Mr. Brooks meanwhile suddenly died, as at last, and after intervals of painful suffering, has, also suddenly, the victim of his violence. It was noticeable in his social intercourse, while others let slip an occasional outburst of feeling as to his assailant, Mr.

SUMNER never disclosed the least lingering personal animosity. History was silently left to avenge itself. His misfortune appeared to be accepted as one of the many inseparable wrongs resulting from the cruel system of slavery, with which only he waged enduring battle, and not as the crime of an individual, with whom, living or dead, he sought only peace. The Senate of the United States is no ordinary theater in which men sustain their parts. It is the forum of States. If the seat which in I851 Mr. SUMNER was called to fill had been previously occupied by an undistinguished person, his task would have been comparatively easy, but that seat had been long held by one the world pronounced the foremost American Senator, made classic by one the breadth and grandeur of whose services, whose eloquence and statesmanship with that of his compeers-had placed the American Senate on a level with that of the Roman Republic in the days of its greatest virtue and highest splendor. He succeeded, after a brief interlude, the veteran “Defender of the Constitution,” who had stamped upon our banner the ineffaceable words, “Union and Liberty, now and forever, one and inseparable.” To say that he proved not an unworthy successor of Webster, however unlike, is to say much, considering he was but a tyro in the politics of even the Commonwealth from whence he came. It was the fortune of CHARLES SUMNER to be

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. placed in his high station at a period of grand and rapidly-culminating events. Blessed with exalted natural gifts, he also had been furnished with a large share of the erudition of the age, completed by such graces as foreign travel supplies.

Having already started in the field with a small band of early crusaders against slavery, impelled by a robust frame and more robust will, he fearlessly seized upon every fit occasion in his new position to make that institution odious and, if possible, to wound it in some of its most vulnerable parts. This was his all-absorbing mission. He received and revered the Constitution of our country, as ordained by the same will and power which proclaimed that great Magna Charta of human freedom, the Declaration of Independence, and therefore never forgot the fundamental idea of “equality before the law,” nor that “all men are created equal.”

He brought no fixed allegiance to party-platforms, and found no withes in the Constitution that restrained him from resisting any claims for the protection of slavery; but that instrument was everywhere to be interpreted broadly and beneficently in the interests of humanity, world-wide and divinely free. Bestowing care even upon trifles, his orations in the Senate, as might be expected, were prepared as for a grand occasion, and, towering in his place like a tribune of the people, the heavy, resounding tones of his voice were wont to draw the attention of willing listeners to words which soon found through the press a far wider acceptance. His arguments were methodical, abundant in information, stiffened by apt and pregnant sentences, studiously observant of the syllogistic beginning, middle, and end, and, though rarely what is called brilliant or illumined by wit, were always clearly put forth, with the paramount object of spreading light and with the convincing majesty of earnestness. Those among us who may have found it sometimes difficult to agree with him never found it difficult to respect his fairness of purpose, 28

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ADDRESS OF MR. MORRILL ON THE his unflinching integrity, or his wealth of learning. In his orbit as a statesman he soared high from the beginning to the end, and ever sought with moral intrepidity noble ends by noble means.

As to the largest share of legislative measures, he was apt to be right.

He sturdily and sorrowfully resisted the banishment of coin, as an alien, from the base of a sound currency. Upon questions of popular rights he was often a leader; in all steps of reform he was never a laggard. The doctrines he espoused, if not exclusively his own, appeared to belong to him by the possessory title of constant use and earnest adherence. He needed no admonition to “stick.” If it cannot properly be claimed that “
his doctrines persuaded one generation and live to govern the next,” it may be claimed that his early text of “Freedom, national; Slavery, sectional,” did not wait until the next generation to be even more than verified. Freedom is national and slavery forever extinct. In the surging conflicts in behalf of universal liberty the deceased Senator has gathered many laurels, and if few more remained to be won, his brow was already covered. He will be numbered among those who helped to change a great chapter in our history. By a life of unstinted and unselfish labor he secured the undying gratitude of an emancipated race and the general approval of mankind. Mr. SUMNER was ever surrounded by books. They were his most beloved friends, and surrendered many of their secret treasures to their constant wooer. New books as well as old, Longfellow as well as Plato and Milton, often robbed him of sleep. He was a somewhat fastidious lover of the beautiful in art, busily collecting such notable objects as were historically rare, superb in material, or cunning in workmanship; but neither this elegant refinement of taste nor the epicurean seclusion of his daily life lifted him above willing labor and the tenderest sympathy for those who were rude, unlettered, and degraded by even the darkest-browed slavery. To him the ” Greek Slave” in marble appeared transcendently beautiful; but the chain, the ugly 26

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. system, that chafed the limbs and bound the living slave, was an intolerable atrocity, even a manacle on the symbol of God. Mr. SUMNER’S habits of industry, though the sands of his fourth term as a Senator were fast running out, clung to him to the very last, and in no three months of his life were they much better dis played, nor rest and pastime more habitually scorned, than in those which brought his labors to an end. Most men have some speciality wherein they chiefly excel, and doubtless the great subject of the natural rights of man most deeply excited the enthusiasm of CHARLES SUIJMNER; but he brought valu able contributions into the discussion of a wide field of topics, politi cal and historical; and upon international law, it may not be wrong to say, he was possibly more profoundly learned than upon the sub ject which most contributed to build up and support his reputation. Few men have done more work, and fewer still have done it so well. While chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, in all critical emergencies he was a vigilant and powerful friend of peace, and as such merits the country’s grateful remembrance. The principle em bodied in our late treaty with Great Britain, of the arbitration of international differences, he eagerly accepted as the herald of peace to future generations, in harmony with his earliest idea of the “True Grandeur of Nations,” and as a hopeful sign of human progress. Public men during life very often receive the poorest kind of thanks for their noblest efforts. The world at large is not always swift to comprehend; associates look on with torpid indifference; and enemies are made glad by every new field exposed to assault. But when the grave closes the scene, praise of the dead harms no rival, and the final verdict of history proclaims only truth, generously, perhaps, but free from detraction and all uncharitableness; and then public men who have deserved well of their country obtain that full measure of recognition and reverence which at last confers merited rank in the roll of the worthiest of mankind. 27

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ADDRESS OF MR. MORRILL ON THE The present age, however, always suffers at all points by contrast with the past, because none but the great among the unnumbered hosts turned to dust-the few screened and idolized products of picked centuries-have been preserved, while all of the present age are visible and so near that no deformities can be hidden. There is no sun, that has not long ceased to shine, whose spots remain unrevealed. Our deceased associate, unsheltered by wealth, by family, or by party, was exposed first and last to much adverse criticism, from which, in spite of much real admiration, impartiality will not even now wholly release him.

His persistency in pushing his own measures to the front, though to their present hurt or to the hurt of others, often provoked rebuke. His enemies he easily forgave, but could not so easily bury the slender personal affronts received in any wordy encounters from his peers. His self-confidence, admirable enough when he was right, was no less unmistakable and glittering when he happened to be wrong. To his conclusions, sincerely reached, he gave regal pretensions, and for them accepted nothing less than unconditional submission. Unconscious of personal offense, he imperiously, and with the stride of a colossus, trampled down whatever arguments stood in his way, not knowing who was bruised, and yet was sometimes so sensitive that if his own arguments were touched by the gentlest zephyrs of personal retort he felt they were visited too roughly. Yet these occasional self-assertions by no means held general sway, and never at his own house and table, where the cordial greeting and genial smile, with conversation embroidered with both wisdom and mirth, exhibited the full and varied attractions of his head and heart. Finally, deducting whatever truth may demand-a stern deduction the deceased never omitted-the brightness of his fame will not serve to perpetuate the memory of any stain upon the absolute purity of his private or public character, and there will still remain the imper 28 I

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. ishable records of a memorable career-something that the highest ambition aims to grasp, and that heroes die to obtain-or much of the real elements of greatness and all the glory of a historic name. “I live in the hope of a better world, a world with a little less friction,” are words I have seen attributed to the departed Senator. Has he not, with no duty neglected, reached that “better world?”

And who of us does not sometimes pray for “a world with a little less friction?” -DDRESS OF }WR. fRATT, OF JNDIANA. Mr. PRESIDENT, I too would drop a tear over the new-made grave of CHARLES SUMNER. Others who have known him longer and better have already set forth in eloquent phrase his wonderful endowments of mind and the moral graces of his character. I do not propose to speak of these at any length, nor yet of the leading incidents of his eventful career; for his history is known of all. The press has already spoken with its myriad tongues to all parts of this widelyextended country. Nor yet do I care to dwell upon that rare scholarship which made him, in international law, in belles-lettres, and statesmanship, one of the foremost men of the country and the age. All who knew him can bear witness how well the graces of his mind harmonized with his nobility of form and majesty of feature. He was a man of such mark in his mere exterior as to arrest at once the attention of a stranger, and make him a chief among ten thousand. All these topics I leave to other hands. But what I do want to linger upon a few moments are some traits in his character which distinguished him as a man and legislator, and deserve to be held up as incentives to others who would tread the paths of honor like him and win the enduring respect and confidence of mankind. 29

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ADDRESS OF MR. PRATT ON THE Mr. SUMNER was a man pre-eminently true to his convictions of right. It was in this sign he conquered. He did not stop to consider whether the position he took would bring favor or reproach. He was only anxious to be right; to plant himself upon principles that would not change. Hence he did not allow himself to look at a question through any medium that distorted its true proportions. He was an honest man by nature. He hated deceit, fraud, peculation, and corruption in all their forms. But especially were all the strong forces of his moral nature set in hostility to oppression by man over man. Against the system of human slavery, he waged ceaseless war, from early manhood up to the period of his death. Need I speak of his correlative love of truth, of freedom, of justice, of equal rights, in this Chamber that has so often echoed his grand utterances? To the establishment of this doctrine of equal rights among men without distinction of color or race; to the emancipation and elevation of the four millions of the African race whom he found in bondage and lived to see freedmen and citizens of this Republic, he consecrated the many years of his public service with a singleness of purpose that never swerved a moment, with an unflagging zeal and an energy that never tired. That was his great work; and it was a work of love and of conscience. He had many colaborers, and it is no injustice to them to say that he had no superir in the abilities, the ripe learning, the courage and zeal which he brought to the enterprise. The pioneers in the great movement against slavery were a most remarkable body of men, distinguished equally by talents and boldness, by zeal and fortitude. The history of parties may be searched in vain for a parallel to the anti-slavery party in its origin and progress, in the short but rapid and successful career it ran, until all its objects came to be accomplished, but by means and instrumentalities hidden from the eyes of those who set the ball in motion. Their doctrines were odious to the last degree among their countrymen, and neither the great abilities of the leaders, nor the abstract justice of 30

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. their cause, nor the unselfishness of their motives could shield them from persecution, from odium, and contempt. The principles they announced touched the conscience of a part of their countrymen and alarmed the selfish fears of another part. They excited the animosity of all who wanted repose and hated agitation. The war they waged was against an institution which was coeval almost with the settlement of this continent, which was interwoven in the political systems of half the States, recognized, even, and protected in the national Constitution, and which furnished the unpaid labor of three millions of men, women, and children to promote the wealth and feed the pride of less than half a million of masters and mistresses. Never in the history of the world did there exist a combination of men more formidable by their common interest and their common fears, by their wealth and wide-spread influence, than this compact body of slaveholders; and it was such an institution, venerable in years, deeply imbedded in social and political systems, and above all formidable in the political grasp in which it held the country as in a vise, that this small body of reformers attacked in its stronghold. It was David with his sling going forth to meet Goliath with his spear like a weaver’s beam. This is not the time to do more than touch upon that great warfare in which Mr. SUMNER bore so conspicuous a part. He was most ably seconded by such men as Gerritt Smith, Lovejoy, Stevens, Hale, Seward, Chase, Garrison, Phillips, and Giddings. Most of that noble band of pioneers have gone to their rest. But what a work for a single generation to accomplish have they left behind them! When Mr. SUMNER’S conscience was aroused by the wrongs of slavery he was pursuing with singular success a profession which opened to his ambition pleasing vistas of distinction and ample reward. There is something grand in his renunciation of the advantages of his position; in his breaking loose from friends and a party too timid to resist the demands of slavery, and consecrating himself 31

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ADDRESS OF MR. PRATT ON THE to the elevation of a race of slaves, from whom he was so far removed by tastes and association and sympathy. I do not follow him in his great work. It is a part of the history of the country. To that country and its honor, to truth and humanity, and to the cause of equal rights, he devoted the remainder of his life. His last thoughts dwelt upon that race for whose welfare he had done and suffered so much, and in the advocacy of whose rights he had been struck down by a felon blow in this Chamber inspired by the barbarism of that slavery against which he had made war. “See to the civil-rights bill; don’t let it fail,” were among his last utterances to his colleague in the other House, who stood beside the dying statesman. To his colleague in this body a year ago he said, “If my works were completed and my civil-rights bill passed, no visitor could enter the door that would be more welcome than death.”

That bill was the great work which was to crown his labors. It was the last act of legislation necessary, in his opinion, to fill the measure of the colored man’s rights. How often during this session have we heard his voice in eloquent persuasion lifted up in support of this measure. It was the first bill offered upon the assembling of the Forty-third Congress, and stands to-day at the head of our Calendar of bills. In times past how often have we seen him employing every fair parliamentary opportunity of urging this meagre upon the consideration of the Senate. Probably at no period of his life did he more forcibly illustrate his perseverance, his energy, his zeal, and eloquence, than in the many efforts he made to pass this bill. We know now it was no mere passion for notoriety that inspired these labors. Death tears the mask from the face, and the human soul gives out true utterances as it approaches the overmastering presence of Him who divines the thoughts of men. We know now that it was in the heart of CHARLES SUMNER, his last and most deeply cherished wish, to lift up the colored race to the plane of perfect equality. And, sir, while that race endures 3:2

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. on this continent they will bind upon their hearts these last words of their friend, and henceforth for all time Mr. SUMNER will divide with the martyred Lincoln the love and reverence of this warm-hearted people. But I must not forget to mention other traits of character which distinguished our departed friend. Though not a demonstrative man, but studious and somewhat reserved in his habits, he was courteous and kind to all who approached him. There was no one who better understood the rules and courtesies which govern this body, or that more scrupulously observed them. No one ever had occasion to call him to order. No expression unbecoming this place ever fell from his lips in debate, though no one more prompt to assert his rights. There is another trait on which my mind delights to dwell: the transparent purity and simplicity of his character. No one has ever ventured to assail the purity of Mr. SUMNER’S public or private life. Here, for more than twenty years, he stood a conspicuous figure, for much of the time odious for the opinions he held upon the subject of slavery and the object of bitter persecution; but who ever challenged his perfect rectitude of motive in the views he uttered and the votes he gave? Here, during the many years of his public life, when corrupt schemes assailed Congress, who ever linked Mr. SUMNER’S name with ring or combination of any kind which sought special advantage from legislation? No lobbyist ever approached him with doubtful propositions. No one could count upon his vote unless the measure was one which commanded his approbation from his sense of its justice and fitness. Suspicion fell from time to time upon many names, often with cruel injustice, of self-seeking aims; but it is a most striking proof of Mr. SUMNER’S lofty and transparent character that his integrity was never called in question in his public or private relations. That he did not love money or seek to add to his riches we know from the modest estate he has left, and of which he has made such judicious distribution. That he had a warm heart and friends he 33 .1

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ADDRESS OF MR. PRATT ON THE prized, we know from the bequests he has made and the dying messages he left. His last utterance war. “Tell Emerson how much I love and revere him.” This was the friend who once said of Mr.

SUMNER, “I think he has the whitest soul I ever knew.” That little sentence tells the whole story of Mr. SUMNER’S character. Mr. President, with this memorial occasion ends all of public honor we can render to our departed associate. But no living witness of what transpired here on the day his funeral obsequies were celebrated in this Chamber shall ever forget the sublime spectacle. From early morning all the approaches to the Capitol were thronged with people of all conditions of life who sought to look upon his face for the last time as his body lay in state in the Rotunda. What fitter place for such respect? Thousands upon thousands passed his bier and paused a moment to gaze upon that classic face, majestic in the repose of death. And then who shall forget the presence which greeted his mortal remains in this Chamber? Here were assembled the representative living forces which govern this Republic of forty million people. The national law-makers were here from far-off Oregon and California; from the Rocky Mountains; from the original thirteen States, and from the great basin of the Mississippi and its tributaries. Here were assembled, in their black robes, the members of that august tribunal which administers jurisprudence-over forty-six States and Territories. Here, too, came to do honor to the departed Statesnman the Chief Magistrate of the nation with his Cabinet councilors; and lastly, ranged side by side, sat the embassadors of the great powers of the earth, the representatives of those governments with which for ten years Mr. SUMNER, as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, had so much to do in molding our national policy. All these were here, hushed and sad, while the voice of religion was heard in prayer and in sad mention of him lying low in his coffin, all insen-. sible to the imposing pageant, and about to be committed, with solemn rite, earth to earth, dust to dust. Sadly did his associates think of 34

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. that form, now prostrate and lifeless, as we had so often seen it tower here in eloquent debate.

Sorrowfully did we recall that voice whose earnest tones should fill these Halls no more. And O! how sadly did we see his lifeless body make its final exit from this place where for twenty-two years he was a living power, influencing in perhaps larger degree than any other the opinions of men. He has been borne from city to city, through the busy throngs of the living, who paused with uncovered heads to do honor to his ashes, until he has been committed at last to final rest in the soil of his native State, which he loved so well and served so faithfully. Mr. President, I cannot close my humble tribute to the memory of Mr. SUMNER without adverting to the extraordinary testimonies to his worth which have been rendered spontaneously throughout the whole country by the press, from the pulpit, and through resolutions passed at public meetings. Since April, i865, when Mr. Lincoln fell by the hand of an assassin, the country has witnessed no such manifestations. But especially have these tributes been warm and earnest on the part of the colored race, for whose good he labored with such disinterested zeal. Wherever the news has penetrated that their great friend and advocate had fallen in the midst of his work in their behalf, they have assembled and given expression to their grief and gratitude. I hold in my hands a series of resolutions, just in sentiment and beautiful in expression, adopted by the colored men of the city where I dwell, and I cannot more fittingly close what my heart prompted me to say of our lamented associate than by sending to the Clerk’s desk the preamble and resolutions adopted by them, and asking that they may be read. The Chief Clerk read the following preamble and resolutions adopted at a meeting of colored citizens of Logansport, Indiana: Whereas it has pleased the All-wise and beneficent Ruler of the universe to remove from our midst our beloved friend and benefactor, the eminent philanthropist and statesman, Hon. CHARLES SUMNER; i I 35

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ADDRESS OF MR. SARGENT ON THE and whereas we, as colored people, are under a special debt of lasting gratitude to him for his unswerving devotion to the advocacy of our rights as an oppressed race: Therefore, Be it resolved, That the death of CHARLES SUMNER comes to each of us with all the bitterness of a personal bereavement. Resolved, That we will ever cherish and honor the name of CHARLES SUMNER, and that while we hand it down to our children, to be held by them in love and veneration, we will also teach them to emulate his virtues and uprightness of character.

Resolved, That his solicitude for our cause, to which he had given the labors of his noble life, manifested in his dying hour in the evermemorable words, “Take care of the civil rights bill,” was the last beautiful link in a golden chain of good deeds which binds his memory to the hearts of the oppressed of all lands forever; and, though he needs no monumental marble to keep his memory fresh in their hearts, yet, as an outlward expression of their gratitude, we favor the proposition that the colored people of this country shall erect a monument to him at the capital of the nation, respectfully suggesting the words quoted above as one of the inscriptions upon said monument. Resolved, That as a testimonial of respect to the memory of our deceased friend, we will drape our church in mourning, and the colored citizens of this city are requested to wear emblems of mourning for the period of thirty days.

ADDRESS OF )R. SARGENT, OF CALI.FORNIA. Mr. PRESIDENT, it was my privilege a few weeks since, by your appointment, to stand with a few of our brother Senators at the grave of the late Senator, CHARLES SUMNER, while his earthly remains were being deposited in the soil of his native State, to rest while time shall endure in the goodly company of heroes and statesmen who had there preceded him. Standing among the tombs of the many who had trod the paths of glory that lead but to the grave, I 36

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. were the eminent men of the State, notably among others the masters of philosophy and poetry, who express its highest thought and give intellectual power and glory to the Athens of America. Only for such a man could such an assembly have been gathered.

Something besides station evoked that homage of select souls. Among these many men of genius, drawn there not merely by respect for the dead statesman, but by the promptings of an affection springing from kindred tastes and years of intimate friendship, it may not be improper to individualize a very few of those who witnessed that closing scene of a conspicuous career. There stood Ralph Waldo Emerson, the genial philosopher, who, in writing of such friends as the one then mourned, had expressed in one of his essays his appreciation of friendship: “I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and new.

Shall I not call God the Beautiful, who daily showeth himself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude; and yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely, and the noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate. Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time. * High thanks I owe you, excellent lovers, who carry out the world for me to new and noble depths, and enlarge the meaning of all my thoughts.” I In that silent and sorrowful company also stood Henry W. Longfellow, with silver locks and noble brow, the poet of tenderness, whose words had fitly imaged the aspirations of human souls to penetrate the veil of death; words never more fitting than when some strong spirit has “left the warm precincts of the cheerful day” and passed beyond the dark curtain hiding from mortal gaze the “realm of mystery and night:” “As the moon from some dark gate of cloud Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light, Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd Into the realm of mystery and night, 37

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ADDRESS OF MR. SARGENT ON THE So from the world of spirits there descends A bridge of light, connecting it with this, O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends, Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.” And there stood Oliver Wendell Holmes, the rich and clear in thought, whose muse is soon to celebrate his dead friend in other memorial services. Will he find more apt thought or expression than that with which years ago he testified his homage to the memory of a brother poet? “Behold-not himn we knew! This was the prison which his soul looked through, Tender, and brave, and true.

“His voice no more is heard; And his dead name-that dear familiar word Lies on our lips unstirred. “Here let the body rest, Where the calm shadows that his soul loved best May glide above his breast. “Smooth the uncurtained bed; And if some natural tears are softly shed, It is not for the dead. “Here let him sleeping lie, Till heaven’s bright watchers slumber in the sky, And Death himself shall die.” There stood John G.

Whittier, the poet of freedom, clarum et venerabile niomen, sad witness of the interment of the MAN for whom his exigent muse had called five years before the first election of CHARLES SUMNER to the Senate: “Where’s the MAN for Massachusetts? Where’s the voice to speak her free? Where’s the hand to light up bonfires From the mountains to the sea? Beats her pilgrim pulse no longer? Sits she dumb in her despair? 38

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. Has she none to break the silence?

Has she none to do or dare? 0, my God! for one right worthy To lift up her rusted shield, And to plant again the pine-tree In her banner’s tattered field! ” I could not doubt that the grand old poet had seen the realiza tion of his ideal in the unflinching champion, now low in death, who had borne a part so generous and courageous in the strife for freedom. It has been assumed that CHARLES SUMNER was an austere man, absorbed in his self-consciousness and in his daily labors, indifferent to ordinary emotions. I refer to the life-long friendship that knit him to men like these to show the real warmth of his nature; his attractive and receptive inner life. I recur again to that scene, impressive as it was, as the uncovered multitudes silently looked upon the casket that enshrined the dead Senator, and fitting as it was that the State and nation should pause while the sad rites consigned to earth that noble form which had so long moved with high power and influence in human affairs, to note the lesson there impressed, that Death is the universal conqueror, and the lives of the greatest are but a point on the dial of time. To very few of the restless, ambitious, striving sons of humanity is immortality of fame attainable. The advancing shadows of the past leave uncovered few forms of men who have occupied the world’s arena. The cloud approaches and swallows up successive generations; obscures into common blankness names and histories that were fondly thought imperishable. Only when great opportunities are furnished to great talents can exception be hoped, or is ever realized. The efforts of men to accomplish the birth of some great state, filling broad pages in the world’s annals; an empire over the intellect or imagination of mankind attained by the rare genius that dates its infrequent efforts with intervals of a score of generations; the discovery or application of 39

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ADDRESS OF MR. SARGENT ON THE grand truths for the amelioration of human conditions-these may give immortality to the memory of man, and leave his name a household word even with the indifferent future. CHARLES SUMINER’S
fortune did not cast him into an era when a great state struggled into being. He had not that impulsive, consuming genius that casts a glare over the ages. But he lived in an age when evils that were scarcely noticed, from their apparent insignificance, at the origin of the Republic had grown to vast proportions; had become incompatible either with national safety or human rights, and gave him a field of labor in which he became illustrious. Earnestly sympathizing with him in that work, concurring with him year by year in the blows that he struck at slavery, I speak with full heart in tribute to his courage, his manliness, his singleness of purpose, his high achievements. He boldly announced and persistently applied eternal truths that brought to the test the growing wrongs which were destroying the meaning of our institutions and giving point to the assertion that the declaration of the fathers was a display of glittering generalities. The name he earned by these labors of Hercules, Massachusetts cannot afford to let die. The enfranchised race must hallow it forever. But it belongs to the world and all mankind. I speak of his courage and manliness. Picture that almost solitary man as he stood here twenty years ago, uttering what his associates deemed not merely heresies, but blasphemies; the suggestions not merely of eccentricity, but of stark madness or fatal mischief. The ark he shook with unsparing hand was to them most consecrate. Here there was political and social ostracism-the discountenance of his fellows, so hard to bear in such a body as this; in the country execration and contempt; at home, even, doubtful and hesitating support. Martin Luther would go to Worms if there were as many devils as tiles on the roofs. CHARLES SUMNER would go where his convictions led, through obloquy, hate, unpopularity, and deadly assault.

LIet no man who challenges the wisdom or justice of his course deny his for 40

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. titude and courage. But for the work that Mr. SUMNER performed there were necessary not only fearlessness and fortitude, but a cool, clear judgment, untiring industry, and perfect integrity. Suspicion of sordid motives would have destroyed his influence.

These neces sary qualities Mr. SUMNER possessed in the highest degree. His devotion to the one great idea of his life, the abolition of slavery and the entire political equality of all men, was absorbing and unremitted. If in the earlier years of his senatorial life to most of his associates here his utterances against slavery seemed sacrilegious or insane, long before his death advocacy of slavery in this Chamber would have seemed to all his associates as insane or a pleasantry. Less than twenty years worked this great revolution; and in this Hall he was unquestionably the chief inspiring cause and guiding spirit. The careful orations which he elaborated and here pronounced, exhibiting in remorseless nakedness the repulsive body of slavery, aroused the attention of the North, introduced into political discussion a moral element almost as potent as religious enthusiasm, and changed the issues widely from the commercial controversies that before that time had divided parties. It would be assuming too much to say that Mr. SUMNER was the sole cause of the revolution that was wrought, mighty as his influence was. There were other able laborers in the Senate and in the country, increasing ill numbers asevents progressed. Slavery gave food for excitement by its measures of resistance, which were often carried to aggression, and by new demands; and it took the final stand in opposition to the Government, without which all the eloquence of CHARLES SUMNER and his associates and all the aroused spirit of the North would have left it intact in its strongholds. The lurid flames of civil war let in a more intense light upon this great stage, and fixed the attention of mankind upon the actors who played a part unequaled in the world’s drama. Among these Mr. SUMNER was not excelled for sagacity or patriotism. I am disposed now to concede that the war was a logical result of the teachings of 4x

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ADDRESS OF MR. SARGENT ON THE Mr. SUMNER and his compeers; though only peaceful revolution, the force of persuasion only, was intended by them.

They combated a power of unknown force and proportions; of unascertained sensitiveness and vigor. They boldly thrust their torches into a magazine.

They zealously promoted ends where the resistance arose from both passion and interest, and the collision was unexpectedly a convulsion where the frame-work of the Government trembled on its foundations. They believed that to circumscribe slavery within existing boundaries was to put it in the course of ultimate extinction. But its extinction, peaceful or otherwise, was not desired, would not be tolerated, by its ultra friends; and hence when a party triumphed with CHARLES SUMAINER’S dominant idea, the friends of the twin relic took the fatal step of secession long contemplated as their dernier ressort. Mr. SUMNER met this crisis with statesmanlike decision. In those days, as a member of the other House of Congress, I had often opportunity to listen to his utterances on the floor of the Senate. No man ever heard from his lips counsels for submission or unworthy compliance. Rather was he stern and aggressive, as befitted the times. He was among the first to proclaim that the war for slavery could only be put down by the annihilation of slavery. Where others of his party timidly followed or resisted, he boldly led. He was the embodiment at once of the convictions and courage of his noble State. In the prime of manhood and of his intellectual powers, hardened in grain and nerve by the long exercise of his strength in senatorial conflicts, his decisive voice gave boldness and energy to the counsels of the American Senate, where only boldness and energy could cope with the appalling difficulties that assailed the country. To Mr. SUMNER largely, to men of his bold and sagacious spirit wholly, the nation owes it that it is now not only one, but free, from the Canadas to the Gulf. Francis Lieber, in his Political Ethics, says: “The dread of unpopularity has ruined many statesmen, led authors to abjure the truth, and 42

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. seduced citizens to crooked paths.”

With CHARLES SUMNER no dread of unpopularity ever operated to deflect him from his chosen path of duty. He might err, he did sometimes err, in choosing that path; but he pursued it sturdily, without selfish fear of consequences. He was sometimes harsh in his judgment of the motives of others; but his own were transparent and frankly avowed. He was tenacious of his opinions in good or evil report. His reliance upon his own resources was unwavering; his confidence in his own convictions was supreme. He expected rather than courted the concurrence of the people. In a remarkable passage in the Memorial de Sainte Helene, Napoleon declared, “Thus we ought to serve the people worthily, and not occupy ourselves with pleasing them. The best way of gaining them is by doing them good.” This teaching, however strange in the mouth of the august author, seems to embody the philosophy of Mr. SUMNER’S political life. Yet he was gratified by the love of the people of Massachusetts, and proud of their confidence.

On the last day that he ever visited the Senate, when the resolutions had been read that testified that the people of his State by their representatives had rescinded the only censure of him that they had ever uttered during his long career of service, he feelingly expressed to me his appreciation of that great act of justice, and spoke warmly of the kindness that had cheered him during his last visitto his State. Yet it is said that to no man did he ever complain of that censure, and by no act or word ever sought its reversal. So he had none of the arts of the politician; had no party within his party; no leaders of cliques or factions at his beck; and left wholly to the people the care of his political fortune. It is meet that to the memory of such a man scholar, statesman, and patriot-high honors be paid. He was himself generous of eulogy to departed worth. I have sought to add but a leaf to the garland that decorates his tomb. 43

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44 ADDRESS OF MR. SHERMAN ON THE ADDRESS OF AMR. SHERMAN, OF PHIO. Mr.

PRESIDENT: When the Senate met on the i ith day of March last, and we were informed that CHARLES SUMNER was dying, the intelligence came with such suddenness and excited such sorrow and sympathy that no one of us was inclined to the discharge of his usual official duties. Mr. SUMNER was with us the day before in apparent good health, and witnessed the formal withdrawal by the general assembly of Massachusetts of the only criticism ever made by that Commonwealth of any act of his during his long-continued service of twenty-three years as a member of this body. We saw no indication of disease, and yet within twenty-four hours he was dead. So striking all example of the uncertain tenure of human life was a warning to us all, made more impressive by the exalted position held by Mr.

SUMNER. At no previous period of his life would his death have caused such general sorrow. The long strife he conducted against slavery aroused against him bitter animosity in one portion of our country, but this was so mellowed by time and events that his old enemies acknowledged the purity of his motives and the lofty purpose of his warfare. He had unmistakable evidence of the continued confidence and support of his constituents, and of the love and veneration of five million freedmen. The heat of recent contests in this body, unavoidable where debate is free, and where honest opinions boldly expressed necessarily produce some strife and personal feeling-this was passing away, and CHARLES SUMNER was, by the judgment of his associates here, by the love and confidence of his constituents, by the general voice of the people, the foremost man in the civil service of the United States. This eminence is assigned him for unblemished honor, for high intellectual capacity, improved by careful study and long experience, and for public services rendered here with unwavering fidelity and

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. industry, with conscientious consistency, contributing in a large degree to the liberty of millions of slaves, and to the advancement of the power, position, and prosperity of the whole country. We ought not to exalt the dead with false eulogy; but I feel, after long association with Mr. SUMNER in the public service, continued since December, i855, sometimes disagreeing with him and conscious of his imperfections, that I would not do justice to his memory did I not place his name and fame above that of all in civil life who sur vive him. I do not compare him with those whose good fortune it has been to have rendered important military service, for such a comparison is impossible. We may contrast the services of the statesman and the soldier, but we cannot compare them. The mental and physical elements required for success are widely dif ferent. In all periods of history the soldier has won the highest rewards; the statesman must often content himself with deserving them. This is not the time or the occasion to analyze events or to parcel out the good that has been done or the evil that has been avoided; but I can safely say that on all the vital issues that have arisen since Mr. SUMNER entered the Senate he has been a prominent, conspicuous, and influential advocate of the opinions and principles represented by the republican party, which have either bees ingrafted in the Constitution of the United States or have controlled the policy of the Government since i86i. His differences with political friends have been on collateral questions, but on vital questions he has always been not only a representative, but a leader. His part on the leading measures of the war and on those that grow out of the war is so conspicuous that their history could not be written without his name appearing in the forefront. The true criticism of his course is, that he has often been so eager in the advance that he did not sufficiently look to practical measures to secure the progress already made. m 45

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46 ADDRESS OF MR. SHERMAN ON THE If I am correct in the position I assign to Mr. SUMNER, we may well pause a moment to notice the personal advantages or qualities that enabled him to attain this distinction. And first and chief of all I would place the advantage he derived from a good education. He was eminently an educated man, not only in the perfect mastery of college lessons, but in the broader field of classical and English literature, of international and civil law, and in the customs and habits of society. With this advantage, he had an armory of weapons and a capacity for acquiring knowledge from every source and of making it useful in every emergency. Again, he was a man of fixed convictions, with a steady purpose always in view. This is an indispensable quality for success. The central idea of his political life was hostility to slavery.

This appears in his earliest writings as strongly as when afterward it became mixed with personal strife. His hatred of slavery was fierce, intense, morbid-evinced by such language of bitterness and denunciation that no wonder the holders of slaves construed his invectives against the system as personal insults demanding resentment Mr. SUMNER did not so regard them. His object was liberty to the slave, and not punishment to the master. His later life proves that when he could secure the one he freely gave amnesty to the other. Washington did not pursue his object to obtain liberty anel independence for his country with more unwavering faith and effort than SUMNER did for liberty and equal rights for the slave. This quality in Mr. SUMNER always relieved him from inconsistency.

While he was not always satisfied to secure what he had previously demanded, he was always advancing in the same direction and not in an opposite one. No man’s actions could be more consistent with the objects he always kept in view. Mr. SUMNER was aggressive; he could brook no opposition. He was always-for a clean victory or a clean defeat. He would not yield even on minor points, and would often fight for a phrase when he

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. endangered a principle. He would sometimes turn his warfare upon his best friends when they did not keep exactly abreast with him. This feature of his character lay at the foundation of many of his controversies with his associates, and was his weakest point. With the great multiplicity of minds that must contribute to a common purpose in this arena of debate, there must be yieldings of minor things to accomplish great things. Mr. SUMNER was industrious to a remarkable degree. His seat was rarely vacant. He was prompt and faithful in his attendance on committees of which he was a member. Genius can accomplish nothing without industry. Education cannot be acquired without it. Success in public life more frequently depends upon industry than upon natural ability. We can have no eight-hour law or ten-hour law here. Mr.

SUMNER was always busy, and even in social life sought for or conveyed information. The eloquent speeches that will preserve his name are none the less valuable because they have been distilled by the midnight lamp.

Mr. SUMNER was honest in the broadest meaning of that good old Roman word.

He was upright, free from tricks and fraud. No one could suspect the purity of his motives, or seek by improper means to influence his conduct.

He might be misled by prejudice, or party bias, or local interests, but never by personal interest or hope of it. He was not a politician in the sense of the word as it is now used-a man of artifice or contrivance. He was remarkably free from all artifice. He did not even use the artifice of silence. But he was a politician in the true and natural sense. He was profoundly versed in the science of government. It is a common error that he confined his attention to the slavery question. Far from it. No one in this Senate was so familiar as he with all the laws and usages that govern our intercourse with foreign nations. He was deeply interested in questions affecting the internal development of the country, and of late years has carefully studied all financial questions, and has 47

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48 ADDRESS OF MR. WADLEIGH ON THE contributed to their solution. Next to his dying wish for the passage of the civil-rights bill was his desire that the promise of the United States should no longer be measured by a depreciation of Io to i4 per cent. Such is the estimate, briefly stated, that I have conceived of Mr. SUMNER. He sleeps upon Mount Auburn, and no word of ours can give him care or grief. He awaits the mysteries of the future, and not long hence we must in our turn join him. How changed this scene since a few years past I entered it! More than one-half I met here are dead, and only three remain who were then members of the Senate.

CHARLES SUMNER was the last of the funeral train. Who next? May we be so guided here that when our time comes our associates may be able truly to say of us something of the good that is this day said of CHARLES SUMNER. A DDRESS OF AMR. )ADLEIGH, OF AEW JAMPSHIRE. Mr. PRESIDENT: Representing in part upon this floor a State contiguous to Massachusetts and a people closely allied to hers by many ties, I cannot refrain from briefly expressing upon this occasion the profound sorrow that bowed their hearts when they heard that CHARLES SUMNER was no more. In common with the people of the whole country, they recognized his eminent public services, and, even when disagreeing with him, never lost their faith in his honesty of purpose and unfaltering devotion to the cause to which his life was given.

But New Hampshire has other reasons peculiar to herself for cherishing his memory. Seven years before he came here to occupy the seat of Daniel Webster, John P. Hale appealed from the decision of his party to the voters of New Hampshire upon the question of slavery-extension.

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. Almost single-handed and alone, against a party unequaled in disci pline and ignorant of defeat, among a people nearly as steadfast and unchanging as their granite hills, he won one of the greatest victories ever recorded in our political annals.

Kindling by his eloquence the love of liberty and hatred of oppression that lie at the core of hu manity, he was borne into this Senate upon a popular torrent which burst through the crust of party like lava from the burning heart of a mountain. Here for four years he stood, the isolated and ostracised representative of a principle stronger than all parties and destined to triumph over them all. In i85I, Massachusetts, as if to repay the debt she owed for the men who marched from the Granite State to die at Bunker Hill, placed CHARLES SUMNER at the side of John P. Hale. It was the re-enforcement of a forlorn hope, and revived the drooping spirits of the opponents of slavery. What followed is known to all and will never be forgotten. Linked to the emancipation of four million slaves, the memory of such men is as imperishable as the stars. And after this marble pile shall have crumbled into dust and every existing political organization shall have been destroyed by all-devouring Time, SUMNER’S incorruptible honesty and steadfast devotion to the cause of human freedom will be gratefully remembered, for these make his one of the names “On Fame’s eternal bead-roll worthy to be filed.” ADDRESS OF A/R. ANTHONY, OF:HODE

JSLAND. Mr. PRESIDENT: I can add nothing of narration or of eulogy to what has been said, and so well said. Mr. SUMNER’S life, his character, and his services have been fittingly presented, and on both sides of the Chamber.

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50 ADDRESS OF MR. ANTHONY ON THE have followed the affectionate praises of devoted friends, and nothing remains but to close this sad and august observance. Yet something forbids my entire silence, and impels me to interpose a few sentences, before the subject passes from the consideration of the Senate. My acquaintance with Mr. SUMNER commenced previous to my entrance into this body, where it ripened into a friendship which will always remain among the most agreeable recollections of my public life. I remained associated with him until every other seat in the Chamber, except one, had changed its occupant, and eight new ones had been added. Some left us in the ordinary chances and changes of political fortunes; some were transferred to other departments of the public service; and of these some have returned again to the Senate; some, as Douglas, and Baker, and Collamer, and Foot, and Fessenden, fell, like SUMNER, at their posts, and like him were borne to their final repose with all the demonstrations of public gratitude, of official respect, and of popular affection with which a generous constituency decorates the memory of those whose lives have been spent in its service and who have worthily worn its honors. But Mr. SUMNER’S constituency was the Republic, wide as its farthest boundary and permeating its utmost limits; for he was conspicuously the representative of a prciple which, although seminal in the organization of the Government, wfs slow of growth and fructified largely under his care. When the intelligence of his death followed so close upon the first intimation of his danger, it fell with an equal shock upon all classes of society, upon “all sorts and conditions of men;” it invaded with equal sorrow the abodes of luxury and the cottages of the poor pauperurnz tabernas, Regunmque turres. The scholar closed his book and the laborer leaned upon his spade. The highest in the land mourned their peer, the lowliest lamented their friend. How well his life had earned this universal testimony

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. of respect, how naturally the broad sympathy which he had manifested for the wronged and the injured of every condition came back to honor his memory, it is not my purpose to enlarge upon. His eulogy is his life; his epitaph is the general grief; his monument, builded by his own hands, is the eternal statutes of freedom.

Mr. President, when I look back over this long period, crowded with great events, and which has witnessed the convulsion of the nation, the reorganization and reconstruction of our political system; when, in my mind’s eye, I people this chamber with those whose forms have been familiar to me, whose names, many of them historical, have been labeled on these desks and are now carved on the marble that covers their dust, I am filled with a sadness inexpressible, yet full of consolation. For, musing on the transitory nature of all sublunary things, I come to perceive that their instability is not in their essence, but in the forms which they assume and in the agencies that operate upon them; and when I recall those whom I have seen fll around me, and whom I thought necessary to the success, almost to the preservation of great principles, I recall also those whom I have seen step into the vacant places, put on the armor which they wore, lift the weapons which they wielded, and march on to the consummation of the work which they inaugurated. And thus I am filled with reverent wonder at the beneficentordering of nature, and inspired with a loftier faith in that Almighty Power without whose guidance and direction all human effort is vain, and with whose blessing the humblest instruments that He selects are equal to the mightiest work that He designs. And now, Mr. President, as a further tribute of respect to the memory of our departed associate, I move that the Senate adjourn. The motion was agreed to; and (at two o’clock and thirteen minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned.

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PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MONDAY, April 27, I874. A message from the Senate, by Mr. MCDONALD, their Chief Clerk, informed the House that the Senate had adopted resolutions for the purpose of showing an additional mark of respect to the memory of CHARLES SUMNER, late a Senator of the United States from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The SPEAKER. The resolutions just received from the Senate will be read. The Clerk read as follows: IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED

STATES, Atil 27, I874. Resolved, That as an additional mark of respect to the memory of CHARLES SUMNER, long a Senator from Massachusetts, business be now suspended, that the friends and associates of the deceased may pay fitting tribute to his public and private virtues. Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate be instructed to communicate these resolutions to the House cf Representatives. Mr. E. R. HOAR. I offer the resolution which I send to the Clerk’s desk. The Clerk read as follows: .,esozled, That as an additional mark of respect to the memory of CHARLES SUMNER, long a Senator from Massachusetts, and in sympathy with the action of the Senate, business be now suspended in this House to allow fitting.tributes to be paid to his publpc and private virtues. The resolution was unanimously adopted. 52

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. ADDRESS OF AR. f. f. JOAR, OF

MASSACHUSETTS. Mr. SPEAKER: When, more than six weeks ago, the announcement of the death of the Senator from Massachusetts was made in this Hall, the shock was so sudden, the sense of loss and bereavement so great, that we felt the most fitting employment of the time to be to “commune with our own hearts, and be still.” Public business was suspended until that lifeless form could be brought to rest for a few hours under the great Dome of the Capitol, crowned by the emblem of that liberty at whose altar the homage of his life had been offered; and then, in the Senate Chamber, by Senators and Representatives, President and Cabinet, judges and warriors, the ministers of foreign powers, clergy and people, in the presence of the great reconciler, Death, were performed those funeral rites with which the nation honors those of her sons who have “fallen in high places.” We bore him from these scenes of his public labors to the old Commonwealth which gave him birth; and there, in the home of his childhood and manhood, in the presence of countless thousands who thronged to unite in that last tribute of respect and affection, the State reverently and tenderly committed to the earth, to mingle with kindred dust, the earthly remains of her foremost public man and best beloved citizen. And now that his character and fame are passing into memory and history, it is fitting that we, his contemporaries and associates in the public service, should be allowed a brief opportunity to express our estimate of the man, and of his relation to his country and mankind. CHARLES SUMNER was born in Boston, on the 6th of January, I8i i, the son of Charles Pinckney Sumner, who was for a long time the sheriff of Suffolk County. His early education was at the Boston Latin School, from which he entered Harvard College, and graduated 53,

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54 ADDRESS OF MR. E. R. HOAR ON THE with distinction in i830. He studied law under Story and Greenleaf in the law school of that institution, and was for three years employed to take the place of Judge Story as a lecturer and instructor in law during the sessions of the Supreme Court at Washington. He spent the next three years in Europe, where both in England and on the Continent he formed the acquaintance and gained the friendship of many distinguished men; acquired a familiarity with some European languages; diligently pursued his studies in literature, history, and jurisprudence, and gratified as well as cultivated his taste for art. He returned to the practice and study of his profession, in which he gained an honorable and distinguished position, chiefly due to his profound and extensive learning. He never argued many cases, but conducted such as he had with marked ability and success. He edited the American Jurist, the twenty volumes of Vesey’s Reports, and was the reporter of three volumes of the decisions of Judge Story in the first circuit. His first public performance which attracted general attention was his oration on “The true grandeur of nations,” before the municipal authorities of Boston, on the 4th of July, i845, which Richard Cobden pronounced “the most noble contribution made by any modern writer to the cause of peace.” He had voted with the whig party, but took no active part in political affairs, until the great controversy upon the question of slavery, especially as affected by the war with Mexico and the proposed annexation of Texas, brought him into the front rank of the advocates of universal liberty. He declined a nomination as a Representative in Congress. In April, i85i, he was elected to the Senate of the United States, for the full term succeeding that which had been held by Mr. Webster, and in its last few months by Mr. Winthrop and Mr. Rantoul. His election was made by a coalition of the free-soil party and the democrats; Mr. Boutwell, who was the democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts, being elected by the same combination of

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. parties. He took his seat in the Senate on the ist of December, I85I. His first great speech in the Senate was in support of a motion to repeal the fugitive-slave law, and was delivered on the 26th of August, 1852. He was struck down at his desk in the Senate Chamber by blows upon the head inflicted by a Representative from South Carolina, on the i8th of May, i856, in professed revenge for words spoken in debate two days before. The terrible injury to the spinal column, which was nearly fatal at the time, resulted in the malady, an,,ina pectoris, which at last terminated his life. In consequence of the suffering and illness caused by this assault, he was absent from his place in the Senate during most of the time for four years. He was reelected to the Senate in i857, in i863, and in i869; and died on the iith of March, 1874, having attended the session of that body on the day before his death. Such are the simple outlines of his life; yet how affluent a culture, how lofty a purpose, how rich a nature, how wide an influence, how absolute a conscience, how perfect an integrity, how enduring a fame, how tender and affectionate a heart, belonged to the man who filled out those outlines to the full measure of a noble and heroic character! The only office he ever held was that of Senator from Massachusetts, and when he died he was the senior Senator in length of continuous service. His successive re-elections were carried by great waves of public sentiment; without bargains, without concealments, without pledges, except those of his life and known opinions, and without competitors. For twenty-three years the record of his public life is the history of the country. He took part in all the great debates, and his name is indelibly associated with all the great results which that period has produced. And what accomplished results it was his privilege to see! How much of the great work and object of his life were attained before it closed! 55

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56 ADDRESS OF MR. E. R. HOAR ON THE When he entered the Senate there were but two others there of his political opinions. Before he died he was the leader of a majority of more than two-thirds of the body. He came there the advocate of impartial liberty throughout the land, the antagonist of slavery wherever it could be reached under the Constitution. He was treated as a detested fanatic, tried for months in vain to get a hearing, and was even refused a place on any committee, as “outside of any healthy political organization.” He lived to see the adoption of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution, to be the head of the Committee on Foreign Relations, to see men of the proscribed color admitted to seats in both branches of Congress, and to know that he had the gratitude and affection of the race he had helped to emancipate, with the respect and confidence of the nation before whom he had pleaded that “nothing is safer than justice,” and to whom he had contended that “nothing is settled that is not right.” His first public utterance was in favor of peace, and of the amicable settlement of differences among nations, which was contemptuously received as the dream of a visionary enthusiast. He lived to see the negotiation of the Treaty of Washington and its consummation in the arbitration at Geneva. Mr. SUMNER was thoroughly and truly.An American. He believed in his country, in her unity, her grandeur, her ideas, and her destiny. He had drank deep from the sources of American institutions in the writings and lives of our revolutionary fathers. He was an idealist, and trusted the future. To his far-reaching vision it was always true that “Every gift of noblest origin Is breathed upon by hope’s perpetual breath.” His spirit was of the morning, and “his face was radiant with the sunrise he intently watched.”

He saw in the future of America a noble and puissant nation, its grand Constitution conformed to and

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. construed by the grander declaration of 1776, purged of every stain and inconsistency, the home of the homeless, the refuge of the op pressed, the paradise of the poor, the example of honor, justice, peace, and freedom to the nations of the earth.

His personal integrity was so absolute that no breath of suspicion even ever sullied it. He said to a friend, “People talk about the corruption of Washington; I have lived here all these years and have seen nothing of it.” He never had any tracks to cover up, or opinions or motives to conceal. You remember well his commanding presence, his stalwart frame, six feet and four inches in height, the vigor and grace of his motions, the charm of his manners, the polish of his rhetoric, the abundance of his learning, the fervor and impressiveness of his oratory. He was every inch a Senator, and upheld with zeal and fidelity the dignity, privileges, and authority of the Senate. He never seems to have known fear. His courage and power of resolute endurance were conspicuously shown in his undergoing the rnoxa, the application of hot irons the whole length of the spine, which his physician says was the most terrible torture he ever knew inflicted on man or animal, and which he bore without taking ether, because he was told that by so doing there was a little better prospect that the treatment would be efficacious. There is no doubt that he dies a martyr to the cause of liberty, and to the efforts which he would not relax in its behalf, as truly as they who fell on the field of stricken battle. The bludgeon preceded the bayonet and the bullet in that civil war which began long before i86i; and did its work of death as surely, if more slowly. Of his private life, of his genial and liberal hospitality, of the strength and warmth of his friendships, of his curious stores of information, of his treasures of literature and art, of his tenderness and sweetness toward those who loved and trusted him, there is no time or need to speak in this place, on this occasion. But there are 57 I

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58 ADDRESS OF MR. E. R. HOAR ON THE many of the pure and gentle, of the thoughtful and richly cultured, to whom the tidings of his death brought tender and precious memories of these things. No doubt Mr. SUMNER had defects of character. I think he had little sense of humor, and some more of it might have been of service to him. He was an orator, and not a debater; and if he had had more of the training of the bar and the popular assembly, might perhaps sometimes have made a more direct and forcible impression upon those whom he sought to convince, and who were wearied with stately periods and inexhaustible learning. But some of his faults were closely allied to his virtues, and to the sources of his power. He was of an imperious nature, and intolerant of difference in opinion by his associates, and has been called an egotist. But all this came largely from the strength of his convictions; from his own belief in his own thoroughness of study and purity of purpose; from what has been happily described as his “sublime confidence in his own moral sagacity.” He was terribly in earnest, and could not understand how others could fail to see what he saw so clearly. I t may, indeed, be true that in advancing age, and while striving to bear up and do his work under a terrible burden of shattered health and worn nerves, he made judgments which some of us have thought unjust, and severed associations which some of us would have gladly seen preserved. But let me say for him that I believe he carried to the grave as few resentments, as little animosity, as rarely is found in the hearts of men whose lives have been passed in scenes of public conflict. I saw him frequently and familiarly during the last four months of his life, and wish to give my testimony to the gentleness and kindliness of his temper during all that time, and to the fact that he uttered no word of harshness or censure in my hearing concerning any human being. It was noticeable and touching to observe, it is gratifying to remem

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. ber, and I think it would have been pleasant to him to know that it would be here remembered of him. But the time allowed me is short, and I must not withhold your attention from those who are to follow. I cannot better sum up the character I have described than by adopting language which has been applied to the character of Milton: “A high ideal purpose maintained, a function discharged through life with unwavering consistency; austerity, but the austerity not of monks but of heroes; incapable of depression, but also, as far as appears, incapable of mirth.” As I stood by the dying bed of him who was my friend for thirty years, and heard the repeated exclamation, “0, so tired! 0, so weary!” the old hymn of the church seemed to be sounding in my ears: “Yes, peace! for war is needless; Yes, calm! for storm is past; And rest from finished labor, And anchorage at last.” The weary are at rest! The good and faithful servant has entered into the joy of his Lord! AkDDRESS OF AR, CAMAR, OF MISSISSIPPI. Mr. SPEAKER: In rising to second the resolutions just offered, I desire to add a few remarks which have occurred to me as appropriate to the occasion. I believe that they express a sentiment which pervades the hearts of all the people whose Representatives are here assembled. Strange as, in looking back upon the past, the assertion may seem, impossible as it would have been ten years ago to make it, it is not the less true that to-day Mississippi regrets the death of CHARLES SUMNER and sincerely unites in paying honors to his memory. Not because of the splendor of his intellect, though in him was 59

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ADDRESS OF MAIR. LAMAR ON THE extinguished one of the brightest of the lights which have illustrated the councils of the Government for nearly a quarter of a century; not because of the high culture, the elegant scholarship, and the varied learning which revealed themselves so clearly in all his public efforts as to justify the application to him of Johnson’s felicitous expression, “He touched nothing which he did not adorn;” not this, though these are qualities by no means, it is to be feared, so common in public places as to make their disappearance, in even a single instance, a matter-of indifference; but because of those peculiar and strongly-marked moral traits of his character which gave the coloring to the whole tenor of his singularly dramatic public career; traits which made him for a long period, to a large portion of his countrymen, the object of as deep and passionate a hostility as to another he was one of enthusiastic admiration, and which are not the less the cause that now unites all these parties, once so widely differing, in a common sorrow to-day over his lifeless remains. It is of these high moral qualities which I wish to speak, for these have been the traits which, in after years, as I have considered the successive acts and utterances of this remarkable man, fastened most strongly my attention, and impressed themselves most forcibly upon my imagination, my sensibilities, my heart.

I leave to others to speak of his intellectual superiority, of those rare gifts with which nature had so lavishly endowed him, and of the power to use them which be had acquired by education. I say nothing of his vast and varied stores of historical knowledge, or of the wide extent of his reading in the elegant literature of ancient and modern times, or of his wonderful power of retaining what he had read, or of his readiness in drawing upon these fertile resources to illustrate his own arguments. I say nothing of his eloquence as an orator, of his skill as a logician, or of his powers of fascination in the unrestrained freedom of the social circle, which last it was my misfortune not to have experienced. These, indeed, were the qualities which gave him eminence, not 6o

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LIFE AND CHARACEER OF CHARLES SUMNER. only in our country, but throughout the world, and which have made the name of CHARLES SUMNER an integral part of our nation’s glory. They were the qualities which gave to those moral traits of which I have spoken the power to impress themselves upon the his tory of the age and of civilization itself, and without which those traits, however intensely developed, would have exerted no influence beyond the personal circle immediately surrounding their possessor. More eloquent tongues than mine will do them justice. Let me speak of the characteristics which brought the illustrious Senator who has just passed away into direct and bitter antagonism, for years, with my own State and her sister States of the South. CHARLES SUMNER was born with an instinctive love of freedom, and was educated from his earliest infancy to the belief that freedom is the natural and indefeasible right of every intelligent being having the outward form of man. In him, in fact, this creed seems to have been something more than a doctrine imbibed from teachers, or a result of education. To him it was a grand intuitive truth inscribed in blazing letters upon the tablet of his inner consciousness, to deny which would have been for him to deny that he himself existed. And along with this all-controlling love of freedom, he possessed a moral sensibility keenly intense and vivid, a consciousness which would never permit him to swerve by the breadth of a hair from what he pictured to himself as the path of duty. Thus were combined in him the characteristics which have in all ages given to religion her martyrs and to patriotism her self-sacrificing heroes. To a man thoroughly permeated and imbued with such a creed, and animnated and constantly actuated by such a spirit of devotion, to behold a human being, or a race of human beings, restrained of their natural rights to liberty, for no crime by him or them committed, was to feel all the belligerent instincts of his nature roused to combat.

The fact was to him a wrong which no logic could justify. It mattered not how humble in the scale of rational existence the subject of 6i

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ADDRESS OF MR. LAMAR ON THE this restraint might be, how dark his skin, or how dense his ignorance. Behind all that lay for him the great principle that liberty is the birthright of all humanity, and that every individual of every race who has a soul to save is entitled to the freedom which may enable him to work out his salvation. It matters not that the slave might be contented with his lot; that his actual condition might be immeasurably more desirable than that from which it had transplanted him; that it gave him physical comfort, mental and moral elevation and religious culture not possessed by his race in any other condition; that his bonds had not been placed upon his hands by the living generation; that the mixed social system of which he formed an element had been regarded by the fathers of the Republic, and by the ablest statesmen who had risen up after them, as too complicated to be broken up without danger to society itself, or even to civilization; or, finally, that the actual state of things had been recognized and explicitly sanctioned by the very organic law of the Republic. Weighty as these considerations might be, formidable as were the difficulties in the way of the practical enforcement of his great principle, he held none the less that it must sooner or later be enforced, though institutions and constitutions should have to give way alike before it. But here let me do this great man the justice which, amid the excitements of the struggle between the sections, now past, I may have been disposed to deny him. In this fiery zeal and this earnest warfare against the wrong, as he viewed it, there entered no enduring personal animosity toward the men whose lot it was to be born to the system which he denounced. It has been the kindness of the sympathy which in these later years he has displayed toward the impoverished and suffering people of the Southern States that has unveiled to me the generous and tender heart which beat beneath the bosom of the zealot, and has forced me to yield him the tribute of my respect, I might even say of my admiration.

Nor in the manifestation of this has there been anything 62

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. which a proud and sensitive people, smarting under a sense of recent discomfiture and present suffering, might not frankly accept, or which would give them just cause to suspect its sincerity. For though he raised his voice, as soon as he believed the momentous issues of this great military conflict were decided, in behalf of amnesty to the van quished, and though he stood forward ready to welcome back as brothers and to re-establish in their rights as citizens those whose valor had so nearly riven asunder the Union which he loved, yet he always insisted that the most ample protection and the largest safe guards should be thrown around the liberties of the newly enfran chised African race. Though he knew very well that of his conquered fellow-citizens of the South, by far the larger portion, even those who most heartily acquiesced in and desired the abolition of slavery, seri ously questioned the expediency of investing in a single day, and without any preliminary tutelage, so vast a body of inexperienced and uninstructed men with the full rights of freemen and voters, he would tolerate no half-way measures upon a point to him so vital. Indeed, immediately after the war, while other minds were occupying themselves with different theories of reconstruction, he did not hesitate to impress most emphatically upon the administration, not only in public, but in the confidence of private intercourse, his uncompromising resolution to oppose to the last any and every scheme which should fail to provide the surest guarantees for the personal freedom and political rights of the race which he had undertaken to protect. Whether his measures to secure this result showed him to be a practical statesman or a theoretical enthusiast is a question on which any decision we may pronounce to-day must await the inevitable revision of posterity. The spirit of magnanimity, therefore, which breathes in his utterances and manifests itself in all his acts affecting the South during the last two years of his life, was as evidently honest as it was grateful to the feelings of those to whom it was displayed. 63

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ADDRESS OF MR. LAMAR ON THE It was certainly a gracious act toward the South-though unhappily it jarred upon the sensibilities of the people at the other extreme of the Union and estranged from him the great body of his political friends-to propose to erase from the banners of the national Army the mementoes of the bloody internecine struggle, which might be regarded as assailing the pride or wounding the sensibilities of the southern people. That proposal will never be forgotten by that people so long as the name of CHARLES SUMNER lives in the memory of man. But while it touched the heart of the South and elicited her profound gratitude, her people would not have asked of the North such an act of self-renunciation.

Conscious that they themselves were animated by devotion to constitutional liberty, and that the brightest pages of history are replete with evidences of the depth and sincerity of that devotion, they can but cherish the recollections of sacrifices endured, the battles fought and the victories won in defense of their hapless cause. And respecting, as all true and brave men must respect, the martial spirit with which the men of the North vindicated the integrity of the Union and their devotion to the principles of human freedom, they do not ask, they do not wish, the North to strike the mementoes of her heroism and victory from either records or monuments or battle-flags. They would rather that both sections should-gather up the glories won by each section, not envious, but proud of each other, and regard them a common heritage of American valor. Let us hope that future generations, when they remember the deeds of heroism and devotion done on both sides, will speak not of northern prowess or southern courage, but of the heroism, fortitude, and courage of Americans in a war of ideas-a war in which each section signalized its consecration to the principles, as each understood them, of American liberty and of the Constitution received from their fathers. It was my misfortune, perhaps my fault, personally never to have 64 il

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. known this eminent philanthropist and statesman. The impulse was often strong upon me to go to him and offer him my hand and my heart with it, and to express to him my thanks for his kind and con siderate course toward the people with whom I am identified.

If I did not yield to that impulse it was because the thought occurred that other days were coming in which such a demonstration might be more opportune and less liable to misconstruction. Suddenly, and without premonition, a day has come at last to which, for such a pur pose, there is no to-morrow. My regret is therefore intensified by the thought that I failed to speak to him out of the fullness of my heart while there was yet time. How often is it that death thus brings unavailingly back to our remembrance opportunities unimproved; in which generous over tures, prompted by the heart, remain unoffered; frank avowals which rose to the lips remain unspoken; and the injustice and wrong of bitter resentments remain unrepaired! CHARLES SUMNER in life believed that all occasion for strife and dis trust between the North and South had passed away, and that there no longer remained any cause for continued estrangement between these two sections of our common country. Are there not many of us who believe the same thing? Is not that the common sentiment, or if it is not ought it not to be, of the great mass of, our people North and South?

Bound to each other by a common Constitution, destined to live together under a common Government, forming unitedly but a single member of the great family of nations, shall we not now at last endeavor to grow toward each other once more in heart as we are already indissolubly linked to each other in fortunes? Shall we not, over the honored remains of this great champion of human liberty, this feeling sympathizer with human sorrow, this earnest pleader for the exercise of human tenderness and charity, lay aside the concealments which serve only to perpetuate misunderstandings and distrust, and frankly confess that on both sides we most earnestly desire 65

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ADDRESS OF MR. LAMAR ON THE to be one; one not merely in political organization; one not merely in identity of institutions; one not merely in community of language and literature and traditions and country; but, more and better than all that, one also in feeling and in heart? Am I mistaken in this? Do the concealments of which I speak still cover animosities which neither time nor reflection nor the march of events have yet sufficed to subdue? I cannot believe it. Since I have been here I have watched with anxious scrutiny your sentiments as expressed not merely in public debate, but in the abandon of personal confidence. I know well the sentiments of these my southern brothers, whose hearts are so infolded that the feeling of each is the feeling of all; and I see on both sides only the seeming of a constraint which each apparently hesitates to dismiss. The South-prostrate, exhausted, drained of her life-blood as well as of her material resources, yet still honorable and true-accepts the bitter award of the bloody arbitrament without reservation, resolutely determined to abide the result with chivalrous fidelity; yet, as if struck dumb by the magnitude of her reverses, she suffers on in silence. The North, exultant in her triumph and elated by success, still cherishes, as we are assured, a heart full of magnanimous emotions toward her disarmed and discomfited antagonist; and yet, as if mastered by some mysterious spell, silencing her better impulses, her words and acts are the words and acts of suspicion and distrust. Would that the spirit of the illustrious dead whom we lament today could speak from the grave to both parties to this deplorable discord in tones which should reach each and every heart throughout this broad territory, “My countrymen, know one another, and you will love one another.” I 66

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. )DDRESS OF AR. PRTH, OF JNDIANA. Mr.

SPEAKER: By virtue of resolutions just adopted, the ordinary business of Congress is temporarily suspended. We pause to recognize the presence of death in our midst, that mysterious power which walketh unseen, whose tread is unheard, but whose work is daily and hourly bringing anguish to some bereaved family circle. We pause to pay tribute to the memory of one of the most distinguished American legislators. SUMNER is dead! His native Massachusetts, that good old Com monwealth, mourns. Faneuil Hall is clothed in the habiliments of woe. But Massachusetts mourns not alone; her sister States are here to-day mingling their tears with her tears. His labors were not confined to his own State; his work embraced the whole Union. The cause of humanity throughout the, world enlisted his active sympathy, and in every portion of our ocean-girt Republic, and in every clime where Freedom has a votary, tears are dropped to his memory. Those who have preceded me on this occasion have, more ably than I could, spoken of his early life and its reminiscences; of his literary and professional studies and of his equal attachment to both; of his early success in the profession of his choice, demonstrating at once that if he had continued to walk in that path he should have attained its highest honors, as he subsequently attained the highest honors of statesmanship. A devoted student, possessing a strong and vigorous mind, enriched with scholastic and scientific research in almost every department of human knowledge-with hLm success was the certain and legitimate offspring of an effort to succeed. In 185i he was chosen to the Senate of the United States, which position he held thence continuously to the day of his death. Soon after being officially informed of his appointment, he addressed a 67

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ADDRESS OF MR. ORTH ON TIlE letter to the legislature of Massachusetts, from which I present an extract eminently characteristic of the man, and indicating his high estimate of the duties thus devolved upon him, and the spirit in which these duties should be discharged: “Your appointment finds me in a private station with whlich I am entirely content. For the first time in my life I am called to political office. * I acceptit as the servant of Massachusetts, mindful of the sentiments solemnly uttered by her successive Legislaturesof the genius which inspired her history, and of the men, her perpetual pride and ornament, who breathed into her that breath of liberty which early made her an example to her sister States. *

I accept it as the servant of the Union, bound to study and maintain with equal patriotic care the interests of all parts of our country, to discountenance every effort to lessen any of those ties by which our fellowship of States is held in fraternal company, and to oppose all sectionalism, whether it appear in unconstitutional efforts by the North to carry so great a boon as freedom into the slave States, or in unconstitutional effoibrts by the South, aided by northern allies, to carry the sectional evil of slavery into the free States, or in whatsoever efforts it may make to extend the sectional domination of slavery over the National Government.” He was chosen because the public sentiment of Massachusetts indicated him as a fit successor to her greatest statesman; and twenty-three years of faithful and distiinguished service in the Senate have fully demonstrated the wisdom of that sentiment, while throughout his long senatorial career his countrymen by general consent accorded him the once proud Roman title of “Priimus inter illustres.” He entered the Senate at a time when his political opinions had few supporters, either in or out of the Senate; when, to use a phrase of the times, he was “outside of any healthy political organization,” and when ridicule, satire, opprobrium, and even social ostracism, were visited upon anti-slavery men. In i86o he was placed on the Committee on Foreign Relations, and 68

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. on the 4th of March, i86i, became its chairman. This position, at all times one of great responsibility, especially so on account of the important and delicate functions pertaining to the Senate in connec tion with the treaty-making power of the Government, became vastly more important in consequence of the rebellion then about being inaugurated. It is hardly necessary for me to add that his acquirements in the field of general literature, his thorough knowledge of the science of the law, and especially that branch pertaining to the “law of nations,” qualified him in a peculiar manner to discharge ably and intelligently the duties thus devolving upon him. The war for the suppression of the rebellion involved the consid eration of many intricate and important questions in connection with foreign governments, requiring for their solution the utmost skill and prudence. During that eventful period SUMNER was on most confidential terms with Secretary Seward, and the distinguished Secretary and no less distinguished Senator were in constant consul tation over those questions. The wisdom which characterized our foreign intercourse during this most trying period in our history, and the ability with which the rights of the Government were maintained and serious complications avoided, attest equally the importance of those consultations and the eminent statesmanship of these two distinguished citizens. In these labors he seems to have adhered strictly to those cardinal principles adopted at an early period of our diplomatic history, “to avoid all entangling alliances with foreign nations;” “to demand nothing but what is right, and submit to nothing that is wrong.” His senatorial career attests that in no just sense of the term was he ever a partisan, but co-operated with party organization only so far as he believed such organization to be essential to the accomplishmient of his great purpose. - 69

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ADDRESS OF MR. ORTH ON THE That purpose, which was the leading principle of his life, was to secure beyond doubt or contingency “the equality of the human race,” and with him it became the “star of his destiny,” the “sun of his Austerlitz.” He frequently expressed this principle sententiously, as “equality of rights is the first of all rights,”

“equality before the law;” and this purpose became a part of his very nature; as it were, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. It was this which led him to believe and to act upon the belief that all men should be free; that freedom should encircle the earth like its atmosphere; that in every clime the chains of slavery should be broken, and that everywhere man created in the image of his Maker should stand erect and unshackled, the peer of his neighbor, in the presence of God, who has so solemnly proclaimed that He “is no respecter of persons.” The blighting curse of slavery clouded and tarnished, alas! too long, our national escutcheon.

Serpent-like, it crawled into the very citadel of American liberty, and coiled its slimy folds around the pillars of the Constitution, infusing its poison into the life-blood of the Republic, and striking, as with the touch of paralysis, alike all classes of our people and every department of the Government. To destroy this monster was the enthusiastically assumed life-task of SUMNER, engrossing all his thoughts, enlisting all his energies. To the accomplishment of this task he subordinated every other consideration, devoting to it all his time, his great talents, and his varied learning. His unceasing vigilance was equal to all the devices and strategy of the enemy, who, baffled at one point and retreating to another, was still pursued and pressed and scourged. He met boldness with boldness, audacity with firmness, and sophistry with the principles of eternal truth. The battle was long-continued and often waged with apparently unequal forces, but SUMNER faltered not; he had counted the cost from the beginning and had an abiding faith that, with the God of Freedom on his side, complete and enduring 70

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. victory was only a question of time; and, strengthened and animated by that faith, he was willing to bide that time. Victory came, as God willed it should come, amid war, and fire, and blood, amid the convulsive throes of a nation struggling for existence; it came while unnumbered graves were being filled with the sad remains of some of the best and bravest of our countrymen; and that victory is forever embedded as with adamant in the Constitution in these words of living light: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Thus was the monster slain; and amid his death-struggle, and his dying groans, four millions of the victims of his power rose, unshackled and unfettered, and with prayers and songs of thanksgiving praised the God of Freedom for their deliverance. Slavery was destroyed and freedom obtained, but SUMNER saw that freedom was not secure without equality of rights, and he at once addressed himself to the duty devolving upon the statesman as an inevitable consequence of the recent struggle.

This portion of our history is so freshly engraven on the public mind that a mere allusion to it is all-sufficient. The removal of odious disabilities incident to the law of slavery, the granting of civil rights to those recently emancipated, and the conferring upon them political privileges and franchises, were events which followed each other in rapid and natural succession. But these acts were not accomplished without serious and closely-contested struggles, for the prejudices engendered by slavery did not die with slavery, and in all these struggles SUMNER was a most prominent and a most able leader. As “equality before the law” was the leading principle of his whole life, so it most naturally and fitly engrossed his dying moments, and almost his last words on earth were an injunction to a valued friend, “Take care of my civil-rights bill.” 7i

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ADDRESS OF MR. RAINEY ON THE With such a life, filled with such deeds, is it a wonder that his death has called forth such universal regret and sympathy? Is it a wonder that the colored man, whose cause he served so well and for whose rights he struggled so successfully, should be among the first at his death-bed and among the last at his grave? Is it a wonder that throughout the land the colored men should “regard his death with all the bitterness of a personal bereavement,” and “owe to his memory a lasting debt of gratitude?” Is it a wonder that in the lowly dwellings of the freedmen tears of bitterness should course down the furrowed cheeks of the former slave, who perchance was never permitted to look upon his face, but who remembers his benefactor and teaches his children to reverence the name and fame of CHARLES SUMNER? Mr. Speaker, years ago New England’s poet of freedom addressed to the memory of a colaborer in freedom’s cause words which can appropriately be repeated on this occasion: “0 loved of thousands! to thy grave, Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee; The poor man and the rescued slave Wept, as the broken earth closed o’er thee; And grateful tears, like summer rain, Quickened its dying grass again! And there, as to some pilgrim shrine, Shall come the outcast and he lowly, Of gentle deeds and words of thine, Recalling mnemories sweet and holy!”

ADDRESS OF AMR. FAINEY, OF SOUTH’AROLINA. Mr. SPEAKER: Not long since we were called upon to lay aside our accustomed duties of legislation to participate in the mournful procession that signalized the departure of the distinguished statesman and philanthropist who has been summoned before the bar of our 72

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. final Judge. We have again halted to pay further tribute to his memory and intrinsic worth. The announcement of the death of CHARLES SUMNER, late Senator from the State of Massachusetts, sent a thrill of sorrow and cast a shade of melancholy gloom over this country more pervading in its general effects than any similar event since the assassination of the lamented Lincoln. Language such as I have at my command is too imperfect and feeble to convey in adequate terms the high esti mation in which he was held, or to express fully and feelingly the depth of grief his demise has occasioned. Men and women mourn his loss and shed the tear of regretful sadness, not only in large cities and their palatial dwellings, occupied by the learned and wealthy, but in villages and hamlets, upon farms and the distant plantations of the South; into the cabins of the unlettered and the lowly be reavement found its way, bowing the hearts of all in mournful lam entation for this irreparable loss. Mr.

SUMNER, in name and deeds, is known, revered, and esteemed by all classes of our people. The remarkable and noble battles of argument and eloquence which he has fought in the Senate in behalf of the oppressed, have enshrined him in the hearts of his countrymen, millions of whom never beheld his majestic form, nor heard his deep and impressive voice-that voice which at no time indulged silence wher the cause of the downtrodden and the enslaved was the issue. Early in life Mr. SUMNER espoused the cause of those who were not able to speak for themselves, and whose bondage made it hazardous for any one else to venture a word in their behalf. No one knew the danger and magnitude of such an undertaking better than the deceased. Public sentiment at that time was opposed to his course; ostracism confronted him; friends forsook him; but, undaunted and full of courage, he pursued the right, sustained his convictions, and lived longenough to see the fruition of his earnest labors. He was among the first to arouse the Commonwealth of his beloved 73

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ADDRESS OF MR. RAINEY ON THE Massachusetts to consider the justice and equity of mixed schools. The blows he gave were effectual; the separating walls could not withstand them; they consequently tottered and fell. The doors of the school-houses flew open to all; prejudice was well-nigh consumed by the blaze of his ardent eloquence, and proscription gave way to more liberal views. It was upon his motion that the first colored man was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States.

These remarks are made to show that the cause of my race was always foremost in his mind; indeed, he was a friend who in many instances stuck closer than a brother. He was one of those who never slumbered upon his lance, but stood ever watchful for the opportunity to hurl the shaft of his forensic powers against the institution of slavery. The forum, the platform, and the legislative hall bear equal testimony to his untiring zeal and determined opposition thereto. The barbarities and atrocities of slavery, through the aid of his giant mind, were brought to the attention of the American people and the world in a manner and style hitherto unknown. He was God’s chosen advocate of freedom and denouncer of the crime of the “peculiar institution” which blurred the fair record and threatened ultimately to destroy the growing fame of his country. So attractive, instructive, and inviting was his mode of argument, that even those who opposed him most strenuously were constrained to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” his utteranees. This was doubtless owing in a great measure to his rare talents and acquirements, and the splendid opportunity he enjoyed of speaking to the country. Mr. SUMNER was a patriot of no ordinary rank. He was a lover of his country, the whole country, in the broadest and the most comprehensive signification of the term. Whatever he did to hinder the extension of slavery or to hasten the day of its final abolition, was based not upon hatred or antipathy to the South, but upon a conviction that it was not only wrong to humanity, but an accursed blot 74

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. upon the escutcheon of the Republic.

He knew full well that it would tarnish the beauty of its history; therefore he felt the duty pressing to combat it. In a word, he did not hate the South nor the slaveholder, but he hated and detested slavery. His desire was that the South as well as the North should share in the real grandeur of this republican empire. He was aware that the impartial historian could not complete his task so long as slavery existed, unless the pen, as it were, was dipped in human blood; the thought of which to him was revolting. 0 that the South had heeded his admonition and let the oppressed go free! As a statesman, Mr. SUMNER may have allowed his zeal to outrun his discretion, and thus made mistakes. “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” It was evident, however, that his errors ever leaned to the side of justice and humanity. He could not comprehend any fundamental law that did not embrace in its provisions the cause of the poor and the needy; consequently his construction of the Constitution differed in many essential particulars from that put upon it by other statesmen, who were less liberal in their opinions and more partial and biased in their judgment. He was strong to his convictions, faithful to duty, and true to his country. How appropriate are the following lines in tracing his active and useful life; “Stanch at thy post, to meet life’s common doom, It scarce seems death to die as thou hast died; Thy duty done, thy truth, strength, courage tried, And all things ripe for the fulfilling tomb! A crown would mock thy hearse’s sable gloom, Whose virtues raised thee higher than a throne, Whose faults were erring Nature’s, not his own, Such be thy sentence, writ with Fame’s bright plume, Amongst the good and great; for thou wast great In thought, word, deed-like mightiest ones of old Full of the honest truth, which makes men bold, Wise, pure, firm, just; the noblest Roman’s state Became not more a ruler of the free Than thy plain life, high thoughts, and matchless constancy.” 75

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ADDRESS OF MR. RAINEY ON THE Compared to his admirers, Mr. SUMNER’S circle of intimate friends was not very numerous. Only a few genial spirits imparted to him social pleasure and mental enjoyment. He found his chief delight in the companionship of books and the study of the fine arts. But with this rare appreciation for the classic and the artistic he possessed, in an astonishing degree, the faculty of adapting himself to social intercourse with those whose attainments were not commensurate with his own. He was always willing to receive such as visited him seeking counsel or advice, without regard to present circumstances or former condition.

His friendship, when formed, was sincere and advantageous. I did myself the honor to call upon him occasionally, not as often, however, as I felt inclined, for I knew that his time was valuable, not only to himself, but to his country. Never did I call but I found him glad to see me and ready to lay aside constantly-exacting duties and engage in such conversation as invariably resulted in my being benefited. It was very perceptible that the aim and bent of his master mind was to elevate to true manhood the race with which I am particularly identified. I can never forget, so long as I have the faculty of recollection, the warm and friendly grasp he gave my hand soon after I was admitted a member of this House. On my first visit to the Senate he said, “I welcome you to this Chamber. Come over frequently; you-have rights here as well as others.” During his senatorial career, embracing a period of twenty-three years, he has contended for a moral principle against enemies more daring and intrepid, perhaps, than any other man has encountered in the same space of time. This principle was to him more dear than life itself. His conscientious conviction that slavery was a national crime and moral sin could not endure tamely assertions to the contrary. He heeded not the menacing denunciations of those “who eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.”

Their execrations could not move nor intimidate him. Finding 76

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. these instruments of wickedness could not deter him or turn the keen edge of his argument, he was brutally and cowardly assaulted in the Senate Chamber, in I856, by Preston S.

Brooks, a Representative from South Carolina. This occurred a few days after his masterly effort setting forth the “Crimes against Kansas.” Mr.

Speaker, that unprovoked assault declared to the country the threatening attitude of the two sections, one against the other, and awakened a determination on the part of the North to resist the en croachments of slavery. The unexpressed sympathy that was felt for him among the slaves of the South, when they heard of this unwarranted attack, was only known to those whose situations at the time made-them confidants. Their prayers and secret importunities were ever uttered in the interest of him who was their constant friend and untiring advocate and defender before the high court of the nation. Mr. Speaker, it is said that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” With equal truthfulness and force, I think, it may be said that the blood of CHARLES SUMNER, spilled upon the floor of the Senate because he dared to oppose the slavepower of the South and to interpose in the path of its progress, was the seed that produced general emancipation, the result of which is too well known to need comment. It spoke silently but effectively of the cruelty and iniquities of that abominable institution. Notwithstanding that dastardly assault, his valor was not cooled, neither was his determination abated to resist the advancing steps of that power which was the source of so much distraction to the Republic and disgrace to the nineteenth century. Sir, I believe in a Providence that shapes events and controls circumstances. His hand is most conspicuously seen in the life and death of the lamented Senator. Though he was a martyr to the cause of freedom and universal liberty, he nevertheless lived long enough to see the struggles of his eventful public life crowned with victory, and the broken shackles of the slave scattered at his feet before he was gathered to his fathers. 77

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ADDRESS OF MR. RAINEY ON THE T’he emancipated and enfranchised will pay grateful homage to his memory in life, and, dying, bequeath the name of him who was their benefactor as a befitting one for the reverence and adoration of posterity. “Farewell! if ever fondest prayer For others’ weal availed on high, Ours will not be lost in air, But waft thy name beyond the sky.” Mr. Speaker, the intentness of his thought on the subject of his mission, for which, apparently, he was born, clung to him to the ebbing moments of his life. When weary and longing for rest) having his eyes fixed upon that “mansion not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,” and just preceding his final step over the threshold of time into the boundless space of eternity, he uttered, in dying accents, yet with an eloquence more persuasive and impressive than ever, these words: “Do not let the civil-rights bill fail!” How remarkable the connecting incidents of his history! This is particularly apparent when we recall the fact that he began as an advocate of human rights, continued, through an eventful career, the same, and closing his last hours on earth, facing the judgment-seat of the very God, he looked back for a moment and repeated these words, which will be ever memorable, Do NOT LET THE CIVILRIGHTS BILL

FAIL!” This sentence, we trust, will prove more potent and availing in securing equality before the law for all men than any of his former efforts. This is not the proper time, neither is the occasion propitious, for further comment on that dying appeal. I therefore with trembling hands and a grateful heart lay it gently in the lap of the muses, that it may be wrought into imperishable history as an additional evidence of his sincerity in life and his devotion to the grand principle of equal rights even in the embrace of death. He can never be repaid for the services he has rendered the Republic. - No 78 I

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. libation, adoration, or sacrifice can equal the beneficence and magnitude of the services he has rendered his country and mankind. As for my race and me, his memory will ever be precious to us. We will embalm it among the choicest gems of our recollection. Yes; “Let laurels, drenched in pure Parnassian dews, Reward his memory, dear to every muse, Who, with a courage of unshaken root, In honor’s field advancing his firm foot, Plants it upon the line that Justice draws, And will prevail or perish in her cause. ‘Tis to the virtues of such men man owes His portion in the good that Heaven bestows.”

Now, sir, my grateful task is done. This humble but heartfelt tribute I lay at the base of the broken column in token of him who was an eminent statesmen, renowned philanthropist, and devoted friend to the friendless.

“May he rest in peace.” ADDRESS OF AMR. ])AWES, OF JMASSACHUSETTS. Mr.

SPEAKER: It is from no lack of eulogy or tribute already fitly spoken by stricken Massachusetts that I seek to be heard on this occasion. But, longer than any other of her Representatives here at the Capitol, it has been my good fortune to have been associated with Mr. SUMNER in the public service and to stand by him as a colleague in the representation of that State. He had served a full term in the Senate when I entered this House more than seventeen years ago. I had met him here in his very first session, which was in fact the commencement of his public life; for that public life, when measured by the limitation of years, began and ended with his service as a Senator of the United States from Massachusetts. No man can justly estimate that great public career which has so suddenly and sadly closed, who fails to comprehend the times which 79

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ADDRESS OF MR. DAWES ON THE gave it birth and the events out of which its grand proportions have been rounded into matchless perfection and power.

How much they developed him, and he them, belongs to the historian and biographer and not to the eulogist. The life and times of CHARLES SUMNER
will be a chapter in the world’s history, standing out all alone and by itself. To the latest day that it will be read of men there will be found in it nothing ordinary, but, from its inception to its close, everything was cast in a mold which had no prototype, and on a scale by which nothing else has been measured. If we go back from the grand consummation to the beginning, there will be found the same extraordinary conditions which have attended every step of his great career upward and onward to its end.

He had never held public office till he entered the Senate Chamber in December, i851. Calhoun had died in the previous year, and both Clay and Webster in the year which followed. As Mr. SUMNER entered the arena made illustrious by the great struggles of the giants of that day, and sought his own position in coming conflicts, Mr. Benton said to him: “You have come upon the stage too late, sir; all our great men have passed away. Mr.

Calhoun and Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster are gone. Not only have the great men passed away, but the great issues too, raised from our form of government, and of deepest interest to its founders and their immediate descendants, have been settled also. The last of these was the National Bank, and that has been overthrown forever. Nothing is left you, sir, but puny sectional questions and petty strifes about slavery and fugitive-slave laws involving no national interests.” How limited is human vision! The great men, and the then great issues with which they wrestled, filled, as they were receding from his view, the whole horizon of a statesman whose own participation in public affairs covered in that very forum the unparalleled period of thirty years. But as men sometimes build better than they know, 80

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. so more often do they build in a way and tread a path they know -not of. Calhoun, and Clay, and Webster, did, indeed, pass away. But the sun which seemed to set with them rose again, almost simulta neously, with a new and a grander glory. And there was no night. Seward and Chase and SUMNER stood up in the places made vacant by those mighty intellects. And issues more momentous and far reaching than ever before confronted statesmanship sprung up under their very feet, and out of the ashes of struggles vainly supposed to have become extinct. The world’s history furnishes no parallel to the pages which shall truthfully chronicle the character and consequences of the conflicts into which slavery and fugitive-slave laws hurled the nation almost from the hour of this lamentation over repose. And the young Sen ator from Massachusetts had no occasion to wait for opportunity. He was summoned to the very front of the conflict, and, without hesitation or delay, took the position which conviction of duty as well as public exigency assigned him. If, therefore, it had been permitted to Mr. SUMNER, standing at the goal and looking back along the years of his labor, with all that increased knowledge and wider experience, that wealth of philanthropy and expansion of heart which crowned his last days-had it then been permitted him tochoose, could he have selected a moment more fit or crowded with grander opportunities for the enlistment of his vast and varied powers than the one which called him to his work? Hardly had he entered upon it before he received upon his own person the concentrated malignity of that barbarous system of society with which he grappled, in blows the effects of which never left him, but which, failing to silence, consecrated him to the sublime mission he so grandly filled. That work thus begun had many phases, and led him along many ways which sometimes, for the moment, seemed devious, and which ofttimes’compelled him to invoke instrumentalities pronounced doubt 81

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ADDRESS OF MR. DAWES ON THE ful by the bystander. But all the while it grew upon his hands-it broadened and it deepened-towering above and dwarfing all other work which fell to the lot of other statesmen. Grand in its very simplicity, sublime in its very comprehensiveness, it enlisted the noblest aspirations of the statesman and lifted his whole being into an atmosphere and life and vigor all his own. ABSOLUTE HUMAN EQUALITY
secured, assured, and invulnerable, was the work to which with a baptism of blood and suffering he consecrated all his powers, all his life, and all his hopes. In that work he himself grew great. Around about it, as a center, all the attributes of his mind and elements of his character, called into active service and put to constant task, were developed, till like the one muscle of the blacksmith’s right arm they attained a growth and strength unlike all others. He was an eloquent man. But through all his rhetoric gleamed the battle-ax, cleaving the chains of the slave and beating down the hoary head of caste. His orations were not set with diamonds nor decked with flowers, but they thundered along the unbending track of logic irresistible and crushing. They had one purpose, the consummation of his life-work, and he in them marshaled the whole artillery of rhetoric and of speech for the assault. Learning he acquired as no other man in public lifebut he-devoted it all to this his one great struggle; and while he levied upon ancient lore and modern research alike for illustration, for argument, for admonition, and for encouragement, it was only as for so many recruits to the forces he commanded in a life-campaign against human bondage. Thus it is that his public addresses, with few exceptions, stand as monuments, both of his own power as an orator and of the transcendent work to which his whole life had been set apart. Yet on those rare occasions when he permitted himself as if in relaxation to indulge in current debate or in popular address, he has left ample evidence that his mind was richly endowed with all those rare gifts 82

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. of oratory which have in all times charmed, instructed, and swayed the popular mind. Some of these orations are masterly productions, of wide-spread fame. To speak of the work itself to which Mr. SUMNER set apart his life, and for which he laid it down, would be to attempt not only the history of his country from his entrance into public life to the hour when his labors ceased, but also that of human rights and human equality the world over. This cannot be attempted here. Happily it is not needed to complete the duty of the hour. That work, once derided, denounced, scoffed at, and spit upon, has now conquered all opposition and to-day commands a support well nigh universal. There remains no forum in which its justice is debated, and no home or heart so lowly that its efficacy does not reach it. It was not permitted him to see the formal enactment of a civil-rights bill he had so long labored and waited for. But he knew that this key-stone of the grand arch was already fitted to its place. What he suffered, what he sacrificed, what he lifted and carried to the end of all things on earth to him, in the hope that his own work might be completed by his own hand, cannot now be put in words. I have said that Mr. SUMNER was sometimes misunderstood. I speak not now of that common lot of public men which subjects them to the misrepresentations and denunciations of opponents often as indiscriminate as unjust. There is a more trying ordeal, when the vision of frienzds becomes dim, and familiar faces turn away for a time in doubt and distrust. Then the statesman who is faithful to his convictions will wait patiently and silently in the path of duty till, the mist lifting and the light breaking in, the blinded see again the outline of that pathway and hail anew his advancing footsteps. Thus recently his own beloved Commonwealth, proud and long-trusting as she is, yet for a moment losing her vision in a bewildering twilight, turned her face away from Mr.

SUMNER and his work. Not a word of complaint fell from his lips. Conscious of a lofty and noble aspi 83

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ADDRESS OF MR. POTTER ON THE ration, and with an unfaltering faith that time would bring him vindication, he waited patiently for the dawn of a brighter day and the opening of a clearer vision. They came at last, but only just in time to save her, in this her day of mourning, the added pang of unatoned injustice. I have no space to speak of those varied accomplishments, that wealth of knowledge, and that kindliness of heart which were the charm of his social life. But I desire to put on record my deep obligations for an unbroken friendship of seventeen years, begun in a common public service, and interrupted only by that great event which has alike crushed private friendships and social ties, and brought irreparable loss upon the public service, the country and mankind. Mr. SUMNER reared his own monument and has left it complete. It will stand peerless through all the ages that free government and human equality shall exist on the earth. An enslaved race, lifted to freedom, to citizenship, and to equal rights, will crown it with the garlands of fresh effort and victorious struggle toward a completed manhood. The Commonwealth whose son he was, and whose commission he bore, will cherish tenderly his memory, and point proudly to the name which is at once history and inspiration. - DDRRSS OF
jMR. POTTER, OF AEW TORK. Mr. SPEAKER: But that I have been requested to do so, I should be unwilling to detain the House by adding any words of mine to the general expression of regret at the great national loss we all so deeply deplore. My acquaintance with Mr. SUMNER, sir, only began during the Forty-first Congress. I was never intimate with him. But when I 84

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. first met him he spoke to me of my father, whom he had known, with such warmth and feeling as always endeared him to me. I sometimes had the pleasure of seeing him at my house, sometimes of visiting him at his. Those great powers and acquirements which made him so distinguished in public life, united with his large experience, ripe learning, and varied cultivation to make him charming in private life. To me he seemed never more so than in his own house, where he had collected about him so many souvenirs of travel and of taste, and was surrounded by so much that was best in literature and art and culture.

His grand presence, his manners, always, so far as I observed, dignified but courteous, his recollections rich in knowledge of books, of men, and of events, his independence of thought and gifts of expression, all served to make me recall him as one of the most distinguished and impressive men it was ever my privilege to meet. Mr. SUMNER began public life with strong convictions; convictions in which he was supported by the sympathy of his people and the action of his State. They were convictions that brought him into bitter and long-continued conflict with the leading men of the daya conflict which ended only with the changes wrought by the late civil war, and the intensity of which may well have tended to limit the nature and range of his efforts and services. That throughout this conflict he bore himself earnestly, boldly, andefficiently, with an entire devotion to his convictions and an honorable disregard of personal consequences, even those who differed from him admit; and that in the end he was not wanting, either in a large liberality or in a magnanimity alike generous and wise, all should gratefully remember. With Mr. SUMNER’S training and powers there were many walks of usefulness and success open to him; but he preferred giving up the profession he had so well begun, to devote himself through life to the public service. After long years of arduous and important labor he died, leaving behind him but a slender estate, having received for all his services no other reward than the good he had achieved and the 85

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ADDRESS OF MR. POTTER ON THE honor which attended it. Although he founded and built up a great and successful party, no man ever accused him of profiting by his pursuit of politics. His name was connected with no job, mixed with no share in doubtful profits, stained by no scandal. Called away suddenly in all the fullness of his powers, so that the very day before his death he seemed to me as grand, as useful, and as genial as ever, he left public life as he entered it, with clean hands and unsullied name. Such service is always patriotic and useful. But as the country increases, and its numbers and interests become greater and more conflicting, the need for men of intelligence and culture willing to give their attention to public affairs without personal profit increases also.

In a small and sparse community government is easy; but when numbers grow great and men crowd upon each other, so that each must surrender to others some portion of his natural rights, the difficulties of government begin.

With our increasing wealth and growing population and crowded cities and varied industries, our need of men willing and able to permanently devote themselves, without hope of gain, to the duties of government, becomes yearly more and more pressing. All of that this distinguished man did.

With a fidelity worthy of every praise, with a diligence not exceeded by any man in public life, for more than twenty years he gave up his great powers and learning and acquirements to the public service with a purity, a zeal, and an ability which, however men may differ as to the soundness or breadth of his views, entitle him to the honor and the praise of all, whatever their political faith, who respect patriotic and distinguished service. For, Mr. Speaker, in a nation so vast as this men must needs differ, and differ widely, in respect of government; and the citizen who gives to the nation his best service, according to the light that he has, does all that is permitted to him, and deserves, indeed, well of his country. 86

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. Mr. SUMNER’S share in public life was during a time of conflict and revolution, followed happily by peace and almost general material prosperity; but followed, too, by circumstances which call now, as much, perhaps, as ever, for large and statesmanlike qualities, for careful consideration of the true principles of government and of those changes in our system which the altered political and physical condition of the country have made necessary. That great Commonwealth which so honored him, and which he so long and so faithfully represented, will, indeed, be fortunate if she shall find other sons ready to worthily bear up the torch this great Senator held so long aloft to light the way for the national progress, and which at the last he let fall only with his life. DDRESS OF AMR. FELLEY, OF PENNSYLVANIA. Mr.

SPEAKER: When, on the 4th of July, i86i, I first took the oath of office as a member of Congress, my then venerable colleague, the late Thaddeus Stevens, was the acknowledged leader of the House. He had been a life-long foe to slavery; and such was his hostility to the spirit of caste, that he was unwilling that his protest against it should terminate with his life, and by provisions in his will directed that his body should be interred in an obscure cemetery in the suburbs of the city he had so long represented, and that his resting-place should be marked by a simple stone bearing these characteristic words: “I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural preference for solitude, but finding other cemeteries limited by charter rules as to race, I have chosen it that I might be enabled to illustrate in my death the principles which I have advocated throughout a long life-equality of man before his Creator.” Owen Lovejoy, whose moral heroism had long commanded my 87

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ADDRESS OF MR. KELLEY ON THE admiration, was the member of the House for whose name I listened with most interest when the roll was called, that I might see the person of him who had with such burning eloquence defied the slavepower in this House and elsewhere. John P. Hale and CHARLES SUMNER
were then in the Senate, from which William H. Seward and Salmon P. Chase had recently withdrawn-the former to enter upon the duties of the office of Secretary of State, and the latter upon those of Secretary of the Treasury. None of them are now among the living; each, having closed the work appointed to him, has gone to his reward. Great and good as these men were, they were not faultless. He who had been would not have been a man.

But the world is better for the life of each of them. Their labors and example improved our moral and political atmosphere, and though they have been withdrawn from our presence, their influence is scarcely less potent now than it was when they responded to the call of President Lincoln, and in their respective spheres devoted themselves to the maintenance of the Army and Navy that were to suppress the rebellion and invest with all the rights pertaining to American citizenship the lowliest slave in the land.

Mr. SUMNER was the last survivor of this illustrious group. He hoped for the early passage of a bill the provisions of which should enable all men to maintain and enforce their civil rights as the completion of their joint life-work. Had he lived to see such a bill enrolled among our statutes he might well have expressed the completeness of his gratification in the often-quoted exclamation of Simeon of old. How conspicuous a part Mr. SUMNER took in the legislation of Congress during his long senatorial career others have told. It was such as had been permitted to few men, and yet I have often thought that he would have more largely affected the sentiment and conscience of the country had he never been involved in the active and exhausting duties of the Senate. It has seemed to me that he was too much 8

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. devoted to letters and too intensely wedded to abstract sentiment to be either an influential statesman or a successful politician; that he was too cosmopolitan in his statesmanship to influence current policies, and too little of a politician to be a successful statesman. The readiness with which he accepted broad and generous proposi tions, which in terms promised beneficent results, led him to disre gard the influence of details which in the complicated web and woof of human life often thwart the application of general laws; and I have never doubted that the prevalence of his theories of trade and finance-free-trade and the limitation of the medium of exchange to a volume of paper-money so restricted that it might ever be inter changeable with gold would, while paralyzing the energy of the North, have reduced the plantation hands of the South to a degra dation in freedom from which the interests of their owners had protected them in slavery. They are the policies which have been applied by England to British India, and which, by destroying its ancient and diversified industries, have from time to time depopulated its most fertile districts by famine and the diseases consequent upon long-continued hunger. As a teacher-through the press, the forum, and the rostrum-Mr. SUMNER’S illustrations of great principles would have been free from the suspicion of partisanship and he unembarrassed by the personal strife which is-inseparable from a parliamentary career. Permit me in support of this suggestion to refer to but two of his early addresses, each of which produced controlling and life-long impressions on my mind. It is now nearly thirty years since I read an occasional address by Mr. SUMNER, which had been delivered on the 4th of July, I845, before the municipal authorities of the city of Boston.

His subject was “The true grandeur of nations,” and I think it is not saying too much to express the belief that the power and amplitude of illustration with which he treated the subject did much to prepare the 89

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ADDRESS OF MR. KELLEY ON THE people of Great Britain and the United States for the settlement by arbitration rather than by trial of battle of the difficulties that grew out of our late civil war. The discussion of his theme was purely abstract; it was free from party bias or personal allusion, and well calculated to captivate the mind of every generous youth into whose hands it might come. The other instance to which I refer occurred but a few years later, when Mr. SUMNER appeared before the supreme court of Massachusetts, December 4, i849, as counsel for Sarah C.

Roberts, a colored child but five years old, who by her next friend had sued the city of Boston for damages on account of a refusal to receive her into one of the public schools. The question as stated by him was, “Can any discrimination on account of color or race be made under the constitution and laws of Massachusetts among the children entitled to the benefit of our public schools?” In opening his argument he said to the court: “This little child asks at your hands her personal rights. So doing, she calls upon you to decide a question which concerns the personal rights of other colored children; which concerns the fundamental principles of human rights; which concerns the Christian character of this community. Such parties, and such interests, so grand andvaried, may justly challenge your most earnest attention.” Close as was the legal argument and ample as were the authorities cited, the speech was read most widely by the unprofessional public, and the freedom from caste which characterizes the schools of the young States of the Northwest may be largely ascribed to the influence of this argument presented to a bench of judges in Massachusetts. Let me bring it anew to the attention of the public by making a brief citation or two, which may be read with profit in the practical discussions of our day: “As the State receives strength from the unity and solidarity of its citizens without distinction of class, so the school receives new strength go.

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. from the unity and solidarity of all classes beneath its roof. In this way the poor, the humble, and the neglected share not only the com panionship of their more favored brethren, but enjoy also the protec tion of their presence, in drawing toward the school a more watchful superintendence. A degraded or neglected class, if left to themselves, will become more degraded or neglected. To him that hath shall be given; and’the world, true to these words, turns from the poor and outcast to the rich and fortunate. It is the aim of our system of public schools, by the blending of all classes, to draw upon the whole school the attention which is too apt to be given only to the favored few, and thus secure the pooortheirportion ofthe fruitful sunshine. But the colored children placed apart by themselves are deprived of this blessing. “May it please your honors, such are some of the things which it has occurred to me to say in this important cause. I have occupied much of your time, but I have not yet exhausted the topics.

Still, which way soever we turn, we are brought back to one single proposition, the equality of men before thze law. This stands as the mighty guardian of the rights of the colored children in this case. It is the constant, ever-present, tutelary genius of this Commonwealth, frowning upon every privilege of birth, upon every distinction of race, upon every institution of caste. You cannot slight it or avoid it. You cannot restrain it. It remains that you should welcome it. Do this, and your words will be a’charter and freehold of rejoicing’ to a race which has earned by much suffering a title to much regard. Your judgment will become a sacred landmark, not in jurisprudence only, but in the history of freedom, giving precious encouragement to all the weary and heavy-laden wayfarers in this great cause. Massachusetts will then through you have a fresh title to regard, and be once more, as in times past, an example to the whole land.” But, Mr. Speaker, grand and inspiring as were the utterances of Mr. SUMNER, he has left to the youth of our country a heritage more precious even than they in the story of his daily walk in life, the excellence of his habits, his untiring industry, his love of art, poetry, sentiment, and in the noble aims for which he lived. gi

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ADDRESS OF MR. NESMITH ON THE ADDRESS OF JMR. ~ESM1TH, OF PREGON. Mr.

SPEAKER: To the tributes inspired by personal and political friendship which are paid to the memory of the illustrious dead, permit me to add a word expressive of my respect for and appreciation of the man. Possibly the little I have to say will be entitled to the more consideration from the fact that whatever I may speak in praise comes from an opponent who for six years served with CHARLES SUMNER in the other end of the Capitol without having entertained a political sentiment in common with that great man. I can say that through all this opposition he commanded my respect, and in some instances my admiration. I recognized in him an embodiment of New England’s high sense of duty. He always appeared to me a pure, singlehearted, earnest man. While lacking the enthusiasm that comes of generous impulse, the intense earnestness of his nature produced a quality so like it that the substitute was often accepted. What was fanaticism in others appeared from his cultivated, high position as patriotism, and, although a refined John Brown, he threw about his efforts such a charm of learning, such graces of rhetoric, that it seems a wrong to class him with the coarse fanatic who molded into bullets the feelings and words the orator uttered in the Senate. John Brown was CHARLES SUMNER reduced to practical action, and both represented the rock-ribbed and iron-bound land where duty takes the place of impulse. I am unacquainted with the early history of CHARLES SUMNER, beyond the outline of his public career, estimating him as I did from a stand-point that made me almost impartial.

I have always been impressed with the belief that much of his marked advocacy of equal rights grew out of his personal experience. Dr. Johnson tells us that 92

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. “in a majority of instances cruelty is but another name for ignorance.” A man therefore to appreciate oppression, as CHARLES SUMNER seemed to do, must have felt keenly the wrongs of oppression. We know that upon his first appearance in public life he took up the cry of the oppressed that found words in his last utterances. We know that this was brought home to him in the saddest and most painful manner during his career in the Senate before the war, and I am of the opinion that it was his experience long before he entered public life. We all know that there is no part of the globe where caste has a more iron rule than in New England, and I can well imagine the early struggles of a sensitive and cultivated mind against its despotism. He had a quality for which the world never gave him credit, and that was high courage. He fought bravely the social tyranny he suffered from in his own land, and he fought with still higher courage what to him was the cruelist despotism known to humanity, and as he fought his earnestness grew more intense. It was not that he felt for the downtrodden negro whose cause he advocated, but that his manhood resented the cruel injustice of a dominant class. And here, sir, I wish to call attention to that quality in Senator SUMNER that is in him so little understood or appreciated. He came to the Senate of the United States the avowed avocate of the slave, and the uncompromising, bitter opponent of the master. Entirely alone, backed up by no great party, unaided by a solitary voice of friendship, he bearded the lion in his den. At that time, sir, it was not considered even respectable to be such an advocate, and the man who voluntarily thrust himself into such a position made the tender of open hostility to nearly all the rest of his countrymen, while he carried his own life in his hand.

You may call this the foolhardiness born of fanaticism, but I recognize in it an example of moral and physical courage combined such as the world has rarely witnessed. 93

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94 ADDRESS OF MR. NESMITH ON THE Physical courage is an inherent quality in the most of our race, and there are but few men who would not prefer to mount the deadly breach or march to the cannon’s mouth rather than suffer the reproaches, the contempt, the obloquy, and the scorn of their countrymen. CHARLES SUMNER led the forlorn hope in practically facing all these dangers combined. We must all remember who have read, and certainly no one can forget who witnessed the scene, the chivalrous effort that led to an assault upon him in his seat in the Senate Chamber. A gentleman, belonging to the democratic party, who happened to be upon the floor of the Senate at the time, tells me that it was almost melodramatic in its effect. In that great historic hall of eloquence, the old Senate Chamber, there were present the assembled legislative wisdom of the nation, and while all appeared calm and peaceful, underlying this smooth and placid exterior was that deadly animosity which a few years later culminated in the most sanguinary civil war that a nation ever experienced. When CHARLES

SUMNER addressed the President, he must have felt all that the scowling eyes and sneering lips conveyed to him. If he looked around for sympathy or support, it was to find a few cowering friends utterly appalled at his audacity; and yet he was as cool, self-possessed, and brave as if he bad at his back an army of supporters. His audacity, manly person, youthful appearance, and courage won for him sympathy akin to admiration from his enemies, shown in the profound attention they gave to his bitter utterances and stinging invective. Those who witnessed the scene, or have read of it, remember the storm of wrath and indignation that was poured out upon the head of the young Senator, and we know how he arose again and again with undaunted courage to repel the attack. And subsequently to this scene, so feebly described, another manifestation of this sublime quality of high physical courage was exhib

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. ited when he was subjected to the most severe and excruciating surgical tortures, and bore them with the uncomplaining fortitude and stoical indifference of the North American savage. Let us, then, Mr. Speaker, give him our admiration for the high qualities of which in public estimation he has been so long deprived.

Learned, eloquent, pure, and earnest, he had not, in my estimation, any claims to statesmanship. This is shown by the fact that he closed his public career at the very moment he secured a triumph of his own all-engrossing idea some ten years since. The fanatical reformer is seldom a builder; the image-breaker cannot replace the image he destroys. Of all that little band who from the first led the forlorn hope which ultimately effected the organization of a great political party, not one was found capable of guiding or controlling it. They turned their command over to more practical minds than CHARLES SUMNER’S-to men so eminently practical, that they not only rebuilt for others, but remarkably well for themselves.

It is curious, sir, to look about me and see men now in command of that party that CHARLES SUMNER created, who while he was in the minority denounced him as a fanatic, an abolitionist, an enemy of good order, of his country, and of mankind, but who now exceed his utterances in their screams for refused rights. Their conversion was probably his most marvelous achievement. But, sir, had he possessed the statesman’s creative power, he was too pure a man for the politics of our day and generation.

In his high position it was not possible for him to be the paid advocate; it was not possible for him to be the associate of men who, while waving the banner of freedom with one hand, stole from the public Treasury with the other. Why, sir, he was so pure and singlehearted that he could not even understand such characters. Differing as I honestly and heartily did with Mr. SUMNER upon the great issues out of which his fame grew, I feel it incumbent upon myself to say that, while my own opinions upon those questions 95

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ADDRESS OF MR. NESMITH ON THE remain at variance with his, I concede to him an honesty of purpose in urging his peculiar theories with a pertinacity unparalleled in our political history. Defeat strongly inspired him with renewed energy; and when the popular vote of the nation, as it did at times, condemned him and his cause, he, pheenix-like, arose from the ashes of defeat to advocate with fresh ardor and invigorated courage the “equality of the races before the law.” His courage was of a higher order than that inspired by mere brute force. He adhered to his theories through contumely, adversity, and disgrace; and when the results of his labors, his sufferings, and his courage elevated those who had defamed and despitefully used him from obscurity to power, he bore their renewed reproaches with but slight retaliation or complaint. In my humble estimation Mr. SUMNER never appeared to greater advantage than when he magnanimously proposed in the Senate that the achievements of our gallant troops in an intestine war should be obliterated from their flags. An envious and malignant man would have desired to see our southern brethren humiliated by the emblazonment of their disasters upon that proud banner which we all as American citizens desire to hail as the emblem of a great and united nationality. The evil passions growing out of the war had become so furious and unreasoning as to cause his own State to condemn his generous impulses upon that subject; but I thank God that his last moments on earth were cheered with the rescinding resolutions of the representatives of a people, themselves the descendants of rebels, who felt, upon sober second thought, what was due to a people who had gallantly risked their lives in their adherence to what they conceived to be the principle that “all just government is derived from the consent of the governed.” His familiarity with English history had demonstrated to him the folly of perpetuating hatreds and sanguinary reminiscences in a people who, in the nature of things, should be homo 96

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. geneous. In the latter part of his life he gave evidence of his abhorrence of white political slavery no less than that which per tained to the African. Mr. Speaker, inexorable death has claimed CHARLES SUMNER as his own, and the grave has closed over his mortal remains. We shall never in our generation look upon his like again, simply because there are no surroundings to develop such a character. The freedom of the African is assured, and it now remains the highest duty of the statesman to assure the freedom of the citizen. “Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war;” and the man who by persistent direction of peaceful agencies converts a na tion of politicians to his views is as much entitled to the triumphal arch as is the mere soldier who, by the unreasoning power of brute force, completes a victory with the sword and points to the hecatomb of the slain as his passport to power.

The saddest thing about CHARLES SUMNER’S life, to me, is that he survived himself-that he lived to see other men occupying the proud positions and wielding the power he had created, with no higher motive prompting them than the self-aggrandizement to be found in wealth. I have only hinted at his faults, few as they were. I have no heart to dwell upon his failings.

He had the egotism of genius and the impatience of fanatical conviction.

He may be said to have lived alone, never knowing pleasant companionship, and meeting the world only to be flattered and admired or to be fought.

His, however, were faults we can readily forget, and failings we are willing to forgive. He is gone from among us. His chair in the Senate, to which all eyes were turned when any great question agitated that grave body, will never be filled by a public servant more pure in his motives, more elevated and courageous in his action, or truer to his convictions.

Let us keep his virtues in remembrance. May his monument be of spotless marble, for it cannot be purer or whiter than his life. 97

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98 ADDRESS OF MR. G. F. HOAR ON THE DDRESS OF AR. fP. F. J4OAR, OF

MASSACHUSETTS. Mr. SPEAKER: I should prefer to leave this theme to those of my colleagues who have been longer and more conspicuous in the public service. But the community which I represent was bound to our great Senator by a tie closer, I think, than that of any other. In the city of Worcester he first publicly devoted himself to the great cause to which his life was consecrated. From that day to his death, for more than twenty-five years, through his eventful career, through all the obloquy and strife and hatred which it was his lot to encounter, that people have loved and honored him, scarcely ever divided from him in judgment, never in principle, never in affection; and it seems to me fitting that in this season of funeral sorrow and of funeral triumph its voice should not be silent. CHARLES SUMNER’S public life was spent in one place the Senate Chamber, and was devoted to one cause-the equality of all men before the law. For that arena and that great argument his first forty years must be considered only as preparation. He came to manhood, leaving Harvard with the best training his native State had to bestow. He was a model of manly beauty and of manly strength, attracting the eye in every assembly, capable of great athletic feats, and able to sustain tihe most severe and continuous study. To the best American training he added what foreign travel could give. He mastered the principal modern languages, and formed intimacies with the distinguished men of Europe, especially with those of his own profession. He became a learned lawyer, editing the twenty volumes of Vesey, jr., himself reporting the decisions of his friend Judge Story, and contributing many original essays to the American Jurist. His great native powers of oratory, the indispensable instruments of his future service, he trained and manifested by numerous public addresses, in which, thus early, he unfolded the

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. principles and opinions from which he never swerved. The full vigor of his intellect he retained till his death. But that magnetic eloquence which inspired and captivated large masses of men as he molded the lessons of history, the ornaments of literature, the commandments of law, human and divine, into his burning and impassioned plea for the slave, belonged only to his youth. He never fully regained it after the assault upon him in the Senate Chamber. His vast learning and retentive memory were a marvel. I remember in my boyhood hearing an eminent scholar style him the encyclopaedia of Boston. He was familiar with all heroic literature. His style, without much variety, reminded you of some of the statelier passages of Burke, whom in person he resembled, resembling also in its affluence of citation that “field of the cloth of gold,” the prose of John Milton. Old men who had trod the highest paths of fame recognized the promise of the youth and sought his companionship. Probably no young man in America ever counted such a host of illustrious friends. Among them were Kent, the greatest modern writer on jurisprudence, (unless we join Kent himself in preferring Story,) and De Tocqueville, that wisest of Frenchmen, who has understood the institutions of America better than any man since the men who builded them, and from whom SUMNER received that maxim in which he delighted: “Life is neither a pain nor a pleasure, but a serious business, which it is our duty to carry through and to terminate with honor.” Among them were some still alive, famous in poetry, in letters, and in science, whose unfailing affection cheered the darkest hours of his life. Among them were four-John Pickering, the illustrious scholar, whom SUMNER called the leader in the revival of learning in America, comparing him to Erasmus-Washington Allston, Story, and Channing-whom he commemorated in that wonderful oration of eulogy, in which, taking them as representatives and examples, he set forth the four …. -, 99

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IOO ADDRESS OF MR. G. F. HOAR ON THE ideals which he kept ever before his own gaze-knowledge, justice, beauty, love. Such was CHARLES SUMNER when he was called to choose his side in the great battle of which our nation was to be the scene. Never did hero, martyr, or saint choose more bravely or worthily. The party to which he had belonged, dominant for a generation in Massachusetts, was just wresting the national authority from the grasp of its ancient rival. The victory of either was the victory of slavery.

Turning his back on the victors, he chose the conquered cause. Fond of power, fitted for its exercise, he chose the side of weakness. Surrounded by wealth, he chose the cause of the poor. Rich in friends, he became the defender of the friendless. Favorite of that cultivated society, his great heart went out in sympathy for the ignorant and degraded slave. He joined himself to a small political association, not strong enough to carry three districts in the country, who made opposition to slavery the cardinal doctrine of their creed. The indignation of Massachusetts at the passage of the compromise measures of 185o, especially the fugitive-slave bill, for which the whig administration of Millard Fillmore was responsible, enabled the free-soil party, combining with the democratic minority, to elect Mr. SUMNER to the Senate, where he took his seat in i85i. From that time forth he was the undoubted leader of the political opposition to slavery. His speeches stirred the public heart and conscience to their depths, and were the arsenal from which the most effective arguments were drawn. The sure instinct of slavery did not err when it recognized him as its implacable foe. At last a man had come to the Senate to whom the ideal higher law was real; on whom threats and blandishments alike were lost; who would not buy popularity or office; who would not buy success for his party, or even safety and prosperity for his country, by injustice. There was no mistake about him. The minions of tyranny sought eagerly for his destruction, thinking that with .. e. -

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. him the new-born movement for freedom would perish. But, fools and blind, they saw not that the eternal forces were behind him. They thought if they could but silence that bugle-note, the music of liberty would die out over the land. They thought if they could but strike down that sentinel on the ramparts, the awakening nation would turn itself again to its long sleep. They thought if they could but stifle the clarion voice of the herald of the day, the morning itself would not dawn. The secret of CHARLES SUMNER’S power lay in two qualities which he impressed on this people in larger measure than any other man of his timel-is conisci,ntiousness and his faith. Others, a good many, equaled him in eloquence; others, a few, equale’d him in scholarship. But he alone was the interpreter of the conscience of this people. To every proposition he applied the inexorable test-is it right?

Is it absolutely just? Unless his puritanic sense of rectitude was satisfied he would not yield. No argument of political expediency, no; whisper of administrative caution, no deference to associates, no regard for venerated authorities, no consideration of fitness of occasion, no fear for himself, would induce him to abate one jot of his indignant denunciation. With this trait he could not be other than the life-long foe of slavery. There was no optimism in his nature. He never turned his gaze away from evil, or looked on it but to hate it and to strike it. But in the darkest days of war, or those darker days worse than war, when slavery ruled, he never lost his sublime faith in the triumph of justice, truth, equality, wrought out in the Republic by the power of a free people. This secret of his power and the rule of his public life will be found in two of his own sentences, one almost the opening sentence in his first great public discourse, the other which I heard him utter toward the close of life in a debate on the civil-rights bill, that great and crowning measure of justice, in care for which he forgot himself in the very hour of death.

“Never aim at aught which is not right, 101

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ADDRESS OF MR. G. F. HOAR ON THE persuaded that without this every possession will become an evil and a shame.” “Trust the Republic, and the ideas which are its strength and safety.” No eulogy of CHARLES SUMNER will be complete which leaves out his faults. When common men die we may invoke the adage, “vil de mortuis nisi bonum,” or utter that sadder cry of human frailty, “yam parce sepulto.” But of this man we can say the whole truth.

Two grave defects marred the symmetry of his moral and intellectual nature. The first was a certain want of proportion or perspective in his mental vision, which made him exaggerate the evil or good qualities of men whom he had occasion to blame or praise, or the importance of measures with which he was concerned. In saying this we should not forget how often time has brought round the popular judgment to his own. The other was a graver fault. In him the egotism often fostered by a long senatorial career seems to have been natural. He possessed an inordinate confidence in his own judgments. He was intolerant of difference or of opposition. It was hard for men his equals in station, themselves accustomed to respect, conscious of equal desire for the general welfare, to submit to his impatient and imperious criticism. What he saw he seemed to himself to see with absolute clearness and certainty. He could not understand the state of mind of a man who did not see it as he did. But this, his greatest fault, was a protection to him in the warfare in which he was engaged.

Imagine Mr. SUMNER in Washington from I85i to i857, almost alone, an object of general hatred, receiving by nearly every mail threats of violence and assassination, possessed with a modest distrust of his own convictions, and exhibiting an amiable deference to the opinions of other people! Nothing but the absolute certainty of his confidence in his cause and in himself could have sustained him in those years of obloquy and peril. I have spoken of his injustice to his associates and his intolerance I02

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. IO3 of opposition. But the harshness and bitterness with which for the time being he spoke of men who opposed the measures he had at heart; he never felt toward mere personal antagonists. I may surprise some persons who have not carefully studied Mr. SUMNER, but I am sure of the assent of those who knew him best, when I declare that he was as free as any man I ever knew from personal hatreds, and that his lofty and generous nature was absolutely incapable of revenge. Let the man whom he considered to have most wronged him, or to have most wronged the Republic, but unite with him heartily in any cause which was dear to him, and the bitterest estrangements were forgotten. Who shall say that he thought more highly of himself than he deserved; that he demanded for himself or his opinion greater consideration than would now be accorded to them by the judgment of mankind? In the words of that fine sentence of the Ethica of Aristotle, applied by the English historian to the younger Pitt, “He thought himself worthy of great things, being in truth worthy.” There was at least nothing petty or mean in these traits.

They were the foibles of a lofty and noble nature. “To his own self not always just, Bound in the bonds which all men share; Confess the failings as we must, The lion’s mark is always there.” At any rate there he was to be seen and known of all men. There was no secrecy in his nature. He was the soul of truth. His public and his private life corresponded. Of one thing those who love him are secure. History will lay bare no secret which will tarnish the whiteness of his fame. His correspondence, his conversation, the secrets of his chamber, may be made known to mankind. No intrigue, no dissimulation, no artifice, no selfish ambition, no impure thought or act shall be found. “Whatever record leap to light, HAe never shall be shamed.”

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IO4 ADDRESS OF MR. G. F. HOAR ON THE He was hearty and generous in his friendships. No man took greater delight in other men’s services to freedom or rewarded them with a more precious and bountiful commendation.

To receive his praise for any service to human liberty was like being knighted by Cceur de Lion or Henry V on the field of battle. He said lately that the happiest period of his life was when he was a student at law. The time of the close of the war must have been equally so. He had seen the great desire of his life fulfilled. The eyes which had ached with sorrow and with toil had gazed upon the glory and the beauty of the harvest. The martyr of free speech, the solitary and despised champion of liberty, had lived to be the honored leader of the Senate. The friendship and confidence of Lincoln, who knew and loved the noble nature of the man; the gratitude of the American people, the recollection of great tasks successfully achieved, the affection of hosts of friends, the expectation of new and most congenial employments in the country’s service, the enjoyments of literature, the resources of art-everything that could adorn, everything that could delight the remainder of a life scarce past its vigorous prime, seemed to be his. But fate ordered it otherwise. The voice of duty, obeyed at prime, called him to new sacrifices and new strifes until the end. The last morning on which he came to the Senate Chamber, to the inquiry of a friend who met him, he answered: “I am tired, tired.” As I heard of it just afterward, I thought of a sentence in that magnificent opening passage of his first great discourse, in which he seems to dedicate himiself to the service of the Republic: “We must not fold our hands in slumber, nor abide content with the past. To each generation is committed its peculiar task; nor does the heart which responds to the call of duty find rest except in the grave.” Ah, heart, so dauntless and so tender, well hast thou kept that early vow! Ever responding to the call of duty, from the day when Massachusetts gave thee to thy country in the fullness of thy youthful promise, till

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. that saddest moment when we saw thee borne cold in death from the portals of the Capitol, thou hast known no rest. At last thy country gives thee back to thy native Commonwealth, to sleep in her holy pilgrim soil with the kindred dust of the sons, many and brave, who have well obeyed the lesson she taught them in their youth-with Samuel Adams, and Otis, and the elder and the younger Quincy, and John Adams and his illustrious son. Like them, he learned at her knees the lessons of liberty. Like them, he encountered hatred and strife and peril.

Like them, he lived to see the seed he had sown bearing its abundant harvest, and, like theirs, his grateful country shall preserve his fame.

“For the memorial of virtue is immortal, because it is known with God and with men. When it is present, men take example at it, and when it is gone they desire it; it weareth a crown and triumpheth forever, having gotten the victory, striving for undefiled rewards.” DDRESS OF AR. ONIGER, OF;ICHIIGAN. Mr. SPEAKER: The true analysis of human character requires profound knowledge, extensive research, and the most critical judgment of any subject that commands the attention ofthe human mind. Great names on the pages of history shine ever with their own unborrowed light. Eulogy cannot add to their glory, detraction cannot dim their luster. The ostracism of one generation may be supplemented by adoration of another.

The scorn and derision of one age may merge in devotion and reverence in those that follow, and the very implements of disgraceful torture may become sacred symbols of devout faith to myriad followers. Yet all this while the true character of the individual had remained unchanged; his life in all its relations to the world in which he moved had been rounded, perfected, finished; and 105

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ADDRESS OF MR. CONGER ON THE it held its place in the grand living panorama of the world’s progression, unaltered and unalterable. Seldom, if ever, can the then present age be so free from the errors of prejudice or partiality as to warrant confidence in the accuracy of its judgments or the correctness of its conclusions. If such suggestions are forcible regarding the great names of history whose achievements were illustrated by mere physical endurance or personal daring, with what modesty should we venture to delineate the character and motives of that illustrious citizen who in one and the same age, the same generation, and among the same people, has been the object of unlimited hate, of boundless veneration!

CHARLES SUMNER, in the fullness and perfectness of his character, would have been impossible in any other age, among any other people, in any other phase of human civilization. - He was cast in the mold of these times, imbued with the spirit of this age, but enriched with the learning of the world; of great moral courage, commanding presence, intense individuality, his personality and self-estimation almost offensive, his tenacity of will bordering upon obstinacy, influenced little by the tender emotions of human nature, but a devout worshiper of abstract truth and right, and a fearless champion in their defense whenever and wherever occasion arose. For the marvelous changes in our civilization to which he was to contribute his very faults were necessities, his very failings were indispensable, his pride and egotism and self-assurance were fundamental elements of his success. His lack of personal sympathy and emotional affection left room and place for all humanity. For him, insult and injury sanctified the cause which he defended; opprobium and scorn hallowed the theories which he had espoused, and had imbued with his own intense personality. Common truths were enlarged to immortal grandeur in his vision, when adorned with the gems of his eloquence and surrounded with the halo of his learning. io6 i I

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. A servile and degraded race were to him kings and priests, so soon as he became the champion of their rights and had thrown over them the banner of his protection. His own pathway was illuminated by the light of his intense individuality, and all who traveled with him along that royal road were clothed in purple, and all who went by other ways were groping in darkness. Governments and people, working out the problem of their growth otherwise than by his elaborated plan, were rushing madly to ruin. Constitutions and laws lacking the absolute assertion of the grand truths of humanity were in his eyes a delusion and a snare. To him the absolute equality of all human beings on the plane of civil and political rights left no place for partiality; no room for prejudice. The vast world was to become the abode of enfranchised millions. The revelations from Heaven and the arcana of nature alike shadowed forth the universal disenthrallment of humanity, and he gloried in the belief that he was the recognized apostle of liberty. All things conspired to strengthen such a conviction-the admiration of friends, the persecution of enemies, the stern devotion of the puritan, the intense hatred of the chivalry, the boundless confidence of the oppressed, and the scorn of the dominant race. Even his personal peculiarities strengthened this belief. His commanding presence, the grand intonations of his far-sounding voice, the triumphant utterance of his splendid sentences, the almost barbaric display of literary wealth gleaned from all languages and gathered from all lands, the triumphal progress of his high-sounding oratory, the imperial consciousness of his right to the throne, and even the jealousy that would brook no rival near that throne, all around him and all within conspired to assure him that he was appointed and anointed the grand high priest of the changing civilization and renovated institutions of this marvelous era of American history. Io7

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ADDRESS OF MR. CONGER ON THE True to that conviction, to the fixed belief in his calling and destiny, he lived and labored and died. Whatever his faults, whatever his failings, he never faltered, he never wavered. In small things and in great, every occasion found him ready, and every opportunity was a renewal of his devotion. Mr. Speaker, nearly twenty years have passed since I first met Mr. SUMNER. He had been sojourning for a fortnight in the iron mountains of Marquette, and came from the forest to the steamer to go up Lake Superior to the head of the lake. As we passed from the harbor Mr. SUMNER said that for two weeks he had seen no newspapers, and was ignorant of all that had transpired in the outer world during that time. I had the pleasure of giving him the last dailies from the principal cities of the Union. As he glanced over the pages his attention became fixed, his eye kindled, he hurried from paper to paper, looking hastily in each, and then went for his portfolio and prepared to write. He looked at the clock, went out upon the deck, inquired the name of a rocky island we were then passing, and wrote, folded, and directed a letter. It was a beautiful Sabbath morning in summer. The waters of the lake mirrored the rocky outline of Granite Island and the mountains on the mainland. The scenery was beautiful, the air delicious, the passengers joyous. The newspapers which Mr. SUMNER had received were full of records of the whole busy world. ” But none of these things moved him.” He had learned from the newspapers that one comparatively obscure but noble man was languishing in prison in a Christian country, on the Christian Sabbath, for refusing to obey the behests of slavery and refusing to oppress the slave; and then and there Mr. SUMNER wrote to Passmore Williamson in prison, that thrilling letter which not only cheered the prisoner in his cell, but electrified the Christian world. 108 I f i i

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. But I will not dwell longer on such illustrations. To recount them would be to repeat the history of his life.

Nor will I further eulo gize the Great Commoner of the nation. Whether in intellect and genius he will rank among the more or the less gifted of the world’s bright spirits, none will deny to him the proud position of usefulness and faithfulness to which he devoted his life. For him to have been either too high or too low, too great or too small, would alike have unfitted him for the grand achievements of his distinguished career. It has been said that along our Pacific coast the light-house should not be placed on the lower headlands that receive the shock of the incoming wave, lest the waves should sweep away the foundations, and the fog-bank and the mist-wreath should too often obscure the beacon and conceal the warning light from the eyes of the imperiled mariner; nor on the overlooking mountain’s height, where the mountain and the pharos would alike be encompassed by the brooding storm-clouds of those higher altitudes; but midway of these extremes, in that serene mid-region between the counter air-currents-those that sweep the ocean and the shore below, and those that uphold the cloudy firmament above. Thus, it may be, that along the borderland of human destiny he who shall have wrought the grandest benefit to humanity may have neither the warm affections and tender emotions that cluster around the homelier walksof life, nor yet the transcendent genius of him “Who on mind’s high steep can stand And marshal with his sceptered hand The whirlwind and the cloud; Can write his name too deep a dye In lightning’s traces on the sky.” )DDRESS OF AR. PHILLIPS, OF A(ANSAS. Mr.

SPEAKER: I shall say but little, since no words I could utter would add to the fame of the illustrious statesman. And yet I *..*. ..,*e ees e eee*

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IIO ADDRESS OF MR. PHILLIPS ON THE come to offer a humble tribute to his memory from old free Kansas. The State I have in part the honor to represent, in its early struggles for existence and freedom, elicited the warmest sympathy of CHARLES SUMNER, and called forth from him some of the grandest parliamentary efforts that dignified the history of the Government. His great speech on the Crime against Kansas was not only animated by that spirit of lofty philanthropy which ever came naturally from his great, magnanimous heart, but was thrilled through and through with the highest conception of popular liberty in America. That speech, too, entailed on him long years of suffering, and was doubtless the means of prematurely depriving his country of services she ill could spare, and the world of a life as eminent as it was pure. In the history of the past twelve years, among the galaxy of great men who may be styled the fathers of our second revolution; the men who when the storms beat and the winds blew, when the timid were timid and the faithless faithless, seized the very misfortunes and weaknesses which threatened the Government, and hewied them into the foundation-stones of a reconstructed Republic-among these men six names stand in bold relief: SUMNER, CHASE, LINCOLN, STEVENS, SEWARD, STANTON, and they are all gone. They did their share of the work ably and fearlessly, and God Almighty blessed them in this, that ere they died they hadthe privilege of seeing pieace and liberty clasp hands across a regenerated continent. SUMNER was one of the best types of our public men. A scholar so ripe, an orator so eloquent, that as orator or scholar we may justly feel proud of him as the peer of any orator or scholar of any country or any time; a statesman who squared his political principles by the fundamental maxims of right and wrong; a politician whose sympathies were with the downtrodden and the weak, and who gave to humanity rather than to party; a gentleman withal, whose life was so dignified and pure that even his enemies never dared with the breath of slander to sully his fame. i I z .1… - -. - - ,, III

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LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLES SUMNER. Some men are great actors; others eminent for executive ability; others are great thinkers. Among the latter no one was more emi nent than CHARLES SUMNER. He seized the fresh but crude ideas as they floated up from the public mind, and molded them into sym metry. Always clinging to the fundamental maxims of equality and right, when dangers threatened the edifice that is the safeguard for the security and liberty of forty millions of people, he substituted jus tice as a political foundation, instead of expediency, and gave to the Declaration of Independence fresh life and better application. Ours is a government of the people. We all feel most acutely the necessity that the public pulse shall beat in unison with the outer and inner life of all our politics. He who aspires to this duty has a double task; to appreciate and mold public sentiment, and then to lead it. In both, CHARLES SUMNER was eminent. He stood like another Moses before the people. The public mind was oppressed with danger, and part of it befogged with prejudice. Old Constitution theorists had peddled their doctrines at every cross-road in the country. Many true men wavered, when SUMNER, standing with his compatriots and, like the ancient prophets, seizing the rod directly from the hands of God Almighty, the rod of eternal justice, smote it upon the troubled waters and bade the murmuring people “Go forward!” I Step by step they led them higher, higher, step by step, until, on the top of another Mount Pisgah, they, amid the uncertainties, the storm, and the darkness, saw the promised land of future American politics stretched out for the feet of a progressive people. When Mr. SUMNER spoke he spoke not only to the Senate Chamber-the Republic was his auditorium. His speeches went forth freighted with the best life and thoughts of the time; went forth to the whole country, to arouse a universal interest and provoke a universal utterance. His sudden death was not the extinction of a life, but its apothe I I I

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ADDRESS OF MR. PHILLIPS. { osis. His monument is built in the history of his country. To-day we stand reverently before the great dead, while all the shadows of conflicting opinion and the bitterness of partisanship have melted away. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn. The motion was agreed to; and accordingly the House adjourned. I I 2

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