Famous American Statesmen

For six months the measure was debated. Clay came daily to the Senate chamber, so ill he could scarcely walk, but determined to save the Union. "Sir," said the grand old man, "I have heard something said about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance… Let us go to the fountain of unadulterated patriotism, and, performing a solemn lustration, return divested of all selfish, sinister, and sordid impurities, and think alone of our God, our country, our conscience, and our glorious Union… If Kentucky to-morrow unfurls the banner of resistance unjustly, I never will fight under that banner. I owe a paramount allegiance to the whole Union, – a subordinate one to my own State. When my State is right, when it has a cause for resistance, when tyranny and wrong and oppression insufferable arise, I will then share her fortunes; but if she summons me to the battlefield, or to support her in any cause which is unjust against the Union, never, never will I engage with her in such a cause!"

Finally the Compromise Bill of 1850 was substantially adopted. Among its several provisions were the admission of California as a free State, the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, the organization of the Territories of New Mexico and Utah without conditions as to slavery, and increased stringency of the Fugitive Slave Laws.

Mr. Clay's hopes as to peace seemed for a few brief months to be realized. Then the North, exasperated by the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Bill, by which all good citizens were required to aid slave-holders in capturing their fugitive slaves, began to resist the bill by force. Clay could do no more. He must have foreseen the bitter end. Worn and tired, he went to Cuba to seek restoration of health.

In 1852 he was urged to allow his name to be used again for the presidency. It was too late now. He returned to Washington at the opening of the thirty-second Congress, but he entered the Senate chamber but once. During the spring, devoted friends and two of his sons watched by his bedside. He said: "As the world recedes from me, I feel my affections more than ever concentrated on my children and theirs."

The end came peacefully, June 29, 1852, when he was seventy-six. On July 1 the body lay in state in the Senate chamber, and was then carried to Lexington. In all the principal cities through which the cortege passed, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and others, thousands gathered to pay their homage to the illustrious dead, weeping, and often pressing their lips upon the shroud. On July 10, when the body, having reached Lexington, was ready for burial, nearly a hundred thousand persons were gathered. In front of the Ashland home, on a bier covered with flowers, stood the iron coffin. Senators and scholars, the rich and the poor, the white and the black, mourned together in their common sorrow. The great man had missed the presidency, but he had not missed the love of a whole nation. The "mill-boy of the Slashes," winsome, sincere, had, unaided, become the only and immortal Henry Clay.

CHARLES SUMNER

Henry Ward Beecher said of Charles Sumner: "He was raised up to do the work preceding and following the war. His eulogy will be, a lover of his country, an advocate of universal liberty, and the most eloquent and high-minded of all the statesmen of that period in which America made the transition from slavery to liberty."

"The most eloquent and high-minded." Great praise, but worthily bestowed!

Descended from an honorable English family who came to Massachusetts in 1637, settling in Dorchester, and the son of a well known lawyer, Charles Sumner came into the world January 6, 1811, with all the advantages of birth and social position. That he cared comparatively little for the family coat-of-arms of his ancestors is shown by his words in his address on "The True Grandeur of Nations." "Nothing is more shameful for a man than to found his title to esteem not on his own merits, but on the fame of his ancestors. The glory of the fathers is, doubtless, to their children, a most precious treasure; but to enjoy it without transmitting it to the next generation, and without adding to it yourselves, – this is the height of imbecility."

Sumner added to the "glory of the fathers," not by ease and self-indulgence, not by conforming to the opinions of the society about him, but by a life of labor, and heroic devotion to principle. He had such courage to do the right as is not common to mankind, and such persistency as teaches a lesson to the young men of America.

Charles was the oldest of nine children, the twin brother of Matilda, who grew to a beautiful womanhood, and died of consumption at twenty-one. The family home was at No. 20 Hancock Street, Boston, a four-story brick building.

Charles Pinckney Sumner, the father, a scholarly and well bred man of courtly manners, while he taught his children to love books, had the severity of nature which forbade a tender companionship between him and his oldest son. This was supplied, however, by the mother, a woman of unusual amiability and good-sense, who lived to be his consolation in the struggles of manhood, and to be proud and thankful when the whole land echoed his praises.

The boy was tall, slight, obedient, and devoted to books. He was especially fond of reading and repeating speeches. When sent to dancing-school he showed little enjoyment in it, preferring to go to the court-room with his father, to listen to the arguments of the lawyers. When he visited his mother's early home in Hanover, he had the extreme pleasure of reciting in the country woods the orations which he had read in the city.

In these early days he was an aspiring lad, with a manner which made his companions say he was "to the manor born." The father had decided to educate him in the English branches only, thus fitting him to earn his living earlier, as his income from the law, at this time, was not large. Charles, however, had purchased some Latin books with his pocket money, and surprised his father with the progress he had made by himself when ten years old. He was therefore, at this age, sent to the Boston Latin School. So skilful was he in the classics that at thirteen he received a prize for a translation from Sallust, and at fifteen a prize for English prose and another for a Latin poem. At the latter age he was ready to enter Harvard College. He had desired to go to West Point, but, fortunately, there was no opening. The country needed him for other work than war. To lead a whole nation by voice and pen up to heroic deeds is better than to lead an army.

All this time he read eagerly in his spare moments, especially in history, enjoying Gibbon's "Rome," and making full extracts from it in his notebooks. At fourteen he had written a compendium of English history, from Cæsar's conquest to 1801, which filled a manuscript book of eighty-six pages.

His first college room at Harvard was No. 17 Stoughton Hall. "When he entered," says one of his class-mates, "he was tall, thin, and somewhat awkward. He had but little inclination for engaging in sports or games, such as kicking foot-ball on the Delta, which the other students were in almost the daily habit of enjoying. He rarely went out to take a walk; and almost the only exercise in which he engaged was going on foot to Boston on Saturday afternoon, and then returning in the evening. He had a remarkable fondness for reading the dramas of Shakespeare, the works of Walter Scott, together with reviews and magazines of the higher class. He remembered what he read, and quoted passages afterwards with the greatest fluency… In declamation he held rank among the best; but in mathematics there were several superior. He was always amiable and gentlemanly in deportment, and avoided saying anything to wound the feelings of his class-mates." One of the chief distinguishing marks of a well bred man is that he speaks ill of no one and harshly to no one.

In Sumner's freshman year his persistency showed itself, as in his childhood, when, in quarrelling with a companion over a stick, he held it till his bleeding hands frightened his antagonist, who ran away. By the laws of the college, students wore a uniform, consisting of an Oxford cap, coat, pantaloons, and vest of the color known as "Oxford mixed." In summer a white vest was allowed. Sumner, having a fancy for a buff vest, purchased one, wore it, and was summoned before the teachers for non-conformity to rules. He insisted, with much eloquence, that his vest was white. Twice he was admonished, and finally, as the easiest way to settle with the good-principled but persistent student, it was voted by the board, "that in future Sumner's vest be regarded as white!"

In scholarship in college he ranked among the first third. He gave much time to general reading, especially the old English authors, Milton, Pope, Dryden, Addison, Goldsmith. Hazlitt's "Select British Poets" and Harvey's "Shakespeare" he kept constantly on his table in later life, ready for use. The latter, which he always called The Book, was found open on the day of his death, with the words marked in Henry VI: —

"Would I were dead! if God's good will were so;

For what is in this world but grief and woe?"

On leaving college, Sumner's mind was not made up as to his future work. He was somewhat inclined to the law, but questioned his probable success in it. He spent a year at home in study, mastering mathematics, which he so disliked, and reading Tacitus, Juvenal, Persius, Hume, Hallam, and the like. In the winter he composed an essay on commerce, and received the prize offered by the "Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge." Daniel Webster, the president of the society, gave the prize, Liebner's "Encyclopædia Americana," to Sumner, taking his hand and calling him his "young friend." He did not know that this youth would succeed him in the Senate, and thrill the nation by his eloquence, as Webster himself had done.

Sumner's class-mates were proud that he had gained this prize, and one wrote to another, "Our friend outstrips all imagination. He will leave us all behind him… He has been working hard to lay a foundation for the future. I doubt whether one of his class-mates has filled up the time since commencement with more, and more thorough labor; and to keep him constant he has a pervading ambition, – not an intermittent, fitful gust of an affair, blowing a hurricane at one time, then subsiding to a calm, but a strong, steady breeze, which will bear him well on in the track of honor."

In the fall of 1831 Sumner had decided to study law, and began in earnest at the Harvard Law School. Early and late he was among his books, often until two in the morning. He soon knew the place of each volume in the law library, so that he could have found it in the dark. He read carefully in common law, French law, and international law; procured a common-place book, and wrote out tables of English kings and lord-chancellors, sketches of lawyers, and definitions and incidents from Blackstone. He made a catalogue of the law library, and wrote articles for legal magazines. He went little into society, because he preferred his books. Judge Story, a man twice his own age, became his most devoted friend, and to the end of his life Sumner loved him as a brother.

Chief Justice Story, whom Lord Brougham called the "greatest justice in the world," was a man of singularly sweet nature, appreciative of the beautiful and the pure, as well as a man of profound learning. The influence of such a lovable and strong nature over an ambitious youth, who can estimate?

The few friends Sumner made among women were, as a rule, older than himself, a thing not unusual with intellectual men. He chose those whose minds were much like his own, and who were appreciative, refining, and stimulating. Brain and heart seemed to be the only charms which possessed any fascination for him.

The eminent sculptor, W. W. Story of Rome, says, "Of all men I ever knew at his age, he was the least susceptible to the charms of women. Men he liked best, and with them he preferred to talk. It was in vain for the loveliest and liveliest girl to seek to absorb his attention. He would at once desert the most blooming beauty to talk to the plainest of men. This was a constant source of amusement to us, and we used to lay wagers with the pretty girls that with all their art they could not keep him at their side a quarter of an hour. Nor do I think we ever lost one of these bets. I remember particularly one dinner at my father's house, when it fell to his lot to take out a charming woman, so handsome and full of esprit that any one at the table might well have envied him his position. She had determined to hold him captive, and win her bet against us. But her efforts were all in vain. Unfortunately, on his other side was a dry old savant, packed with information; and within five minutes Sumner had completely turned his back on his fair companion and engaged in a discussion with the other, which lasted the whole dinner. We all laughed. She cast up her eyes deprecatingly, acknowledged herself vanquished, and paid her bet. Meantime, Sumner was wholly unconscious of the jest or of the laughter. He had what he wanted – sensible men's talk. He had mined the savant as he mined every one he met, in search of ore, and was thoroughly pleased with what he got."

In manner Sumner was natural and sincere, friendly to all, winning at the first moment by his radiant smile. A sunny face is a constant benediction. How it blesses and lifts burdens from aching hearts! Sumner had heart-aches like all the rest of mankind, but his face beamed with that open, kindly expression which is as sweet to hungering humanity as the sunshine after rain. And this "genial illuminating smile," says Mr. Story, "he never lost."

These days in the law school were happy days for the lover of learning. Forty years afterward, Mr. Sumner said, in an address to the colored law students of Howard University, Washington, "These exercises carry me back to early life… I cannot think of those days without fondness. They were the happiest of my life… There is happiness in the acquisition of knowledge, which surpasses all common joys. The student who feels that he is making daily progress, constantly learning something new, – who sees the shadows by which he was originally surrounded gradually exchanged for an atmosphere of light, – cannot fail to be happy. His toil becomes a delight, and all that he learns is a treasure, – with this difference from gold and silver, that it cannot be lost. It is a perpetual capital at compound interest."

While at the law school, Sumner wrote a friend, "A lawyer must know everything. He must know law, history, philosophy, human nature; and, if he covets the fame of an advocate, he must drink of all the springs of literature, giving ease and elegance to the mind, and illustration to whatever subject it touches. So experience declares, and reflection bears experience out… The lower floor of Divinity Hall, where I reside, is occupied by law students. There are here Browne and Dana of our old class, with others that I know nothing of, – not even my neighbor, parted from me by a partition wall, have I seen yet, and I do not wish to see him. I wish no acquaintances, for they eat up time like locusts. The old class-mates are enough." To another he wrote, "Determine that you will master the whole compass of law; and do not shrink from the crabbed page of black-letter, the multitudinous volumes of reports, or even the gigantic abridgments. Keep the high standard in your mind's eye, and you will certainly reach some desirable point… You cannot read history too much, particularly that of England and the United States. History is the record of human conduct and experience; and it is to this that jurisprudence is applied… Above all love and honor your profession. You can make yourself love the law, proverbially dry as it is, or any other study. Here is an opportunity for the exercise of the will. Determine that you will love it, and devote yourself to it as to a bride."

When the study at the law school was over, Sumner returned to Boston, and entered the office of Benjamin Rand, Court Street, a man distinguished for learning rather than for oratory. The young lawyer succeeded fairly well, though he loved study better than general practice. Two years later he gave instruction at the law school when Judge Story was absent, and then reported his opinions in the Circuit Court, in three volumes. He assisted Professor Greenleaf in preparing "Reports of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of Maine," revised, with much labor, Dunlap's "Admiralty Practice," and edited "The American Jurist."

In the midst of this hard work he spent a brief vacation at Washington, writing to his father, "I shall probably hear Calhoun, and he will be the last man I shall ever hear speak in Washington. I probably shall never come here again. I have little or no desire ever to come again in any capacity. Nothing that I have seen of politics has made me look upon them with any feeling other than loathing. The more I see of them the more I love law, which, I feel, will give me an honorable livelihood."

When he visited Niagara, he wrote home, "I have sat for an hour contemplating this delightful object, with the cataract sounding like the voice of God in my ears. But there is something oppressive in hearing and contemplating these things. The mind travails with feelings akin to pain, in the endeavor to embrace them. I do not know that it is so with others; but I cannot disguise from myself the sense of weakness, inferiority, and incompetency which I feel."

When Sumner was twenty-six, he determined to carry out a life-long plan of visiting Europe, to study its writers, jurists, and social customs. He needed five thousand dollars for this purpose. He had earned two thousand, and, borrowing three from three friends, he started December 8, 1837. Emerson gave him a letter of introduction to Carlyle, Story to some leading lawyers, and Washington Allston to Wordsworth. Judge Story said in his letter, "Mr. Sumner is a practising lawyer at the Boston bar, of very high reputation for his years, and already giving the promise of the most eminent distinction in his profession; his literary and judicial attainments are truly extraordinary. He is one of the editors, indeed, the principal editor, of 'The American Jurist,' a quarterly journal of extensive circulation and celebrity among us, and without a rival in America. He is also the reporter of the court in which I preside, and has already published two volumes of reports. His private character, also, is of the best kind for purity and propriety."

His friend Dr. Lieber gave him some good suggestions about travelling. "Plan your journey. Spend money carefully. Keep steadily a journal. Never think that an impression is too vivid to be forgotten. Believe me, time is more powerful than senses or memory. Keep little books for addresses. Write down first impressions of men and countries."

Just before Sumner started from New York, he wrote to his little sister, Julia, then ten years old, "I am very glad, my dear, to remember your cheerful countenance… Let it be said of you that you are always amiable… Cultivate an affectionate disposition. If you find that you can do anything which will add to the pleasure of your parents, or anybody else, be sure to do it. Consider every opportunity of adding to the pleasure of others as of the highest importance, and do not be unwilling to sacrifice some enjoyment of your own, even some dear plaything, if by doing so you can promote the happiness of others. If you follow this advice, you will never be selfish or ungenerous, and everybody will love you."

To his brother George, six years younger than himself, he wrote, "Do not waste your time in driblets. Deem every moment precious, – far more so than the costliest stones… Keep some good book constantly on hand to occupy every stray moment."

As soon as Sumner reached Paris he devoted himself to the study of the language, so as to be able to speak what he could write already. He attended lectures given by the professors of colleges, became acquainted with Victor Cousin, the noted writer on morals and metaphysics, and the friend of authors, lawyers, and journalists. He said, years later, in an eloquent tribute to Judge Story: "It has been my fortune to know the chief jurists of our time in the classical countries of jurisprudence, – France and Germany. I remember well the pointed and effective style of Dupin, in one of his masterly arguments before the highest court of France; I recall the pleasant converse of Pardessus, to whom commercial and maritime law is under a larger debt, perhaps, than to any other mind, while he descanted on his favorite theme; I wander in fancy to the gentle presence of him with flowing silver locks who was so dear to Germany, Thibaut, the expounder of Roman law, and the earnest and successful advocate of a just scheme for the reduction of the unwritten law to the certainty of a written text; from Heidelberg I pass to Berlin, where I listen to the grave lecture and mingle in the social circle of Savigny, so stately in person and peculiar in countenance, whom all the continent of Europe delights to honor; but my heart and my judgment, untravelled, fondly turn with new love and admiration to my Cambridge teacher and friend. Jurisprudence has many arrows in her quiver, but where is one to compare with that which is now spent in the earth?"

After some months in Paris, Sumner went to England, remaining ten months, and receiving attentions rarely if ever accorded to an American. He used some letters of introduction, but generally he was welcomed to the houses of lords and authors simply because the young man of learning was honored for his refinement and nobility of soul. He was admitted to the clubs, attended debates in Parliament, was present at the coronation of Queen Victoria in Westminster Abbey, sat on the bench at Westminster Hall, dined often with Lord Brougham, Sir William Hamilton, Jeffrey of the Edinburgh Review, Lord Morpeth the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Hallam, Carlyle, Lord Holland, Lord Houghton, Grote, Sydney Smith, Macaulay, Landor, Leigh Hunt, and scores of others, the greatest in the kingdom. An English writer said: "He presents in his own person a decisive proof that an American gentleman, without official rank or widespread reputation, by mere dint of courtesy, candor, an entire absence of pretension, an appreciating spirit, and a cultivated mind, may be received on a perfect footing of equality in the best English circles, social, political, and intellectual."

Sumner wrote back to his friends in America: "I have made myself master of English practice and English circuit life. I cannot sufficiently express my admiration of the heartiness and cordiality which pervade all the English bar. They are truly a band of brothers, and I have been received among them as one of them. I have visited many – perhaps I may say most – of the distinguished men of these glorious countries (England, Scotland, and Ireland), at their seats, and have seen English country life, which is the height of refined luxury, in some of its most splendid phases. For all the opportunities I have had I feel grateful."

Sumner found, what all travellers find, that cultivated, well bred people all speak a common language, that of universal courtesy and kindness. The English did not ask if he had wealth or distinguished parentage; it was enough that he was intelligent on all topics, considerate, gentle in manner, a gentleman in every possible situation.

Every letter home teemed with descriptions of visits to Wordsworth, then sixty-nine years of age; to Macaulay, whom Sydney Smith called "a tremendous machine for colloquial oppression;" to the beautiful Caroline Norton, the poet, "one of the brightest intellects I have ever met," with "the grace and ease of the woman, with a strength and skill of which any man might well be proud;" to Lord Brougham, with "a fulness of information and physical spirits, which make him more commanding than all."

Sumner spent three months in Rome, at first studying the language from six to twelve hours a day. He became the friend of the artist Thomas Crawford, then poor, but with high ambition. He wrote his praises home to his friends, induced them to buy one of his earliest works and exhibit it in Boston; cheered the half-despairing artist by assuring him that he would be "a great and successful sculptor, and be living in a palace," all of which came true. A noble nature, indeed, that could pause in its own aspiring work and lift another to fame and success!

Six months were spent in Germany by Sumner, where he studied language and law as earnestly as he had in France and Italy. The rich, full days of literary intercourse were coming to an end. He wrote to his intimate friend Longfellow: "I shall soon be with you; and I now begin to think of hard work, of long days filled with uninteresting toil and humble gains. I sometimes have a moment of misgiving, when I think of the certainties which I abandoned for travel, and of the uncertainties to which I return. But this is momentary; for I am thoroughly content with what I have done. If clients fail me; if the favorable opinion of those on whom professional reputation depends leaves me; if I find myself poor and solitary, – still I shall be rich in the recollection of what I have seen, and will make companions of the great minds of these countries I have visited."

In the spring of 1840 Sumner was home again, having been abroad for two and one-half years. The father and his sister Jane, a lovely girl of seventeen, had both died during his absence. He went at once to the Hancock Street home, and began his professional labors from nine till five or six in the afternoon. In the evening he read as formerly till midnight or later, going every Saturday evening to spend the night with Longfellow at Craigie House.

This affection for Longfellow never changed. When the poet went abroad in 1842, Sumner wrote him, "We are all sad at your going; but I am more sad than the rest, for I lose more than they do. I am desolate. It was to me a source of pleasure and strength untold to see you; and, when I did not see you, to feel that you were near, with your swift sympathy and kindly words. I must try to go alone, – hard necessity in this rude world of ours, for our souls always in this life need support and gentle beckonings, as the little child when first trying to move away from its mother's knee. God bless you, my dear friend, from my heart of hearts. My eyes overflow as I now trace these lines."

Sumner was full of incident and vivid description of his life abroad, and the most charming homes of Boston were open to him whenever he had the time to visit, which was seldom. The letters from Europe made the long days of law practice less monotonous. He wrote much on legal matters; and now, at thirty-three, undertook to edit the "Equity Reports" of Francis Vesey, Jr., numbering twenty volumes, for two thousand dollars. By the terms agreed upon, a volume was to be ready each fortnight. He worked night and day, took no recreation, and soon broke down in health; and his life was despaired of. He welcomed death, for he had before this time become somewhat despondent. Most of his friends were married, and some, like Prescott and Longfellow, had come to fame already. He felt that his life was not showing the results of which his youth gave promise.

Had he found at this time "the perfect woman" for whom he used to tell his friends he was seeking, and made her his wife, there would doubtless have come into his life satisfaction and rest. That he did not marry was the more strange since women admired him for the qualities which are especially attractive to the sex; a knightly sense of honor, fidelity in friendship, fearlessness, and affectionate confidence.

Sumner recovered his health, while his beloved sister Mary, at the age of twenty-two, faded from his sight by consumption. He wrote his brother George: "She herself wished to die; and I believe that we all became anxious at last that the angel should descend to bear her aloft. From the beautiful flower of her life the leaves had all gently fallen to the earth; and there remained but little for the hand of death to pluck. During the night preceding the morning on which she left us, she slept like a child; and within a short time of her death, when asked if she were in pain, she said, 'No; angels are taking care of me.'"

To Charles Sumner this death was an incomparable loss. She was especially beautiful and lovely, and the idol of his heart. Possibly it helped to make him ready for his great work.

Into most lives, especially those designed for great deeds, there seem to come decisive moments when events open the door from the darkness of obscurity into the noonday glare of fame. Such a time came to Sumner in 1845. He was asked to deliver the usual Fourth of July address at Tremont Temple, Boston, as Charles Francis Adams, Horace Mann, and others had done in previous years. He chose for his subject "The True Grandeur of Nations," showing that the "true grandeur" is peace and not war. He dealt vigorously with the Mexican War, then impending, as a result of the annexation of Texas, with consequent enlargement of slave territory.