Famous American Statesmen

Sumner was now thirty-four, well developed physically, his face handsome and radiant as ever, with the smile of his boyhood, his voice clear and resonant, his mind full to overflowing. He spoke for two hours, without notes. He said: "The true greatness of a nation cannot be in triumphs of the intellect alone. Literature and art may widen the sphere of its influence; they may adorn it; but they are in their nature but accessories. The true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, sustained, enlightened, and decorated by the intellect of man… In our age there can be no peace that is not honorable; there can be no war that is not dishonorable. The true honor of a nation is to be found only in deeds of justice and beneficence, securing the happiness of its people, – all of which are inconsistent with war. In the clear eye of Christian judgment, vain are its victories, infamous are its spoils. He is the true benefactor, and alone worthy of honor, who brings comfort where before was wretchedness; who dries the tear of sorrow; who pours oil into the wounds of the unfortunate; who feeds the hungry, and clothes the naked; who unlooses the fetter of the slave; who does justice; who enlightens the ignorant; who, by his virtuous genius in art, in literature, in science, enlivens and exalts the hours of life; who, by words or actions, inspires a love for God and for man. This is the Christian hero; this is the man of honor in a Christian land."

The believers in war felt somewhat hurt by Sumner's plainness of speech, but the city of Boston and the State of Massachusetts awoke to the knowledge of an eloquent man in their midst, who had doubtless a work before him. Mrs. Lydia Maria Child wrote him: "How I did thank you for your noble and eloquent attack upon the absurd barbarism of war! It was worth living for to have done that, if you never do anything more. But the soul that could do that will do more."

Chancellor Kent wrote him, "I am very strongly in favor of the institution of a congress of nations or system of arbitration without going to war. Every effort ought to be made by treaty stipulation, remonstrance, and appeal to put a stop to the resort to brutal force to assert claims of right. The idea of war is horrible. I remember I was very much struck, even in my youth, by the observation (I think it was in Tom Paine's 'Crisis') that 'he who is the author of war lets loose the whole contagion of hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.'"

Seven thousand copies of this oration were distributed by the Peace Societies of England, and it had a wide reading in our own country.

Sumner was now called upon to speak with Garrison, Phillips, and others, on the question of the annexation of Texas with her slave territory. He said, "God forbid that the votes and voices of the freemen of the North should help to bind anew the fetters of the slave! God forbid that the lash of the slave-dealer should be nerved by any sanction from New England! God forbid that the blood which spurts from the lacerated quivering flesh of the slave should soil the hem of the white garments of Massachusetts."

The educated Boston lawyer, the friend of hosts of authors and jurists on both sides of the ocean, the accomplished and aristocratic scholar, Sumner had placed himself among the despised Abolitionists! Many of his friends stood aghast, even refusing to recognize him on the street. This act required great moral heroism, but he was equal to the occasion. The door had opened to fame and immortality, even though they came to him through contumely and well-nigh martyrdom.

In 1846, Mr. Sumner spoke before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University: "We stand on the threshold of a new age, which is preparing to recognize new influences. The ancient divinities of violence and wrong are retreating to their kindred darkness. The sun of our moral universe is entering a new ecliptic, no longer deformed by those images, Cancer, Taurus, Leo, Sagittarius, but beaming with the mild radiance of those heavenly signs, Faith, Hope, and Charity.

"'There's a fount about to stream;
There's a light about to beam;
There's a warmth about to glow;
There's a flower about to blow;
There's a midnight blackness changing
Into gray:
Men of thought and men of action,
Clear the way!'"

Theodore Parker wrote to the orator, "You have planted a seed, 'out of which many and tall branches shall arise,' I hope. The people are always true to a good man who truly trusts them. You have had opportunity to see, hear, and feel the truth of that oftener than once. I think you will have enough more opportunities yet; men will look for deeds noble as the words a man speaks."

And Charles Sumner became as noble as the words he had spoken. It makes us stronger to commit ourselves before the world. We are compelled to live up to the standard of our speech, or be adjudged hypocrites.

Before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, Sumner read a brilliant paper on "White Slavery in the Barbary States," and gave an address before Amherst College on "Fame and Glory." He spoke earnestly in the Whig conventions, asking them to come out against slavery. He urged Daniel Webster, the Defender of the Constitution, to become the "Defender of Humanity," "by the side of which that earlier title shall fade into insignificance, as the Constitution, which is the work of mortal hands, dwindles by the side of man, who is created in the image of God." But the words of entreaty came too late; the Whig party did not dare take up the cause of human freedom.

In 1851, when Sumner was forty, the new era of his life came. The Free-Soil party, organized August 9, 1848, the successor of the "Liberty" party formed eight years earlier, wanted him as their leader. Would he separate from the Whigs? Yes, for he had said, "Loyalty to principle is higher than loyalty to party. The first is a heavenly sentiment from God; the other is a device of this earth… I wish it to be understood that I belong to the party of freedom, – to that party which plants itself on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States… It is said that we shall throw away our votes, and that our opposition will fail. Fail, sir! No honest, earnest effort in a good cause ever fails. It may not be crowned with the applause of man; it may not seem to touch the goal of immediate worldly success, which is the end and aim of so much of life; but still it is not lost. It helps to strengthen the weak with new virtue, to arm the irresolute with proper energy, to animate all with devotion to duty, which in the end conquers all. Fail! Did the martyrs fail when with their precious blood they sowed the seed of the Church?.. Did the three hundred Spartans fail when, in the narrow pass, they did not fear to brave the innumerable Persian hosts, whose very arrows darkened the sun? No! Overborne by numbers, crushed to earth, they have left an example which is greater far than any victory. And this is the least we can do. Our example shall be the source of triumph hereafter."

Millard Fillmore had signed the hated Fugitive Slave Bill, and Webster had made his disastrous speech of March 7, 1850, urging conformity to the demands of the bill. Sumner's hour had come. By a union of the Free-Soil and Democratic parties, he was elected to the Senate of the United States for six years, over the eloquent Robert C. Winthrop, the Whig candidate. The contest was bitter. Sumner would give no pledges, and said he would not walk across the room to secure the election. On Monday, December 1, 1851, he took his seat. Devotion to principle had gained him an exalted position.

Months went by before he could possibly obtain a hearing on the slavery question, on which issue he had been elected. Finally, the long sought opportunity came by introducing an amendment that the Fugitive Slave Bill should be repealed. He spoke for four hours as only Charles Sumner could speak. Despised by the slave-holders, they listened to his burning words. In closing, he said: "Be admonished by those words of oriental piety, – 'Beware of the groans of wounded souls. Oppress not to the utmost a single heart; for a solitary sigh has power to overset a whole world.'"

Mr. Polk of Tennessee said to him: "If you should make that speech in Tennessee, you would compel me to emancipate my niggers."

The vote on the repeal stood: Yeas, four; nays, forty-seven. Alas! how many years he wrought before the repeal came.

Sumner had been heard not merely by Congress; he had been heard by two continents. Henceforward, for twenty-three years, he was to be in Congress the great leader in the cause of human freedom.

In 1854 the advocates of slavery brought forward the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, by which a large territory, at the recommendation of Stephen A. Douglas, was to be left open for slavery or no slavery, as the dwellers therein should decide. On the night of the passage of this bill, Sumner made an eloquent protest. "Sir, the bill which you are now about to pass is at once the worst and the best bill on which Congress ever acted. Yes, sir, WORST and BEST at the same time.

"It is the worst bill, inasmuch as it is a present victory of slavery… It is the best, for it prepares the way for that 'All hail hereafter,' when slavery must disappear… Thus, sir, now standing at the very grave of freedom in Kansas and Nebraska, I lift myself to the vision of that happy resurrection by which freedom will be secured hereafter, not only in these Territories but everywhere under the national government. More clearly than ever before, I now see 'the beginning of the end' of slavery. Proudly I discern the flag of my country as it ripples in every breeze, at last become in reality, as in name, the flag of freedom, – undoubted, pure, and irresistible. Am I not right, then, in calling this bill the best on which Congress ever acted?

"Sorrowfully I bend before the wrong you are about to enact. Joyfully I welcome all the promises of the future."

After the passage of the bill the excitement at the North was intense. Public meetings were held, denouncing the new scheme of the slave-power to acquire more territory. So bitter grew the feeling that Sumner was urged by his friends to leave Washington, lest harm come to him; but he walked the streets unarmed. "He was assailed," said the noble Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio, "by the whole slave-power in the Senate, and, for a time, he was the constant theme of their vituperation. The maddened waves rolled and dashed against him for two or three days, until eventually he obtained the floor himself; then he arose and threw back the dashing surges with a power of inimitable eloquence utterly indescribable."

The Kansas-Nebraska Bill produced its legitimate result, – civil war in the Territory. Slave-holders rushed in from Missouri, bringing their slaves with them; free men came from the East to build homes, school-houses, and churches on these fertile lands. The struggles at the ballot-box over illegal elections were followed by struggles on the battle-field. At the village of Ossawatomie twenty-eight Free State men led by John Brown defeated on the open prairie fifty-six Slave State men. Houses were burned, and men murdered. Two State constitutions were adopted: one at Lecompton, representing the pro-slavery element; the other at Lawrence, representing the anti-slavery party. Finally, the President, in 1855, appointed a military governor to restore Kansas to order. But, while order might be restored there, the whole country seemed on the verge of civil war.

Meantime the Republican party had been formed in 1854, the outgrowth of the "Liberty" and "Free Soil" parties. A "Bill for the Admission of Kansas into the Union" having been presented, Sumner made his celebrated speech "The Crime against Kansas," on the 19th and 20th of May, 1856. He spoke eloquently and fearlessly, arousing more than ever the hot blood of the South. Two days later, as Mr. Sumner was sitting at his desk in the Senate chamber, his head bent forward in writing, the Senate having adjourned, Preston S. Brooks, a nephew of Mr. Butler, a senator of South Carolina, stood before him. "I have read your speech twice over, carefully," he said. "It is a libel on South Carolina and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine." Instantly he struck Mr. Sumner on the back of the head, with his hollow gutta-percha cane, making a long and fearful gash, repeating the blows in rapid succession. Sumner wrenched the desk from the floor, to which it was screwed, but, unable to defend himself, fell forward bleeding and insensible. He was carried by his friends to a sofa in the lobby, and during the night lay pale and bewildered, scarcely speaking to any one about him.

The indignation and horror of the North beggar description. That a man, in this age of free speech, should be publicly beaten, and that by a member of the House of Representatives, was, of course, a disgrace to the nation. Said Joseph Quincy: "Charles Sumner needs not our sympathy. If he dies his name will be immortal – his name will be enrolled with the names of Warren, Sidney, and Russell; if he lives he is destined to be the light of the nation." Wendell Phillips said: "The world will yet cover every one of those scars with laurels. He must not die! We need him yet, as the van-guard leader of the hosts of Liberty. Nay, he shall yet come forth from that sick-chamber, and every gallant heart in the commonwealth be ready to kiss his very footsteps."

Brooks was censured by the House of Representatives, resigned his seat, and died the following year. Sumner returned to Boston as soon as he was able. Houses were decorated for his coming, and banners flung to the breeze with the words, "Welcome, Freedom's Defender," "Massachusetts loves, honors, will sustain and defend her noble Sumner." The home on Hancock Street was surrounded by a dense crowd. He appeared at the window with his widowed mother, and bowed to their cheers. For several months he enjoyed the tender care of this mother, now almost alone. Her son Horace had been lost in the ship Elizabeth, July 16, 1850, when Margaret Fuller, her husband, and child were drowned. Albert, a sea-captain, had been lost with his wife and only daughter on their way to France. And now, perhaps, her distinguished son Charles was to give his life to help bring freedom to four millions in slavery.

In 1857 Sumner was almost unanimously reëlected to the Senate for six years, but Brooks had done his dreadful work too well. Broken in health, he sailed for Europe. Nearly twenty years before he had gone to meet the honored and famous, his future all unknown; now he went as the stricken leader of a great cause, one of the most able and eloquent men of the new world. Twenty years before he was restless and unhappy because he did not see his life-work before him; now he was happy in spite of physical agony, because he knew he was helping humanity.

After travelling in Switzerland, Germany, and Great Britain, he returned and took his seat in Congress, but, finding his health still impaired, he sailed again to Europe. He regretted to leave the country, but was, as he says, "often assured and encouraged to feel that to every sincere lover of civilization my vacant chair was a perpetual speech." On this second visit he came under the treatment of Dr. Brown-Séquard, who, when asked by Mr. Sumner what would cure him, replied, "Fire." At once the dreadful remedy was applied. The physician says, when he first met the senator, "He could not make use of his brain at all. He could not read a newspaper, could not write a letter. He was in a frightful state as regards the activity of the mind, as every effort there was most painful to him… I told him the truth, – that there would be more effect, as I thought, if he did not take chloroform; and so I had to submit him to the martyrdom of the greatest suffering that can be inflicted on mortal man. I burned him with the first moxa. I had the hope that after the first application he would submit to the use of chloroform; but for five times after that he was burned in the same way, and refused to take chloroform. I have never seen a patient who submitted to such treatment in that way."

Sumner wrote home: "It is with a pang unspeakable that I find myself thus arrested in the labors of life and in the duties of my position. This is harder to bear than the fire."

Four years elapsed before he regained his health; indeed his death finally resulted from the attack of Brooks. No sooner had he returned to the Senate than he made another great speech against slavery. The country was agitated by the coming presidential election. John Brown had captured, with a force of twenty-two men, the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, with the fallacious hope of setting the slaves at liberty. He was of course overpowered, his sons killed at his side, as others of his sons had been on the Kansas battlefields, and he led out to execution, December 2, 1859, with a radiant face and an overflowing heart, because he knew that his death would arouse the nation to action.

Mr. Sumner spoke to an immense audience at Cooper Institute, urging the election of Abraham Lincoln. By this election, he said, "we shall save the Territories from the five-headed barbarism of slavery; we shall save the country and the age from that crying infamy, the slave-trade; we shall help save the Declaration of Independence, now dishonored and disowned in its essential, life-giving truth, —the equality of men… A new order of things will begin; and our history will proceed on a grander scale, in harmony with those sublime principles in which it commenced. Let the knell sound! —

"'Ring out the old, ring in the new!
Ring out the false, ring in the true!
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife!
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.'"

A "new order of things" was indeed begun. South Carolina very soon seceded from the Union, and other southern States followed her example. Sumner now spoke and wrote constantly. He urged Massachusetts to be "firm, FIRM, FIRM! against every word or step of concession… More than the loss of forts, arsenals, or the national capital, I fear the loss of our principles."

In 1861, Mr. Sumner was made chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. How different his position from that day, ten years before, when he stood almost alone in the Senate, a hated abolitionist!

When the war began, he saw with prophetic eye the necessity of emancipating the slaves. He urged it in his public speeches. When Lincoln hesitated and the country feared the result, he said to a vast assembly at Cooper Institute, "There has been the cry, 'On to Richmond!' and still another worse cry, 'On to England!' Better than either is the cry, 'On to freedom!'"

As the war went forward he was ever at his post, working for Henry Wilson's bill for the abolishing of slavery in the District of Columbia, for the recognition of the independence of Hayti and Liberia, for the final suppression of the coastwise trade in slaves, for the employment of colored troops in the army, and for a law that "no person shall be excluded from the cars on account of color," on various specified lines of railroad. He spoke words of encouragement constantly to the North, "This is no time to stop. Forward! Forward! Thus do I, who formerly pleaded so often for peace, now sound to arms; but it is because, in this terrible moment, there is no other way to that sincere and solid peace without which there will be endless war… Now, at last, by the death of slavery, will the republic begin to live; for what is life without liberty?

"Stretching from ocean to ocean, teeming with population, bountiful in resources of all kinds, and thrice happy in universal enfranchisement, it will be more than conqueror, nothing too vast for its power, nothing too minute for its care."

He wrote for the magazines on the one great subject. He helped organize the Freedman's Bureau, which he called the "Bridge from Slavery to Freedom." He urged equal pay to colored soldiers. He was invaluable to President Lincoln. Though they did not always think alike, Lincoln said to Sumner, "There is no person with whom I have more advised throughout my administration than with yourself."

When Lincoln was assassinated, Sumner wept by his bedside. "The only time," said an intimate friend, "I ever saw him weep." When he delivered his eloquent eulogy on Lincoln in Boston, he said, "That speech, uttered on the field of Gettysburg, and now sanctified by the martyrdom of its author, is a monumental act. In the modesty of his nature, he said, 'The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.'

"He was mistaken. The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech. Ideas are more than battles."

And so the great slavery pioneer and the great emancipator will go down in history together. How the world worships heroic manhood! Those who, with sweet and unselfish natures, seek not their own happiness, but are ready to die if need be for the right and the truth!

Sumner aided in those three grand amendments to the Constitution, the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth. "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… All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws… The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

In June, 1866, Mr. Sumner came home to say good-bye to his dying mother. True to her noble womanhood, she urged that he should not be sent for, lest the country could not spare him from his work. Beautiful self-sacrifice of woman! Heaven can possess nothing more angelic. O mother, wife, and loved one, know thine unlimited powers, and hold them forever for the ennobling of men!

When Mrs. Sumner was buried, her son turned away sorrowfully, and exclaimed, "I have now no home." He had a house in Washington, where he had lived for many years, but it was only home to him where a sweet-faced and sweet-voiced woman loved him.

In 1869, Mr. Sumner made his remarkable speech on the "Alabama" claims, which for a time caused some bitter feeling in England. This vessel, built at Liverpool, and manned by a British crew, was sent out by the Confederate government, and destroyed sixty-six of our vessels, with a loss of ten million dollars. In 1864, she was overtaken in the harbor of Cherbourg, France, by Captain Winslow, commander of the steamer Kearsarge, and sunk, after an hour's desperate fighting. Her commander, Captain Raphael Semmes, was picked up by the English Deerhound, and taken to Southampton. In the summer of 1872, a board of arbitration met at Geneva, Switzerland, and awarded the United States over fifteen million dollars as damages, which Great Britain paid.