Memorial Services: Tribute to the Hon. Charles Sumner/Address of Mr. Simms
ADDRESS OF MR. SIMMS.
Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens:—The Hon. Charles Sumner, Senator in the United States Congress, from the State of Massachusetts, is dead, was the saddening news borne on the lightning wings of the telegraph to the world, one week since; that he departed this life at thirteen minutes past three o'clock p. M. Wednesday, the 11th inst. Sirs, he is not dead, our friend, Sumner, sleepeth; he but taketh his rest—the rest that his great heart and noble spirit so much needed. "I am so tired" I am so tired; I want quiet," we are told he said; a short time after, he was seized with a paroxysm—a struggle with the last enemy; the last struggle with nature ensued, and Charles Sumner slept, we humbly trust, a blessed sleep, from which none ever wakes to weep. Thank God, there is a rest for His people! Then let our friend rest; it was not often that his soul hath known repose. Let him rest; they rest but seldom, whose successes challenge foes. He was weary and worn with watching, and this vigilant, weary watchman has found quiet rest.
We may hang upon his last hours and his last words, for those of a faithful friend, stay with us, are precious, and we treasure them. His last words in this life were characteristic of this great statesman, and peculiar. They seem to intimate that his great work of life was not quite finished. "Take care of the civil rights bill; do not let it fail." Here was a great thought for the nation, and the negro, whose champion he gloried in being. "Tell Emerson I love and revere him;" Heavenly passion in the breast—love and reverence—the brightest of the train, and strengtheners all the rest. Then, to a visiting friend, he said, "sit down". Ah! friends, fellow-citizens, here was piety, friendship, sympathy, politeness, love, reverence and true manhood, all struggling for the prominence, in the last earthly operations of this giant mind, "That has gone from this strange world of ours; no more to gather its thorns with its flowers." Oh, how good he was! Oh, how great he is!
"In Christ may he rest from sorrow and sin;
Happy where earths conflicts enter not in."
But I need not extol him here to-day. My eulogy will be too poor, I think, compared with what all the world has said, is saying, and will repeat, of Charles Sumner, through all lime, and my eloquent friend and colleague, Mr. Turner, who has just preceeded me, has said enough for the memorial occasion. But allow me to give you a synopsis of his Times[1] history, which truly says Charles Sumner was early educated in the most advanced ideas of the thinkers of the old Whig party, who were opposed to slavery in every form, from a deep conviction of its repugnance to Christianity and humanity. In this school of thought Charles Sumner was educated, and when the war with Mexico threatened, and it was proposed to annex Texas as a slave State, he made his entry into political life with a splendid oration, at Boston, on "The True Grandeur of Nations," in which he declared war and slavery to be remnants of a barbarous age, and unworthy of Christian nations. The oration attracted universal attention, and provoked endless controversy. It was prononnced by Richard Cobden "the most noble contribution made by any modern writer to the cause of peace." This was a brilliant opening for a comparatively young lawyer, not hitherto known outside his own State; but when we turn back and see the years of severe prepartion which had preceded it, we find that it was not the effort of sudden inspiration, but one of the matured results of a life spent in the highest cultivation of great intellectual gifts.
Charles Sumner had attained his thirty-fourth year when he delivered this oration. He was born in Boston on the 6th of February, 1811. He had the great advantage, often too little appreciated, of being born to a comfortable fortune, his father, Charles Pinckney Sumner, being a lawyer in good circumstances, and a man of high literary taste and eminent probity. Charles was thus enabled to pursue his early studies at leisure under the best auspices. At the Boston Latin School, where he prepared for college, he displayed great fondness for the classics and the study of history, and the close of the course saw him the winner of the highest prizes for English composition and Latin poetry, as well as the Franklin Medal. From the Boston School he went to Harvard College, and graduated in 1830. For a year after he pursued his private studies, and he entered the Law School at Cambridge, where he enjoyed the friendship of the eminent jurist Judge Story, who had the highest opinion of the ability and energy of his young student friend: In pursuing his law studies, Charles never, we are told, relied on text-books, but sought original sources, read all references, and made himself familiar with the whole range of common law literature. At this time he was a contributor to the "American Jurist," a quarterly law journal of wide circulation, of which he afterward became the editor. In 1833 he edited Dunlap's Treatise on the Practice of the Courts of Admiralty in Civil Cases of Marine Jurisdiction, and displayed such a scope of legal learning in the work as surprised even the highest authorities in the profession. The year after he was admitted to the Bar, and commenced a practice, which soon grew to be a large one, in his native city. For three successive Winters after his admission to the Bar he lectured to the law students of the Cambridge school, and in the absence of Profs. Greenleaf and Story had sole control of it. While reporter for the United States Circuit Court at this time, he issued the three volumes known as Sumner's Reports, containing decisions of Judge Story. It was in 1836 that he was offered a professorship in the law school and also in the college, but the young lawyer declined both. His aim was to complete his education in the highest sense, and, with his view, in the following year he sailed for Europe, bearing with him valuable letters of introduction from some of our best lawyers to their friends of the English Bar. His reception in England was of the most flattering character. His stay there was prolonged nearly a year, and in that time he became acquainted with some of the most eminent men of the day. It is safe to say that to-day there are no American statesmen better known or more highly esteemed in England than Charles Sumner and Charles Francis Adams. Mr Sumner was a close attendant at the debates in Parliament, and in the courts at Westminister, where he was frequently invited by the Judges to sit-by their side at the trials. Perhaps the best evidence of the degree of estimation in which he was held is furnished in an extract from the Quarterly Review, which, alluding to his visit some two years after, said:
"He presents, in his own person, a decisive proof that an American gentleman, without any official rank of widespread reputation, by mere dint of courtesy, candor, an appreciating spirit, and a cultivated mind, may be received on a perfect footing of equality in the best circles—social, political, and intellectual; which, he it observed, are hopelessly inaccessible to the itinerant note-taker, who never gets beyond the outskirts of the show-house."
From England, Mr. Sumner went to Paris, where a like cordial and distinguished reception awaited him. During his stay there he made himself familiar with the practice of the French law courts, attended the law schools, and the lectures of all the eminent professors in the different departments at the Sorbonne and the College of France, and closely followed the debates in the Chamber of Deputies, thus storing his mind with a range of parliamentary law and practice as wide and varied as his acquirements in purely legal learning. Gen. Cass was American Minister at the French Court while Mr. Sumner was in Paris, and it was at his request that the latter wrote his masterly defence of the American claim to the North-eastern boundary, which was widely copied at the time of its publication. From France to Italy, and from Italy to Germany, Mr. Sumner continued his travels, stopping long enough in both countries to study all that was best in literature, in art, and in public life, which they could furnish, and everywhere he was received with the same distinguished consideration. On an appreciative and cultured mind, such as Mr. Sumner's, three such years of travel and study spent in the society of men eminent in all departments of intellectual, social, and public life, and amid the historic associations of the Old World, had the most happy effect. He returned to his native city in 1840, with much added to that perfect education which it seemed his steadfast aim to attain. He resumed the practice of his profession, but scarcely seems to have given it his principle attention, preferring rather the leisurely study of the science and literature of the law. In 1643 he again resumed his position of lecturer at the Cambridge Law School, and the following two years issued his edition of Vesey's reports, in twenty volumes, a great work, conceived and executed in the happiest spirit. We now arrive at that period in Mr. Sumner's life when he was to become known through all the United States as the advocate of human freedom. When Judge Story died in 1845, hoping that the young student he had trained up would succeed him in the professorship of the law school. Charles Sumner had just chosen another path in life. He delivered his oration before the Boston municipal authorities, and the author of the True Grandeur of Nations therein unfolded the banner under which he was to enter political life. It was delivered on the Fourth of Julv, 1845, and from that day dates Mr. Sumner's career as one of the leading figures in the history of the anti-slavery struggle.
The struggle for the annexation of Texas, and the consequent extension of the slave power, was at its height at this time. The Whig Party opposed it bitterly, but it was evident that the Democracy would carry their point. Mr. Sumner raised his voice in indignant protest against what he knew to be almost inevitable, but against a wrong which was not the less a wrong because it had the weight of numbers in its favor. At a public meeting in old Faneuil Hall, he pronounced an elequent and thrilling oration, denouncing such an extension of the slave power as was proposed; and again in the year after, in the same place, addressed the Whig State Convention on the "Anti-slavery Duties of the Whig Party." Not long after he published a letter of rebuke to Hon. Robert C. Winthrop for his vote in favor of the war with Mexico. On the 17th of February, 1847, he delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library Association a brilliant lecture on "White Slavery in the Barbary States," which he subsequently expended and published in book form. At Springfield, in September of the same year, he made a speech before the Massachusetts State Convention on "Political Action Against the Slave Power and the Extension of Slavery," and in June, 1848, another, "For Union Among Men of All Parties Against the Slave Power and the Extension of Slavery," in which he forcibly characterized the movement of the day as a "revolution destined to end only with the overthrow of the tyranny of the slave power of the United States." These able productions, so masterly, forcible, and direct, the earnest speakings of an advanced thinker and a man of profound convictions, gave Mr. Sumner a wide celebrity; but they had alarmed the Whig Party, of which he was a member, by their uncompromising antagonism to slavery. The Pro-slavery Democracy was all-powerful; the Whigs were, in mass, timid of going to an extreme length in opposition to it, and Mr, Sumner withdrew himself from the party and joined the "Free-soldiers," or the advanced spirits who favored the election of Mr. Van Buren to the Presidency in 1848. Gen Taylor, however, was elected, died, and was succeeded by Vice President Fillmore The Fugitive Slave Sill was passed, was signed by the President, and the whole North was thrown in a paroxysm of fury. One of the best speeches, severe, just, and terrible in its depth of indignation, made against this measure, was Mr. Sumner's oration before the Free-soil State Convention at Boston, in October, 1850. It produced the deepest impression on those who heard it, and tended to keep alive the strong resentment with which the Northern people always regarded the odious statute. On the 24th of April, 1851, Daniel Webster having vacated his seat in the Senate by a condition of Free-soldiers and Democrats, after a contest of extreme severity , and which was anxiously watched all over the country. The event was everywhere celebrated by the Free-soldiers as a victory for their cause, Mr. Sumner took his seat in the national councils firmly pledged "to oppose all sectionalism, whether it appeared in unconstitutional efforts by the North to carry so great a boom as freedom into the slave States, or in unconstitutional efforts by the South to curry 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." His first grand effort in the Senate was made on the 26th of August, 1852—the celebrated speech entitled "Freedom National, Slavery Sectional." Such was the jealousy and power of the Pro-slavery Party at this period that debate on the slave question was scarcely permitted by its advocates in the Senate, and Mr. Sumner bad for a long time been deprived of an opportunity to speak. But he gained it at last, and made terrible use of it, denouncing first the attempt to muzzle debate, and then the Fugitive Slave bill, in the most scathing and severe terms. Two years after, in February, 1854, he made another great speech against the Kansas-Nebraska bill. It was in this speech he denounced the hill as at once the best and the worst measure which Congress had ever acted on; the worst in the fact that it was the triumph of slavery over every constitutional and human right; the best, in that it threw away the scabbard in the flight, made compromise impossible, and proclaimed universally that from that moment the battle between slavery and freedom must be fought till one or the other fell never to rise. On the 26th and 28th of June, of the same year, Mr. Sumner, on the Boston memorial for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave law, replied with severity and eloquence to Messrs. Jones of Tennessee, Butler of South Carolina, and Mason of Virginia, displaying in the most commanding way his power as a debator. Mr. Sumner never relaxed his exertions in the cause of his choice a moment. In Congress or out of it, in debates on the floor of the Senate or in addresses, he continued to denounce the evil of slavery, the tyranny of its advocates, and to urge on the free people of the North the duty of its suppression. He became the recognized leader of the Anti-slavery Party in the Senate, and Massachusetts had reason to be proud of her talented and gifted son, whose name was in every one's mouth. In May, 1856, occurred the great debate on the admission of Kansas as a state. In the course of his speech on this question which has been esteemed one of his best oratorical efforts, Mr. Sumner denounced the crime of slavery with such unsparing severity, and exposed its manifold evils and degrading influence with so keen sa arcasm, that the Southern members in Congress became furiously incensed. The speech has a sad celebrity from what followed it. Two days after its delivery, while Mr. Sumner was seated in his chair in the Senate, after adjournment, busy writing, he was suddenly attacked by Preston S. Brooks, a member of the House from South Carolina, and a nephew of Senator Butler, to whom Mr. Sumner had replied. Armed with a heavy cane, Brooks struck his unconscious victim a powerful blow on the head, felling him unconscious to the floor, and then continued his blows, while Mr. Kitt, another South Carolina Congressman stood ready, pistol in hand, to prevent interference. Messrs. Morgan and Murray, of New York, and Mr. Chittendon, who were in the Chamber, recovering from their sudden horror, rushed forward and dragged off the would be assassins before they had completed their work. The effect of this occurrence on the country was startling. From east to west one universal cry of indignation arose, and the attack probably did more damage to the Democratic Party than even the Fugitive Slave bill. It gave a degree of concentration and intensity to the antipathy of the Northern people to slavery and its advocates which it had never before known. The Democracy rallied somewhat to the defense of their men, but not all the power of hot party spirit could so overcome the common feelings of humanity, as to make them regarded with anything else than universal repugnance. Both Preston Brooks and Keitt died miserable and dishonored deaths.
The injuries of Mr. Sumner were of the most dangerous character and resulted in a long-continued disability. He sought quiet and repose in another visit to Europe, where at Paris he was under medi-treatment by Dr. Brown-Sequard, under whose care he was finally restored to health; but it was evident his nervous system had received a shock from which it never wholly recovered. Mr. Sumner had been in 1857 almost, unanimously re-elected to the Senate by the Massachusetts Legislature, and on his return from Paris he resumed his stat and delivered his well-known oration on "The Barbarism of Slavery, a complement to the one for which he had been assaulted, and not in any degree milder or more conciliatory, as his Southern hearers, discovered. In the Presidential canvass which resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Sumner took an active part; and in the debates in the Senate which finally led to that last attempt of the South to perpetuate the system which their great opponent had spent his life in destroying, Mr. Sumner stood up as the uncompromising enemy of compromise or concession in any shape or form. He saw that the last grand act in the drama was approaching, and he was not the man to shrink from the scene which all saw must follow.
The long contest in which Mr. Sumner had borne the brunt of the fight, ended with the firing on Fort Sumter. The final decision was to be given not in the halls of legislation, but through "blood and iron" on the field of battle. Other men now took up the strife, and the military commander now occupied that place in the public eye which before had been filled by the legislator and the orator. All eyes were directed and all the energies of the nation were concentrated on its armies, until it became apparent, that the Southern power was falling. The war was not ended, but its close was near at hand, and the statesman of the North began the consideration of a reconstruction policy. In what manner should the conquered States be readmitted to the Union? What was their footing under the Constitution? This was a problem of which the solution was sought in a thousand different ways. Mr. Sumner appears to have watched every plan introduced in Congress for the restoration of the conquered States with jealous interest. Early in the war he had advocated the unconditional emancipation of the slaves as the speediest and most effectual means to end it, and when that emancipation was effected, he stood prepared to oppose any and everything which might seem, however remotely, to militate against the perfect freedom and equality of the colored race under the law. In 1865, when the question of admitting Representatives from the State of Louisiana, in which a Government had been formed by Unionists under Federal protection, a joint resolution of the Senate Judiciary Committee recognising this State Government was presented Mr. Sumner offered a substitute favoring an early establishment of a republican government by act of Congress, based on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and the equality of all citizens before the law. In the final resolution of his substitute the military forms of Government which had been established over the Southern States were condemned as contrary to constitutional principles. Mr. Sumner's principle was that by investing the negroes in the conquered States with all the rights that the white citizens enjoyed, national authority would be placed upon a more secure foundation than by any other method. All his public utterances on the policy of reconstruction were mainly founded on this idea. He further advanced the theory that no amendment to the Constitution was necessary to guarantee equality before the law to the colored race, because that instrument provided for "a republican form of government" in each State, and as long as any State refused impartial sufferage it did not possess a republican government. This view, however, was generally looked upon as untenable. After the amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery had been ratified by twenty-seven States, Congress was called to take action on the "Equality bill." On the 20th of December Mr. Sumner made a strong speech, urging the passage of the bill as necessary to that protection of the freedom which the National Government was pledged to afford. The bill was passed. In the following session President Johnson sent to Congress (Dec. 18, 1866,) his message on the progress of reconstruction in the South, giving a very rose- colored view of affairs there. Mr. Sumner made a sharp attack on the message, stigmatizing it as similar to the "whitewashing message" of President Pierce on the affairs of Kansas. Senator Doolittle defended the President, and thenceforward the rupture between Congress and President Johnson began, which ended in his impeachment. In May of the next year, Mr. Thaddeus Stevens' reconstruction measures were the leading questions in the Lower House. They encountered violent opposition from the proposed disfranchisement of the greater part of those who had been conspiciously active in the rebellion. The resolutions, after slight amendments by the Senate, were passed in June, and were strongly advocated by Mr. Sumner. Every measure of reconstruction brought before Congress which offered guarantees of protection and equal rights to the negro, up to the introduction of the "Military Government bill" found a warm friend in Mr. Sumner. This bill dividing the Southern States into military districts, to be under the command of a General and military force to maintain peace and order until a stable Government could be formed, and met with an energetic foe in President Johnson. It was passed by both Houses Feb. 20, 1867, Mr. Sumner being a leading advocate in the Senate and Mr. Stevens in the House. It was vetoed by President Johnson March 2, 1867, and was passed over the veto by both Houses with a gain of ten votes in the Senate and three in the House. The supplementary bill to the original, which passed both Houses, was also vetoed March 23, 1867, by the President, and was promptly passed over the veto in the Senate and House. The war between Congress and President Johnson, who had been so bent on forcing upon it his own policy of reconstruction, that of recognizing the rebellious States as being still sovereign States, became a bitter one. Mr. Sumner gave expression to his sentiments concerning the President's conduct on many occasions, and finally Mr. Johnson, after his famous tour around the country, was impeached. At the great, impeachment trial Mr. Sumner submitted an order that the question be put, as proposed by the presiding officer of the Senate, and each Senator shall rise in his place, and answer guilty or not guilty. It was unanimously agreed to. Mr. Sumner had voted "guilty" on nearly all the articles of impeachment, and on the question of a vote for adjournment of the court without day he voted in the affirmative. Since the, close of the famous trial Mr. Sumner has made only one great speech, though no one has paid closer or more conscientious attention to his legislative duties than he.
Apart from his efforts in Congress in behalf of the colored race Mr. Sumner distinguished himself by two important speeches as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign relations. The first of these he delivered in 1863, on the, Trent affair, maintaining that the seizure of the Southern Commissioners was indefensible on any ground of any international law, and that the logical conclusion of such an act would be to arm all the nations of the world against each other so long as they had a ship on the seas. The second speech was made in 1867, in executive session of the Senate, the seal of secrecy being removed by unanimous vote, on the Alabama claims. This oration was rather an indictment of the English Government, and a passionate denunciation of its bad faith and covert hostility to the North, than the logical setting forth of the claims which the United States could put before a board of arbitration. Mr. Sumner's views of "consequential damages" were not urged before the Geneva Board the award adjudged against the English Government was based on the actual and positive damage done by the Southern privateers.
Mr. Sumner's private life was eminently upright and pure. In manner and deportment Mr. Sumner had the stamp of a refined and high-toned gentleman. His figure was commanding; his carriage bespoke an intrepid spirit; his voice in debate was deep, yet melodious, and he stood among the chosen of the land, a man formed for leadership, esteemed and respected even by those who feared him most.
And this is the man God gave us!—the most abjectly oppressed people the world ever knew—as our champion, the champion of our rights among the law-making powers of the land. Pure in his Saxon blood, purer in his principles, a gentleman and a scholar, disinterested in his politics, of spotless virtue, loved, respected and honored by the good and great of Europe as well as America, associated with the brightest, holiest spirits and the largest souls inhabiting this planet; yet he labored with untiring vigilance and zeal for the most down-trodden, oppressed, brother man of his country, never ceasing from the peaceful strife, save when physically wounded for a little while, but ever watching, ever working; he only ceased when his noble, generous, loving heart stopped its functions of life—worn out in the negroes' cause.
Oh, Massachusetts! Mother of American liberty! a brilliant light you have given to illuminate this world of sin and vice; a true friend of humanity; nobly hast thou repaid us for the blood of Chrispus Attucks, that baptised thy bosom in 1770, by the noble deeds of chaste Charles Sumner, whom we have lost.
In this impressive memorial hour, whilst reviewing his heroic acts, may we vow fidelity to the principles he so long and faithfully maintained, and prove to the world that he hath not lived in vain. And as he says "quiet," who knows better than all else besides, we need it. For about twenty-nine years, in this country, there has been a constant strife and turmoil over the wrongs of the negro. The words "tired" and "quiet," seem suggestive, if not mandatory, to this nation, and to us, the negro race, who were his constant care. He seems to say the world has been disturbed sufficiently for this time; quiet will bring us calm, deliberate reflection; in it we may educate and contemplate those peaceful, powerful weapons, argument, logic, and truth, by which he has achieved such glorious victories for us. That God has greatly endowed us with them ourselves, he has observed in his intercourse and friendship with our Douglass, Garnet, Langston, Downing, Wormley. Philis Wheatley, Francis E. W Harper, Payne, Gaines,Turner, and last, perhaps greatest, Elliott, with many others we could name. He seems to say, too, that he will rest quietly in the bosom of free Massachusetts soil, at lovely Mount Auburn cemetery; we, in the bosom and brains of living, progressive America, until the time when the schools, colleges and seminaries shall send us forth to illustrate the wisdom of universal liberty and equality. Defend her institutions and our rights, for truly Mr. Sumner's examples and ways of living were like God's—pleasantness and peace. Other noble spirits led us in war; we had gallant Shaw, Higinson, Butler, and others, brave and generous; but our Sumner, by precept and example, was eminently a prince of peace; for, though ruthlessly stricken down by the hand of a foe, when in after days he spoke, it was of the barbarism of slavery, the system under which the man was bred, but nothing against the man. Personally, he spoke to me on several occasions uncompromisingly against the dreadful system, but always kindly toward the Southern people who practiced it.
But he has gone hence; he rests where they bore his stately remains yesterday, Mount Auburn, the place of sepulchre in the old Bay State—his native State —of which he said to me: "Naturally she produces for commerce only granite and ice; yet, by energy and industry, is made to bloom as bright as Eden." Often may we make pilgrimages, I trust, to the golden spot where he lies entombed, henceforth, to become the negro's Mecca. Oft may it be bedewed and jewelled with the tears of virtuous young men and maidens of our race, who go to pay their grateful homage to God, at the tomb of him whose sincere friendship, spotless life and incessant labors, was largely instrumental in lifting them up to the proper standard of liberty, equality and happiness.
Soon may some of us be called to meet his spirit before God, but my faith whispers that our sons and daughters, in future times, walking through the city of Boston, where Charles Sumner was born, admiring her grandeur as shown in her thrift and wealth; their appreciative sense view glorious old Bunker Hill, in the distance; find pleasure in rambling over her broad commons; delight to rest and read while in the shades of her extensive public library, yet turn from them all, at eve, to wind their way through old Cambridge, paying due regard to old Harvard, his honored alma mater; then find sweet, loving, peaceful enjoyment sitting or standing around the tomb, contemplating with full hearts and vivid memories, the greatest statesman of America, the greatest human friend, of the negro, Hon. Charles Sumner.
- ↑ New York Times