A^' V- ^^% J ^^ft -''^- T^^m 1 W ~^i ^ ^I h B ^^'■^te. f '^fflj^B ^P?' ¥, ■^ From Portrait by Wright, 1S.JG. ^/«^^ y^c<^-^^~\^ LIFE OF GHAELES SUMNEE BY WALTER G. SHOTWELL 10' NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPi^NY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1910, By WALTER G. SHOT WELL. Published October, 1910. ©r.i A:^7;i820 PREFACE I SUPPOSE it will be conceded that the most interesting period of the history of the United States is that leading up to, covered by, and following the Civil War. The nation " conceived in lib- erty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," in its brief existence of fourscore years had made an un- exampled growth in population and material prosperity. It had gathered about it the pride and the hopes of millions of patri- otic people. The questions for solution were whether the na- tion could continue to exist and whether the fundamental principle of its organization could be maintained. These were great questions. In the discussion of them it was natural that great interest should be shown and that as the contest warmed great passions should be enlisted. The battles of the period were all fought in Congress and on the stump before they were transferred to the tield. They developed a race of orators and statesmen, commencing with Webster, Calhoun and Clay and ending with Lincoln, Sumner and Douglas, that has never been equalled. I purpose to write the life of one of these men. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Birth — Ancestry — Father and Mother 1 CHAPTER n Youth of Sumner— Early School Days — Father made Sheriff 7 CHAPTER in Enters Harvard College — Dislike for Mathematics — Deportment — Popularity — Friends — Excursion to Lake Champlain— Societies — Class Standing 11 CHAPTER IV Undecided as to Profession — Prize Essay — Work of Year after Gradua- tion—Enters Harvard Law School — Industry — Friendship of Professors 18 CHAPTER V Law Practice— Editing "The Jurist" — Other Publications — Instruc- tor in Law School — "The Five of Clubs" 27 CHAPTER yi Trip to Europe— Opposition of Friends— Motives for taking it— Voy- age— France— Learning French— Schools— Courts— Assemblies. . 33 CHAPTER Vn London— The Clubs— Parliament— The Courts— The Judges— Society — Macaulay, Carlyle, Hallara — Services for Friends— Circuits — London again 46 CHAPTER VIII Parisagain- Employment— North East Boundary— Journey to Rome — Father's Death — Studies — Greene — Crawford — Florence — Venice 80 V yi CONTENTS CHAPTER IX PAGE Through Austria— Vienna— Metternich— Berlin— Saviguy— Heidel- berg, Mittermaier—Thibaut— London again — Home— Retrospect of Trip.. 90 CHAPTER X Friends— Campaign of 1840— Resumes "Work — Office of Hillard & Sumner— Phillips Match Case— Right of Search— Practice- Unprofessional Studies Q"? CHAPTER XI In Society— Friends— The Misses Ward— Howe— Howe's Marriage- Longfellow, Prescott, Bancroft, Story, Allston, Channiug, Adams —Their Influence— His Habits 108 CHAPTER XII International Questions -" The Caroline"-" Tlie Creole "—Slavery — "Somers" Mutiny— Law School— Edits Vesey Jr.— Sickness —Sister Mary's Death— At Work again 123 CHAPTER XIII Chosen Orator for July 4, 1845— The Occasion— The Oration on "The True Grandeur of Nations "—The Dinner— Estimates of Oration —Judge Story's Death— Sumner's Tribute 140 CHAPTER XIV Judge Story's Professorship not Sought— First Speech against Slavery —A Lyceum Lecturer— Article on Pickering— The Beta Kappa Oration— Place as an Orator 157 CHAPTER XV Cause of Universal Peace— Prison Discipline— Boston Prison Dis- cipline Society— Equal Rights of Colored Children in Schools- Diversions CHAPTER XVI Admission of Texas— Mexican War— Opposition— Nominated for Con- gress — Declines— Whig Conventions— Dissatisfaction with Old Parties— Anti -Slavery Party— Sumner a Speaker— Again declines Nomination for Congress— Chairman of State Committee of Free Soil Party 180 169 CONTENTS Vii CHAPTER XVII PAGE Loss of Friends — EfEect on Sumner — New Friendships 203 CHAPTER XVIII Compromise of 1850— Webster's Seventh of jVIarch Speech — The Co- alif.ou of Free-Soilers and Democrats — Sumner a Candidate for Senator — Elected — Acceptance 316 CHAPTER XIX Leaving Boston— First Days in Washington- Welcome to Kossuth— Aid to Railroads— Anxiety to speak on Slavery— Secures Hearing —The Speech— George returns from Europe— Vacation 237 CHAPTER XX Session 1852-3— Member of Massachusetts Constitutional Convention — Campaign of 1853— Coalition defeated — Nebraska Debate — Joins Republican Party— Lectures on Granville Sharp 270 CHAPTER XXI Session of 1854-5— Toucey Bill— Lectures before Anti-Slavery As- sociations—Visits South and West — Passmore Williamson- Election of 1855 296 CHAPTER XXII Stormy Session of 1855-6 — Banks, Republican, made Speaker— Kansas Troubles— Applies for Admission— Sumner's Speech— The Replies — Sumner's Rejoinder 306 CHAPTER XXIII Assault upon Sumner by Brooks— Action of Congress— Resignation- Re-election of Brooks— South approves Assault- North aroused —Later careers of Brooks, Keitt and Butler 329 CHAPTER XXIV Nature of Sumner's Injuries— Goes to Silver Springs, to Philadelphia, to Cresson Springs- Public Interest in Sumner— Public Reception at Boston— Re-elected— To Europe in search of Health— Paris- France— England— Travels and Friends— Home again— In Wash- ington—Unable for Duty— To Europe again— Medical Treat- ment 343 CHAPTER XXV Home again— Friends— In Senate— Speech on "Barbarism of Slavery "—Campaign of 1860 384 viii CONTENTS CHAPTER XXVI page No Compromise — Secession — Baltimore Mobs— Emancipation 403 CHAPTER XXVn "Trent" Affair — Sumner urges Release of Mason and Slidell — His Speech — Appearance and Position — Emancipation again Advo- cated—Other Questions 425 CHAPTER XXVni Campaign of 1863— Third Election to Senate— Session of 1862-3 — Advocates Enlistment of Colored Troops— Compensated Eman- cipation 446 CHAPTER XXIX Dangers from England and France — Sumner's work in preserving Peace — Correspondence— Speech on Foreign Relations — Article on Franklin and Slidell 458 CHAPTER XXX Emancipation — Passage of XlVth Amendment — Equal Rights — Repeal of Fugitive Slave Law — Sumner's Persistency — Other Measures 473 CHAPTER XXXI Reconstruction under Lincoln — No Bust for Chief Justice Taney — Negro Suffrage — Freedmen's Bureau — Retaliation — Relations to President Lincoln— Lincoln's Death 492 CHAPTER XXXII Reconstruction under Johnson— His Character — Sumner for Equal Rights — XlVth Amendment — Sumner and President Johnson — Eulogies on Colleagues 524 CHAPTER XXXIII Death of Sumner's Mother — Her Character— His Marriage 555 CHAPTER XXXIV Lecture "One Man Power against Congress" — Johnson against XIV th Amendment— Election of 1866— Tenure of Office Bill- Reconstruction — Purchase of Alaska 559 CONTENTS ■• ix CHAPTER XXXV page "Prophetic Voices coucerning America "—Lecture, "The Nation"— Leaving Old Home in Boston— Divorce— New Home in Wash- ington—Habits—Visitors 584 CHAPTER XXXVI Impeachment of President Johnson— Sumner's Opinions 592 CHAPTER XXXVII New Political Issues— Campaign of 1868— Grant Elected— Sumner Re-elected Senator— A. T. Stewart for Secretary of Treasury- Fish, Secretary of State— Motley 605 CHAPTER XXXVIII Eulogies on Thaddeus Stevens and Wm. P. Fessenden— Undertakes Edition of his Works— Changes in Naturalization Laws— Equal Rights — Reconstruction Completed 617 CHAPTER XXXIX Financial Measures— One Cent Postage— Chinese Indemnity Fund- Claims against England— In Harmony with Grant's Administra- tion 629 CHAPTER XL Continued Interest in Republican Party- Grant's Scheme to Annex San Domingo — Sumner's Opposition — Sickness— Removal from his Committee — Defeats Annexation 648 CHAPTER XLI Gratitude of Haiti— The Civil Rights' Bill— Sale of Arms to France- Liberal Republican Movement — Speech against Grant— Opposes his Re-election 674 CHAPTER XLII Last Trip to Europe— The Battle Flag Bill— Resolution of Censure- Sickness 694 CHAPTER XLIII Returns to Work— Last Summer at Boston— In Senate Again— Attends Dinner of New England Society of New York— Last Days— Death— Eulogies 705 Index 725 PORTRAITS Charles Sumner in 1856, at the Height of his Earlier Career. From the Painting by Wight. Frontispiece Charles Sumner in 1873. From a Photograph BY Allen. To face page 694 LIFE OF CHAELES SUMNER CHAPTER I BIRTH ANCESTRY — FATHER MOTHER Charles Sumner was born in the city of Boston, January sixth, 1811, the child of Charles Pinckney, and Relief Jacobs, Sumner. It was a twin birth, the other child being Matilda. The house in which they were born is no longer standing. It was in May, now Revere Street and occupied a part of the present site of the Bowdoin School, This continued to be the home of the family until 1825 or 1826 when they removed to what was then No. 53 Hancock Street, later No. 33. These houses Mr. Sumner did not own, but in 1830 he purchased No, 20 Hancock Street and this continued to be the home of the family until 1867. There were born to the same parents, after the two that have been mentioned, seven children, Albert, Henry, George, Jane, Mary, Horace and Julia, the last being the only one to survive her brother Charles. The Sumner family were from Oxford County, England, where their ancestor, William, who first came to America was born in 1604 near Bicester. He settled at Dorchester, Mass., in 1635. From him Charles Sumner was descended in the seventh generation, the intervening ancestors in the direct line of de- scent being Roger, William, Seth, Job and Charles Pinckney, Physically the Sumners were large, broad-shouldered, deep- chested men, noted for their fine personal appearance as well as for strength, activity and power of endurance. Gener- ally they were farmers and landowners. Increase Sumner was a member of the family. He was honored by the State of Massachusetts with a seat on her Supreme Bench and the office of Governor, His predecessors in the latter office, Adams and Hancock, had been crippled with age and the gout, but as Sumner in 1797 passed from the Old South Church, after the election sermon, his form caught the eye of an old apple woman who with honest admiration exclaimed : " Thank God, we have at last got a Governor that can walk " ! Major-General Edwin 1 ■g LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER Y. Sumner, who served with distinction in the Mexican and Civil Wars, was the grandson of Seth Sumner. The family has shown a taste for intellectual pursuits. From 1723 a long line of them appears enrolled among the students of Harvard. Job, the grandfather of Charles, was there pursuing his stud- ies at the commencement of the Revolution but the news of Lex- ington appealed so strongly to the boy, that he enlisted in the army, where he continued until the close of the war, attaining the rank of Major. He served at Bunker Hill, at the siege of Boston, on Lake Champlain, at West Point and New York. At West Point he commanded the guard over Major Andre a part of the time he was under sentence of death. He never re- turned to College, but in consideration of his part in the war, he was, two years after its close, voted by the authorities of the College the degree of Master of Arts, which entitled him to registration among the alumni. In 1785 he was appointed by Congress a commissioner to adjust the accounts between the Con- federation and the State of Georgia, in which capacity he served until his death in 1789. He was voted for as Governor of Georgia by the Legislature of that State, but failed of an elec- tion by a few votes. He was stricken with a fever in the South and having partially recovered started for home, but suffered a relapse complicated with other disorders and died, on the way, in ISTew York City, at the age of thirty-five. He was buried in St. Paul's Churchyard on Broadway. He was borne to his grave by eight ofFicers of the Revolutionary War, attended by a regiment of artillery. His funeral was attended by the Vice- President, Secretary of War and the Senators and Representa- tives in Congress of Massachusetts, New York being then the seat of government. He was five feet, ten inches tall, stoutly built, quick in action, a frank, generous, soldierly man, fond of society and his friends, faithful to his trusts, a friend of edu- cation and a lover of good books. He left an estate in land and government securities valued at about twelve thousand dollars. At the time of his death his son, Charles Pinckney Sumner, the father of Charles Sumner, was a student at Phillips Acad- emy at Andover, Mass., Dr. Seth Sumner, the brother of Major Sumner, became his guardian. Several letters from the father, still preserved, show his solicitude for the education and right training of the boy, from whom according to the means of travel of tliat day he was so widely separated. This education ■under the care of his uncle went on without interruption after his father's death. Charles Pinckney remained at Phillips Academy until 1792 when he entered Harvard College where LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 3 he graduated in 1796. He was a classmate of John Pickering, the author of Pickering's Greek Lexicon — the same John Pick- ering who was commemorated by Charles Sumner in a bio- graphical sketch published in the Law Reporter of June, 1846, and in his oration on " The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist and the Philanthropist," delivered at Harvard College in August of the same year. A friendship also sprang up between Charles Pinckney Sumner and Joseph Story during their college days, though the latter was two years behind him in the course. It continued unbroken until the death of Mr. Sumner. The year after Charles Pinckney Sumner's graduation he spent in teaching and the next in a visit to the West Indies. He then commenced the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1801. He commenced the practice of his profession in Boston. Though well read and an industrious man he did not succeed. His business was confined to the collection of small bills and office work and it was only with the closest economy that it yielded his family a subsistence. He had no influential antecedents to open a place for him and was perhaps wanting in that vigor and versatility of intellect which fits men for the more lucrative kinds of practice. His want of success led him to seek other employment. He was twice chosen Clerk of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, first for 1806-7 and again for 1810-11. During the last term his friend Joseph Story was Speaker of the House and resigned to become a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He left the bar in 1819 to accept the place of Deputy Sheriff of Suffolk County, which paid him less than a thousand dollars a year and he retained this offlce until 1825 when Governor Lincoln appointed him Sheriff. His income from this office was from two to three thousand dollars a year and he held it by successive appointments for thirteen years and seven months and until within a few days of his death. He was by this means enabled to maintain his family in greater comfort and at last to leave an estate worth fifty thousand dollars. He was the friend of temperance and the public schools. He was an ardent opponent of Masonry and having when a young man belonged to the order and become a master-mason he in- curred much ill-will among its members by an exposure of the secrets which he had thus learned. While Sheriff he witnessed the pro-slavery riots of Boston. It was during this time that a woman's anti-slavery meeting was entered and dispersed by a mob of men, while its president was leading it in prayer. Dur- ing the same time William Lloyd Garrison was seized and after 4 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER his clothes had been torn from his body and his hat was cut in pieces he was dragged through the streets of Boston with a rope about his neck until he was rescued by his friends and hurried to the Leverett Street Jail to save him from further violence. Charles Pinckney Sumner, witnessing such outrages, became a strong anti-slavery man. In his school days he had shown opposition to both slavery and war. At a college exhibi- tion in 1795 he read an original poem wherein he expressed the wish that both should cease. He retained his views on these subjects through life and taught them to his children. He did not, however, unite with the Abolition movement. After his appointment to the office of Sheriff in 1825 he studiously held aloof from political discussions, considering them incom- patible with the duties of his position. But his known sym- pathy with the anti-slavery movement caused some of the opposition to his last appointment. To the duties of his office he devoted himself with scrupulous exactness. He made a study of the law on the subject in Eng- land and America and published an article in the Jurist pointing out some differences. At one time when he learned that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts was about to an- nounce a decision, casting what he considered an undue re- sponsibility upon Sheriffs in making a levy, hoping before its publication to change the view of the Court he addressed to the Judges a voluminous written argument against it, but with- out effect. He was the last Sheriff of Suffolk County to wear the antique dress, like that worn by this officer in England. It is said to have comported well with his dignified bearing. He was of medium lieight, erect and being slender he ap- peared taller than he was in reality. He was not a handsome man, but was neat in his dress and in the care of his person. He was scholarly in his tastes and an extensive reader of good books. History was his favorite pastime and he read it care- fully with the aid of maps and charts. He was himself an oc- casional writer of both prose and verse. He loved knowledge and enjoyed cultivated society. He counted among his friends many of the best people of Boston. He was a model of courtly dignity, scrupulously polite, bowing low, touching his hand to his hat and waving it back to his side. He was rigidly con- scientious and fearless in the discharge of duty. To the appeals of a culprit kinsman who once sought his kindly inter- ference he sternly answered, " The law must take its course." On another occasion, as Sheriff, he read the riot act to a mob, amid a shower of bricks. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 5 When his opinions were once formed they were seldom changed, regardless of what others might wish he would do what he thought was right. He was faithful in his friendships and remembered a kindness with gratitude. But in his last years he became rigid and cheerless, seldom smiling or entering into the mirth of others and little disposed to form new as- sociates or to adopt new ways or to be influenced by thoughts of the convenience of others. As a father he felt a deep inter- est in the welfare of his children. He had received a good education himself and he wished to give one to them. He per- sonally superintended their instruction and sought to infuse them with a love for knowledge. But his sombre disposition little accorded with the cheerful moods of children; he was exacting and required prompt obedience in tasks that he as- signed them, so that while courting their company his course commanded respect for him rather than love and familiarity, Charles Pinckney Sumner was married in 1810 to Relief Jacobs. She was born in 1785 and was descended in the sev- enth generation from Nicholas Jacobs, a native of England, who settled in Massachusetts in 1633. On her mother's side she traced her lineage to William Hersey who came from Eng- land to Massachusetts in 1635, On the same side she was also descended from Governor William Bradford. Her father, David Jacobs, Jr., died in 1799, when she was only fourteen years of age. He was a farmer and belonged to a family of farmers, mostly living in Plymouth county, Massachusetts. Relief Ja- cobs was in Boston earning a livelihood by sewing, when she first became acquainted with Charles Pinckney Sumner. They were fellow boarders at the house of Adams Bailey. They were married in their own home, the house in May Street which they had previously rented and furnished and in which eight of their children were afterwards born. In person Mrs. Sumner was large, though not fleshy. She had a fine constitution and throughout her long life enjoyed ex- cellent health. She was abundantly educated in those arts which contribute to the comfort and happiness of a home. The time in which she lived and the circumstances of her childhood had in this respect contributed to the natural bent of her character. During the first fifteen years of her married life, though her husband's income was small and their family large, her prudence and economy enabled them to live comfortably without becoming involved in debt. She never received any other education than that of the common school but her native good sense insured her respect in anv society. Her excellent judgment, appreciative disposition and cheerfulness of temper always recommended her. 6 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER She was a kind-hearted motherly woman devoted to Her children, sympathizing with their trials, but anxious to rear them to habits of integrity and usefulness. She wished them to excel but taught them that success was to be expected from toil and not genius and that no good thing would be withheld from them that walk uprightly. She appreciated the responsibilities of life, was conscientious in the discharge of her duties, a con- sistent Christian, supporting sorrow with calmness and success with sobriety. Her neighbors spoke of her as " an excellent, kind person " ; and her pastor in her last years said : " Mrs. Sumner was a woman of retiring simplicity of life, but of strong and heroic traits of character and those who knew her could trace in the Senator's noblest characteristics a direct in- heritance from her." The best testimonial of her sterling qualities is that of her husband, her daily companion for twenty-nine years, who by his will, after only equalizing some small advancement to his chil- dren, gave her their home for life a^nd all the remainder of his large estate absolutely, confiding as he said, " in her disposi- tion to carry into effect his wishes and in her affection for their children, and that she will from time to time' aiid finally by her last will make such disposition of the property given her as justice and the condition of the children shall require." The sequel showed that his confidence was not misplaced for in her hands the estate was doubled in value and then went to their surviving children in equal shares. She survived her husband twenty-seven years and died at the age of eighty-one. CHAPTER II THE YOUTH OF SUMNER — EARLY SCHOOL DAYS — EATHER MADE SHERIFF The childhood and youth of Sumner were passed in Boston and its vicinity. It was then a much smaller place than now and its population was more democratic, its citizens associat- ing upon terms of greater familiarity. Its property was then more equally distributed, instances of poverty and of great wealth being less common. Its people have always been marked for intelligence. Then as now the influence of its excellent schools and Harvard College, its favorite seat of learning,_ in the adjoining suburb of Cambridge was noticeable. The child- ish rambles of Sumner extended about both places. During his boyhood he made occasional visits to his mother's relatives at South Hingham and to his father's at Dorchester, one we find to Nantasket Beach. It is not probable they ever extended farther, until, in his nineteenth year, with some college friends, he made an excursion on foot to Lake Chamj)lain. He was not a playful child, nor was he venturesome or mis- chievous, he was rather of a quiet disposition, obedient and willing to perform the tasks assigned to him. A childish in- cident, however, is related, which shows he was then, as later in life, tenacious of his rights. Some larger boys one day caught a stick with which he was playing and tried to wrest it from him. But the stick was his ; he would not let it be forced away. The harder they pulled the more firmly he clung to it, until at last one of the boys seizing a stone commenced to pound his hands with it to make him let go, but to no avail. He would not yield. They hammered harder, but he kept his hold, until the blood finally appearing from the wounds on his hands, they saw it and ran away frightened, leaving him in the possession of his stick. The first school he attended was a private one taught by Hannah R. Jacobs, his mother's maiden sister, in an upper room in his father's house. The school was small and furnished only the most elementary instructions. He next entered the West Writing Scliool taught for the public by Benjamin Holt in a building at the corner of Hawkins and Chardon streets. 7 g LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER Here he remained until ten years of age, receiving instnietion in the ordinary branches and manifesting no more than ordi- nary capacity. He was at the same time instructed in writing by a special master. His father's means being limited, it was his intention at this time to give Charles only such an educa- tion as would fit him for a place in some store, where he could support himself and perhaps render some aid to the family. He was not therefore to be taught Greek and Latin. But a circumstance occurred which changed his father's intention. Charles with a few pennies, which he had earned, purchased some elementary Latin books from an older boy and commenced to study them. He surprised his father one day by presenting himself books in hand before him and requesting him to hear his recitation. The father was so touched by the seeming in- stinct of the child that he determined to allow him to com- mence the study of Latin and Greek. In August, 1821, at ten years of age he entered the Boston Latin School. This institution has long been held in high es- teem by the friends of substantial and accurate scholarship. It •was established in colonial days and many eminent men have been among its pupils. Its course of study at this time was the one usually pursued in preparatory schools, save that it was longer, comprehending more than was required for ad- mission to Harvard. Its principal instructors were Benjamin Gould, its Master, and Ludwick P. Leverett, the teacher of Latin. The latter, a very thorough teacher, afterwards became the author of Leverett's Latin Lexicon. It was to his well- directed efforts that Sumner owed much of his proficiency in Latin and Greek. He continued under the instructions of these teachers until 1826, the prescribed course of study requiring five years. There were in the school at this time, though in different classes, two boys with whom he was afterwards to be conspicuously associated, — to one as the apologist of slavery and to the other as its determined opponent. They were Rob- ert C. Winthrop and Wendell Phillips. Sumner's standing in his class, though respectable did not indicate any remarkable talent. In 1S?3 he received a prize for his good conduct. In 1824 he took a third prize for Latin translations and in 1826 he took second prizes for a Latin poem and an English theme. At his graduation he received one of the six Franklin medals which were presented to his class. His superiority appeared more in conversation than in his recitations. His taste for reading, which afterwards became marked, was acquired at this time. He occupied many of his leisure hours in this way. He read with interest books which LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 9 are thought suitable for adults. And he read them so carefully as to be able to discuss their contents with persons older than himself in a way which sometimes excited the wonder of his playmates. In 1825, at the age of fourteen, he had read enough English History to be able to write with accuracy a compend- ium of it, eighty pages long, covering the whole period from the Conquest by the Romans to 1801. The next year he read Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a copy of which had been given him as one of his prizes at the Latin School. He also read a history of Greece. One of his playmates at the Latin School relates a story which illustrates his proficiency in Geography. This was not among the requirements for admission to the Latin School nor was it in its prescribed course of study. An ill-natured teacher thought to put him down one day for his ignorance of it. Sumner boldly declared he would answer any question the teacher could ask him. The teacher hunted out what he sup- posed to be a very difficult question and put it to him and he answered it correctly without a moment's hesitation. In personal appearance Sumner was at this time tall and slender, awkward in his movements, with a face not handsome. His constitution owing to the rapidity of his growth was not strong and caused his friends some anxiety. He cared little for sports and seldom took part in them. He was retiring in his disposition, studious and found diversion chiefly, in books. Without much humor he was yet a great talker and his kindly disposition made him a favorite with his playmates. He was liked by his teachers, submitted cheerfully to their discipline, obeying their rules and performing the tasks assigned him promptly. He was correct in his deportment, had no bad habits, did not swear and discouraged profanity in others. He was thoughtful, considerate and conscientious. On the sixth day of September, 1825, Governor Levi Lincoln appointed his father Sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts. This event changed the father's circumstances. He was now placed in a position of comparative affluence and the rigid economy which had thus far regulated his family was no longer imperative. He always remembered the appointment with grat- itude and ten years afterward characterized Governor Lincoln as his greatest earthly benefactor. The event coming as it did at such an opportune time in the life of the son. Just before finishing his course at the Latin School, and with the certain prospect of the continuance of good fortune for some years to come, changed the father's purpose as to the career of his son. A month before, we find him. seeking admission for him to a IQ LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER military school at Middletown, Conn., where, by his labor he might defray his own expenses. About this time he asked the Secretary of War to appoint him to a cadetship in the Military Academy at West Point, where his relative, Edwin V. Sumner, had graduated. Both were probably suggested by his limited means for the views of neither father nor son on the subject of war would have induced them to seek a military education for him. While the father wished to give all his nine children a useful education, before this appointment came to him he frankly confessed his means enabled him to think only of use- fulness. To this appointment and the incident of the Latin books, Charles Sumner owed his education and to that education the achievements of his life. Without these things, mere ac- cidents as they seem, he might have been a clerk or a respectable merchant, but the talents which gave him eminence, buried in a counting-room would have been lost. It is touching to reflect how much in this world depends on little things, Colum- bus, heart-sick, burdened with poverty and oppressed with dis- appointments, abandoning Spain in despair, when he stopped at a convent to beg for bread and, attracting the attention of the prior, was enabled to secure the interposition of the Queen in fitting out an exj^edition to discover America ; Shakespeare apprehended in poaching upon his Lordship's game-preserve, and Stratford lost an indifferent wool-comber, but the world gained an immortal poet. CHAPTER III ENTERS HARVARD COLLEGE — DISLIKE FOR MATHEMATICS — DE- PORTMENT — POPULARITY — FRIENDS — EXCURSION TO LAKE CHAMPLAIN — SOCIETIES — PRIZES AND STANDING And so it was settled that Charles should go to Harvard Col- lege. He entered September first, 182G. Time has wrought many changes in the college since then. Its undergraduates have more than quadrupled in number and there has been a corresponding increase in the faculty. Some of its halls then standing still remain but they have been refitted and are now the least valuable part of its property, its best buildings having since been erected. It now ranks as the oldest and one of the wealthiest seats of learning in the land. It was then Harvard College ; it is now Harvard University. The schools of theology, medicine and law, though some steps had been taken towards their establishment, may be said to be the work of later years. Many of the names which have given luster to its faculty have since been added, — Story, Greenleaf, Parsons, Quincy, Everett, Felton, Longfellow, Holmes, Agassiz. They were men of high culture and broad intelligence and have stamped their character upon the institution. The course of study is enlarged and its requirements are more exacting but more reasonable. Its stu- dents are no longer required to continue studies for which they have neither taste nor capacity. Since the school days of Sum- ner the elective system has been introduced which offers them greater freedom in the choice of studies suited to their purpose, without injury to their class standing. The old system was ill-suited to such minds as his. Sumner had no taste for mathematics. His want of capacity for such studies created a dislike for them and the necessity of mastering them imposed by the requirements of the course increased this dislike to a feeling of disgust. During a recitation one day, the Professor asked him a question, when with characteristic candor he replied, " I don't know. You know I don't pretend to know anything about mathematics." " Mathematics, Sumner ! Math- ematics ! " exclaimed the teacher, " Don't you know the differ- ence? This is not mathematics. This is physics." A laugh from the class followed, at Sumner's expense. The farther he 13 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER advanced in the mathematical course, the greater his difficulties became. At last, in preparing his recitations he is said to have accustomed himself to commit whole problems and demon- strations to memory, being unable to follow the course of reason- ing. The examinations he of course dreaded. In 1829 writing to a classmate, he said : " Brown went home and escaped the mathematical examination. That I attended. All I can say- about myself is, gratia Deo, I escaped with life." This deficiency of Sumner affected his position in his class. A high standing in our American colleges depends more upon making a fair recitation every time in every study, than upon making a brilliant recitation sometimes in some study. Wlien Sumner entered college he had hopes of reaching distinction in his class and he strove to do so, but this deficiency in mathe- matics soon blasted these hopes and thenceforward he studied such textbooks as he liked and neglected others. But notwithstanding his carelessness of class standing he was, as a student, industrious and obedient to the rules of the college.. He allowed himself little time for rest and recreation and was usually to be found in his room at work. There were of course some playful exceptions. Once during his Freshman year, with his classmate Bemis, he left the college, without permission, to go to the Brighton cattle show. Upon arriving at the fair, among the first persons the boys met were their fathers, who had likewise been classmates at college. Upon being asked by their fathers how they came there and why they had broken the college rules by leaving without permission, they apologized for their conduct by saying that they wished to come to the fair and thought there could be no harm in doing so as they would miss no recitation by their absence. The fathers made no farther objection but advised them to return at once. Mr. Sumner, however, taking young Bemis aside asked him how Charles stood in mathematics. " Very well, indeed, sir," said he, with unquestionable fidelity to his classmate. " I am glad to hear it," said Mr. Sumner. " He is doing better than I did. I let drop the links and lost the chain and have never been able to take it up again." We find also one other breach of the college rules, more a joke, however, than a defiance of authority. The rules pre- scribed the dress of an undergraduate and among other things, if a summer vest was worn it was to be white. Sumner wore a buff-colored one. He was warned by the college authorities that he was violating the rule. He replied that his vest was white or near enough so to comply with the regulation, and continued to wear it. The admonition was repeated again and again but LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 13 Charles maintained that his was a substantial compliance with the rule. At last the authorities gave it up, not, however, until they had vindicated their offended authority by adding a small fine to his term bill by way of punishment. Sumner was a favorite with his classmates. At this early age he showed that polite consideration for the feelings of others which became characteristic of him in maturer years. He was upright and honorable in his conduct and was disposed to put the same construction upon the motives of others. There was nothing morbid in his disposition; he enjoyed a well-timed joke, would willingly play a game of chess or cards and was always ready to do a kindness for a friend. It would be hard to find one more devoted to his friends than he was. As he had always lived in Boston and had been five years in the Latin school, his circle of acquaintances in college was larger than that of most of his classmates. He did not confine his friend- ship to one class. With little distinction he mingled with the members of every class both in their rooms and in their recre- ations. For what is known as society he cared nothing and though his connections in Boston and Cambridge afforded him opportunities for entering it, unlike most boys he does not seem to have cared to improve them. He preferred to be with those who had aspirations and sympathies like his own. His most intimate college friends were John W. Brown, Jonathan F. Stearns, Charlemagne Tower, Thomas Hopkinson, John B. Kerr and Barzillai Frost. The first two were his chums, Stearns in his freshman and Brown in sophomore and senior years. The former afterwards entered the ministry, the latter studied law. Of them all, he was most intimate with Brown. His buoyant spirits, his energy amounting almost to violence, his independence of thought and action, his wayward disposition, delighting in the works and the character of Byron, had a peculiar fascination for Sumner. They remained friends through life, corresponding after graduation, together again at the Law school, members of the same bar, Sumner after Brown's death in ISGO writing a sympathetic tribute to his memory. In his junior year together with three classmates he made an excursion on foot to Lake Champlain. This is the first evidence of that love of travel which afterwards developed itself. It seems like the first promptings of a restless energy characteristic of the family. The boys started on the fourteenth of July, 1829, going first to Amherst where they arrived, weary and foot-sore on the evening of the third day and immediately refreshed themselves with the prayer in the college chapel. Afterwards they viewed j^4 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER the college buildings and enjoyed the fine prospect of the sur- rounding country from the chapel tower. The next morning they started to ascend Mt. Holyoke and having lost their way, in the by-paths of the mountain, they turned their faces directly towards the summit, pushing through brambles, clam- bering over rocks, crawling around precipices, often in danger of their lives until they reached the top at last. Their efforts were rewarded by the magnificent prospect which lay before them, " with river of silver, winding through meadows of gold." From Mt. Holyoke they went to Deerfield and Bloody-Brook, scenes of Indian warfare and massacre, thence to Bennington, passing the night on the battlefield of the Eevolution where the cause of the colonists began to brighten. Pursuing their way, they reached Ticonderoga at last, having travelled two hundred and three miles in nine days. On their return they passed through Saratoga to Albany, pausing at the former place to view the scenes of Burgoyne's defeat and surrender. At Albany, Sumner parted company with Babcock, the last of his companions, the others. Frost and Munroe, unable to keep up, having long before been left behind. From Albany Sumner pursued his journey alone to New York, travelling by boat and stopping on the way a few hours at both Catskill and West Point. This was his first view of the Hudson, then as now famed as one of the most beautiful rivers of the world. He found it even thus early carrying on its broad, still flowing waters, crowds of tourists, among hills and valleys and mountains of surpassing loveliness. Its shores are dotted with scenes of his- toric interest recalling the struggles of the settlers with the Indians and later with the British. The whole region is en- veloped in a halo of legend and song such as gathers around no other part of our country. Sumner kept a journal of his trip in which he records the events and impressions of each day. It is fullest when dwell- ing upon these scenes made memorable by the struggles of the colonists with enemies who were loath to give up such a fair possession. Extracts from this journal were afterward pub- lished in a Boston paper, the first of his writings to appear in print save an essay on the English Universities, which ante- dated the other by a few months. This essay was read to " The Nine," a college society which he together with eight of his classmates organized in their senior year. It was a secret association for mutual improve- ment, receiving its name from the number of its members and meeting weekly in one of their rooms. In his Junior year LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 15 Sumner became a member of another society, " The Hasty Pud- ding Club." In his Senior year he contended for the Bowdoin prize, given for excellence in English composition. The svibject as- signed was, " The present Character of the Inhabitants of New England as resulting from the Civil, Literary and Eeligious Institutions of the First Settlers." His essay was signed, " A Son of New England." He received the second prize, thirty dollars, and invested it in books. Among them was a copy of Shakespeare's Works which he kept afterwards upon his table, ready for use. On the day of his death it was found there open with his mark between the pages, where he had just noted with his pencil the passage in " Henry, the Seventh." " Would Ifwere dead, if God's good will were so, For what is in this world but grief and woe." At the Junior Exhibition of his class, he performed the part of the " orator " in a Greek dialogue. At the Senior Exhibition and also at commencement, he had parts in conferences, his being respectively, " Bonaparte as a statesman and soldier," and " The Eeligious Notions of the North American Indians." He seems to have been dissatisfied with the places assigned him on these occasions and wished to decline them and would prob- ably have done so but for the earnest protest of his father. Though the places were not such as his classmates thought he deserved, they were probably all his standing warranted. In his class Sumner excelled in the humanities and in dec- lamation and composition. His performances of that time resembled his later works, though marked with less strength and accuracy in the use of words. In public speaking he had the same earnest yet subdued manner which afterward seemed to impress his audiences with the thought that he had a greater power in reserve than he cared to wield. In proficiency in the languages he had few equals among his classmates. He was well instructed in the rudiments of these studies in the Latin School and the high rank he took in them at his entrance to college, he maintained through the course. He entered so much into the spirit of them that many passages of the books he read were impressed upon his memory and were ready for use when a happy opportunity for quotation occurred. The fluency and diction of his translations impressed his classmates. He en- joyed these studies but his proficiency in them was the result of careful study. His diligence, in such studies as he enjoyed, is illustrated by something which occurred in his sophomore year. In the 16 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER months of February and March, he attended lectures delivered by Professor Ticknor on French Literature. Sumner took such an interest in them that at the close of each lecture he wrote out so much of it as he could remember and then at the end added an index to the whole course. His notes were so voluminous as to occupy one hundred and fifty jDages of his notebook. Such industry produced its natural result and had it not been for his failure in mathematics it is fair to conclude that he would have been among the first scholars of his class. It is im- possible now to tell what his class standing really was, the scales by which it is determined having been lost or destroyed. His class contained forty-eight members and he probably stood between the twentieth and twenty-fifth. Because he did not take a higher position, he has been pointed to as an illustration of the error, as pernicioifs as it is erroneous, that boys of high standing are never heard of after they leave college. The records of every college disprove this. The re- sult attained by a careful examination of the records of five of the most celebrated of our American colleges is that "the conclusion is irresistible that the vast majority of the scholars, the writers, the clergymen, the lawyers and the statesmen who have gained distinction by the work of their life have first won distinction in the college recitation and lecture room. A like conclusion was reached by Macaulay after an examination of the records of the English Universities of Oxford and Cam- bridge. " It seems to me," he says, " that there never was a fact proved by a larger mass of evidence or a more unvaried experience than this, that men who distinguished themselves in their youth above their contemporaries almost always keep to the end of their lives the start which they have gained — the general rule is beyond all doubt that the men who were first in the competition of the schools have been first in the competi- tion of the world." The college life of Sumner proves the same fact. He displayed in college the same moral qualities, the same proficiency in writing and speaking, the same love of liter- ature as lie afterwards displayed in the Senate. The same traits of character which gave him eminence among his classmates gave him eminence among men and in public life. He was never extravagant. When years afterwards in the Senate he was asked by a friend, why he did not adopt a more luxurious manner of life, he replied, "the nation cannot afford to give me more than six thousand dollars a year and I cannot afford to spend more than she gives." He was not extravagant in college. His four annual term bills average less than two hundred dollars each. He was always of steady purpose. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 17 Though unexpected obstacles might make the attainment of his object more difficult, whatever he undertook he would spare no effort to do. His love of reading which appeared so strong in the Latin School, became stronger during his college course. He spent much of his time in this way, reading widely and well, his memory, always remarkable, enabling him, with little effort, to retain whatever he wished. His favorite author was Shakespeare, from whose writings he was continually quoting from memory. In his senior year he commenced to keep a com- mon-place book, copying into it extracts chiefly from the old English authors and from the current literature of the day. He continued to keep this book ; and many of the quotations m his public efforts of a later day are taken from this source. The extent of his reading was remarked by his classmates and not without reason, for at his graduation he had, perhaps, a larger acquaintance with books than any member of his class. CHAPTER IV UNDECIDED AS TO PROFESSION — PRIZE FOR ESSAY ON COMMERCE — WORK OF YEAR AFTER GRADUATION — ENTERS LAW SCHOOL — INDUSTRY — FRIENDSHIP OF PROFESSORS STORY AND ASH- MUN — ADMITTED TO BAR — VISITS WASHINGTON — CHAR- ACTER Sumner graduated at Harvard College August twenty-fifth, 1830. His attachments to the place and to his classmates were strong and he believed his regret at the separation was greater than that of most of the members of his class. This feeling of regret was increased by the uncertainty of his future course. His friends had chosen their professions but he had not. Brown, Tower and Hopkinson, those with whom he was most intimate, had chosen the law and this was his preference, but the fear of natural unfitness and of failure, caused him many misgivings and left him, at last, undecided. He mistrusted his ability to reach the position he desired in the profession. In these difficulties his father gave him no assistance, but seemed determined to leave him to the freedom of his own choice. He expressed no wish and gave him no advice, doubtless having in mind his own career and thinking that the question was one of immediate concern to Charles alone and that if left entirely to himself he would be more laborious in the pursuit of the profession he chose. But this silence troubled Charles who per- haps misconstrued it. One of his reasons for hesitating to choose any profession, was a desire, almost morbid, to save his father any farther expense on his account. For this reason he sought, though unsuccessfully, the position of usher in the Boston Latin School. The first year after his graduation was spent at home pur- suing a course of private study. We find him taking a sterner view of life. With real candor, he wrote to his classmate: " Tower, you and I are both young and the world is all before us. You are ambitious I know, and I am not ashamed to con- fess, though ' by that sin fell the angels,' that I also am guilty. We are then fellow laborers in the same field, we are both strik- ing our sickles at the same harvest. Its golden sheaves are all pointing to you. You have been laborious and I have not. I 18 LIFE OF CHARLES SU3INER 19 have trod the primrose and you the thorny path. — There is no railway to fame. Labor, labor must be before our eyes, nay more, its necessity must sink deep in our hearts. This is the most potent alchemy to transmute lead to gold." During this winter the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge offered a prize to the minor who would pro- duce the best essay on a subject relating to trade, commerce or manufactures. The essay was to be presented to the committee by January first, 1831. A short time before the day specified Sumner determined to contest for it and accordingly prepared and presented an essay on Commerce. On the first day of April following he was declared the successful competitor. The decision was announced by the President of the Society, Daniel Webster, at the close of a lecture, on the evening of that day. Sumner was asked to come forward and receive the prize, Lie- ber's Encyclopedia Americana, valued at thirty dollars. He did so and was taken by the hand by Mr. Webster and kindly com- plimented and assured that his country had a pledge of him. As has already been remarked, Sumner revealed in college a talent for composition and declamation and in such work ranked among the best in his class. He was now showing a de- cided interest in these subjects and his letters of the time con- tain frequent allusions to the oratorical displays he witnessed and to the triumphs of the orators. It was the gradual awak- ening of the latent spirit of the coming man. He was espe- cially attracted to the great orator of the Boston of that day, " the huge leviathan of New England," as he called him, Daniel Webster. More than four years before, Mr. Webster delivered in Faneuil Hall his eulogy on Adams and Jefferson. Sumner, then a mere boy in the Latin School, wedged his way into the throng, just in time to hear the supposed speech of John Adams, considered by those who heard it, the finest passage of the oration. It left an enduring impression on the boy. In the October previous to taking the prize for his essay on Commerce, he had gone on two successive evenings to Faneuil Hall to hear Mr. Webster discuss the tariff question and about the same time he went to Salem to hear his argument in the trial of Joseph J. Knapp for the murder of Stephen White. These, however, were diversions. At the beginning of the year, fearful that he might be tempted to waste his time, Sum- ner prescribed a course of study for himself. He thus de- scribed it to a classmate, " a course of mathematics, Juvenal, Tacitus, a course of modern history, Hallam's Middle Ages, Eoscoe's " Leo " and " Lorenzi " and Robertson's " Charles Fifth," with indefinite quantities of Shakespeare, Burton, Brit- 20 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ish Poets, etc., and writing an indefinite number of long letters. I have doomed myself to hard labor and I shall try to look upon labor as some great lawyer did, as pleasure — ' Labor ipse volup- tas V' Sumner showed that he was not afraid of labor, by vol- untarily undertaking the study of mathematics. Though so lit- tle to his taste, he studied them faithfully, during part of the year devoting four hours each day to geometry alone. With such application he succeeded, but he still found them a dis- agreeable study. " I am now digging among the roots of Alge- bra," he wrote to a friend, " and believe your opinion will bear me out, when I say that these roots when obtained are but bitter." He, however, completed the course he prescribed. He read besides, in Latin, Persius; and in English, a number of books, among which was the " Correspondence of Gilbert Wakefield with Charles James Fox, chiefly on subjects of Classical Liter- ature." But at the close of the year he looked back with dis- satisfaction. " The latter part of this year," he wrote, " has been given up to unprofitableness. I have indeed studied or passed my eyes over books, but much of my time and almost my whole mind have been occupied with newspapers and politics." Freemasonry was then agitating tlie public and this subject, which he was attracted to by his father's interest in it, he gave too much time. But the commencement of another year brought a change. He determined to study law and on the first of September, 1831, he entered the Law School of Harvard College. Newspapers and politics were dismissed. The latter he so much forgot as shortly afterwards to congratulate a Professor upon his election to the State Senate, not knowing that he had just been defeated. His choice of the profession of law was made after much hesi- tation and without enthusiasm, but his ideal was high and he determined to be satisfied with no inferior position. He wrote to his classmate Stearns : " I had rather be a toad and live upon dungeon's vapor than one of those lumps of flesh that are christened lawyers and who know only how to wring from quibbles and obscurities that justice which else they never would reach, who have no idea of the law beyond its letter, nor of literature beyond their term Eeports and statutes. If I am a lawyer I wish to be one, who can dwell upon the vast heap of law matter as the temple in whieh the majesty of right has taken its abode, who will aim beyond the mere letter at the spirit, the broad spirit of the law and who will bring to his aid a liberal and cultivated mind. Is not this an honest ambition? If not, reprove me for it. A lawyer is one of the best or worst LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 21 of men, according as he shapes his course. He may breed strifes or he may settle the dissensions of years. But when 1 look before me and above me and see the impendent weight, — molem ingentem et perpetuis humeris sustinendam, — I incon- tinently shrink back. Book peers above book and one labor of investigation is gone through with only to show a greater one, — ' what man has done, man can do ' and in these words is a full fountain of hope. And here again Burke, ' There is nothing in the world really beneficial that does not lie within the reach of an informed understanding and a well-directed pursuit. There is nothing that God has judged for us that he has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and moral world.' What a sentiment, how rich in expression, how rich in truth. But such results cannot be accomplished without labor, sys- tematic and well directed. I am determined that if health is continued to me, lack of study shall not be laid to my charge. Study is my talisman." Sumner divided his time, forenoon to law, afternoon to classics and evenings to history and subjects auxiliary to law. Two o'clock in the morning was his usual hour for retiring to rest. He roomed at number ten, Divinity Hall, and later in Dane Hall, retired parts of the college, working hard, allowing himself little time for rest and recreation, having few associates, taking little exercise, seldom out of his room at nights. This severe application troubled his friends, who feared that his con- stitution could not sustain such drafts as he made upon it, a tendency to consumption being hereditary in his family. Though his course of reading while in the Law School was large, he gave especial attention to the prescribed studies, read- ing carefully the notes and many of the cases referred to in his textbooks. He continued his habit of common-placing and copied into his note-book the definitions given in some parts of Blackstone's Commentaries. His teachers were impressed with his remarkable memory and the facility with which he recalled the results of his reading. In 1832 he was appointed librarian of the Law School and in this capacity he soon became so familiar with the library as to be able to find any book on its shelves, in the dark. The text- books in it he familiarized himself with, so that he could give a summary of the contents of almost every one of them, together with a brief biographical sketch of the author. It was owing to these circumstances that even thus early, his assistance was occasionally sought by practising attorneys in the preparation of their briefs. He continued librarian during the remainder of his course at the Law School. The last year he prepared a 22 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER catalogue of the library with a brief sketch of its origin and growth, for which he was paid by the corporation. In 1832, Sumner competed successfully for another Bowdoin prize. From a number of subjects proposed, he chose this: " Are the most Important Changes of Society effected Gradually or by Violent Ecvolutions " ? He chose this subject because his previous historical reading would enable him to discuss it intelligently without special preparation or interruption to his prescribed studies. His performance, more than fifty pages in length, was commenced about a fortnight previous to the day specified for its presentation and was written in the intervals of time at his command. It bears the marks of haste and is not superior to the performances of young men of his age. He argued that the most important changes of society are effected gradually and that such revolutions are to be encouraged, but that violent ones are not. He was also during the last year of his connection with the Law School an occasional contributor to periodicals. An article in the American Monthly Eeview on " Impeachments " and another in the American Jurist, a review of a lecture by Professor Parke on Courts of Equity were favorably spoken of at the time. The latter is referred to by Judge Story in a note to his " Equity Jurisprudence ", with the remark that he "knew not where to refer the reader to pages more full of useful comment and research ". Sumner was at this time the president of a temperance society established among the students. It seems to have been a trait of his character to be strongly attracted by any move- ment which could surround itself with the charm of novelty. Previous to this he had warmly supported the anti-masonic movement ; later in life we find him equally earnest in the cause of universal peace, universal freedom and universal suffrage. Age had no charm for him. For one situated as he was destined to be it was perhaps well; but for men in ordinary times it should have more. Sumner's application while a student at the Law School soon attracted the attention of his professors, Joseph Story and John H. Ashmun. The former, the author of works on commercial and constitutional law, was also one of the Justices of the Su- preme Court of the United States. He and Sumner's father while students together at Harvard had been friends. This friendship, never interrupted, first brought Charles to Story's attention. There has seldom been a more beautiful relation be- tween teacher and pupil than that which thus commenced. It was interrupted only by death. The simplicity and purity of LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 23 Sumner's character, liis appreciative disposition, his enthusi- asm, his love for knowledge, the extent of his reading and his capacity to retain what he read, his ambition in his chosen pro- fession, the earnest effort he made to realize it, all appealed to Story's love for young men. He came to regard Sumner al- most as a son. Pie directed his studies, advised his reading, welcomed him to his home, his fireside and his confidence. If Story sent books from Washington for distribution, it was Sumner's hand which delivered them. If Story's place at the Law School was vacant it soon became Sumner's duty to fill it. If Story's son wanted a playfellow, it was Sumner who was always willing to interest or instruct him. After Sumner was in his grave and this boy, man-grown, was left to record the friendship, it is touching to read his recollection of it, which seems so tenderly to draw aside the veil from this scene of happy boyhood, hallowed by the touch of death. Everything about it seems sacred, the books they exchanged, the passages they read, the stories they told, their amusements, all are tinged with that tenderness which only the grave can add, mingled with thoughts of childhood and innocence and friend- ship and fidelity. As Sumner over the grave of Story, the father, wrote his " Tribute of Friendship ", so Story, the son, over the grave of Sumner added his " In Memoriam ". The influence of Story on Sumner's character was handed on by Sumner to Story's son. It is difficult to measure this influence. Sumner's respect and admiration for Story now were almost boundless. For many years he was his ideal and a better ideal for an ambitious young man it would be difficult to find. Joseph Story was born at Marblehead, Mass., in 1779, graduated from Harvard College in 1798, was admitted to the bar and rapidly rose to eminence in his profession. In 1809 he entered Congress, but declined a re-election and was returned to the Legislature of Massachusetts of which he became Speaker in 1811 and then resigned this office to become one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. This posi- tion he filled until his death in 1845. He ranks as one of the ablest men that ever had a place upon the bench. He was a man of great industry and of unusual mental vigor. Besides the great work of his office he was the author of numerous trea- tises, and published reports of his decisions on the circuit, and was the leading spirit in organizing and conducting the Law School of Harvard College. As a jurist and exponent of con- stitutional law he stood in the front rank, not only in his own country, but also in Europe. And as a lecturer and the author of occasional addresses he showed high literary ability. But 24 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER with all his great work, he never lost his naturalness, his ap- proachableness, his eager thirst for knowledge and his vivacity of spirits wliich made him so attractive to young men. His ready wit and the contagious heartiness of his laugh were as marked as the purity and high purpose of his life. Sumner's controlling ambition from the time he had studied law sufficiently to fix a plan in life, until 1845, was to be a jurist. He never appears to have been fitted or disposed to en- gage in wrangling disputes at the bar. Guided by Story's ex- ample, his aspiration was to occupy the position of a judge or a professor in the Law School; and be known as Blackstone, Puffendorf and Kent are known. Much friendship was also shown by Professor Ashmun for Sumner. Ashmun being younger than Story, his relation to Sumner approached nearer to intimacy. Sumner seeing him approach one day quietly remarked to a fellow student that he was going to get a compliment from the Professor. When he came up Sumner politely offered him a chair, and after the usual salutations and a little other talk, commenced : " There is a lawyer down at the Cape who says he can beat any man in the State pleading, but that Ashmun ". And then, with a look of despondency, added : " But as for me I can't plead. I don't know anything about it ". And then stopped for the expected compliment. But the Professor answered : " No, you don't know anything. And what is more, you never will ". Ashmun's health, though he was a young man, was even at this time broken. He died soon after of consumption, Sumner alone being with him at the time of his death, his nurse for the night. During the same period Sumner met with a nearer loss by death. His twin sister Matilda died March sixth, 1830, also of consumption. Professor Ashmun was succeeded by Simon Greenleaf. Sumner left the Law School in December, 1833. He in- tended to leave earlier, but remained at the suggestion of Judge Story. He wished to gain a more accurate knowledge of the practice and for this purpose in January, 1834, he entered the law office of Eand & Fisk in Boston. Benjamin Rand under wliose immediate tuition he was, had a high standing at the bar for judgment, integrity and learning, qualities which make an able counsellor, but he does not seem to have aspired to dis- tinction in court practice. He was an intimate friend of Judge Story whose calls at the office during the unoccupied portion of their time were always occasions when Sumner became a willing listener to the conversation. Sumner gave attention chiefly to the details of office work. He also continued his con- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 25 tributions to the American Jurist and, in the following May, became one of its editors. He was admitted to the bar in Sep- tember, 1834, at Worcester, there being no court in session at that season of the year in Boston competent to grant admis- sions. From the middle of February to the beginning of April, 1834, Sumner's studies in the law office were interrupted by a visit to Washington, undertaken at the suggestion of Judge Story. He devoted his attention while there chiefly to the Supreme Court, but also gave some to Congress. The former was then the scene of discussion of questions which have since been appealed to other tribunals and are now incorporated in our political history. In the Senate, in 1852, when advocating the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, Sumner, in referring to this visit, said : " Among the memories of my youth are happy days when I sat at the feet of this tribunal, while Marshall pre- sided, with Story by his side ". Congress then had under discussion the National bank ques- tion, which attracted so much attention, during Jackson's Ad- ministration. Neither before nor since have there been three such men there to discuss any question as Webster, Calhoun and Clay who were there then in their prime. Sumner ad- mired the attainments of all of them, but especially the graceful and forcible eloquence of Clay. A card from Mr. Webster secured him a seat on the floor of the senate whenever he ■wished to occupy it. Judge Story opened the way for him to every circle and enabled him to make some valuable acquaintances. Sumner met the Eeporters, Wheaton and Peters, he dined with the Judges of the Supreme Court and received marks of attention from Chief Justice Marshall, whose greatness and simplicity impressed him. He there met for the first time, Rufus Choate and Francis Lieber. With the latter he became an intimate friend and a frequent correspondent. On his return home he stopped a few days in Philadelphia, visiting the Reporter, Peters, at his home and enjoying some other hospitalities. In passing through New York on his journey to Washington he had been introduced by a letter from Professor Greenleaf to James Kent, the author of the Commentaries on American Law. He returned to his profession with more love for it and a greater dislike for politics, little thinking what an arena Washington was to be for him. On leaving there, he wrote to his father : " 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 36 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER any feeling other than loathing. The more I see of them the more I love law which I feel will give me an honorable liveli- hood. Mr. Peters, who has treated me with great friendship, told me when I was remarking to him as above, that before 1840 I should come on to Washington (if I were willing) to argue some causes in the Supreme Court. This anticipation, flattering of course, was dictated undoubtedly by Judge Story's friendly recommendation of me. However, I do not presume to indulge any such anticipations. When indulged by others I let them pass for what they are worth." Sumner's personal appearance at this time presented a re- markable contrast to that of his maturer years. He was six feet and three inches tall; but weighed only a hundred and twenty pounds. He was stooped in his carriage and awkward in his movements, sprawling rather than sitting in a chair. His hair was of dark brown color, his eyes blue but usually inflamed by excessive use, his features were rough, his com- plexion sallow and indicated a want of sufficient exercise. Nothing redeemed his face from ugliness, but a beautiful set of teeth and a winning smile which generally secured for him a favorable impression at the first introduction. He was careless of his general appearance and gave little attention to' dress, in this respect differing from his taste in later years when he became somewhat particular in the choice of clothes. He had little imagination, no humor and cared nothing for athletic games. He was conscientious in his con- duct, but not religious ; he believed in God, but seemed to have doubts, which later in life were removed, of the divinity of Christ. He had decision of character and steadiness of purpose to accomplish a desired end. His qualities of mind and heart easily secured him friends. His hearty laugh, his appreciative disposition, his kindliness, always ready to do a favor for a friend, the charm of his conversation, his scholarly aspirations, his freedom from sham, his real worth, were qualities which recommended him among men. To women he seemed to be indifferent. He would at any time turn his back upon the loveliest girl to talk to some man who could tell him something of interest. This trait of his character was so noticeable that his friends Avould occasionally lay wagers with sprightly and interesting girls that they could not keep him at their side a quarter of an hour. Notwithstand- ing every art they could employ the girls usually lost their bets. Men he liked best, tliough he appreciated sensible and intel- ligent women not, however, because they were women, but be- cause they had traits of character which he admired. CHAPTER V LAW PRACTICE — EDITING THE JURIST OTHER PUBLICATIONS — INSTRUCTOR IN HARVARD LAW SCHOOL THE FIVE OF CLUBS Imimediately upon his admission to the bar, Sumner com- menced the practice of his profession in Boston. His first case was the defence of a man indicted for sending another a chal- lenge to fight a duel. The trial attracted some attention and resulted in the man being cleared. A newspaper of the fol- lowing day in noticing it characterized Sumner as " a young gentleman more deeply read in the law than any other in- dividual of similar age ". He was associated in the case with George S. Hillard, who was near his own age but had been ad- mitted to the bar about a year earlier. In the November fol- lowing Sumner and Hillard formed a partnership under the firm name of " Hillard & Sumner ". Their office was at No. 4 Court Street. Sumner roomed in the same building with Luther S. Cushing, later the author of " Cushing's Manual of Parliamentary Practice ". He took his meals at a restaurant. Hillard had 'literary tastes and a genial disposition and to- gether they attracted many visitors to their office. Story and Greenleaf were among the number; the latter placed a desk there calling it " our office " and there he met the clients he served during his connection with the Law School. But visitors were more numerous than clients. Sumner's success was not what he desired nor such as his laborious prep- aration for the profession had justified him in expecting. The number of his cases was not large and the amount involved in many of them was small. The Jurist and the Law School occupied a considerable portion of his time. Of the former he continued to be one of the editors and in the latter he became an instructor and during a great part of the year spent each alternate day in Cambridge, in that work. These were serious obstacles to professional success, for clients are quick to observe such division of attention. They prefer an attorney who is always to be found at his desk, ready to serve them with single- ness of purpose. Sumner thus easily drifted away from his office. It was his ambition to be a Judge, an author or a 27 28 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER teacher, in his profession, rather than a practitioner and he came to prefer such work as the Jurist and the Law School required. His associates in the work of editing the Jurist were Hillard and Gushing. It was as its name indicates a legal periodical, published monthly in Boston and always maintained a good standing in the estimation of the Bar of the State. It numbered at this time among its contributors some men who have since gained a wide reputation, as writers upon legal subjects, — Simon Greenleaf, author of the "Law of Evidence", Theophilus Parsons, author of the "Law of Contracts", Theron Metcalf also the author of a work on " Contracts " and Willard Phillips, author of a work on " Insurance ". A large share of the work of editing the Jurist fell to Sumner. It is not now possible to determine, with accuracy, his contributions, but many of them are distinguishable, the longer ones being marked with his initials, and the shorter ones, by references to them in his correspondence and by peculiarities of style. They are all carefully written and show the author's familiarity with literature, but one thing is noticeable of them, they are not upon strictly legal subjects. He preferred to write upon the literature of the law rather than upon the law itself. His articles are historical sketches of libraries and law schools, reviews of legal publications, propositions for legal reform, rather than upon the law of real property, agency, promissory notes, etc. His ability and industry now recognized, were sought for in other directions. During 1835 and 1836 he edited ''Andrew Dunlap's Admiralty Practice ". The author, the U, S. District Attorney for Massachusetts, had just completed the text of the work when he was seized by disease with such violence that he was compelled to resign his office and almost entirely refrain from labor. He was deeply interested in his book and longed to complete it. His inability to do so led him to ask the as- sistance of Sumner, whose fitness for the work he recognized. Sumner promptly undertook it but found it an arduous task. The text had to be revised, the notes written, the practical forms added, the index prepared and the work carried through the press. Much of it had to be done under the jealous eye of the author who now felt that this book would be his only claim to the consideration of posterity. Sumner gave his time freely to the work. The practical forms which are a considerable and valuable part of the book, he contributed to it himself. Where they could be found, he selected them from other books, others he adopted from those which had been approved in actual prac- tice, some he prepared himself. They are now the standard LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 29 forms used in admiralty practice. The work was so great that the book was not given to the public until almost a year after the death of Mr. Dunlap. The preface he dictated four days before his death and in grateful and complimentary terms he then acknowledged the assistance of Sumner. During the same period Sumner prepared for Judge Story the index to his " Equity Jurisprudence ", which he was about to publish. In 1835, Judge Story also appointed him Reporter for the U. S. District Court over which he presided. In this capacity, he published three volumes of Judge Story's decisions, known as " Sumner's Reports ". They appeared in 1836, 1837 and 1841. He also delivered lectures at various times, but they were chiefly upon subjects suggested by his work in the Law School, as The Constitution of the United States, The Law of Bailments, etc. He was an occasional contributor to the North American Review. Sumner commenced to give instruction in the Harvard Law School in January, 1835. He supplied the place of Judge Story, during the portion of the year he was occupied upon the bench of the Supreme Court at Washington. Sometimes Pro- fessor Greenleaf was also obliged to be absent during the same season upon professional business, he having left an extensive practice in Maine to assume the duties of his professorship. . At such times the whole responsibility of the Law School fell upon Sumner. In discharging his duties he gave instructions both by recitations and by lectures. The textbooks were the first two volumes of " Kent's Commentaries " and " Starkie on Evi- dence ". The volumes he used show signs of careful and thorough study. They are considerably worn and contain many references in pencil on the margin. This is especially true of the first volume of "Kent's Commentaries", which treats of the law of nations, of the Constitution of the United States, and the sources of municipal law. These were ever afterwards favorite subjects of study with Sumner. Little is now remem- bered of his method of instruction and this is evidence that it was respectable for he was daily exposed to a comparison with Storv and Greenleaf. This list of his employments shows that Sumner, then hardly twenty-five years of age, was a thoroughly industrious and capa- ble young man. If work in the courts did not come to him, he was willing to take that which did, even though it brought small returns in money. He was faithful to his early ideals. Work was still his talisman. He was extending his acquisition of knowledge and widening his influence and adding to his fame. He was cultivating his power as a writer and speaker and lay- 30 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ing deep and broad a foundation for the future. His habits continued good, he allowed no time for evil associations, he kept himself busy. As usual he had a circle of warm friends about him. He and his college classmates had drifted apart but new occupa- tions had brought new associations and new friends. Though the number of them was not larger than falls to the lot of others, his devotion to them was a marked trait of his character. It would be difficult to find another, whose time was so care- fully husbanded, who was so willing to lay aside his own work to entertain or assist friends. This made his friendship valua- ble even to a man of prominence and wide influence like Judge Story, who was frequently burdened with work which Sumner could do as well as he. Professor Greenleaf found his friend- ship equally valuable. But theirs was also valuable to him. Association with them corrected his ideals and communicated to him the lofty aspirations by which they were inspired. Their wide acquaint- ance among influential men opened up new avenues of acquaint- ance to him. His experience in Washington in 1834, when Judge Story brought him to the notice of such men as Chief Justice Marshall and Mr. Webster, was repeated in 1836, when he jnade a tour visiting Providence, New York, Albany, Sara- toga, Niagara Falls, Montreal and Quebec, returning by way of" Portland. At New York, he dined with Judge Kent, the author of " Kent's Commentaries ", at his home and visited the suburbs of the city with him. He also met the widow of Gover- nor De Witt Clinton and was introduced by her to her brother- in-law, Judge Ambrose Spencer, then living in Albany at an advanced age. Of this visit he wrote: "While in Albany, I saw Judge Spencer, who received me kindly because he understood I was Judge Story's friend; also Johnson, the reporter, who is one of the most agreeable and gentlemanly men I ever met. In- deed I had reason to think of Judge Story and be grateful to him every step ". At Quebec he met Judge Sewell, the Chief Justice of Lower Canada and Judge Gaston, the famous North Carolinian. He also made the acquaintance at this time of Thomas Brown, a young English advocate, with whom he afterwards corre- sponded and to whom he was to be indebted for kindness when he visited Europe. The friendships Sumner now formed were lasting. Francis Lieber, whose acquaintance he had made in 183-4, was one of his most frequent correspondents. This correspondence continued LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 31 until Lieber's death in 1872. He was a native of Berlin, but came to this country while still a young man and remained until his death, occupying professorships in various colleges. He was a voluminous writer and was always engaged in some literary work. His best known productions are " Civil Liberty and Self-Government " and his " Political Ethics ". He was an enthusiast in his literary work but sometimes in his search for materials made serious drafts upon the time of his friends. Sumner, however, was always willing to assist him in securing materials, in the publication of his books and in procuring a favorable reception for them from the public. He in turn frequently aided Sumner with material for his speeches and was ever his staunch supporter in his public career. Sumner and four of his friends in Boston and Cambridge, at this time formed an association which they called the " Five of Clubs ". The members were Sumner, Henry R. Cleveland, Cornelius C. Felton, George S. Hillard and Henry W. Long- fellow. They were near the same age, Sumner, the youngest, being twenty-six and Longfellow, the oldest, thirty. They were all talented young men of pure lives and high aspirations and with the exception of Hillard were all unmarried. Cleveland was a teacher, of a refined and sensitive nature, and a grace- ful writer, but he died six years later. All the others lived to justify their early promise; Longfellow became a great poet; Felton, president of Harvard College and an author; Hillard, an able lawyer and a legal writer of note ; all are known as men of letters and made an impression upon their generation and left national reputations. In all the annals of literature there can hardly be found an association more beautiful than that of these young men. They usually met each Saturday afternoon, at the room of one of their number to discuss the literature of the day, for- eign travel, their own studies and to spend an hour in friendly conversation. Each of them submitted to the others, his article or book or poem, for comment and criticism, before it was given to the public. Longfellow and Cleveland had travelled extensively in Europe ; and the otherslonged to do so and were interested in everything that was said of the scenes of their subjects of study. A table spread with a few delicacies gave an additional interest to their meetings. Their conversa- tion was interesting and instructive, nothing coarse, and the direst company would have been jovial under the influence of the hearty laugh and joyous spirit of Felton. CHAPTEE VI TRIP TO EUROPE — DISADVANTAGES — OPPOSITION" OF FRIENDS — MOTIVES FOR TAKING IT — VOYAGE — FRANCE — LEARNING FRENCH — SCHOOLS — COURTS — ASSEMBLIES For years Sumner had longed to make a trip to Europe. While a student in the Law School, he almost completed an arrangement with a gentleman by which his expenses for such a trip were to be borne, in consideration of services to be ren- dered on his return. Later when bantered by Mr. Greenleaf about " the perfect woman he was some day to wed ", or rallied by his friends about settling down in life, he would answer, " I am married to Europa ". It was not, however, until 1837, that his wish to visit Europe became a settled purpose. Such a trip may easily be made an appropriate conclusion to a college course. It is an excellent preparation, for one, who aspires to a professorship in some school or to the pursuit of letters or to a life of elegant ease. In no other place can a knowledge of a modern language be so well obtained as in the country where it is spoken. You there hear it used continually, with its different forms of expression and pronunciation and you can so locate yourself that you must learn to speak the lan- guage or have no communication with others. A knowledge of it thus becomes imperative and it is then more readily acquired. An acquaintance with the people, their manners, institutions and literature follows easily a knowledge of their language. Such attainments are accomplishments to be desired by any one. But they should present to one situated as Sumner was another consideration, — whether a professional man, to acquire them, would be justified in quitting his office and his business, for two years, after having fairly commenced his career. The law is a jealous mistress. To succeed, one must be willing to dedicate to her not only his days and nights, but he must do it with every energy which he can command. Clients cannot be dismissed and recalled at pleasure. To establish oneself well in the legal profession generally requires years of labo- rious exertion. Before such a possession is bartered away for graceful, but unnecessary accomplishments, the consequences 33 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 33 should be carefully calculated. So far as Sumner's law practice was concerned, his determination to spend two years in Europe was a mistake. His friends generally discouraged it. He was much hurt at President Quincy of Harvard bluntly telling him, that all the orood Europe would do, would be to teach him to wear a mustache and carry a cane. Some were afraid he would be spoiled by foreign airs and manners ; others thought that the continued novelty and excitement of so long a stay in Europe would wean him from the profession to which he had been devoted so short a time. Whatever the cause may have been, the fact is unquestioned, that Sumner never afterwards actively engaged in the practice of law. His friends, however, yielded. They saw his desire to go was so great that he would be cast down if not permitted to carry out his purpose. For an absence of two years in Europe about five thousand dollars was required to defray his expenses. Of this sum his professional savings had been scarcely one-third. His friends Judge Story, Samuel Lawrence and Richard Fletcher kindly loaned him the balance. To secure him a favorable reception in Europe, friends were ready to give him letters of introduc- tion. Of these he had altogether about fifteen — to some of the most influential persons in England and on the Continent. They also gave him such counsel and information as they could to advance the purpose of his trip. Lieber wrote out for him a number of rules to guide him. The friends who at first dis- couraged his trip, when he had determined to go, generously furnished him every means in their power to make it profitable. The discouragements he met with, made Sumner feel the responsibility of the step he was taking. He wrote to Professor Greenleaf the day before he sailed : " It is no slight affair to break away from business which is to give me my daily bread and pass across the sea to untried countries, usages and lan- guages. And I feel now pressing with a mountain's weight, the responsibility of my step. But I go abroad with the firmest determination to devote myself to self-improvement from the various sources of study, observation and society; and to re- turn an American. Gladly will I receive any of those accom- plishments or modifications of character, which justly proceed from an extended survey of the human family, I pray fervently that I may return with benefits on my head ; and that the affec- tation of character and indifference to country which are thought sometimes to proceed from travel may not reach me. All this is in the unknown future, which I may not penetrate. To ilie candid judgment and criticism of my friends, I shall 34 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER submit myself on my return ; and I shall esteem it one of the highest duties of friendship to correct me and to assist in bringing me back to the path of sense and simplicity, if it shall be found that I have departed from it. Do not let it be said then tliat I shall be spoiled by Europe, but rather suggest that I shall return with an increased love for my country and ad- miration for its institutions and an added capacity for per- forming my duty in life. My standard of knowledge and character must be elevated and my own ambition have higher objects. If this is not so then I shall have seen Europe in vain and my friends may regret their generous confidence in me." Again in his journal of the day he set sail he wrote : " And a sad time it was, full of anxious thoughts and doubts with mingled gleams of glorious anticipations. I thought much of the position which I abandoned for the present ; the competent income which I forsook; the favoring tide whose buoyant waters were bearing me so well, which I refused to take even at its ebb ; then I thought of the advice and warnings of many whose opinions I respect. The dear friends I was to leave be- hind all came rushing before me ; and affection for them was a new element in the cup of my anxieties. But on the other hand, the dreams of my boyhood came before me, the long-pondered visions, first suggested by my early studies, and receiving new additions with every step of my progress ; my desire which has long been above all other desires, to visit Europe ; and my long cherished anticipations of the most intellectual pleasure and the most permanent profit. Europe and its reverend history, its ancient races, its governments handed down from old times, its sights memorable in story; above all its present existing in- stitutions, laws and society, and its men of note and mind, fol- lowed in the train, — and the thought of these reassured my spirits. In going abroad at my present age, and situated as I am, I feel that I take a bold, almost a rash, step. One should not easily believe that he can throw off his clients and then whistle them back, ' as a huntsman does his pack '. But I go for purposes of education and to gratify longings which prey upon my mind and time. * * * The course which my studies have taken has also made it highly desirable, that I should have the advantage derived from a knowledge of the European lan- guages, particularly French and German, and also a moderate acquaintance with the laws and institutions of the Old World more at least than I can easily gain at home. In my pursuits lately I have felt the want of this knowledge, both of the langiiages, particularly German, and of the Continental juris- prudence. I believe then that by leaving my profession now, I LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 35 make a present sacrifice for a future gain; that I shall return with increased abilities for doing good and acting well my part in life." These passages reveal his motives. The solution is found in the aspiration which Sumner was known to have at this time. He wished to occupy a professorship in the Law School such as Judge Story then occupied and be known to posterity as a writer on legal subjects. He wished to study law as a science, not tj practice it as a trade, to be instrumental in redifcing its principles to something like symmetry and in bringing the mass of the common-law into smaller compass. He wished to have the civil and criminal law both codified as the latter has been since, in many of the States. ITpon the subject of codification he was enthusiastic. In 1836 he was appointed by the Legislature of Massachusetts with Judge Story and others a Committee to report on the advisability of such a reform in that State. Though declining to act as a member of the Committee for fear of the imputation of the undue influence of Judge Story, which might arise from their friendly relations, he advocated the reform in the Jurist and sought the contributions of Professor Mittermaier, an eminent German law-writer, in presenting similar views to the public. He wished to talk on this subject with its advocates in Eu- rope. He wished to know these men and to know them inti- mately. He wished to see them in their schools, hear their lectures, enter with them into the spirit of their work. He wished to see their methods of instruction, to know in what they excelled and introduce their reforms into his own country. He wished to see parliaments and assemblies where laws were made and the courts where they were administered and note wherein they differed from similar institutions of his own country. He intended by this means to fit himself for a life-work. After several appointments and as many disappointments, Sumner at last fixed his time of sailing, in the early part of December, 1837. During November, he made a hurried trip to Portland, ]\Iaine, to procure some promised letters of intro- duction ; and another to Washington to be made the bearer of dispatches, an appointment which would give him some ad- vantages. He sailed by the AJhany on December eighth from Kew York. The evening previous, until late, he spent in writing farewell letters to friends. He had received many from them assuring him of their regard, bidding him God-speed and reminding him of the honorable career which awaited him on 36 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER his return. As the vessel sailed slowly down the harbor and out to sea, he stood thoughtfully on deck, watching receding objects till one after another disappeared and he was left alone, with all he loved behind, with nothing before but his own bright anticipations, now overshadowed with the gloomy fore- bodings of his friends. He then went below. Here different experiences awaited him. During the next four days he suffered from that sick- ness, \Wiich some one has humorously said makes a man feel at first afraid he will die, but afterwards, afraid he won't. At the end of that time he had so far recovered as to be able to read when propped up in his berth and at the expiration^ of a week he could go below to his meals. During the remainder of his voyage he spent his time, in reading, studying French and reviving his knowledge of chess and whist, accomplish- ments of his college days which he had put aside for sterner tasks. The voyage was a prosperous one and on the evening of December twenty-fifth, land was sighted. Sumner was then in the English Channel and the dream of years was realized ! " My mind," he wrote, " has felt a thrill under the associa- tions of these waters; it is my first experience of the rich memories of European history. On my left now are the chalky cliffs of England — Plymouth, from which the Pilgrim ances- tors of New England last started to come to our bleak places ; also the Isle of Wight, consecrated by the imprisonment of the royal Charles; and the harbor of Portsmouth, big with the navies of England. On my right is Ja belle France and the smiling province of Normandy ; and the waters which now bear this American ship are the same over which Csesar with his frail boats, and afterwards William of Normandy passed to the Conquest of England. Their waves dash now with the same foamy crests as when these two conquerors timidly entrusted themselves to their bosom. Civilization, in the mean time, with its attendant servants — commerce, printing and Christian- ity — has been working changes in the two countries on either side ; so that Caesar and William, could they re-visit the earth, might not recognize the lands from which they passed or which they subdued. The sea receives no impress from man." Owing to adverse winds, the Albany did not come to anchor at Havre until December twenty-eighth. Sumner then went on shore and spent the remainder of the day in viewing the city. The next morning he started for Rouen, talking on the road to the driver as best he could, with his imperfect French. He now felt the need of the language to be able to appreciate the objects of interest about him and he was determined to use LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 37 it and thereby extend his knowledge of it, at every opportunity. The next day was spent in Rouen, a considerable part of it in viewing the Cathedral, the wonder of the North of France, built before the Conquest, when the knowledge of the arts and sciences seems to us to have been in its infancy ; and yet it appears, to the traveller to-day, as great an achievement in architecture as it must have been to its builders. He also visited the Hotel de Ville. In its library, he was struck with a manuscript he saw, made on parchment by an obscure monk, before the discovery of the art of printing. The work was a collection of the music used in their service, of no substantial value, and yet the labor of transcribing it consumed thirty years of time — almost a whole human life, wasted! Anxious to see at their height the great gambling hells, which were to be abolished throughout France on the first of January, Sumner set out for Paris on the morning of December thirty- first and reached there at twilight in the evening, — in time to see the dens, in their greatest pride, fade away before the law. In the journal which he commenced with his voyage and con- tinued for four months he has recorded the scene : " I went about ten o'clock to Frascati's, — the great " hell " of Paris. Passing through an outside court, and then a short entry, we entered an antechamber, where there were a large number of servants in livery who received our hats and outside garments, no one being allowed to enter the gambling saloon with either. The hats already hanging up and in the custody of the servants seemed innumerable, and yet the servants had no numbers or marks by which to indicate to whom each hat belonged, trusting entirely to recollecting the countenance. The door of the saloon was then opened ; and the first table of gamblers was before us — men young, middle-aged and old, with the bloom of youth yet mantling the face and with the wrinkles and gray hair of age. This table was a roulette, I be- lieve. It was about the size of a common billiard table, and it was completely surrounded by a double and triple row of persons ; the first row sitting, and the others standing. Among those sitting were two or three women of advanced age, and moving about the room were several younger, undoubtedly Cyprians, possessing considerable personal attractions." " Passing into the next saloon through an open door, we found a larger table, with players more intent and more numer- i ous, where the game turned upon cards. The silver and gold spread on the table was a vast amount, and I saw one man, with a lip that quivered and a hand that trembled, stake his double handful of gold on a single throw, — amounting to many hun- 38 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER dred dollars. Little wooden rakes or hoes were used to draw the money in. The third saloon had a table where the chance turned upon dice." " It was a scene which I am glad to have witnessed. The excitements of gambling have been said to be strong; and I can understand how persons have been drawn by its fascinations within the terrible maelstrom. They try once for experiment, and are seduced by a momentary success, or excited by a loss and observing others perhaps winning large sums, they are finally absorbed in the whirling vortex. Several of the friends that I went with ventured several francs, and alternately lost and won. I am free to confess that I felt the temptation but I restrained my hand. To-night being the last night, the rooms were very full, the gamblers wishing to have their last game. We left sometime before midnight, thinking that there might be some disturbance at that time, when the transforming wand of the law would exercise its power. I, however, walked the boulevards, which were splendidly illuminated by the shop win- dows till long after midnight, as well as thronged by people ; and at twelve o'clock I stood before Frascati's. The people were retiring from within, and as the women came out they were subjected to the sneers and jeers of a considerable crowd who had collected in the street about the gateway. A few of the police were present who at once interfered to prevent the uproar; and in a few minutes three horsemen rode into the crowd, and speedily dispersed them. Such was the last night of Frascati, and my first night in Paris." During his first weeks in Paris, Sumner pursued indus- triously the study of the French language. He had studied it while in college and could read it with some accuracy, but he had thus far "made little effort to learn to speak it. He re- frained from presenting the letters of introduction which he had to various persons in Paris and he declined invitations into society, until he could use the language. He engaged lodging in a quiet part of the city so that lie would have a place where he could hear nothing else spoken and so be compelled to talk French or have no communication with those about him. Here he engaged two teachers with whom he could take lessons and converse at different hours of the day. When he went for a walk, he would take the child of one of his teachers to talk to ; he conversed with people he met by the way. " My rule," he wrote, " is to practise upon everybody, to take every opportu- nity to speak the language, even if it be but a word, for every tinie of trial gives me assurance and also adds to my stock of words and phrases." LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 39 He frequented reading-rooms and public lectures in the schools of medicine and law. He also attended theatres, pur- chasing at the door a copy of the play so that he could follow the performance and thus familiarize himself with the sound of the spoken language. Of course he made rapid progress in a study pursued so persistently. He had entered France on De- cember twenty-eighth and on January twelfth, he recorded in his journal, on returning from a lecture at the law school, that he could understand nearly all the lecturer said. On February fourteenth, after an evening spent in the society of some friends he again recorded that all were kind enough to remark that he had gained a great deal of French and were astonished at his progress. " I just begin to enjoy conversation," said he, " and the sensation is delightful." Thenceforward he was frequently in society and soon became at ease in the use of the language. Whatever furnished self-improvement seemed to have an at- traction for him. As he drifted into the dock at Havre, with the tide and a gentle wind, he marked the "noble work con- trived for the reception of vessels and bearing the inscription of ' An. IX Bonaparte 1° Consul ' ", the labor of this great man meeting him on the threshold of France. At Paris he ascended the monument in the Place Vendome, conceived and built by Napoleon, and he recorded in the journal of the day : " It is composed of the cannon taken at Austerlitz. There is a genius characteristic of Napoleon in making the conquered cannon into a monument of victory; and the monument is a most beautiful one. It is an imitation of the pillar of Trajan at Home of which it preserves the proportions on a scale larger by a twelfth." He visited the Hospice cles Enfants Trouves, since discon- tinued, and of it he wrote : " This is the receptacle of the foundlings of Paris ; and upwards of one hundred are left here each week, making more than six thousand during the year. The argument for such establishments is that they prevent in- fanticide by furnishing an asylum for infants. There is a little box with a green cushion, about large enough for an infant, which opens on the street ; into this the child is put by the parent or other person entrusted with it, and at the same time the box is turned round, a bell being made to ring by the act of turning, and the little thing is received into its new asylum. If the infant is well it is very soon put out to nurse in the country. There were al)out one hundred and fifty in the Hospice. It was a strange sight to see so many children all of an age, ranged in rows, in their little cradles. There was a large number with sick eyes, and many with other complaints. 40 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER The curtains of many were drawn aside that I might see them. In one cradle I observed that the countenance was pallid and the mouth open, and I said to my attendant, ' EUe est morte.' The attendant doubted, and thought that she perceived a breath from the mouth. I touched the cheek; and it was very evident that the poor child was dead, — it was as cold as marble. It was melancholy to see even an infant that had died without any attendant affectionately watching; and who breathed its last, with the curtains of its little cradle closed against all sight." But the schools and the courts seemed to be the most attract- ive places to Sumner and there he spent much of his time, after learning the language. During his stay in Paris he at- tended about one hundred and fifty lectures, delivered in the schools by many of the most eminent teachers in France. His journal and letters abound in references to them, describing most of the lecturers and their manner and method and his estimate of their merits. He usually attended one or two of these lectures each forenoon. The manner of giving instruction seemed to be of especial interest to him and to obtain informa- tion upon this subject he did not confine himself merely to the schools of law, his own profession, but those of medicine and the sciences were equally to his purpose. The hospitals which gave Paris especial advantages for the study of medicine and hence attracted the most gifted men in the profession and large numbers of students, often found him there, joining a class and with it following the professor through the different wards, witnessing the surgical operations performed and all kinds of diseases treated and explained to the class, which he still attended, to hear the lecture following, in the lecture room. Everywhere it was work and activity for him from early morning until late at night, his bedtime usually being about midnight or one a. m. He wrote to Judge Story at the end of his first six weeks in Paris : " All my hours are occupied far into the watches of the night. So far as labor is con- cerned, I should much prefer to be again in my office dealing with clients and familiar law books. Travelling with my de- sires and determination is no sinecure. I am obliged to hus- band all my minutes." Having learned the language so he could use it with some facility, during the first two months of his stay in Paris, he then left his comfortable but retired room in the* Latin quarter of the city and found lodging on one of the Boulevards, where he could see more of the life of the metropolis. His letters of introduction, several in number, not thus far used he now LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 41 hastened to present. Foelix, the editor of a law magazine and the author of a work on the Conflict of Laws, he had been brought into contact with by his work upon the Jurist and they had exchanged letters before Sumner went to Europe. Immediately upon arriving in Paris, he had sought him out. He found him living quietly with two maiden sisters, one of them well read in the law, able to converse in English and an accomplished assistant of her brother in his editorial work. Foelix was a Prussian by birth but being banished from his native country for political causes, he had come to Paris and was naturalized as a citizen. He was enthusiastic upon the subject of codification and absorbed in the work of his peri- odical. Sumner was frequently in his company, while in Paris, and by him he was introduced to many men of eminence and otherwise shown much kindness. Sumner carried a letter of introduction from Dr. Channing to Baron de Gerando, a lecturer in the law school, a Councillor of State, a Peer, and also a writer of some note. Lewis Cass was then our French IMinister and he and his wife, being wealthy, entertained handsomely. Being the bearer of dis- patches from his government, Sumner was brought at once into contact with him. George Ticknor, who had been Professor of French and Spanish Literature at Harvard, while Sumner was in College, with his wife, a most accomplished and attract- ive woman, was also in Paris during the first .two months of Sumner's stay. With all these he dined. He thus enlarged his circle of acquaintances. These were his means of access to French Society, few enough it would seem. But he had been accustomed to the best society which Cambridge and Boston afforded and with his ambition to learn and his enthusiastic appreciation of all that was pure and good he needed only to have an entrance and thenceforward his own merit opened the avenues he desired. It is interesting to note how he succeeded. He met, upon friendly terms. Cousin, the writer upon ethics and philosophy, was called upon by him and with him discussed the merits of the writers upon kindred subjects in the United States. Sis- mondi, the historian, and Pardessus, the writer upon Commer- cial and Maritime Law, both received him kindly. He was entertained by Demetz, a Judge and afterwards the founder of the Reform School for boys at Mettray, where Sumner again met him in 1857 and was impressed by his remark that ' he had renounced his position as Judge, thinking there was something more for him to do than to continue rendering judgments of courts ; that he had the happiness of being a Christian and that 42 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER it was of much more importance to him what the good God would think of him than what men thought." He was presented to Madame Murat, ex-queen of Naples, the sister of Napoleon and widow of his great Captain of Cavalry. His journal notes : " She is now at Paris to prosecute a claim against the Government for the Palais de I'Elysee Bourbon. She is full sixty, but appears to be forty-five. She received me quite cordially in her bedroom where there were already three or four ladies, and, in the true French style, was pleased to compliment me on my French ; when, indeed, I spoke wretch- edly, — not speaking as well as I might, for I felt a little awe at the presence in which I found myself. She is rather stout, with a free, open, pleasant countenance and ready smile. Pres- ently some Marquis or other titled man was announced and she said, ' C'est terrible' and rose and passed to the salon, where she received him. Her countenance had the roundness which belonged to Napoleon, but none of his marble-like grav- ity." Sumner also saw and heard Dupin, the first lawyer of France, then President of the Chamber of Deputies, and also saw Guizot and Thiers, the historians. The newspapers oc- casionally noticed his presence at a trial or a lecture ; and at a public banquet he attended, the presiding officer noticed his presence in some complimentary remarks, which were applauded by the company. Sumner spent much of his time during the last two months in Paris at the Assemblies and the courts. At the former, through the kindness of Gerando, himself a Peer, he was hon- ored with a seat in the box in the Chamber of Peers. And in the Chamber of Deputies, through the kindness of another friend, he was given a seat in the reserved tribune. With these opportunities for hearing and seeing, he could closely observe the proceedings. He was impressed with the dignity and moderation in partisanship which characterized the de- bates and the apparent regard for the public welfare. But he was still more interested in watching the operation of the Code Napoleon in the courts. He was enthusiastic in its praise. He observed closely the procedure in the courts. At this time he contemplated writing a book on the compar- ative procedures in the courts of England, France and the United States. He tliought the French bar inferior in learning to our own and their literature of the law confined almost exclusively to commentaries on their Code and the Eoman law. And his impression was that the French nation was behind our own in its courts and laws. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 43 To Judge Story he wrote : " At present I am attending the courts. Indeed a French court is a laughable place. To me it is a theatre and all the judges, advocates and parties ' merely players.' In those particulars in which they have borrowed from the English law, they have got hold of about half the English principle and forgotten the rest. Thus they have juries. These they imported from England ; but with them, none of the regulations by which the purity of our verdicts is secured. * * * There was nothing like cross-examination; and I have reason to believe that this test of truth is entirely un- known to the French procedure. All the questions were put by the presiding judge, who, however, took no notes of the answers : and the questions were general, such as names and times being altered would apply to all cases. * * * Papers of all kinds are admitted. You will see from these words that the duties of the judge and advocate are infinitely abridged ; the lawyer giv- ing his chief attention to his pleading and the presiding judge putting a series of questions which have been digested before- hand. Neither judge nor lawyer is obliged ' to watch the cur- rent of the heady fight,' as with us, where almost every word of testimony makes its way against the serried objections of opposing counsel." His journal of March sixteenth and seventeenth contains a description of a trial which he attended at Versailles, in the company of his friend, Ledru, one of the attorneys for the de- fendant : " The prisoner," he wrote, " was a young man of eighteen, who was charged with killing his mistress. It seems that the two, according to a French fashion, tired of life, agreed mutually to kill each other. The pistol of the prisoner took effect and the girl was killed ; but hers did not take effect. The prisoner then tried to kill himself but was finally arrested before he had consummated his project. * * * The first step was the reading of the act of accusation or indictment by the clerk. The names of all the witnesses were then called. They were very numerous and were all sent into an adjoining room. Among them was the mother of the prisoner and also the mother of the deceased. The prisoner himself was first exam- ined, very minutely by the judge and detailed all the important circumstances of "his life, his education and of his final com- mission of the offence, with which he was charged. He gave all the particulars fully. This examination was conducted en- tirely by the senior judge. The prisoner cried while telling his story, and did not speak loud enough to be distinctly heard by the jury. He was then removed from the witness stand. The judge next read the examination of the prisoner on his first 44 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER apprehension, and then the testimony given by physicians at the first examination. Witnesses were then introduced one by one ; * * * by the judge. The few questions put by counsel on either side were through the mouth of the judge; and there were not half a dozen during the whole trial, and to, perhaps, thirty witnesses. The first set of witnesses proved the previous character of the accused ; the second set the same of the de- ceased. Next came the doctors and then the persons who found the body and the prisoner. Members of the jury asked ques- tions when they pleased ; and all or nearly all, had a little piece of paper on which to make notes. The examination of witnesses was completed the first day, and the court adjourned at about five o'clock in the afternoon. The jury separated without any injunction not to converse on the subject of the trial ; but on the adjournment mingled among the crowd." " March seventeenth. At ten o'clock the court again con- vened. One of the morning papers contained a full report of the doings of yesterday. My friend the counsel of the prisoner, anticipating it last night, enjoined upon his servant to bring from Paris a dozen copies of the paper containing the report to distribute among the jury. I told him he would commit a crime, according to English and American law, — ' Embracery ' ; but he laughed at the idea. This forenoon the Procureur- General first spoke, then the counsel for the prisoner; then again the Procureur, and again the counsel for the prisoner. I understood that they had a right to speak as many times as they chose, the counsel for the prisoner always having the last word. In the arguments there was nothing such as I have been accustomed to ; everything was difi'erent. The defence was theatrical, brilliant, French. The counsel grasped the hand of his client, and worked the whole audience into a high pitch of excitement. At the close of his argument he called upon his client to promise in the face of the court and of God, that, if he were restored to liberty, by the verdict of the jury he would hasten to precipitate himself upon the tomb of the unfortunate girl he had destroyed and pray for forgiveness ; and the pris- oner, by way of response, stretched his hand to his counsel, who seized it with a strong grasp, saying at once, ' J'ai fini.' Women screamed and fainted, strong men yielded, and tears flowed down the cheeks of the jury and even the grim coun- tenances of the half dozen police, or ge71darm.es wlio sat by tl)e side of the prisoner, elevated and within the observation of all the audience. The arguments concluded, the judge sitting (and the jury sitting) read a very succinct statement of tlie case, and the law which bore upon it. This occupied perhaps LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 45 five or ten minutes. The jury then retired and within less than ten minutes returned. The prisoner, in the meantime, had been conducted to a room out of the c6urt room. The jury rendered their verdict, ' Not Guilty ' ; the prisoner was then brought in and the judge communicated the decision to him, dismissing him with an impressive admonition. The greatest excitement prevailed in the court room when the verdict was announced. Women, and men too, cried for joy. So much for a French criminal trial ! " Tliese things show the employment of Sumner during his stay in France. He left May twenty-ninth, 1838, for London. He had learned to speak the French language with considerable freedom and resolved to study it further in England and make it a permanent acquisition. He had seen the courts and schools, assemblies and theatres, he had visited the cathedrals and spent some time in her famous art galleries and in viewing her pub- lic monuments and works. But perhaps the most interestmg of all to him was the opportunity he enjoyed of seeing and be- coming acquainted with many of her scholars and eminent men. With some of them he afterwards corresponded. To the recol- lections of this brief life in Paris, he ever after turned, as a solace, during his after years of toil. CHAPTER VII LONDON — THE CLUBS — PARLIAMENT — THE COURTS — JUDGES, DENMAN, LITTLEDALE AND OTHERS SOCIETY, MACAULAY, CARLYLE, HALLAM — SERVICES FOR FRIENDS — ON THE CIR- CUITS — ^BROUGHAM — LONDON AGAIN An important part of the life of Snmner is his first visit to England. No biography of him would be complete without a considerable mention of it. It was different from the visit of most Americans to England, so many undertake it from motives of simple pleasure and are satisfied with a hurried view of the places that are usually seen by tourists. But it must be kept in mind that Sumner's purpose was different. He sought solid instruction, not mere rest from labor ; and permanent improve- ment, not the mere amusement of an idle hour. No part of his early education was more fruitful of results. He saw England as few young Americans have ever been permitted to see it and the taste it gave him of the real life of the eminent Judges and barristers and Lords and Commoners, men high in author- ity, created with him a different view of office and high position from that he had before entertained. It is fortunate that we have so full a record of his daily occupations and experiences as has been preserved to us by his letters. They give the reader delightful glimpses of English private life in places not easily accessible to travellers and thus have a value apart from our interest in the story of Sumner's life. He reached England on the thirty-first day of May, 1838, and remained until March twenty-second, 1839, almost a year. He came from Calais by way of the river Thames, directly to London. " My friends, English and American," he wrote, " ad- vised me to take this route, and enter London by the gate of the sea ; and I feel that the advice was good. I waked up in the morning on board the small steamer and I found her scud- ding along the shores of Kent. There were England's chalky cliffs full in sight, — steep, beetling, inaccessible, and white. Point after point was turned, and Godwin's Sands — where was buried the fat demesne of old Duke Godwin, the father of Harold — were left on the right. We entered the Thames ; passed smiling villages, attractive seats and a neat country on the banks and thousands of vessels floating on the river. For 46 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 47 eighty miles there was a continuous stream of vessels; and as we gradually approached the city then did the magnitude and mightiness of this place become evident. For five miles on either side the banks were literally lined with ships, their black hulls in gloomy array, and their masts in lengthening forests. We were landed at London Bridge, and my eyes recognized at once ' London's column pointing to the skies,' and, as I drove up to lodgings, St. Paul's. When I landed I first supposed myself in the centre of the city; but I subsequently found that I had hardly reached this point, when, driving two miles, I was set down at Tavistock Hotel, in Covent Garden." He engaged permanent lodgings near Parliament and the Courts. He brought letters of introduction from Judge Story, Emerson and others to Justice Vaughan, Carlyle, Wordsworth, Lords Jeffrey, Denman and Fitzwilliam and two or three other persons of less note. He presented some of these letters promptly upon his arrival in London. ^ Of four clubs the Alfred, Garrick, Athenffium and Travellers, he was shortly after elected an honorary member. This was a qualified membership, en- titling him during his temporary residence to the privileges of the club. Here he mostly took his meals and wrote many letters. He was enabled by the persons to whom he bore letters to make friends besides those he met at the clubs, until with the broad- ening circle, before his departure, he numbered among his ac- quaintances most of the great names of the England of that day. It must always be remembered that he bore letters to only a few of those he met. His letters hardly numbered more than a dozen ; while he counted his friends by hundreds. The letters could have laid those to whom they were addressed un- der only the most moderate obligations to him, an invitation to dine or some similar courtesy and then the acquaintance need have been pursued no farther. But as shown by his let- ters Sumner's invitations to dine were more than he could accept. If he had not himself attracted the persons he met, i his circle would have been narrow, for he scrupulously re- frained from asking for any introductions at all. But it is some tribute to his own personality that when he returned to I the Continent he was told by those amply able to judge that he " had seen more of England and its society not only than any foreigner but even than a native." So great an authority as Lord Denman, then Chief Justice of England, wrote him on leaving : " No one ever conciliated more universal respect I and good will." n Sumner's earliest acquaintances in London were among the 48 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER members of the bar. Pleasant glimpses we get of him as he describes his visits to Parliament. First in the company of a little knot of barristers, he dropped into the Hovise of Com- mons one evening about ten o'clock and found that body en- gaged in the dulV discharge of routine business, — so dull that, ?n humorous amazement he records that he actually dropped asleep under its Gallery. But he quickly corrects the impres- sion this might give of "his interest in that body, by relating his next experience, when, through the courtesy of one of its mern- bers, he was admitted to the floor of the House and with this advantage sat through a night's debate on the Irish Municipal Corporation Bill. He thoughtfully estimated the successive speakers. There was the polished, graceful, self-possessed, candid, or apparently candid, Peel, with rather a want of power; and the diminu- tive, rickety Lord John Eussell, wriggling around, playing with his hat, seemingly unable to dispose of his hands or his feet, his voice small and thin, but notwithstanding all this a house of upwards of five hundred members, hushed to catch his slightest accents. You listened and you felt that you heard a man of mind, of thought and of moral elevation. Then came Shell, breaking forth with one of his splendid bursts, full of animation in the extreme, in gesture and glow like Sturgis, in voice like John Randolph, screaming and talking in octaves and yet the House listening and cheering. Sugden, the author of the " Law of Vendors ", authority wherever, the world over, the Common Law finds a home, tried to speak, but his voice for the whole half hour he was on the floor was drowned by calls for the question and the uproar of the members and the Gal- lery, so that Sumner heard not a word he uttered. Then the accomplished O'Connell, with his rich voice, more copious and powerful than Clay's, charmed the House to silence. Campbell, afterwards Lord Chief Justice was there. And Follett spoke, already Sumner's friend, and the leader of the English bar, Sumner thought, better than all the rest. Was it partiality for his friend or his profession that made him think so ? Sumner was attached to both. He was impressed with what he saw of the English bar. He was introduced by the Chief Justice, Lord Denman, to whom he brought a letter of introduction. He was at once received among them upon friendly terms and was impressed with what seemed to him the unusual freedom of their intercourse, never addressing one another with the prefix " Mr." but always sim- ply, " Follett ", " Campbell ", " Wilde ", dining together at the Inns of Court, many of them lodging there, frequenting the LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 49 clubs together and travelling in company on the Circuit. They appeared to Sumner like a well-regulated family, a band of brothers. It was to them that he owed his admission to the clubs. Lodging among them, a well-read lawyer himself, well educated, accustomed to good society and its amenities, eager to learn of their courts and to know those who presided and practised there and able to impart a similar knowledge of our own courts, with his youth and versatility he easily became an accession to their society. He thus found opportunity to see them in public and in private. He knew most of the Judges and was invited to dine with them and repeatedly, during trials, occupied, by their invitations, a seat at their side on the bench. The relations of the bench and the bar were more cordial than he had been accustomed to see. Each seemed more the helper of the other. Good-will, graciousness and kindness prevailed between them. To him, as he wrote, noth- ing could be imagined more pleasant than the life of an Eng- lish Judge, with the English bar always standing between him and the litigants to soften the asperities of his position. The practice of the law had its humorous side. Straying into the committee room of the House of Lords one morning, Sum- ner found several attorneys busy examining witnesses as to the feasibility of a proposed railroad. He at once recognized Sir Charles Witherell by the careless and slovenly dress, by which he had repeatedly heard him described. The witness was a plain farmer also apparently careless of his appearance. The question was asked, by Sir Charles, whether the proposed road would not do considerable business in carrying articles of fashion. " Well, as to articles of fashion. Sir Charles, I do not think they much concern either you or me," was the quick re- sponse. The committee laughed heartily and Sir Charles joined them. To Judge Story he wrote of the courts and judges and of the bar. " Most of the judges go to court in the morning on horse- back, with a groom on another horse behind ; and they are notorious as being very poor riders — though the fate of Twys- den has been latterly unknown, he having fallen from his horse on the route and then declared that no Lord Chancellor should ever make him mount again. In winter the court opens at ten o'clock ; and they continue sitting till between four and five, — often till seven. Between one and two they leave the bench and retire to their room, where they eat a sandwich and drink a glass of wine from a phial ; this takes five or ten minutes only. The judges have not separate seats, as with us ; but all sit on one long red-cushioned seat, — which may with propriety be 50 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER called the bench, in contradistinction to the chair, which is the seat of a professor. I shall begin with the common law, and, of course, with the Queen's Bench." " You know Lord Denman, Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, intellectually better than I; but you do not know his person, his voice, his manner, his tone, — all every inch the judge. He sits the admired impersonation of the law. He is tall and well made with a justice-like countenance : his voice and the gravity of his manner, and the generous feeling with which he castigates everything departing from the strictest line of right conduct, remind me of Greenleaf more than any other man I have ever known. I wish you could have listened to Lord D., as I did on the circuit, when he sentenced some of the vicious and profligate wretches brought before him. His noble indignation at crime showed itself so naturally and simply that all our bosoms were warmed by it ; and I think his words must have gone like iron into even the stony hearts of the prisoners. And yet I have seen this constitutional warmth find vent on occasions when it should have been restrained ; it was directed against the Attorney-General, who was pressing for delay in a certain matter with a pertinacity rather peculiar to him. Lord D. has to a remarkable degree, the respect of the bar; though they very generally agree that he is quite an ordinary lawyer. He is honest as the stars, and is willing to be guided by the superior legal learning of Patterson. In con- versation, he is gentle and bland; I have never seen him ex- cited. His son, who will be the future Lord Denman, is what is here called a nice person." " Littledale is rather advanced in life ; I should call him seventy. He has the reputation of great book-learning ; but he seems deficient in readiness or force, both on the bench and in society. I heard old Justice Allen Park say that Littledale could never get a conviction in a case where there was any ap- peal to the feelings. He has not sat in banc this term, but hag held the Bail Court." " Patterson is the ablest lawyer on the Queen's Bench, — some say the first in all the courts. As I have already written you, he is unfortunately deaf, to such a degree as to impair his use- fulness, though by no means to prevent his participating in the labors of the bench. He is deeply read and has his learning at command. His language is not smooth and easy, either in conversation or on the bench ; but it is always significant, and to the purpose. In person he is rather short and stout, and with a countenance that seems to me heavy and gross ; though I find that many of the bar think it quite otherwise. I heard Warren LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 51 — author of " Ten Thousand a Year ' and ' Law Studies ' — say that it was one of the loveliest faces he ever looked upon; perhaps he saw and admired the man in his countenance. I have heard many express themselves about him with the greatest fondness. He has a very handsome daughter." " Turn next to the Common Pleas. There is, first. Lord Chief Justice Tindal. He sits over his desk in court, taking notes constantly, — occasionally interposing a question, but in the most quiet manner. His eyes are large and rolling; in stature he is rather short. His learning, patience and fidelity are of the highest order. He is one of the few judges who study their causes on their return home. His manner is sin- gularly bland and gentle, and is, perhaps, deficient in decision and occasional sternness. Sergeant Wilde is said to exercise a very great influence over him ; indeed scandal attributes to him some of the ' power behind the throne greater than the throne '. Upon Tindal devolves the decision of all interlocutory matters in his court, the other judges seldom interposing with regard to them, or, indeed, appearing to interest themselves about them. He is one of the kindest men that ever lived. " Then comes Vaughan. He became a sergeant sometime in the last century and was the youngest ever known. At one period his practice was greater, perhaps, than of anybody ever knowai in the courts. His income was some fifteen thou- sand pounds. About 1820 his leg was broken very badly by a cartman, who ran against him as he was driving in a gig. After being confined to his bed for three months, he at length ap- peared in court on the shoulders of his servants; and had a hole cut in the desk before him for his leg ; and by permission of the court addressed the jury sitting. His business at once returned to him. In 1820, he was made a judge, it is said at the bar, by the direct command of George IV, who was moved to it by his favorite physician. Sir Henry Halford ; which gave occasion to the saying in the bar benches that ' Vaughan was made a judge by prescription '. He is reputed to have the smallest possible allowance of law for a judge ; but he abounds in native" strength and sagacity, and in freedom of language. With him the labors of the judge cease the moment he quits the bench. I doubt if he ever looks into a cause at chambers. In his study he once showed me four guns, and told me with great glee that, by sending a note to Sergeant Wilde, he per- suaded him not to make any motion on a certain day, and got the Court of Common Pleas adjourned at twelve o'clock; he at once went fifteen miles into the country, and before four o'clock had shot a brace of pheasants, the learned judge sitting on 52 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER horseback when he fired, as from his lameness he was unable to walk. He is fond of Shakespeare and often have we inter- changed notes during a long argument of Follett or Wilde, while I was sitting by the side of the latter in the Sergeants' row, the burden of which has been some turn or expression from the great bard, the crowd supposing he was actively tak- ing minutes of the argument, while he was inditing some- thing pleasant for me to which I never failed to reply. His present wife when young was eminently beautiful, so that Sir Thomas Lawrence used her portrait in some imaginary pieces. He lias several children, one of whom, his eldest son, graduated at the ITniversity with distinguished honor, and has been recently called to the bar: I think him a young man full of promise. Vaughan though not a man of book-learning himself respects it in others." Sumner thus describes the trial of a case before the House of Lords : " I have not spoken of arguments before the Lords. I have attended one and sat in conversation with the Attorney- General, Lushington, and Clark, the reporter. The Chancellor sat at the table below the woolsack ; the benches of the Lords were bare ; only two unfortunate members, to whom by rotation it belonged to tend-out in this manner, were present in order to constitute the quorum. These happened to be, as Dr. Lush- ington explained to me, Lord Sudely, who is quite skilled in architecture, and Lord Mostyn, who is a great fox-hunter. There they sat from ten o'clock in the morning till four in the afternoon, with their legs stretched on the red benches and endeavoring by all possible changes of posture to wear away the time. The Attorney-General told me that ' it would be thought quite indecorous in either of them to interfere by saying a word '. You have asked about the character of the judges, I should not omit that of the Lord Chancellor (Cottenham). He did not once open his lips, I think, from the beginning to the end of the hearing. I am astonished at the concurrent expres- sions of praise which I hear from every quarter. He has been all his days a devoted student of the law; and I believe of nothing else." Perhaps it was after a day before this court, and having in mind such judges as Lord Sudely and Lord Mostyn, that an eminent English barrister once told Sumner that he always drank porter before an argument in order to bring his under- standing down to a level with the judges. Sumner breakfasted with Lord Chief Justice Denman, whose invitations to dinner, owing to other engagements, he was obliged to decline. He dined with Lord Wharncliffe. He at- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 53 tended a great ball at Lord Fitzwilliam's, starting from his lodgings at eleven o'clock in the evening, but the press of car- riages was so great there, that he did not reach the door until one. There was the elite of England's nobility. He remarked that the only untitled name he heard was that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who bore the rather suggestive one, Spring Eice. It seemed as if he had fallen in fairyland, with the whirl of beautiful women and well-dressed men about him, Lord and Lady, waiting as submissively as himself to be pre- sented. He attended a collation by the Bishop of London and was asked by the Bishop to take wine with him. He was in- vited to the banquet of the Lord Mayor of London and his health was proposed by the lafe Lord Mayor, in a compli- mentary speech, to which he made an impromptu reply, draw- ing cheers from his audience and afterwards congratulations from his friends. He attended the coronation of Queen Victoria, with its gorgeousness and suggestions of feudal glory and was at a grand fete given in honor of the event at Lans- downe House. The invitations to these places were all voluntary. Sumner as scrupulously refrained from asking for them as he had for introductions. The numerous invitations he received enabled him to meet and, in many instances, to know well men of wider reputation than most of those who bore the English titles. His letters, especially to Hillard, abound in descriptions of the literary people he saw. It was in the great names of English Literature, whose writings they had discussed at the meetings of the Five of Clubs and in their private walks and talks that Hillard was most interested. He wanted to hear from Sumner how these men looked and talked and acted, his estimate of them from a close point of view. The glimpses Sumner gives us of them are delightful ; Bulwer, radiant with jewellery and incased in ruffles, with his high-heeled boots and flaming blue cravat, strutting about the club ; Pool, the author of " Paul Pry ", sit- ting very quietly, eating moderately, using few but choice words, often hitting off clever things ; Lockhart, the son-in-law and biographer of Sir Walter Scott, fretting about, saying lit- tle and still less tliat was worth remembering. He saw the banker-poet Eogers, often in company, but never liked him till he breakfasted with him at his ovm home. Then he found him, as a converser, unique, the world not giving him credit enough for his great and peculiar power, in this line; terse, epigram- matic, dry, infinitely to the point, full of wisdom, sarcasm and cold humor, saying the most ill-natured things and doing the 54 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER best; to be alone with him, enjoying his paintings and rare art treasures, and still more his frank talk of the society and poets and poetry of the quarter of a century that had passed before him, he alone of all unchanged, — " seldom ", he adds, " have I enjoyed myself more ". Here is his first glimpse of Macaulay, the historian, whom he afterwards met frequently: " During the dinner at Lord Lans- downe's, I was addressed across the table, which was a large round one, by a gentleman with black hair and round face, with regard to the United States. The question was put, with distinctness and precision, and in a voice a little sharp and above the ordinary key. I did not know the name of the gentle- man for some time, till by and by, I heard him addressed by some one, as ' Macaulay '. I at once asked Lord Shelburne, who sat on my right, if that was .Thomas Babington Macaulay, just returned from India, and was told that it was. At the table we had considerable conversation, and on passing into the draw- ing-room it was renewed. He is now nearly or about forty, rather short, and with a belly of unclassical proportions. His conversation was rapid, brilliant and powerful; by far the best of any in the company, though Mr. Senior was there and several others of no mean powers. I expect other opportunities of meeting him. He says that he shall abandon politics, not enter Parliament, and addict himself entirely to literature." Sumner carried a letter from Ealph Waldo Emerson to Thomas Carlyle. He wrote to Hillard : " I heard Carlyle lec- ture the other day ; he seemed like an inspired boy ; truths and thoughts that made one move on the benches came from his apparently unconscious mind, couched in the most grotesque style, and yet condensed to a degree of intensity, if I may so write. He is the Zerah Colburn of thought; childlike in man- ner and feeling, and yet reaching by intuition, points and extremes of ratiocination which others could not so well ac- complish after days of labor, if indeed they ever could. I have received a very kind note inviting me to pass an evening with him, but another engagement prevented my accepting." Later, he wrote : " Another morning was devoted to Carlyle. His manners and his conversation are as unformed as his style and yet, withal, equally full of genius. In conversation he piles up thought upon thought, and imagining upon imagin- ing, till the erection seems about to topple down with its weight. He lives in great retirement, I fear almost in poverty. To him London and its mighty maze of society are nothing; neither he nor his writings are known. Carlyle said the strangest thing in the history of literature ^vas his receipt of fifty pounds from LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 55 America, on account of his ' French Revolution ' which had never yielded him a farthing in Europe and probably never would. I am to meet Leigh Hunt at Carlyle's." " I have often," he wrote, " met Hallam, the historian, at the Athenaeum. I was standing the other day by the side of a pillar, so that I was not observed by him, when he first met Phillips, the barrister who visited America during the last summer; and he cried out, extending his hand at the same time : ' Well, you are not tattooed really ! ' Hallam is a plain, frank man, but is said to be occasionally quite testy and rest- less. Charles Babbage, himself one of the most petulant men that ever lived, told me that Hallam once lay awake all night till four o'clock in the morning, hearing the chimes and the watchman's hourly annunciation of them. When he heard the cry, ' Four o'clock and a cloudy morning ', he leaped from his bed, threw open his window, and, hailing the terrified watch- man, cried out : ' It is not four o'clock ; it wants five minutes of it ! ' and after this volley at once fell asleep." Again : " A few evenings ago I dined with Hallam. He is a person of plain manners, rather robust, and wears a steel watch- guard over his waistcoat. He is neither fluent nor brilliant in conversation; but is sensible, frank and unafl:ected. After dinner we discussed the merits of the dilferent British histo- rians, Gibbon, Hume and Robertson. Of course Gibbon was placed foremost." " Said Barry Cornwall to me yesterday while he held m his hand a lovely little boy : ' Have you any such beautiful pictures as this?' What fine sentiment comes from married folks! And, indeed, a lovely child is a beautiful picture. I loved the I poet more after he had put me that close question. His gentle countenance, which seemed all unequal to the energy which dictated ' The sea ! The sea ! ' was filled with joyous satisfac- tion and love ; and he hugged the boy to his bosom." And so these charming sketches run on ; many of them show the good heart of Sumner, revealed in the comment he makes upon what he saw. They all show a tender regard for his friends. He was enjoying England himself, but he was care- \ ful by long and almost daily letters to share the pleasures and ; profits of his trip with those who had sympathized with his ' ambition to see these countries or had aided him to it in a more substantial way. Judge Story, his ever faithful friend and mentor and his excellent wife, both loving him hardly less than their own son, Professor and Mrs. Greenleaf, scarcely behind them in affectionate regard, Hillard and Longfellow and Lieber, his early and constant friends, as well as the members 56 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER of his own fcamily, all had abundant proof of this kind of his unchanging affection for them. His letters from England alone, that have been preserved, cover about one hundred and forty closely printed octavo pages. And some others that are known to have been written have not been found. They were all written, in the abandon of friend- ship, with the freshness and enthusiasm of youth, and with no view to publication. He never reclaimed any of them and his only care seemed to be lest they should fall into unfriendly hands and the freedom with which they were written should be abused. Those who received them handed them to others and by this means they were read by a wide circle of friends. While in London he was useful to some of his friends in other ways. Francis Lieber had just completed his " Political Ethics " and was desirous of having it published in England. Sumner undertook to accomplish this for him and succeeded in making a satisfactory arrangement. He also volunteered to distribute copies of it to influential friends of his own and to have it reviewed in some of the leading periodicals. He pro- cured a publisher for Judge Story's " Equity Pleadings " and had Prescott's " Ferdinand and Isabella ", then just issued, reviewed and sought in other ways to gain for it a favorable reception in England and Scotland. All these serv- ices were gratefully acknowledged ; and his efforts for a recogni- tion of Prescott, whom he had not known before, was the com- mencement of a lasting friendship. His letters abound in evidence of his interest in affairs at home. In his quiet hours there often passed over him thoughts of his deserted law office and of the trains of business cut short which seemed a little while before to be bearing him on to fame and fortune. He wrote of Dane Hall and the Law School, the hardly confessed hope of his future, of the pretty firesides in Cambridge, where he had always found a welcome seat, where rare intelligence presided and " the merry laugh went round ". Whatever interested these friends interested him, — far away, — their marriages, the births of their children or the death of one of them. How he sorrowed with them ! Hillard's only child had died, a little boy, two years old. The news reached Sumner a month later after an all-night's ride from Holkham to Lon- don. He could not rest till he had written. The joyous letters he had sent to him, all unconscious of his sorrow, how they would seem to flout his grief. He tenderly sought to smooth away the sorrow of the parents, with thoughts of the society there would be to them, of the richest kind, in the cherished image of the dear one whose body had been taken away, his own LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 57 pure spirit mingling with the goodness and greatness that had gone before, he escaping the toils and trials, which would, per- haps, if he had lived to encounter them, have made him mourn that he was born ; and he reminded them of the gratitude they owed to God for casting such a sunbeam across their path even though followed by the darkness of their present sorrow. Why should Sumner's friends not love him, with all his kind- ness and consideration for them? Their letters to him were full of congratulations upon the success he was everywhere meeting. They felt themselves honored in the representative they had abroad and they wrote him to go on and see every- thing he could and then come home and in the quiet walks of his former days, tell them all about his Journey. They planned his future for him, in the office and in the school, both he and they little thinking how different it would be. Underneath all the hope expressed, there was a lurking fear that he might be spoiled, by all this novelty and excitement, for the practical, work-a-day life of home. But he went on following the present with all his ardor, delving into the rich mines of English life and story, content to take care of the future when it came. He had invitations from the judges to attend them upon all the circuits. The social season of London was closing, the people of wealth and position from all parts of the kingdom, who habitually come there during the winter months, to enjoy some recreation away from their estates, amid the gayeties of the metropolis, were departing. A number of them invited Sumner to visit their country seats. With Parliament and the courts closed, the theatres empty, the clubs deserted, his friends gone and the hot season of the year at hand, the city could have few attractions, while the country with its pure air, with per- sons and places full of interest easily drew him away. He left London on the twenty-fourth day of July, 1838, and remained away till the fourth day of November following. The intervening months were as industriously employed as any since he had left home. His route lay westward into Corn- wall, thence iSTorth, through the western counties, into Scot- land, spending three weeks there and a week in Ireland, and returning to London from the North through the eastern counties. On the way he was introduced to many people of eminence and was entertained at some of the most considerable I houses of the kingdom. The season of the year was the best that could be chosen for this trip. As he started away, the trees were in full leaf, the meadows and cultivated gardens were green and fields, whiten- ing for the harvest, were nodding in the sunshine. The journey 5g LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER was performed mostly by coach and private conveyance, over excellent roads. The varying landscape he passed was beauti- ful. The occasional ruggedness of the scenery, everywhere softened by centuries of the civilizing work of man, the fertile farms and broad estates, never monotonous, seldom mounting to the ruggedness of a hill or mountain, but rolling quietly away; the busy marts of trade and manufactures, interspersed between with neat country villages ; grim, castled halls frown- ing from some eminence; pretty cottages, with prim little gardens hedged in, and well kept out-buildings, peeping out of every shaded dell; still flov/ing rivers winding through quiet fields, and around all the white-capped waves of the ocean, dash- ing themselves against a rugged and rocky coast, altogether made one of the most beautiful pictures that the human eye could witness. Sumner went first to Guildford where he met the Home Cir- cuit and dined with Lord Denman and the bar, then to Win- chester and Salisbury, stopping at the latter place to see the cathedral. He visited Old Sarum and Stonehenge, peculiar relics of antiquity, supposed to be remains of an ancient temple and altar of the Druids. Thence he went to Exeter and then to Bodmin, where he met the Western Circuit. At Bodmin he found Follett and Wilde, two leaders of the London bar, there on business. Together with Sumner they were the guests of the bar, at a banquet where his health was proposed and he made an impromptu response. He saw much of these two men in England and was entertained by both of them. They deserve more than a passing notice. William Webb Follett was then only forty years of age, youthful in appearance and manner, and a most lovable person. As a speaker he was fluent, graceful and distinct with an agreeable voice; uniformly bland, courteous and conversational in style. He seemed to have a genius for the law ; in stating a legal proposition or arguing a case he was at home. Yet, as was unusual, he was equally successful in that very different kind of oratory, parliamentary eloquence. Calls for him were frequent upon the floor of the House and he was listened to with marked attention. He had carefully mastered the ele- ments of the law, but his knowledge of other subjects, politics as well, seemed to be superficial. His practice at this time was large; Sumner thought he had an annual income of fifteen thousand pounds and it was generally allowed that he would be made Lord Chancellor upon the accession of his party to power, so great was his popularity. But he died at the early age of forty-seven, having been successively a Member of Parliament, LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 59 Solicitor-General and Attorney-General. Had his health been spared he would doubtless have reached the highest places in his profession. He was a singularly kind, considerate and obliging man and these traits contributed greatly to his success. Sumner received many courtesies from him and was attached to him. Thomas Wilde, the other of these friends, was then fifty-six years of age. Sumner wrote of him : " After his entrance to the profession, he was guilty of one of those moral delinquencies which are so severely visited in England. I have heard the story, but have forgotten it. In some way he took advantage of a trust relation, and purchased for himself. He was at once banished from the Circuit table. A long life of laborious in- dustry, attended by the greatest success, has not yet placed him in communication with the bar ; and it is supposed that he can never hope for any of those offices by which talent and success like his are usually rewarded. I think it, however, not im- probable that the government, in their anxiety to avail them- selves of his great powers, may forget the past; but society will not. He does not mingle with the bar,— or if he does, it is with downcast eyes and with a look which seems to show that he feels himself out of place. He is the most industrious person at the English bar ; being at his chambers often till two o'clock in the morning, and at work again by six o'clock. His arguments are all elaborated with the greatest care; and he comes to court with a minute of every case that can bear upon the matter in question. In the Common Pleas he is supreme, and is said to exercise a great influence over Lord Chief Justice Tindal. He once explained to me the secret of his success ; he said that he thoroughly examined all his cases and, if he saw that a case was bad, in the strongest language he advised its adjustment ; if it was good he made himself a perfect master of it. He is engaged in every cause in the Common Pleas. In person he is short and stout, and has a vulgar face. His voice is not agreeable; but his manner is singularly energetic and intense,— reminding me in this respect of Webster more than any other person at the English bar. If you take this into con- sideration in connection with his acknowledged talents and his persevering industry, you will not be at a loss to account for his great success. 1 have been told that he was once far from fluent; but now he expresses himself with the greatest ease. His language has none of the charms of literature; but it is correct, expressive, and to the purpose. In manner, to his friends, he seems warm and affable. To me he has shown much volunteer kindness. I have conversed with him on some points of professional conduct, and found him entertaining very ele- 60 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER vated views. He told me that he should never hesitate to cite a case that bore against him, if he thought court and the opposite counsel were not aware of it at the moment." Notwithstanding the prediction of the fatal consequences of Wilde's early mistake, his talents and industry did at last reap their merited reward; After he was fifty-eight years of age, he became successively Solicitor-General, Attorney-General, Chief Justice and finally Lord Chancellor ; and was then raised to the Peerage. From Bodmin, Sumner passed farther into Cornwall to visit the High Sheriif at his castle, and then he returned to the coast, to Plymouth, to view the spot, always of interest to him as the point of departure of the Pilgrims on their passage to the bleak shores of Massachusetts; now one of the great naval arsenals of the kingdom. Here a barge was placed at his dis- posal, so that he could visit the ships in port and an officer was also detailed by the Commander of the largest vessel, to show him the shipyards. From Plymouih, through Devon, he passed to Taunton in Somerset, where he spent two days, the guest of Sydney Smith, master of English wit and literature, at his pretty cottage. Combe Flory. He had met Smith in London, where they be- came friendly, and he was invited to visit him at home. Here, with this prince of conversation, was entertainment. On leav- ing, his host gave him a book to remind him of his visit and also a list of his essays published in the Edinburgh Eeview and elsewhere, characterizing the essays as containing " liberal sentiment expressed always with some wit ". Sumner urged Hillard to publish an American edition of these essays. Such an edition has since been issued. Sumner met the Western Circuit again at Wells and was there the guest of the bar. From Wells he went to Bristol and Chester. Here Justice Vaughan, who was then holding court called him to his side on the bench. From Chester he went to Liverpool, where Baron Alderson, of the Northern Circuit was holding the assizes. He had never met him, but he brought letters of introduction from Justice Vaughan, Lord Brougham and others. There has been frequent opportunity in these pages to note the friendly relation of members of the English bar to each other. There seemed to exist among them the tie of a guild or fraternity, an introduction to whose circle gave to the recipient whatever of courtesy and kindness the membership could con- tribute. Sumner met many men of other professions in Eng- land to whom he was indebted for kindness, but the narration of LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 61 his journey shows that he was under the greatest obligation to the bar. The members seemed to vie with one another, while he was on the Circuits, in passing him on from place to place, and in opening each avenue of interest to him, toasting and feast- ing and introducing him, though knowing him only as an untitled member of the bar. They recognized in him a quiet, self-respecting, appreciative American of their profession. The same tie exists among lawyers in the United States, but this kindly feeling is not so prevalent. It is to be regretted that in America so little time is given to the amenities of the profession. There is so much " vim, vigor and victory " and so little of quiet, friendly communion; the hustler fills so large a place and the equally industrious man, who often does more and better work, with less noise and friction, attracts so little notice ! How the homely wisdom of poor Oliver Goldsmith is to be envied, going off with some friends, to the green fields with a biscuit in his pocket, to spend a " shoemaker's holi- day", in the shade of a tree or on the bank of some stream. If it were to obtain oftener among members of the bar how many of the hard places it might soften and how much of bit- terness and needless asperity it might remove! Conilict is an essential part of the business of the profession, but much of the bitterness it engenders is unnecessary. Sumner found no end of good cheer in Liverpool. The first day he attended a banquet given by the city authorities to the judges ; the second day he dined with the judges to meet the isar ; the third with the Mayor of the city ; the fourth with the bar. " I have a thousand things to say to you," he wrote to Judge Story, "about the law, circuit life and the English judges. I iiave seen more of all of them probably than ever fell to the lot of a foreigner." At a banquet in Liverpool, in responding to a toast proposed by Baron Alderson, he attracted the attention of Robert Ingham, the Member of Parliament for South Shields, and he was invited to become his guest at his town and country homes, during the sitting at Newcastle of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Thither we went on the twenty-second of August, 1838. On a I headland jutting out upon the German Ocean, with its waves I lashing the rocky coast, stood Westhoe Hall, the seat of his host. j It overlooked Tynemouth Priory, whose sturdy but graceful 1 arches were the witnesses of the centuries since the Conquest. I Robert Ingham was one of the purest and best of men, a \ Member of Parliament for a quarter of a century, not brilliant, ' but a sensible, conscientious representative of the people. I Sumner attended the meetings of the British Association as his Q2 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER guest during the week they continued. The intervals of the meetings were pleasantly spent with Ingham and his friends. As showing the style of English country life, his host invited fourteen gentlemen to meet Sumner and to spend the evening at Westhoe Hall and there they all remained the whole night. During the banquet at the close of the meetings of the As- sociation, he was called out by the President, the Bishop of Durham, proposing the health of the distinguished foreigners present and singling him out by some complimentary remarks. He responded in a short speech, which was reported in the New- castle papers. It was afterwards copied into the Boston papers. Thus in other ways the news of his success abroad reached the Boston public. At the adjournment of the Association, by the invitation of the Bishop of Durham, he accompanied him in his carriage to his house, Auckland Castle. This is the seat of the most power- ful Bishop of England. He remained there two days and then went to visit the Recorder of Newcastle at Harperly Park. Here he spent two days more, riding with the young ladies on horseback, enjoying excursions over the country and the visits in the neighborhood, — delightful days, when all were young — with spirits buoyant and happy and care thrown away. They entertained him with their tales of the chase and of their mad rides and the leaps of their horses over fences and ditches, in the fox-hunts common in the locality. His own curiosity was easily aroused to attempt the sport himself. Two days more he spent with the Member of Parliament for Northumberland, at Oakwood, on the Tyne, twelve miles from Newcastle and then he went to shoot grouse with Archdeacon Scott on the moors of Whitfield Eectory. The venerable Arch- deacon loaned him a hunting shirt and a pair of rough shoes and thus clad, in his company, for the clergy in England are skilled in the sports of the field, they started out for a hunt on the moors and fells. The dogs started several coveys of grouse and partridges, but Sumner and the Archdeacon maintained that both their guns missed fire and, hence only, they failed, through the whole day, to bring down a single bird. This mis- chance is not to be wondered at, in Sumner's case, of whom it is not recorded that he ever shot a gun before, but it is damag- ing to the reputation for sportsmanship of a clergyman of the Established Church. It is not mentioned that the Archdeacon killed anything, but it is recorded with due solemnity, in the Gamebook of Whitfield Rectory, tliat Sumner killed one hare. From Whitfield Rectory, on the Archdeacon's horse and at- tended by his groom, Sumner splashed, through showers of LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 63 rain over the moors and valleys of Northumberland, to Brougham Hall. This was the country seat of Henry, Lord Brougham, former Lord Chancellor of England. Joseph Parkes had introduced them in London and the acquaintance which followed, renewed again in 1857, was a pleasant one to Sumner. He was asked to visit Brougham Hall, when on the Circuits, and reached there, wet and tired, about the middle of the afternoon of September sixth. As soon as he made known the discomforts of his trip, he was shown to his apartments and en- joyed a complete change of clothing. Who has not felt the warmth and glow that dry clothes and comfortable enter- tainment bring over one's spirit, after such a trip? The very fatigue of the journey seemed to give way to a pleasurable sensation of health and vigor, produced by the exercise of riding in the open air. The evening, and the next day, Sumner spent with Lord Brougham. His mother was still living and had her home with him. She was an interesting lady, eighty-six years of age and a niece of the historian Kobertson. Lord Brougham was one of the marked men of his generation. He was born in Edinburgh in 1779, of an ancient Westmore- land family and was educated at the high school and uni- versity of his native city. Before graduation he received high credit for proficiency in scientific studies. As a boy he was very ambitious and of great activity both of mind and body, but was inclined to be more diffuse than exact, in his studies. He read law and commenced to practise in Edinburgh and, by his earnestness and vigorous fighting propensities, soon became prominent, especially in the defence of a class of cases then very common, suits for libel. He was one of the founders of the Edinburgh Eeview and continued for twenty years to be one of its regular contributors. He early removed to London and there reached the highest rank in his profession. He be- came Lord Chancellor in 1830 and continued to hold the office until 1834. He died in 1868, eighty-nine years of age. He was a man of great concentration and industry, of re- markable attainments and besides the work of his profession and his office was the author of several books of permanent value. But it is as an orator and a member of the House of Lords that he is best remembered. He advocated the abolition of slavery and the dissolution of the Canning Ministry and was active in the cause of popular education and in political and legal reforms. As an orator, he was intensely in earnest, the fire of his spirit revealed in his eye, his arms swinging easily but forcibly and his long index finger seeming to point out with 64 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER striking directness the wrong which he condemned. Sumner heard his closing speech for the emancipation of the slaves. It is difticult to tell the effect of that speech upon Sumner's fortunes. It was one of the crowning, by some thought to be the greatest, effort of Brougham's life. It left a deep impres- sion upon Sumner and reminding him of his own country, suffering from the same cause, it was probably one of the controlling incidents of his life. Brougham Hall had been the seat of Lord Brougham's family for centuries and though his life was largely passed in Edinburgh and London, here for years he spent the vacations of the courts and Parliament, not in polite idleness, but in secluded application, to the cultivation of literature. Here his books were mostly written. Sumner found him then engaged upon a translation, from the original Greek, of Demosthenes' oration for the crown. It was an ideal spot for the cultiva- tion of literature, such a one as would have delighted Sir Walter Scott, — a courtyard surrounded with battlements, long halls and airy rooms. The library was a beautiful apartment, with panels of old oak and a rich ceiling of the same ma- terial, emblazoned with numerous heraldic escutcheons in gold, a beautiful bow window commanding the fair lawn and terraces about the house and the distant mountains, in whose bosom lay the far-famed lakes of England. Here Sumner sat, while his host dashed off more letters than the ten the law allowed him to frank. A friend, an old clergyman, came in soon and together they dined, Lord Brougham's mother presiding at the table, with an apparent touch of motherly pride, in the greatness of her son. After dinner the three gentlemen sat until late at night, engaged in conversation, or rather the other two in listening to the torrent of Lord Brougham's about his contemporaries, his anecdotes of them, about America and Americans and books. He had one habit that Sumner characterized as " bad and vulgar beyond expression, — I mean swearing". He added; " I have dined in company nearly every day since I have been in England, and I do not remember to have met a person who swore half so much as Lord Brougham; — and all this in con- versation with an aged clergyman ! " The next morning Sumner took his departure. Lord Brougham already had his books down, ready for work. He franked a letter for Sumner to Hillard, thanked him for his visit, shook him cordially by the hand, apologized for not ac- companying him to the door, and before he had left the library, Lord Brougham's head was down, absorbed in his work. LIFE OF CHARLES SVMNER 65 From Brougham Hall, Sumner went to Keswick to see the poet Wordsworth, where on September 8, he wrote Hillard : " I have seen Wordsworth ! Your interest in this great man, and the contrast which he presents to that master-spirit (Brougham) I have already described to you, induce me to send these lines immediately on the heels of my last. How odd it seemed to knock at a neighbor's door and inquire, 'Where does Mr, Wordsworth live ? Think of rapping at Westminster Abbey and asking for Mr. Shakespeare or Mr. Milton ! I found the poet living as I could have wished, with worldly comfort about him and without show. His house was not large or so elegant as to draw the attention from its occupant; and more truly did I enjoy myself, for the short time I was under his roof, than when in tlie emblazoned halls of Lord Brougham. The house is situated on the avenue leading to Eydal Hall; and the poet may enjoy, as if they were his own, the trees of the park and the ancestral cawing of the rooks that almost darkened the air with their numbers. His house and grounds are pretty and neat; and he was so kind as to attend me in a turn round his garden, pointing out several truly delightful views of the lakes and mountains. I could not but remark to him, however, that the cawing of tlie rooks was more interest- ing to me than even the remarkable scenery before us. The house itself is unlike those in which I have been received lately ; and in its whole style reminded me more of home than any- thing I have seen in England. I took tea with the poet, and, for the first time since I have been in this country, saw a circle round a table at this meal ; and, indeed, it was at six o'clock, when always before in England I have been preparing for dinner. I mention these little things in order to give you a familiar view of Wordsworth. I cannot sufficiently express to you my high gratification at his manner and conversation. It was simple, graceful and sincere. * * * I felt that I was con- versing with a superior being; yet I was entirely at my ease. He told me that he was sixty-nine, — at an age when, in the course of nature, *the countenance loses the freshness of younger years, but his was still full of expression. Conversation turned on a variety of topics; and here I have little to record; for there were no salient parts, though all was sensible, instructive and refined." Sumner carried a letter of introduction to Wordsworth from Washington Allston, the artist. Professor Cleaveland of Bowdoin had given him a letter to Sir David Brewster. He had expected to see Southey at Keswick, but he was absent making a tour of the Continent. At Wordsworth's house, how- QQ LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ever, he met and dined with Southey's daughter. From Kes- wick he went to Melrose, where Sir David Brewster lived. He was an experimental philosopher and author of a life of Sir Isaac Newton. Sept. 12, 1838, Sumner v^^rote: "I am now the guest of Sir David Brewster, and am writing in my bedroom, which looks upon the Tweed and Melrose Abbey and the Eildon Hills. Abbotsford is a short distance above, on the opposite side; while the cottages of Lockhart, and that fast friend of Scott, Sir Adam Ferguson, are within sight. I spent the whole of to-day in rambling with Sir David about Melrose, noting all the spots hallowed by Scott's friendship or genius, and finally pay- ing my pilgrimage to his tomb at Dryburgh Abbey. At dinner we had Sir Adam Ferguson himself and Mr. Todd, — the latter a Scottish Judge, and an old friend of Sir Walter, as well as Sir Adam. I need not say to you how inexpressibly interesting was the whole day, passed in such company, — observing house after house in whose hospitality Sir Walter had taken pleas- ure, and whose plantations he had watched ; then regarding with melancholy interest, the simple sod, in the midst of some venerable ruins, which covers his precious dust. And what a crown was it, of the whole day, to dine among his chosen friends, — to hear their simple, heart touching expressions of regard, and the numerous narrations, all untold in print which serve to illustrate his character and genius." From Melrose Sumner went to Craig Crook Castle, the home of Lord Jeffrey, then the managing editor of the Edinburgh Eeview, where he spent a portion of a day. He reached Edinburgh on September twentieth, and here and in the neighborhood he spent nine days. During this time he re- ceived constant attention from Lord Jeffrey and his nephew, Thomas Brown, whom Sumner had met in Canada during his tour in 1830. Brown shortly after that visited Boston and there the acquaintance ripened into intimacy. It is unnecessary to add that the best circles of P]dinburgh were opened to Sum- ner, when his own ability to make friends 'was supported by Lord Jeffrey. He had written Sumner in advance, rather dis- paragingly of his prospect, regretting that all the lawyers were off on their vacation, shooting grouse. But the sequel showed his fears were groundless, for Sumner was entertained every evening of his stay, saying nothing of breakfasts, and was besides obliged to decline many invitations. Sumner liked Lord Jeffrey. He wrote to Hillard : " Jeffrey against all the world ! while in Edinburgh I saw much of him and his talent, fertility of LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 67 expression and unlimited information (almost learning) im- pressed me more and more. He spoke on every subject, and always better than anybody else. Sydney Smith is infinitely pleasant, and instructive too ; but the flavor of his conversation is derived from its humor. Jeffrey is not without humor, but this is not a leading element. He pleases by the alternate ex- ercise of every talent ; at one moment by a rapid argument, then by a beautiful illustration, next by a phrase which draws a whole thought into its powerful focus, while a constant grace of language and amenity of manners with proper contributions from humor and wit, heighten these charms. I have been fortunate in knowing as I have known, — aye, in knowing at their liearths — the three great men of the Edinburgh He- view — Smith, Brougham and Jeffrey. But there is a fourth, — John A. Murray, the present Lord Advocate of Scotland. It was Murray who gave the motto, at which Sydney Smith laughed, — "^ Judex damnatur cum nocens ahsolvitur,' — from Publius Syrus, though he was innocent of having read Syrus." From Edinburgh Sumner went to visit his friend, the nephew of Lord Jeffrey, Thomas Brown, at his home, Lanfire House, near Kilmarnock, Ayrshire. He remained there five days, recalling former scenes and. making new friends, reading in the library or enjoying the beautiful prospects from its win- dows, rambling about the woods, extending for more than a mile on either side of the house, or riding about the estate, so extensive that one might go twenty miles without passing be- yond its limits. Here amid Highland scenery he also enjoyed the festivities of a Highland wedding. In the contrast between the life of Brown and his uncle. Lord Jeffrey, there is illustrated a fact too often overlooked by Americans. Brown was an easy-going young man of ability but without a definite aim in life. He was well educated and, as a son of the sister of Lord Jeffrey might be expected to be, of fine literary taste and on intimate terms with such men as Talfourd, the eminent barrister, essayist and judge of Edin- burgh. He had travelled much, was an easy conversationalist, full of anecdote and a delightful companion. He spent a good deal of his time in Edinburgh and London at the clubs, of which he was a member, in dignified and elegant idleness. On the other hand his noble uncle, Lord Jeffrey, was a toil- ing barrister and author, the chief editor of tlie Edinburgh Eeview in its best days. He opened a new era in English Literature and rose to the rank of an eminent Scottish Judge. 'As a reviewer he has had no superior. He was the early, and, to 68 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER the end of his life, the intimate friend of Carlyle, whom he found a struggling young author of talent, but without a read- ing public, and he opened the columns of the " Review " to him and assisted him to recognition ; he first saw and criticised privately and published the inimitable article on " Burns." Carlyle recognized the debt and after they were all gone he permanently associated Lord Jeffrey's name with those of his wife and father in his volume of " Reminiscences ". He has given us this description o£ him : " Jeffrey rose into higher and higher professional repute. * * * j honestly ad- mired him * * * was always glad to notice him, when I strolled into the courts, and eagerly enough stepped up to hear if I found him pleading; a delicate, attractive, dainty little figure, as he merely walked about, much more if he were speaking; uncommonly bright black eyes, instinct with vivacity, intelli- gence, and kindly fire; roundish brow, delicate oval face, full of rapid expression, figure light, nimble, pretty, though small, perhaps hardly five feet in height, wore his black hair closely dipt." It is sad to notice, in contrast, the later picture Carlyle gives us of him, — ^burdened with the cares of his judicial office, in ill health, the vivacity and grace of his early days gone, wear- ing out and breaking down, how it brought back the pregnant remark of Talfourd, on a career at the bar: "A life of success though a life of excitement is also a life of constant toil in which the pleasures of contemplation and society are sparingly felt and it sometimes leads to a melancholy close." The life of Lord Jeffrey illustrates a fact we sometimes for- get, that the nobility of Great Britain are by no means an idle class. Their lives are frequently full of strenuous exertion. In their great houses, upon their extensive estates, with the number of their servants and dependants around them, neces- sary to the successful and profitable management of their prop- erty, they often approach a style of living akin to royalty. But it has been well said that a great estate is no sinecure if it is to be kept great. The heads of these houses are often perplexed with cares that the quiet passer little heeds nor long remembers. The most of the enjoyment falls to the lot of the young mem- bers of their families, like Sumner's friend Brown, who had not yet come to the care of the estates. But they are usually trained to good habits and a correct mode of life, in anticipa- tion of future responsibilities and usefulness. Brown's father and mother were still living. She reminded Sumner of her brother Lord Jeffrey. She manifestly had some of his tastes, for Sumner remarked that the walls of the LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 69 library at Lanfire House were full of books from the floor to the ceiling. Sumner reluctantly left this delightful retreat. He went to Dumbarton, nestling on the river Clyde, at the foot of the famous fortress-crowned rock that gave its name to the town. Like a great frowning Gibraltar it seemed to have protected the town from the feuds of former years. Talfourd had taken for the summer Glenarbuck Cottage, about four miles from Dumbarton. Sumner visited and dined with him there. He was invited to be his guest while at Dum- barton, but this he had declined and having spent a day wander- ing over his wild grounds and along the Clyde, he pursued his way to Strachur Park, on Loch Fyne, opposite Inverary. This was the home of Murray, the Lord Advocate of Scotland. It was in the heart of the Highlands, on one of those lovely sheets of water that give a charm to the scenery. It was surrounded by mountains whose ragged forms were mirrored at his feet in the clear waters of the loch. He crossed Loch Lomond and by the moon's light rowed over Loch Katrine; and visited the island of the " Lady of the Lake," embalmed all of them, in scenes of Scott's minstrelsy. " No pathway meets the wanderer's ken Unless he climb with footing nice, A far projecting precipice The broom's tough roots his ladder made. The hazel saplings lent their aid ; And thus an airy point he won, Where, gleaming with the setting sun, One burnished sheet of living gold, Loch Katrine lay beneath him roll'd, In all her length far winding lay With promontory, creek, and bay. And islands that empurpled bright Floated amid the livelier light, Where mountains that like giants stand To sentinel enchanted land." Sumner reached Stirling, a city like Dumbarton, on October seventh. The fortress crowning the eminence two hundred and twenty feet above the plain in which the city stands, was built centuries before, and around it, more than any other in Scot- land, rolled the waves of Highland warfare. Its pride ante- dated the union of the two kingdoms. From Stirling he went to Glasgow and then crossing the Irish Sea he spent some days in Dublin, the guest of Lord ]\rorpeth, then Chief Secretary, but afterwards Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. 70 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER From Dublin he returned to England, reaching Yorkshire on October twenty-first. He spent the next two weeks in visit- ing at three of the most famous country seats in the kingdom, — Wortley Hall, the seat of Lord Wharncliffe; Wentwortli House, the seat of Earl Pitzwilliam and Holkham House, the seat of Earl Leicester. '^ I have passed three agreeable nights at Wortley," he wrote Judge Story. " Before I came here. Lord Morpeth told me that I should find Wentworth magnificent and Wortley comfortable. And you may conceive an English Peer's idea of comfort when I tell you that Wortley Hall is a spacious edifice, built by the husband of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. I do not know an edifice like it in the United States, with extensive domains. Wliarnclilfe Park, which belongs to it, contains of itself eight- een hundred acres, in which the deer are ranging. Everything about it is elegant." Sumner reached Wentworth House on the evening of October twenty-fourth after dark, as the family were going in to din- ner. He was at once shown to his room, by the groom of the chambers, and having dressed got into the dining-room just after the disappearance of fish and found a place reserved for him by the side of Lady Charlotte, the eldest daughter of his host. Lord Fitzwilliam. There were twenty-five or more at table. In the chapel that evening at prayers there were about fifty servants constituting the household establishment. The house and estate once belonged to the great Earl of Strafford and many of the books in the library contained his autograph. There too were all the papers of Edmund Burke, — his letters, essays and unpublished manuscripts. It should be added here that Lord Fitzwilliam at whose seat, Wentworth House, Sumner was now visiting was the descend- ant and legal representative of Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of Strafford of the reign of Charles I, who as Lord Deputy of Ireland had governed that country with great administrative ability, but at the same time with almost intolerable severity and whose " thoroughness " was again called into requisition to suppress the Scots who had revolted against the King. In the struggle of the Commons against the King, Strafford was im- peached, condemned to death and beheaded. Among the art treasures of Wentworth House, was an original portrait of the great Earl by Vandyke, which Sumner admired. His " won- derful features " were thus preserved to posterity on the es- tates he had founded and in the halls once familiar with his presence. At Wentwortli Sumner was invited by Mr. Thompson to LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 71 spend a clay, before going to Holkham House, at his home Fair- field Lodge near York, whence he conld visit the famous Min- ster. He had already seen Salisbury and Durham cathedrals. He confessed that these famous structures made a deep im- pression upon him. As he expressed it he was when looking at them " in communion with no single mind, — bright and gifted though it be, — but with whole generations ", and the voiceless walls seemed to speak, and the olden time, with its sceptred palls, to pass before him. He accepted Mr. Thompson's invi- tation, but in viewing York Minster he was to be disappointed. He saw it on a rainy day, when it was inconvenient to be out and the view of its height and proportions was obscured, so the pleasure, he had experienced on viewing Salisbury and Durham cathedrals, was lost. Farther along the road to Holkham he stopped at Boston, " not famous Boston," he wrote, " where I first drew the breath but the small place on the distant coast of Lincolnshire, whence John Cotton, * whose fame was in all the churches ', went to settle our New England." He saw the old parsonage which Cotton had left for the woods of America and tapped at the back door, with a venerable triangular knocker, the same doubtless the hands of the Puritan preacher had known before he forsook the soft cushion of the Established Church and that "fine Gothic pile", the parish church of Boston, built in the time of Edward III, on which so many centuries had since shed their sunshine and pelted their storms. Sumner reached Holkham House on the first of November, 1838. The owner of the estate, Thomas William Coke, Earl of Leicester, had inherited it from his uncle, who was a de- scendant of Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of England, and author of the Commentaries upon Littleton. The present Earl, was eighty-six years old though he lived to be ninety. He had a long and distinguished Parliamentary career and was the friend of America. He moved for the recognition of the In- dependence of the Colonies and accounted this act in his Par- liamentary career the proudest event of his life. He was the warm friend of Fox and in early life of Brougham. His mon- arch, George IV, visited him at Holkham and familiarly called him " Tom ", and Fox, " Charles ". But withal he was an enthusiastic farmer and devoted much time upon his estate to the improvement of agriculture and was reputed to be " the first farmer of England ". His seat, where Sumner was now his guest, was one of the most famous in England. "This house," Sumner wrote Hillard, "has not the fresh magnificence of Chatsworth (the princely residence of the Duke ij-^ LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER of Devonshire), the feudal air of Raby and Auckland castles, or the grand front of Wentworth; but it seems to me to blend more magnificence and comfort, and to hold a more complete collection of interesting things, whether antiques, pictures or manuscripts, than any seat I have visited. The entrance hall is the noblest I have ever seen; and the suite of apartments is the best arranged for show and comfort that can be imagined. With the doors open you may look through a vista of eleven spacious rooms ; and these of the most agreeable proportions and adorned by the choicest productions of the pencil " (by Titian, Claude, Vandyke, Raphael, Da Vinci and Rubens among others). From Holkham, Sumner went to London, reaching there November fourth, 1838, and at once found himself among friends and in the social whirl of the metropolis. " Put two Bostons, two New Yorks, two Philadelphias and two Baltimores together," he wrote, and you may have an idea of London. " The extent and variety of the life of the place is truly won- derful. Among banks it is the clearing-house of the world ; in commerce and letters, it is its capital. Nowhere else is there such an accumulation of learning and ability and wealth. Its extent is so vast and its life so complicated that one might spend his life there and still feel that he did not know the half of it." Sumner had spent two months there before and he was now to remain four more, not to see it all, but to see some persons and things of especial interest to him. Soon after his return he had an opportunity of seeing Wind- sor Castle, the residence of Queen Victoria. In a letter to Hillard, he described life, in the house of the Queen, as he saw it. His description deprives it of a good deal of the pomp and circumstance, which the ordinary magazine articles have thrown around it. " My day at Windsor," he wrote, *' would furnish a most in- teresting chapter of chit-chat. I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance, at Lord Morpeth's table, of Mr. Rich, the member for Knaresborough, and the author of the pamphlet, " What will the Peers do ? " He is one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber of the Queen; or as they are called under the virgin queen, gentlemen-in-waiting. He was kind enough to invite me to visit him at Windsor Castle, and obtained special permission from her Majesty to show me the private rooms, I went down to breakfast where we had young Murray, the head of the household. Lord Surrey, etc. Lord Byron, who, you know, was a captain in the navy, is a pleasant rough fellow, who has not many of the smooth turns of the courtier. He LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 73 came rushing into the rooms where we were, crying out, " This day is a real sneezer; it is a rum one indeed. Will her Maj- esty go out to-day ? " Lord Surrey hoped she would not, unless she would ride at the " slapping pace " at which she went the day before, which was twenty miles in two hours. You understand that her suite accompany the Queen in her equestrian excursions. Lord Byron proposed to breakfast with us; but they told him that he must go upstairs and breakfast with the " gals ", — meaning the ladies of the bedchamber and maids of honor, Countess Albemarle, Lady Byron, Lady Little- ton, Miss Cavendish, etc." During the early days of December, Sumner visited Oxford and while there was the guest of Sir Charles Vaughan and occupied a room in the University. Eeturning to London on December thirteenth, after four days spent at Oxford, he left on the fourteenth to spend as many days at Cambridge. Here he dined with some of the Professors and in Trinity College with some of the undergraduates and Fellows, thus meeting many members of different degrees in the University. He was in- terested in the courses of study and in the discipline. Some of the tutors wrote out for him the requirements for degrees in some of the courses, which he preserved for use on his re- turn home. He, remarked the thoroughness of the examina- tions which he believed could not be passed without having completed the course according to the requirements. From Cambridge he went to Milton Park to spend Christmas and a portion of the holidays as the guest of Lord Fitzwilliam. He had been specially invited when visiting his Lordship at his other seat, Wentworth House, to visit Milton Park at this time, to enjoy an English fox-hunt. He wrote his impressions of this great national sport to Hillard. " I am passing," he wrote, " my Christmas week with Lord Fitzwilliam, in one of the large country-houses of Old England. I have already written you about Wentworth House. The place where I now am is older and smaller; in America, how- ever, it would be vast. The house is Elizabethan. Here I have been enjoying fox-hunting, to the imminent danger of my limbs and neck ; that they still remain intact is a miracle. His Lordship's hounds are among the finest in the kingdom, and his huntsman is reputed the best. There are about eighty couples; the expense of keeping them is about five thousand pounds a year. In his stables there are some fifty or sixty hun- ters that are only used with the hounds, and of course are unem- ployed during the summer. The exertion of a day's sport is so great that a horse does not go out more than once in a week. 74 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER I think I have never participated in anything more exciting than this exercise. The history of my exploit will confirm this. The morning after my arrival I mounted at half-past nine o'clock a beautiful hunter and rode with Lord Milton about six miles to the place of meeting. There were the hounds and hunters and whippers-in, and about eighty horsemen, — noble- men and gentry and clergy of the neighborhood, all beautifully mounted, and the greater part in red coats, leather breeches and white top-boots. The hounds were sent into the cover, and it was a grand sight to see so many handsome dogs, all of a size, and all washed before coming out, rushing into the under- wood to start the fox. We were unfortunate in not getting a scent immediately, and rode from cover to cover ; but soon the cry was raised "^ Tally-ho ! ' — the horn was blowed — the dogs barked — the horsemen rallied — the hounds scented their way through the cover on the trail of the fox and then started in full run. I had originally intended only to ride to cover to see them throw off, and then make my way home, believing myself unequal to the probable run; but the chase commenced, and I was in the midst of it ; and being excellently mounted, nearly at the head of it, never did I see such a scamper ; and never did it enter into my head that horses could be pushed to such speed in such places. We dashed through and over the bushes, leaping broad ditches, splashing in brooks and mud and pass- ing over fences as so many imaginary lines. My first fence I shall not readily forget. I was near Lord Milton, who was mounted on a thoroughbred horse. He cleared a fence before him. My horse pawed the ground and neighed. I gave him the rein, and he cleared the fence; as I was up in the air for one moment, how was I startled to look down and see that there was not only a fence but a ditch ! He cleared the ditch too. I have said it was my first experiment. I lost my balance, was thrown to the very ears of the horse, but in some way or other contrived to work myself back to the saddle without touching the ground (see some of the hunting pictures of leaps, etc.). How I got back I cannot tell, but I did regain my seat and my horse was at a run in a moment. All this you will understand passed in less time by far than it will take to read this account. One moment we were in a scamper through a ploughed field, another over a beautiful pasture, and another winding through the devious paths of a wood. I think I may say that in no single day of my life did I ever take as much exercise. I have said I mounted at nine and a half o'clock. It wanted twenty minutes of five when I finally dismounted, not having been out of the saddle more than thirty seconds LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ^ 75 during all this time, and then only to change my horse, takmg a fresii one from a groom who was in attendance. During much of this time we were on a full run." " The next day had its incidents. The place of meeting for the hounds was fourteen miles from the house. Our horses were previously led thither hy grooms and we rode there in a carriage and four, with outriders, and took our horses fresh. This day I met with a fall. The country was very rough an4 the fences often quite stiff and high. I rode among the fore- most, and in going over a fence and brook together, came to the ground. My horse cleared them both and I cleared him, for I went directly over his head. Of course he started off, but was soon caught by Milton and a parson, who had already made the leap very" successfully. * * * * Every day that I was out it rained, — the first day incessantly, — and yet I was fully unconscious of it, so interested did I become in the sport. Indeed sportsmen rather wish a rain because it makes the ground soft. We generally got home about five o'clock; and I will give you the history of the rest of the day that you may see how time passes in one of the largest houses in England. Din- ner was early because the sportsmen returned fatigued and witliout having tasted a morsel of food since early breakfast. So after our return, we only had time to dress ; and at five and one-half o'clock assembled iii the library, from which we went in to dinner. For three days I was the only guest here, — during the last four we have had Professor Whewell, — so that I can de- scribe to you what was simply the family establishment. One day I observed that there were only nine of us at the table and there were thirteen servants in attendance. Of course the serv- ice is entirely of silver. You have in proper succession, soup, fish, venison' and the large English dishes besides a profusion of French entrees with ice-cream and ample dessert,-— Madeira, sherrv, claret, port and champagne. We do not sit long at table"; but return to the library, which opens into two or three drawing-rooms and is itself used as the principal one, where we find tlie ladies already at their embroidery, and also coffee. Conversation goes languidly. The boys are sleepy, and Lord Fitzwilliam is serious and melancholy; and very soon I am willing to kill off an hour or so by a game of cards. Some- times his Lordship plays, at other times he slowly peruses the last volume of PrescotVs " Ferdinand and Isabella ". About eleven o'clock I am glad to retire to my chamber, which is a very large apartment, with two large oriel windows looking out upon the lawns where the deer are feeding. There I find a glowing fire ; and in one of the various easy-chairs sit and muse 1 wHi / LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER (lie the fire burns, or resort to the pen, ink and paper which are, carefully placed on the table near me." (^n December twenty-eighth, Sumner was back in London again. On January sixth, 1839, he made an excursion to Strat- ford-on-Avon to spend a day among the scenes familiar in the early and later life of Shakespeare. He visited Kenilworth and Warwick Castles in the same neighborhood and extended his excursions as far as Birmingham. The remainder of his time till March twenty-second he spent in London. He had spent his time there before mostly with members of the bar and the judges; but now his acquaintance became more general and to this period must be referred the rich fund of reminiscence which London always recalled to him. His associations were with literary men, orators and statesmen, as well, of course, as members of his own profession. His letters do not indicate that he was much attracted to the fair sex, but occasional refer- ences reveal that he was not insensible to female beauty. Take, for instance, the description he gives of a dinner with the four granddaughters of Eichard Brinsley Sheridan, daughters of his son Thomas, the poet. " One of the pleasantest dinners," he wrote Hillard, " I ever enjoyed was with Mrs. Norton. She now lives with her uncle Mr. Charles Sheridan, who is a bachelor. We had a small com- pany, — Old p]dward Ellice ; Fonblanque, whose writings you so much admire ; Hayward ; Phipps, the brother of the Marquis Normanby ; Lady Seymour, the sister of Mrs. Norton ; and Lady Graham, the wife of Sir John Graham; and Mrs. Phipps. All of these are very clever people; Ellice, whose influence is said, more than that of all other men, to keep the present ministry in power; Fonblanque is harsli-looking, rough in voice and manner, but talks with the same knowledge and sententious brilliancy with which he writes. But the women were by far more remarkable than the men. I unhesitatingly say that they were the four most beautiful, clever and accomplished women I have ever seen together. The beauty of Mrs. Norton has never been exaggerated. It is brilliant and refined. Her countenance is lighted by eyes of the intensest brightness and her features are of the greatest regularity. There is something tropical in her look ; it is so intensely bright and burning, with large, dark eyes, dark hair and Italian complexion. And her conversa- tion is so pleasant and powerful without being masculine, or rather it is masculine without being mannish ; there is the grace and ease of the woman with a strength and skill of which any man might well be proud. Mrs. Norton is about twenty-eight years old and is I believe a grossly slandered woman. She has LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 77 been a woman of fashion and has received many attentions, which doubtless she would have declined had she been brought up under the advice of a mother ; but which we may not wonder she did not decline, circumstanced as she was. It will be enough for you, and I doubt not you will be happy to hear it of so remarkable and beautiful a woman, that I be- lieve her entirely innocent of the grave charges (of improper intimacy with Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister) that have been brought against her. I count her one of the brightest in- tellects I have ever met. I whisper in your ear what is not to be published abroad, that she is the unaided author of a tract which has just been published on the ' Infant Custody Bill ' and purports to be by Pearce Stevenson, Esq, norn de guerre. I think it is one of the most remarkable things from the pen of a woman. The world here does not suspect her, but supposes that the tract is the production of some grave barrister. It is one of the best discussions of a legislative matter I have ever read. I should have thought Mrs. Norton the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, if her sister had not been present. I think that Lady Seymour is generally considered the more beautiful. Her style of beauty is unlike Mrs. Norton'.s ; her features are smaller and her countenance lighter and more English. In any other drawing-room she would have been deemed quite clever and accomplished, but Mrs. ]Srorton''s claim to these last characteristics are so pre-eminent as to dwarf the talents and attainments of others of her sex who are by her side. Lady Seymour has no claim to literary distinction. The homage she receives is offered to her beauty and her social posi- tion. Lady Graham is older than these ; while Mrs. Phipps is younger. These two were only inferior in beauty to Mrs. Norton and Lady Seymour. In such society you may well sup- pose the hours flew on rosy pinions. It was after midnight when we separated." In the same vein was the description Sumner gave of the speech of the young Queen Victoria at the opening of Parlia- ment. Through the kindness of Lord Morpeth, he was ac- commodated with a place at the bar, — he thought it the best place occupied by any person not in court dress. Prince Louis Bonaparte was behind him. He enjoyed the sight, as at the coronation, of the peeresses as they took their seats in full dress, resplendent with jewels and costly ornaments. The room of the House of Lords was not large and made them all seem within a short distance of him, so that his view was good. When the Queen entered with the crown, which seemed too heavy for one so young, on her head, she was attended by the 78 LIFE OF CHARLES SV3INER fjreat officers of state and there were great guns sounding and trumpets blowing, which added to the scene. She took her seat with quiet dignity, and with a voice not audible by tliose at any distance directed the House of Commons to be summoned. But she retained all eyes ■; her face was flushed with excitement, her hands moved nervously on the golden arms of the throne and her gloves could not conceal the trembling fingers. She was a Queen, but her little, ill-suppressed nervousness showed she had still the heart of a woman and vindicated her relationship to us all. Yet she bore herself well — Sumner thought these little things were not noticeable to the audience generally, and they delighted him with her far more than if she had sat as if cut in alabaster. The Commons came thundering in and after they had been seated and quiet Vv^as restored, her Majesty commenced reading her speech, which the Lord Chancellor had handed her. At first her voice was inaudible. It was not till she was a third through that slie spoke sufficiently loud for him to understand what she said. But after that every word came to him in such silvery accents, with a voice so sweet and finely modulated, every .word distinctly pronounced and with such just regard for its meaning, that Sumner thought he had never heard any- thing better read in his life. After it was over he could but agree with Lord Fitzv/illiam's ejaculation to him, " How beau- tifully she performs ! " In the evening the House of Lords met for business and Sumner heard the Lord Chancellor read the speech again and he remarked how unlike that of the girl Queen was the reading of her Lord Chancellor. As Sumner's stay in England drew to a close, he bade good- bye to many pleasant acquaintances and on the night of March twenty-second crossed the English Channel to Boulogne. During his travels in England he heard some estimates of his countrymen which he records as mutually interesting to them and to himself. Sydney Smith wrote him that he had a great admiration for Americans, that he was pleased with their honesty, simplicity and manliness and that he had met a great number, who were agreeable and enlightened. Samuel Eogers, the poet, in speaking of them to an English friend, admitted that they were generally very agreeable and accomplished men, but insisted that there was too much of them, that they took up too much of the time of the English. In a still different vein is an incident that Sumner himself met with. He was at a dinner with Mr. William Theobald, the author of a legal treatise on " Principal and Surety ", where he was invited to meet Eogers, Kenyon, Hayward, Courtenay, Mrs. Shelley and LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 79 some others. Sumner talked a good deal with Mrs. Shelley, whom he found to be a very nice, agreeable person, of great cleverness. She said that the greatest happiness of a woman was to be the wife or mother of a distinguished man. But what amused Sumner most of all, was an expression that broke from her unawares. They were speaking of travellers who vio- lated social ties and published personal sketches, when forget- ting he was an American, she broke out : " Thank God ! I have kept clear of those Americans." Sumner did not seem to observe what she said and she soon after atoned for it. As he was leaving England he recorded his impressions of her people. What is called society there he thought was better educated, more refined and more civilized than what is called society in the United States. He insisted that what he called society must not be confounded v/ith individuals, that he knew persons in America, who would be an ornament to any circle, but that there was no dass of Americans that would compare with the circle which constituted English society, that the dif- ference in education in England, where everybody understood French and Latin and Greek, was very much against the Ameri- cans. He thought the true pride of America was in her mid- dle and poorer classes, in their general health and happiness, and freedom from poverty ; in their opportunities for education and for rising in the social scale. He agreed with Cliarles Buller, who was best j)leased with all below the " silk-stocking classes." CHAPTER VIII TO PARIS AGAIN — EMPLOYMENT THERE — NORTHEAST BOUNDARY — JOURNEY TO ROME — COMPANIONS — HIS FATHER'S DEATH — STUDIES — GREENE, CRAWFORD FLORENCE — VENICE Sumner reached Boulogne on the morning of March 23, 1839, and at once proceeded by coach to Paris. On the road he travelled with an English Member of Parliament, who, mis- taking him for an Englishman, talked very freely about the Americans. Sumner, with sly humor, enjoyed the thrusts, that were being made at his countrymen, and forbore to correct him. He remained in Paris until April 20th: "I am here," he wrote, " simply en route for Italy ; but I could not be in this charming place without reviving some of my old acquaintances, and once more enjoying the splendid museums and galleries and sights." He attended the operas and theatres and revived his recollections of the beautiful buildings and streets by re- visiting most of them. One day he passed at Versailles where with melancholy interest he saw the exquisite conception of Joan of Arc, sculptured by poor Mary of Orleans, whom he had seen a year before, a bright, beautiful and interesting princess. Lord Morpeth had commended him to Lord Granville, the English Minister at Paris, by whom he was kindly received. General Cass, our Minister, to whom, on leaving home, it will be remembered he had been made a bearer of dispatches, also showed him some attentions. Lord Brougham was there. He was attached to Sumner, as Sumner was to him, and many were the hours they passed pleasantly together. Thorn's balls were then among the great attractions in Paris and invitations were eagerly sought. It illustrates Sumner's opportunities, when Lord Brougham addressed him a note asking Sumner to get him an invitation, which he did. Sumner found some serious employment to occupy him dur- ing his stay in Paris. The question of the Northeastern Boundary, between Maine and Canada, had assumed alarming proportions and threatened war between the United States and England. The trouble arose from the equivocal marks of the original surveys, made at an early day when they were of little importance. It was finally settled by the Treaty of Washington, 80 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 81 negotiated in 1842, by Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton, in which the original lines were abandoned and an arbitrary one established by mutual agreement. When Sumner came to Paris there was a feeling with General Cass and the members of his legation that the American argument was not understood in England and upon the Continent. There was a wish to have some one prepare and publish a careful statement of it. Gen- eral Cass did not care himself to undertake this and others to whom application was made declined the task. The choice iinally fell on Sumner and he undertook the work. He wrote an elaborate article that was published in " Gal- ignani's Messenger", the longest ever till then published in that journal. It had a circulation of eight or ten thousand on the Continent and a thousand copies were ordered, to dis- tribute to Members of the English Parliament. Mr. Hume, then a Member, was so much interested in the article that he undertook to distribute these copies. Sumner also wrote about thirty letters on the subject to persons of prominence in Eng- land, of his acquaintance, and was besides able to interest Lord Brougham. This work gained Sumner some fame at home. The State of Maine had originally been part of Massachusetts; hence her people were familiar with the merits of the controversy. Sumner's article was reprinted and discussed in the Boston papers and commented on among public men. An incident, connected with the discussion, threatened an interruption of the friendship between Sumner and Lord Brougham. Some con- versation of Sumner with one Walsh, in Paris, touching the views of Lord Brougham, as expressed about that time to Sumner, were misrepresented and were printed in disparage- ment of the remarks of his Lordship in the House of Peers. Lord Brougham complained of this to Sumner, who promptly published a contradiction of Walsh's article and condemned it as false. This was entirely satisfactory to Lord Brougham and the affair served at last to cement their friendship. Sumner left Paris for Lyons, by the mail coach on April twentieth and, after a short rest there, travelled on in the same tedious way to Marseilles. He embarked there for Rome, on May third, 1839. At the commencement of his voyage, he fell in with three young Frenchmen of rank, with whom he travelled, not without profit to himself, till he reached Pome. They placed their money in the hands of one of their number to pay their bills. Selected probably for his superior thrift, it was re- markable with what nicety he drove their joint bargains, aided by the humorous but shrewd wisdom of his companions. They LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER French among themselves. This was an advantage to Sumner ;• for he was obliged to speak it too, and thus revive and extend his knowledge of the language. All their excursions, at the various places stopped at, along the road, were made to- gether; — together they passed two days at Genoa, wandering among its palaces and groves and enjoying its paintings ; to- gether from Leghorn they made a delightful trip to Pisa, climbing to the top of its leaning tower and admiring the cathedral. They were together at the dirty little seaport, Civita Vecchia, and at the beautiful Bay of Naples, " with its waters reflecting the blue of heaven and its delicious shores studded with historical associations," together they went to Pompeii, treading the beautiful mosaics; and together they wondered at the frescoes and marbles of its houses, and strolling among the columns and arches of its Forum, they asked them- selves where, among living cities, could such things be found as adorned this child of the ages? Tliey climbed Vesuvius and " saw the furnace-like fires which glowed in its yawning cracks and seams." They visited Capua, " shorn of all its soft tempta- tions and with difficulty found a breakfast of chocolate and bread where Hannibal's victorious troops wasted with luxury and excess." Thence they drove, passing over the Pontine Marshes and the Alban Hills, to Rome, where they arrived on the twenty-first of May. Here they separated. At Rome the tidings of his father's death reached Sumner. He died on April twenty-fourth, after a lingering illness of some weeks, sixty-three years of age. A life of confinement, with the cares of a large family, on an income much of the time small, with few relaxations and no considerable success, af- flicted by poor health, towards its close, had rendered him cold and cheerless and somewhat rigid and exacting. He had few of the traits which attract the hopeful moods of the young. His life could furnish little to satisfy their dreams and dazzling am- bitions. He had, at the last, too little sympathy for such senti- ments. But he was a just man, scrupulously honest, in every business transaction. A tinge of suspicion never touched his integrity. Everything he did was with the greatest exactness. Even his scholarship was of this character. It was thorough and systematic. He was as fearless as he was conscientious. There must be no shrinking from the performance of any duty. The right must be maintained and he was willing to be first to support it. But it would be asserted without unnecessary rough- ness; for he was always a gentleman and maintained a just re- gard for the feelings of others. Taken for all in all, his was a LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 83 careful, painstaking, conscientious life, with little in it for self. Sumner in childhood had been repelled by his father's cheer- less moods. As he grew older the breach seemed to widen and after his admission to -the bar, partly in consequence of this, he did not live at home. Yet there was no open rupture, only a coldness and want of sympathy, between them. Charles was obedient and a son in whom the father had sufficient cause for pride. But his aspirations were high — higher probably than the father thought time would justify. He saw life more so- berly. The father did not approve his trip abroad and did not aid it. On leaving for Europe, Charles had remonstrated with his father, against his strictness witli his children, and urged him to give greater opportunities, than he was, to those that re- mained at home. The suggestion was not kindly received. While he was in Europe, his brother Henry had been made deputy- sheriff, by the father's appointment, and Charles expressed his regret, wishing something better for his younger brother. The circumstance was irritating to the father, in his condition of health. Charles wrote once to him, from Europe, but his letter was not answered and he did not write again. Consider- ing his toils and sacrifices, the father probably felt that these apparent criticisms were unjust to him. Coming nnder such circumstances, his father's death was peculiarly sad to Charles. It grew sadder with his years. The traits that before repelled him dwindled in importance and the real merit of the father grew upon him. He felt that he had not given him the con- sideration he deserved. And how often it is that death brings unavailingly back to our remembrance kind words that might have been spoken but were not. Charles thought that it would have gladdened the heart of the father to know that the best he could do, striven for manfully, was at least understood and appreciated in the spirit it was done, — that it would have soothed his last hours, with life all behind, reflecting on its trials and its sacrifices, to know, ere he went away, that those nearest to him felt the worth of the long days' work ; and that it was not thrust aside and overlooked, in the wish for something more that he had not been able to do. He was cast down by the news. But the friends at home, in the same letters that conveyed the intelligence of his father's death, urged him to let it make no change in his plans. The father had always managed his business and property with such care, that there was really little for any one to do, in settling up his affairs. The education of his younger brothers and sis- 84 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ters was a matter of more concern to him. But he reflected that his mother was there and that her good judgment, aided by "the advice of friends, would accomplish all that he could hope to do. She knew his wishes. So he concluded to follow the advice given him and finish his trip according to his orig- inal plan. He spent the summer in Eome, remaining there until the middle of August. His time was employed differently from what it had been in England, where he had devoted most of it to making acquaintances, seeing society, the courts, cathedrals and universities and great country seats. In Rome many of his letters of introduction were unused, he saw little of society and had only a few friends. George W. Greene, the U. S. Consul at Home, was one of them. " My habits," he wrote, '' were simple. Rose at half-past six o'clock, threw myself on my sofa, with a little round table near, well covered with books, read undisturbed till about ten, when the servant brought, on a tray, my breakfast, — two eggs done sur le plat, a roll and a cup of chocolate ; some of the books were pushed aside enough to give momentary place to the tray. The breakfast was concluded without quitting the sofa ; rang the bell and my table was put to rights, and my reading went on till five or six o'clock in the evening, without my once rising from the sofa. At five or six, got up, stretched myself and dressed to go out; dined in a garden under a mulberry tree, chiefly on fruits, salads and wines, with the occasional injec- tion of a soup or steak ; the fruits were apricots, green almonds and figs; the salads, those of the exception under the second declension of nouns in our old Latin Grammar ; the wines, the light, cooling, delicious product of the country. By this time Greene came to me, — in accomplishments and attainments our country has not five men his peers, — and we walked to the Forum or to San Pietro, or out of one of the gates of Rome. Many an hour have we sat upon a broken column or a rich cap- ital, in the Via Sacra or the Colosseum, and called to mind what has passed before them, weaving out the web of the story they might tell ; and then leaping centuries and seas, we have joined our friends at home and, with them, shared our pleasures. Af- ter an ice-cream, we parted ; I to my books again ; or sometimes with him to his house where, over a supper, not unlike the din- ner I have described, we continued the topics of our walk. This was my day's round, after I had seen the chief of those things in Rome that require midday, so that I was able to keep the house." Sumner revived his knowledge of Latin. But the acquisi- LIFE OF CHAPL^F^ SUMNER 85 tion of the Italian was the primary object and it was to thi that he devoted himself with such diligence. He soon acquired it. Before he left Italy, he had read the most famous works of the language in the original. This was a great source of pleas- ure to him. However faithful a translation may be, there is always much of the beauty of the original lost to one who can- not read the work in the language the author left it. He also learned to talk the language; so he could understand all that was said to him in a conversation and likewise make himself understood. The fellow travellers he met and the servants in the hotels where he stopped, after leaving Rome, used the lan- guage with him, instead of French, the common one among strangers, thus unintentionally complimenting his Italian. He always maintained his familiarity with French and Italian and made frequent use of both in later life. Among the artists he met in Rome, and the one to whom he became most attached was Thomas Crawford, a native of New York. He was then obscure and unknown to fame, struggling for perfection and recognition in his chosen profession. He was a man of talent and industry and became one of the famous American artists. He designed and executed the statue of Liberty that crowns the dome of the National Capitol at Wash- ington and the equestrian statue of Washington on the State House grounds in Richmond, Va. He was then poor and down-hearted and dispirited, at his want of success. Sumner, with his quick appreciation for struggling merit, became his enthusiastic friend, encouraged him to go on and sought by every means to secure for him the recognition he deserved. He praised his work, gave him an order for a bust of himself and wrote enthusiastically of him to Hillard and other friends at home, urging them to try to secure orders for him. Orders did come afterwards in abundance ; and when Sumner visited Europe again in 1857, he found Crawford in the full realiza- tion of fame, but, as sometimes happens, too sick to enjoy it. He was fading away, in the blight of a slow disease, and died a few months later, at the age of forty-four, his life probably shortened, and his career ended too soon, by early disappoint- ments. Among Sumner's pleasant experiences at Rome, was an ex- cursion he made with his friend Greene to the convent of Palazzuola, situated on the site of Alba Longa, amid precipices and impenetrable forests, overlooking the beautiful Alban Lake. Its situation was so inaccessible that no vehicle could approach within two miles of it. It was a delightful refreshment dur- ing the heated season of the year to lounge in its spacious halls. gg LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER to wander in the shade of its rocks and trees and to bathe in the waters of its lake. They remained here several days, having had assigned to them three apartments each, a bedroom, a cabinet and an antechamber. Sumner's antechamber was vaulted and covered with arabesques. The arched ceilings and the walls of the other two rooms were painted so as to resemble the stone walls of a hermit's cell, while at the post of his bed, hung the beads and the crucifix of a monk. The library of the monastery contained about a thousand volumes in Latin and Italian, all ancient works in parchment. To examine such a library was a treat to the lover of curious books. Sumner took them down one by one, some of them he found bottom upwards and apparently with the dust of centuries upon them. The librarian told him there were no manuscripts but he found more than a dozen. The standard work on geography repre- sented England as composed of seven kingdoms. America as belonging to Spain, with Boston as the capital and Vera Cruz as the chief commercial centre. The convent belonged to monks of the Franciscan order, one of the most rigid of the Roman Church. They wore neither hats nor stockings and only sandals on their feet. The rest of their dress consisted of a coarse woollen cloak or robe. They subsisted by charity. " One of their number," Sumner wrote, "lately was begging for corn of a farmer, who was treading out with oxen the summer's harvest. The farmer in derision, and as a way of refusing, pointed to a bag, which contained a load for three men and told the monk he was welcome to that if he would cany it off. The monk invoked St. Francis, stooped and took up the load and quietly carried it away. The aston- ished farmer followed him to the convent and required the re- turn of his corn. His faith was not great enough to see the miracle. It was given up but, the story coming to the ears of the governor of the town, he summarily ordered the restoration of the corn to the convent." The time Sumner had allowed for his stay in Eome passed quickly. His days were absorbed with study and his evenings with one or two congenial friends. The middays on account of their heat at this season were not the best for sight-seeing; but the mornings and evenings sufficed. Removed from care, absorbed with books and friends, sweet peaceful days, — he always remembered those three months in Rome as one of the delightful periods of his life. From Rome he went to Florence, passing four days and a half on the road, a journey now witli the aid of railroads easily made in an afternoon. But then it was made by coach. Among LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER S7 liis travelling companions was Signor Ottavio Gigli, with whom lie became well acquainted. He was a young scholar, of about Sumner's age, engaged in literary pursuits and well acquainted in Rome and Florence. At the latter place he introduced Sumner to several authors of note. The friend in Florence, whom Sumner most enjoyed was Horatio Greenough, an Ameri- can sculptor, then in the full tide of his career. He was en- gaged upon a statue of Washington and a bas-relief, " The Rescue ", both for the Capitol. Sumner admired both, es- pecially the latter. " It is intended to represent," he wrote, " the surprise of a white settlement by the Indians. On the ground is a mother clasping her child, in order to save it from the uplifted toma- hawk of an Indian who stands over her, but whose hand is arrested, by a fearless settler, who is represented on a rock, so that the upper half of his body appears above the Indian. * * The woman is on the ground, so that she does not conceal the Indian, who is naked, except an accidental fold about his loins, and the settler, who appears above the savage, restraining his fury, is dressed in a hunter's shirt and cap. The passions are various, — the child, the mother, the father, the husband, the savage, the defender, etc. ; all the various characters being blended in the group." The piece as completed now adorns the east front of the Capitol at Washington, Sumner ranked Greenough as a man of eminence in his pro- fession, superior to any other artist then living. He was a man of infinite pains. His " Washington " was on his hands eight years and " The Rescue " fourteen. " They build for im- mortality," Sumner wrote " who calmly dedicate to a work so much time." Sumner also met Powers, another American sculptor, at Florence, and spent some time at his studio. He did not, however, admire his work so much. But wherever he went, his heart still turned to Crawford. He sought to interest others in him. At his solicitation, Gigli promised to visit him and write of his work, in some Italian journals. From Florence, Sumner went to Venice, stopping by the way successively at Bologna, Ferrara, Rovigo and Padua. At Venice, he spent a week, plying her watery ways, while the gondoliers timed the strokes of their oars to the music of their songs. As he stepped into his boat one day a little boy asked him if he should not go along and sing Tasso. It was an en- chanting place and he gave himself up to the enjoyment of it. He attended the theatres and operas and strolled under the ar- cades of the great Piazza. He had brought letters to some of the influential people but they were left undisturbed in his port- 88 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER folio. His time was too short and the beauties of the ancient and decaying capital too attractive to neglect them, for the ac- quaintance of an hour. He left Venice on the thirtieth of September, 1839, for Milan, passing on the way through Padua, Verona, Brescia and Ber- gamo, travelling by coach two nights and a day. The first part of the journey was through a blinding rain. " All that night," he wrote, " we rode in the midst of a tremendous storm. It is exciting to rattle over the pavements of villages, tovrns and cities in the dead of nights; to catch, perhaps, a solitary light shining from the room of some watcher, ' like a good deed in a naughty world ; ' and when you arrive at the gates of a city, the postilion winds his horn, and the heavy portals are swung open, it seems like a vision of romance. Nor is it less exciting in earlier evening, when the shops and streets are bright with light, and people throng the streets, to dash along." Sumner had tasked himself, while in Italy to six hours' study of the language each day and he continued it through his days of journeying. If his companions were weary or tedious, or the scenery uninteresting, his book was at hand and he turned to it. He was ready to lay it aside when any- thing of interest appeared. It is curious to note the books he read while in Italy. "Dante," Tasso's " GerusaleitiiDO." Boccaccio's "Decameron," Politian's " Eime," the tragedies of Alfieri, the principal dramas of Metastasio, Lanzi's " Stonia Pittorica," Machiavelli's " Principe ", Tasso's " Aminta ", Guarini's " Pastor Fido ", some of Monti, of Pindemonte, of Parini, Botta's histories, Boccrescio's " Corbaccio " and " Fiammetta ". These were read before he left Eome. After that he read : Manzoni's " Promissi Sposi ", Petrarch's " Eime ", Ariosto, all of Machiavelli except his tract on " War ", Guicciardini's " Storia ", Manzoni's trag- edies and " Eime ", the principal plays of Niccolini, Nota and Goldoni, the autobiography of Alfieri. Besides this he read the newspapers, American, English, French and Italian that came in his way. Sumner reached Milan on the morning of October second and remained there until the sixth. At noon of that day, Sunday, he left by the mail coach for Munich, going by way of the Stelvio Pass, over the Alps to Innsbruck. A friend whose ac- quaintance he made in Milan offered him a seat in his private carriage, for the journey to Munich, a distance of about five hundred miles, but he put aside the tempting offer and chose instead the slower and less luxurious public conveyance that he jnight mingle more with people along the road and pick up their LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 89 language and customs. The road led him through the mag- nificent scenery of the Alps, surpassing any he had seen before. It lay through the region of the glaciers and perpetual snow. At midnight they halted for a little sleep at Santa Maria, a thousand feet below the summit. Though twelve hours before he had left the plains of Lombardy, glowing with the warmth and sunshine of a beautiful autumn day, he slept that night, amid sharp winter, in an inn, with double windows, under heavy coverings on his bed, to which he added the weight of his cloak. And yet he was so bitter cold, that before morning he was glad to warm himself, by ascending the mountain on foot. He reached the highest point, eight thousand nine hundred feet above the sea, and crossed the Italian boundary just as the morning sun was gilding the tops of the mountains. It was here, with dazzling glaciers near, that he bade fare- well to Italy. The boundary was marked by a column, inscribed on one side " Eegno Lombardo ", on the other " Tyrolese Aus- tria ". He had passed it some distance when the thought came to his mind that he was leaving Italy ; he hurried back to the border line, ''looked in vain for those beautiful fields which seemed Elysian " to memory, said to himself that he should never see them again and taking off his hat made a last salute. His sole companion was '" an elderly, learned, lean, pragmatical German ". He heard his parting words and at once turned in the contrary direction and doffing his straw hat that covered his head, ejaculated ; " Et moi je salue I'Allemagne." " And yet," Sumner wrote to Greene, " I must again go to Italy, Have I left it forever ? How charming it seems in my mind's eye ! Pictures, statues, poetry, all come across my soul with ravishing power. Where do these words come from? They are of the thousand verses that are hymning through my mind with a music like that of the 'Dorian flutes and soft recorders'. All this is your heritage; to me is unchanging drudgery, where there are no flowers to pluck by the wayside, no green sprigs, fresh myrtle, hanging vines, — but the great grindstone of the law. There I must work. Sisyphus ' rolled the rock reluctant up the hill ', and I am going home to do the same." CHAPTER IX THE JOURNEY THROUGH AUSTRIA — VIENNA — METTERNICH — BERLIN SAVIGNY HEIDELBERG, MITTERMAIER, THIBAUT LONDON AGAIN — HOME — RETROSPECT OF TRIP Sumner turned his face to the North. The prim little vil- lages of the Tyrol, nestling among spurs of the Alps, with an air of antiquity about them, as his coach descended the mount- ains and whirled through them, looked like pictures of happy homelife. Nothing could be cleaner. Groups of happy children played in their streets, contented old men sat, in the peaceful autumn days, by the cottage doors. Laughing girls with fresh, German complexions and comely figures stole quiet glances at the strangers. At one of the stops of the coach, a fair Tyrolese, a little more daring and perhaps more fun-loving than the others, invited Sumner, through an interpreter, to waltz with her, to the music of some wandering Hungarians. Whether he accepted her challenge, he did not record. Perhaps not know- ing how to waltz, he put it so, being too chivalrous to say that he declined. He reached Innsbruck, Wednesday morning at ten o'clock, having spent three days and three nights on the journey from Milan. During this time he slept only three hours and a half out of the coach. He passed a day at Innsbruck and then journeyed on by the mail-coach a day and a half to Munich. Here he spent a week. A lady of his acquaintance from Bos- ton was there. Sumner remarked that she was all French in her affectations and aped Continental wa3's in her dress and manners, particularly in her hair. She appeared at table in the dress of a dinner party making a contrast with the simple costume of some English gentlefolks who were there, among them Disraeli and his wife. The conversation had turned to " Vivian Grey ", when she remarked, " There is a great deal written in the garrets of London." " I assure you," answered Disraeli, " ' Vivian Grey ' was not written in a garret." Sumner enjoyed Munich. He visited the king's gallery of sculpture and also sought out the paintings and frescoes upon which the city prided itself. One of the large frescoes by Cornelius represented Orpheus begging Eurydice of Plato. The group, especially the representation of Cerberus, impressed 90 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 91 Sumner as admirable. Knowing that Crawford was modelling an *' Orpheus ", he sent him a careful description of this fresco thinking it might furnish him some suggestions. Sumner had luedicted that if Crawford completed his " Orpheus ". as com- menced it would be one of the best works of modern times. It \\as completed and Sumner's prediction has been verified. Af- Ur its completion Sumner raised a subscription to procure a marble copy of it from Crawford to be placed in the city of IJoston. But of this mention will be made in a future connec- tion. Sumner left Munich on the twentieth of October. Another day and night in the stage brought him to Passau. With an English friend, he here hired a little gondola and in it they dropped gently down the Danube, with the current, seventy miles to the city of Linz. The delightful ride, on the smooth gliding surface of the river, between banks at every turn open- ing up beautiful scenery, was a grateful respite from the dusty jolting of the coach. At Linz, they hired a carriage and in two days and a half, on the twenty-fifth day of October, 1839, they entered Vienna. Sumner remained in Vienna a month, occupied, most of his time, in seeing the city and in studying the language. He went little into society and made few acquaintances. He was, how- ever, invited by Prince Metternich, then First Minister of Austria, to a reception at his palace. This he attended and was received with consideration. The Prince inquired particu- larly about America and showed much interest in the country. He asked if he knew the Austrian Minister and requested Sum- ner to call upon him when in Washington. The Prince was of a noble family and in early life repre- sented his country as Ambassador at Paris, where he met the Emperor ISTapoleon. He became his warm admirer. Soon af- ter his return from Paris he was made First Minister, and after the battle of Wagram he showed his capacity for management by bringing about the marriage of Napoleon to ]\Iarie Louise. He continued in office till 1848 and then resigned. When Sum- ner met him he was still in his prime, a large, fine-looking man and very affable. With the kindness of some other friends and the favor of the Prince, Sumner felt the way was open for him to see much of society in Vienna. It was then the " most select home of aristocracy ". But he left the city almost immediately. A night and a day of dismal riding brought him to Prague. Here he viewed its famous bridge and tower and the palace of its kings. Then another day and night brought him to Dresden, 92 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER where the beautiful paintings reminded him of Italy. From Dresden to Leipsie he travelled by railroad, the only travelling he did in this way while in Europe. One of the railway car- riages was named " Washington ", — a name, he remarked, that seemed to have a charm about it, wherever he went. Irving, when travelling upon the Continent, noticed on one occasion, that he was received as a person of no consequence, until his host discovered that his first name was " Washington ", when inferring, from this circumstance, that he bore some relation- ship to the Father of his Country, he was thenceforth treated with, marked consideration. Another day and night from Leipsie brought Sumner to Berlin, where he remained until January ninth, 1840. Theo- dore S. Fay was then Secretary of Legation from the United States at Berlin. He was a young man near Sumner's age, quiet and unassuming in deportment, and of a lovable disposi- tion. He was possessed of some literary ability and the author of several volumes, one of which he then had in press. Between Sumner and Fay there grew up a lasting friendship. It was useful to Sumner during his month's stay in Berlin, for Fay had access to the best circles of the Prussian capital. He in- troduced Sumner both at Court and to the Professors of the university and thus his stay was made profitable and pleasant. In a few weeks Sumner could write : " I know everybody, and am engaged every day." He had seen all the distinguished Professors and had received some of them in his room. He knew Raumer and Ranke, the historians ; of these he preferred Ranke, who had the most vivacity, humor and, as Sumner thought, genius. His "History of the Popes" was widely known and read and was being translated into English. Alex- ander von Humboldt, then engaged upon his " Cosmos ", re- ceived him kindly. He was the reputed head of conversers in Germany and in this respect Sumner described him to his friends as, like Judge Story, "rapid, continuous, unflagging, lively, various ". He had read Prescott's " Ferdinand and Isa- bella " and he and Ranke both spoke in the highest terms of it to Sumner. Humboldt was also an admirer of Edward Everett of Boston. But the Professor, in the university, of whom Sumner gave the fullest description was Savigny. Sumner's still nourished ambition for a career in the Harvard Law School, would make this natural. Savigny was, at this time, at the head of the law department of the University of Berlin and Sumner con- sidered him, by common consent, the leading authority on juris- prudence in Germany and, in truth, upon the whole Continent. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 93 He was of noble birth and from early manhood had been a Professor of Law in various universities. From 1842 to 1848 he was Minister of Justice of the Empire. But his title to fame rests principally on his published works, particularly his work " On Obligations ". In personal appearance and manner Sumner thought he re- sembled Webster, more than any person he had ever seen. He was taller and not quite so stout, but there was the same dark face and hair and eyes ; as he sat by Sumner and he caught his voice, he was startled by the resemblance to the Massachu- setts Senator's. Savigny and Humboldt belonged to the society of Berlin, and were sought for, in the court and diplomatic circles, a distinction the other professors did not enjoy. Sumner had looked forward to an acquaintance with Savigny. He was one of the European authorities upon the question of codification. More than twenty years before he had published a reply to Thibaut's argument in favor of a code. In Paris, Sumner was told, that he had modified his views upon this sub- ject, but when he came to converse with him he was sorry to find that his informants were mistaken. He was as firm as ever in his opposition to codes. He listened kindly to Sumner's views on the subject, but when done, seemed unshaken in his own conclusions. He had read Judge Story's work on the " Conflict of Laws " and expressed his surprise that he was not on the Massachusetts committee to codify the Criminal Law, not reflecting that his other more important duties would pre- vent him from taking an appointment that would involve so much labor. Through the kind offices of his friend Fay, Sumner met most of the foreign Ministers resident at Berlin and the diplomatic corps. He was kindly received by the Crown Prince and Prince William, both of whom became Emperors of Prussia, and their princesses. The Crown Prince seemed very cordial and in- quired about the summers of New England and thought they must be magnificent. Sumner answered that he had thought so too, till he had been in Italy. But after all, Ranke, Hum- boldt, Savigny, great names still among the Germans, the ele- gant historian of the Popes, the author of Cosmos and the mas- ter of German jurisprudence, — these were the men Sumner admired ! He knew them all ! From Berlin Sumner went to Leipsic, Weimar, Gotha, Frankfort and then to Heidelberg. He remained five weeks at Heidelberg, studying, reading and talking German. He en- joyed the ancient town beautifully located on the river ISTeckar, ill the province of Baden, noted for its castle, the largest in 94 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER Germany, falling into decay, bnt rendered more attractive by the tints of its fading glory, and for its university, the oldest in Germany, founded in 1356, a worthy rival of that of Berlin. It had a greater reputation abroad, owing to the foreign stu- dents, who were attracted in great numbers to it, by the cheap- ness of living. Sumner humorously wrote that he had a hun- dred dollars and doubted not he was the richest person in the place. Professor Thibaut called him their " grand seigneur." Sumner always felt at home when near a great university. He had been so constantly about Harvard. It is curious to note how his travels tended to Oxford, Cambridge, the Parisian Lecture Eooms, Berlin and Heidelberg and how he coveted an acquaintance among their professors. There is little mention to be found, in his letters, or diary of the trip, of the great states- men of Europe. In the little that is said of them, there is still less of their character as statesmen, but the mention is mostly of them as men or as the owners of great houses or large es- tates. But his letters abound in references to books and schools. " You have thrown out some hints," he wrote Professor Green- leaf, " with regard to my occupying a place with you and the Judge at Cambridge. You know well that my heart yearns fondly for that place." His thoughts were all of a career in the Law School and as a law writer. A career in statesmanship seemed to be as far as any from him. How little he realized what the future had in store for him ! While editing the Jurist he had been brought into con- tact with Professor Mittermaier of Heidelberg. They had ex- changed letters on subjects of mutual interest and the Profes- sor had been asked to contribute to the Jurist. They now met for the first time and Sumner became intimate with him and his family. He had three bright boys for whom Sumner formed an attachment; one, the assistant of his father, died soon after Sumner's return from Europe, and in the corre- spondence, which was still continued with the father, he unbos- omed his grief. x\t Mittermaier's house Sumner met Professor Thibaut then near the end of his life. He was the most eminent advocate of codification in Europe, His father was a soldier and the son was designed for the same profession, but after one short campaign he abandoned it for his studies. As a young man, he was strong, finely formed, with a handsome face and head, enthusiastic in his studies and equally so in athletics. He be- came one of the first scliolars in the university. After taking his degree he became successively Professor of Law atKehl, Jena and Heidelberg, Sumner considered him second in attainments LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 95 only to Savigny. He early advocated a code for Germany and finally secured the adoption of one. Sumner considered himself fortunate, in being able to discuss the subject of codification with the heads of the two great schools, for and against it, Thi- baut and Savigny. He heard their views from their own lips and had the honor of receiving calls from both of them in his room. The practice of duelling was then at its height in the uni- versity. Sumner saw three duels with swords. The swords were first taken to a grindstone where they were ground sharp. With these weapons the combatants then met in an assembly- room where the students in large numbers were congregated, smoking and drinking. A doctor was also in attendance who very coolly smoked all the while. Thus attended, the combat proceeded, often with serious results. In one of them a com- Ijatant lost his nose, it being cut off by his antagonist at one blow. It was afterwards sewed on by the doctor for him; but he brushed it off twice in the night. The practice of smoking was universal. " Everybody in Ger- many smokes," Sumner observed ; " I doubt not, I am the only man above ten years old now in the country who does not." It was unpleasant for him, who did not use tobacco in any form. He often found himself shut up in a carriage where every one was smoking. It will readily be imagined how dis- tasteful this was to him, when it is remembered he could hardly endure the confinement of a coach without the smoke. In his earlier days he was obliged to ride on the outside. From Heidelberg, Sumner went down the Rhine to Cologne, thence to Brussels, Antwerp, London, where he arrived on the seventeenth of March and remained till the fourth of April. This was longer than he at first intended. His purpose was to stay only a few days, long enough to see two or three friends and arrange for his passage home. But how could he resist? " I am already," he wrote, " after twenty-four hours' presence, nailed for to-morrow to see the Duchess of Sutherland in her magnificent palace; for the next day to dine with Parkes to meet Charles Austin ; the next to breakfast with Sutton Sharpe, to meet some of my friends of the Chancery bar, then to dine with the Earl of Carlisle ; and the next day with Bates. Mor- peth wishes me to see the Lansdownes and Hollands, but I de- cline." The time slipped away. He knew so many people; had formed such pleasant acquaintances and there was still so much of interest to him in London, that it was hard to break away. London, is more bewitching than ever," he wrote. " Have al- 96 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ready seen many people, — the Lansdownes; Duke and Duchess of Sutherland (the most beautiful woman in the world) ; Mrs. Norton, Lady Seymour (both very beautiful) ; Hay ward; Syd- ney Smith; Senior; Fonblanque; Milnes; Milman; the Grotes; Charles Austin (more brilliant than ever) ; the Wortleys, etc. But I must stop. I must now go to breakfast with Sydney Smith ; to-morrow with Rogers ; next day with dear Sir Robert Inglis; the next day with Milnes." This is a formidable list of well known people and shows Sumner's popularity in England. His last dinner was with Hallam, where were Milman, Bab- bage, Hayward, Francis Horner, etc. He parted with many friends and received the most affectionate good wishes. Lady Carlisle and Ingham shed tears in parting with him. He engaged passage for New York by the " Wellington " and embarked at Portsmouth, having as a fellow passenger Dr. J. G. Cogswell who was in Europe to place a grandson of John Jacob Astor in school and to make purchases for the newly projected Astor Library of New York, of which he had been chosen Librarian. Other fellow passengers were N. P. Willis, his wife and her sister. He reached New York on May third, 1840, after an absence of two years and five months. The journey cost him something more than five thousand dollars. But it was one of the most profitable periods of his life, hardly less so than his years in college. He had studied and mastered successively the French, Italian and German lan- guages. He had seen the great countries of Europe and mingled with their people. He had visited their great universities, made the acquaintance of their professors and saw their methods of instruction. He had seen the most famous art treasures of the world, the finest architecture of the present and the remains of the greatest of the past. But above all he had seen and heard and known many of the greatest men then living and whose names are now historic. He had before read their works and knew them, but what was this as compared with seeing the au- thors, meeting them in their homes and talking with them, face to face, so that every mention of them thereafter was to awaken a train of pleasant memories. It was largely due to the culture of those two years and a half that Sumner came afterwards to be known as the most accomplished man in the American Senate. CHAPTER X WELCOME HOME — CAMPAIGN OF 1840 — RESUMES WORK — OF- FICE OF HILLARD AND SUMNER — PHILLIPS MATCH CASE — RIGHT OF SEARCH — PRACTICE — UNPROFESSIONAL STUDIES From New York, Sumner went directly to the family resi- dence in Boston. This was to be his future home. A warm welcome awaited him. There had always been a strong affection between him and his mother and the death of his father seemed to make the tie even stronger than before. He was her eldest son, bearing his father's name, the best edu- cated and the most substantial of all her children. She felt that she must look to him, as her adviser and mainstay. His sisters, Mary and Julia, had grown to be young women, during his absence. The loving expectancy with which they had hoped to entwine his life with theirs reached out to him at the thresh- old. His former law partner, Hillard, who alone had kept the office at Number Four Court Street, in his absence, was re- joiced at the prospect of dividing its confinement as well as its cares and labors. Sumner was a warm-hearted, genial, com- panionable man and a host of friends were glad to welcome him back. In homes where he had been familiar, as in Judge Story's and Professor Greenleaf's, he was received, as before, al- most as one of the family. The first weeks after his arrival were occupied with renewing acquaintances, calling upon friends and talking over the ex- periences of his trip. He felt little inclination to return to work at once, for his studies abroad, in Italy and Germany, had been so laborious that he needed rest and time to gather his thoughts home from his trip. The attorneys and judges were soon to be off on their summer's vacation and the courts being closed, little could be done then in a law office. During August, he spent a few days at Nahant, a seaside resort about fourteen miles from Boston, where he dined with William H. Prescott. Later in the same month he drove in a gig to Lan- caster, a small village near Worcester, with Felton, who went to spend Sunday with his wife. On the way they stopped at Concord and dined with Ralph Waldo Emerson. When Sumner went to Europe, Emerson had given him a letter of introduc- tion to Thomas Carlyle and each enjoyed this opportunity of 97 98 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER exchanging their recollections of him. Emerson was a constant correspondent of Carlyle. Sumner afterwards recalled Emer- son's two interesting children, a boy and a girl, the latter playfully called by her father his " honeycomb". The year of Sumner's return, from Europe, 1840, will ever be memorable for one of the most remarkable campaigns in the history of American politics. The Whigs had been out of office for twelve years and were correspondingly hungry; the Democrats having been as long successful were now under the control of a President who was a consummate political leader and they bore themselves with confident superiority. The Whigs nominated as their candidate William H. Harrison and the Democrats renominated Martin Van Buren. Harrison could be paraded as a " military hero," for he had about a quarter of a century before, been a soldier in the war of 1812, and in some skirmishes with the Indians, notably at Tippe- canoe, had borne himself creditably. He could also pose as a political martyr, for he had been rather roughly recalled from a foreign mission, by Jackson to make a place for one of his favorites. At the time of his nomination he was living quietly on his farm in Ohio. Corruption in public office was rampant. Van Buren was from the State of New York. Unfortunately the Collector of Customs at New York City had been found to be a defaulter to the amount of $1,125,000, and the United States District Attorney for the State of New York was $72,000 short. Harri- son was the very man to be called, like Cincinnatus, from his plough to save the nation. There probably never was a political campaign of more noise and less sense than that which fol- lowed. Half the nation seemed to be turned loose to follow brass bands, in processions, and sing the doggerel of campaign song books. The Democrats in derision pointed to Harrison as a rough farmer, tilling his own land, living in a log cabin and drinking hard cider. The Whigs returned the taunt by saying, that Van Buren was living in a mansion, surrounded by thugs and jobbers and eating out of " gold spoons ". The jibe of the Democrats was at least unfortunate. Thenceforward a log cabin, mounted on wheels, its sides decorated with coon-skins and a cider barrel at the door, the whole drawn by numerous teams of horses, swelled every procession. The cabin and cider barrel adorned every badge. They were the drawing symbols of a plain, honest life and the whole nation seemed to be marching to the tune of " Tippecanoe and Tyler too ". Eloquence too was plentiful. A meeting was appointed in some grove, the people gathered in long processions, an ox was roasted whole. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 99 to feed the assembled multitude and they were addressed by such orators as Henry Clay and Tom Corwin of the West and Daniel Webster of the East. The famous passage of Webster's ; " It did not happen to me to be born in a log-cabin, but some of my brothers and sisters were ", so familiar now to every schoolboy, was one of the products of the campaign. Yet Sumner, at thirty years of age, was a silent witness of all this. The circumstance shows how little interest he then felt in the great arena in which his life was to be cast. Thus far he had taken no active jjart in politics. His father's inclination had been to the Whig party and this naturally was his. It was also natural for him to be repelled by the cries of corruption then raised against the Democrats and to be attracted by the pledges of the Whigs to reform the public service. The superior culture of such men as Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams and Edward Everett, appealed strongly to the educated young men of Boston, in the choice of a party. Sumner probably voted for Harrison ; but he had been abroad for two years and love of country rather than of any party was his predominant feeling, and it is not certainly known how he voted. He en- joyed many of the ludicrous phases of the campaign; but deprecated so much strife and faction as he saw. " There is so much passion," he wrote, " and so little principle, so much de- votion to party and so little to country in both parties, that I think we have occasion for anxiety." With the return of September, Sumner settled down to work in his office. The partnership with Hillard had never been dissolved, but as he had done all the work during Sumner's ab- sence, he was allowed all the earnings. Sumner was resolved to be diligent. He wished to earn money and pay the debt he had contracted by his trip to Europe. He declined an invita- tion to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Bowdoin Col- lege, because it would require time that he could not now afford to lose from his business. He was punctually in his office from nine o'clock in the morning until six in the evening, with only the interval of an hour for dinner. He was at work upon the tliird volume of " Sumner's Eeports," of Judge Story's decis- ions in the U. S. Circuit Court, which he got ready for the press by the middle of December. This with his professional en- gagements occupied his time. He did not appear in the trial of many cases. The practice of the finn of Hillard and Sum- ner does not seem ever to have been large. But his preparation for a trial was elaborate. He read widely and made numerous citations of authorities, in support of the positions he took in 100 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER the trial of his cases. He was always inclined to be more pro- fuse than exact. They had several friends who were instrumental in bringing them business. Eufus Choate, then in the enjoyment of well deserved fame as an advocate, had liis office in the same build- ing with theirs and occasionally dropped into their rooms, to indulge his fondness for the society of young men and his taste for talk upon literary subjects. Sumner's brief estimate of Choate, whose fame is fast becoming traditional, is interesting as the contemporary judgment of one who often witnessed his efforts. " His position here," he wrote, " is very firm. He is the leader of our bar, with an overwhelming superfluity of business, with a strong taste for books and learned men, with great amiableness of character, with uncommon eloquence and untir- ing industry." Choate and Webster procured Hillard and Sumner's employment in the boundary dispute between Massa- chusetts and Ehode Island. William W. Story was a student in their office and his father. Judge Story, when not absent from home engaged in his duties as a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, frequently dropped in on them. They sometimes got clients who came to them because they thought that Judge Story's friendsliip for them might influence his judgment in their favor. Professor Greenleaf still kept a desk in the office and there met the clients he served. He procured their employment occasionally, notably in a suit brought to contest the patent right of the Phillips friction match, a litiga- tion which was in court in more than one form and continued through four years. Professor Greenleaf withdrew from it early, leaving the responsibility of it with them. In this case Sumner took an unusual interest. The stake at issue was large and the question a close one. It was to be tried before Judge Story in tlie United States Courts. A suit was brought to enjoin the use of the patent on a friction match, on the ground of the prior knowledge and use of the invention, by Sumner's client. Another suit was also brought, by his client, to recover damages for the invasion of his right to the invention. Depositions were taken by Sumner at various places and the testimony became very voluminous. The suit to enjoin the defendant was not tried until December, 1843, and the damage case not until 18-i4, in November. Judge Story de- cided the injunction case against Sumner's client. In the damage case they were more successful. It was tried to a jury and Sumner's client recovered a verdict. Judge Story ruled upon several important questions, in the trial of this case, against Sumner's client ; and he was annoyed at Sumner's per- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 101 sistency, in pressing them. But the jury seems to have tliought more favorably of the case than the Judge. A motion to set aside the verdict was made, but, jDending its hearing, the case was settled. Sumner took a leading part in the trial and it is considered his principal effort at the bar. He was opposed by Franklin Dexter, one of the ablest attorneys in Boston. Another professional engagement that interested Sumner grew out of the right claimed by Great Britain to search Amer- ican vessels. The slave trade had been abolished by England and all her vessels were forbidden from engaging in the traffic. She had a perfect right to search her own vessels, and see that the laws of England were not violated by her subjects ; and she freely exercised this right. But some of her vessels still en- gaged in the traffic. To elude detection, such vessels when pursued would sometimes hoist the American flag and, under it, claim immunity from search. To break up this practice England adopted the rule and claimed the right to board every vessel upon the high seas, suspected and, by an examination of her papers, determine whether she was an English vessel or not. The result was that many American vessels were overhauled and detained and subjected to annoyances. A similar claim on the part of England had before this resulted in a war between the two countries, and this threatened to renew it. During the continuance of the practice, British vessels that had made these searches occasionally put into the port of Boston and were sued for damages by the owners of the vessels they had detained. The British consul retained Hillard and Sumner to defend them. Sumner took a deep interest in these cases and made a careful study of the international law upon the subject. With a view to influencing public opinion he wrote and published in the Boston Advertiser an elaborate argument in support of the right of " inquiry " as he called it. This article was replied to through the press and he published a rejoinder. The subject has an additional interest here. It was another event in Sumner's life that called his attention to the enor- mities of the slave trade and aided in establishing his convic- tions early. The debate he heard in the House of Commons, upon the bill to abolish slavery in England, and his association with Lord Brougham, will be remembered in the same connec- tion. These things, with the study they induced him to give the subject of slavery, prepared him afterwards to take the tide at its flood that led him on to fame and fortune. He had the deep conviction of leadership at a time when other men faltered. He was prepared to go right on, while they hesitated, to debate and by debating to be convinced that he was right. iO^ LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER But these were suits of exceptional interest with Hillard and Sumner. Their practice had nothing unusual, in either its char- acter or its extent. It was not better than that of other young men and indeed was hardly so good. It consisted generally of making collections, of defending persons charged with petty crimes, before magistrates, and of writing depositions, where complaint was sometimes made that Sumner was not content to let tlie attorneys ask questions, but insisted upon asking some himself, so as to see that the witness told the whole truth. Sometimes like other young men they had other more impor- tant business. Once we know he charged a fee of six hundred dollars and his client agreed that it was no more than he had earned; a good fee even for these latter days. But such pay came seldom. His heart was not in his lawsuits. He felt that while by tliese things he was earning a living, his mind and heart were not being improved or invigorated. He was ambitious ; he was plunging nightly into history and biography ; his thoughts were busy with the great and, in most cases, now impossible exemplars of history. He had a strong desire to fix his own name permanently in the remembrance of posterity. He felt that he was not accomplishing this, that none of the work he was doing, in his profession, could give him any enduring fame, that it might be well enough, for one who was intent merely on gaining a livelihood, but that he, with his ideals, with the resolutions he had formed for lofty endeavor and noble achievements, ought not to be satisfied with it. At this time Sumner did not seem to desire public office. The sacrifice of personal independence, which he thought it involved, was distasteful. His thoughts were more of books and author- ship and literary distinction. In 1843, a vacancy occurred in the office of Reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. He had some experience of this kind, in re- porting the decisions of Judge Story upon the circuit. The' judge desired to secure his appointment to fill this vacancy. At his suggestion Sumner considered the matter and while de- clining to seek the office he expressed his willingness to accept it, if it was offered to him. But he did not secure the appointment. It was made in the absence of Judge Story from Washington and unexpectedly. It would not have been a very fortunate appointment. Sumner was not a sufficiently accurate and painstaking and technical lawyer, and the other members of the court probably felt so and hence forestalled his appointment. But it was a disappointment to him and Judge Story, though it was fortunate for Sumner. The position is a permanent one with a moderate salary and would, in all probability, have occu- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 103 pied his time, giving him in return for it a comfortable living in a place of some dignity, till the productive period of his life was past. Had he obtained it, we would probably have known him by the print of his name upon the volumes he reported, but the enduring work he did in the Senate and his orations and published writings would have been lost. A kindlier Providence than he then saw, withheld it from him. This was a turning period in Sumner's life. His wish for a place in the Law School at Harvard was not so strong as it had been. His vision of distinction as a jurist or judge or writer on legal subjects was vanishing. His attention was being attracted more to practical men and measures aside from the law. He had thoughts of authorship in general literature, of history and kindred subjects. He was interested in educational reform. His friendships and associations aided to draw his attention to this subject. Lieber was a teacher in the South. Samuel G. Howe, in whose company he spent much of his leisure time, during the years following his return from Europe, was the superintendent of an institute for the education of the blind. Longfellow was a professor in Harvard. Seeing the greater culture of the higher classes in England, he urged raising the standard at Harvard. President Quincy, in an ad- dress before the Board of Overseers, afterwards urged that the requirements for graduation be increased and, though Sumner was unable to be present and witness the deliberations, upon the question, owing to a severe cold, he promptly wrote the President congratulating him upon the advanced stand he had taken. Sumner's days now were occupied in his office, but his nights, often till one or two o'clock, were spent in reading. His favor- ite subjects were history and biography, but he did not allow such books to exclude other and lighter ones. He cultivated a taste for whatever was catholic, in literature, and was, as he desired to be, a well-read man. He continually made notes of readings, in books kept for permanent use, thus pre- serving data and copies of passages which he admired and incidents, which might be used, in his own productions, by way of illustration. The notes which he thus made, were frequently used in his productions after he became a Senator. Much credit is to be given to his European trip for his love of reading. For years he had looked forward to such a journey and he secured it under such difficult circumstances as made him anxious to profit by it. He read history and biography carefully as one means of preparation for it. How could he hope for any great profit from his trip, without know- 104 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ing the history of the countries he was to visit, where their great battles were fought, what were the turning events, what were their great names and for what were they cele- brated? These were wide subjects and gave scope for endless study. How could he meet and mingle with their eminent men, without being able to talk intelligently of what they talked about? How could he carry letters of introduction to such men without knowing something of their careers — if a Judge, of his decisions; if a Member of Parliament, of his politics ; if an author, of his books ? How could he hope to be successful in the society of these countries without being intelligent? These were questions that were suggested to him. To make this trip profitable, as he intended it should be, required preparation, by way of wide and careful reading, and such reading created a taste for good books. After his return he was stimulated to pursue his reading further; for then he had seen London and her Tower and Parliament and courts and schools; Scotland, with her Lochs and Highlands, her ruined abbeys, her Abbotsford and Edin- burgh ; Paris and Versailles ; Genoa, with her walls, " her mural crown, studded with towers;" Eome and Florence and Venice, with their treasures of art and architecture; Germany and Holland. He had seen and was acquainted with many of the greatest men in Europe. Every history of these countries he took up, referred to persons or places he knew and had seen. Therefore he plunged into books, with a new interest. The going to Europe had required of him constant study and preparation and had enlarged his reading. Seeing Europe had added interest to what he saw and stimulated him to read more widely of the persons and places he had visited. His heart still turned to these countries. " Give me fifteen hundred dollars a year," he wrote Longfellow, " and I will hie away to Florence, where in sight of what is most beautiful in art and with the most inspiring associations about me, I will feed on the ambrosia of life nor find the day long which I can give undisturbed to the great masters of human thought. Stop ! Say nothing of this or my professional chances will be up." It is a fact that in his office he was inclined to talk too much about Europe to persons who came in on business. It gave the impression that his heart was not in his work and was thought to have an unfavorable effect upon his practice. Sumner had numerous correspondents among his friends in Europe, — Hay ward, Professors Whewell and Mittermaier, Ingham, Lords Morpeth and Penman and Greenough and Craw- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 105 ford and others. Some of them he heard from only occasionally and from others, Ingham, Mittermaier, Morpeth and Crawford, the letters were frequent. The latter had been his most intimate friends. Professor Mittermaier and Sumner corre- sponded in German and made exchanges of books. In 1841 both Ingham and Lord Morpeth were candidates for seats in the House of Commons, though both failed of election; Sum- ner watched the campaign with interest and regretted their defeat. Instead of Ingham, Milnes, another of Sumner's friends, was elected. Lord Morpeth shortly after his defeat, came to the United States and spent several months travelling in the West and South and extending his journey into Canada. Sumner gave him letters to friends in other cities and met him in Boston and introduced him, went with him to places of interest and showed him many attentions. Longfellow, Sumner's friend, had him to dine, with Allston and Prescott, the evening of his arrival. And Sumner gave a dinner for him at the Tremont House. These attentions were kindly remembered by Lord Morpeth. The year after his return from Europe, Sumner rendered a service for his friend Crawford. It will be remembered that he had admired his " Orpheus ", a bas-relief upon which he was engaged, when Sumner was in Rome. In 1841, he raised a subscription of twenty-five hundred dollars to purchase it, for the Boston Athenaeum. Crawford gratefully acknowledged the kindness, by executing a bust of Sumner and presenting it to him. To awaken public interest in the " Orpheus," Sum- ner wrote an article, published in the Boston papers, the Democratic Eeview and Advertiser, in which he narrated the legend that furnished the subject for the study and gave a description of the work and its merits. The " Orpheus " was not finished at the time it was ordered and did not reach Boston till 1843. On opening the box, Sumner was much disappointed to find it had been broken in the passage. But it was restored, so that the break was scarcely noticeable. It was not open to general exhibition, until the summer of 1844, though during the preceding winter it was privately exhibited to a few persons of some art attainments. They praised it enthusiastically and Sumner conveyed this intelligence to Crawford. In June, 1844, it was opened to the public with an exhibition, planned by Sumner, of all Crawford's works then in Boston, making the " Orpheus " the central piece. The bust of himself was included in the collection. He was not satisfied with the lights which the Athengeum afforded and 106 ^^^E ^^ CHARLES SUMNER to show the work to better advantage, he had a temporary booth built and fitted up adjoining the Athengeum, for the exhibition. It was all done by Sumner to awaken an interest in Crawford and his work as an artist. Sumner felt that he was not appreciated as his ability deserved. The purpose was accomplished and Crawford's reputation as an artist was established in Boston. The " Orpheus " still remains there a monument to the beautiful relation of two men, each now celebrated, but both then young and struggling for position. Crawford never forgot the kindness thus done him, at a time when he needed such help. His principal works, his bronze statue of Beethoven, executed for the Boston Music Hall, his colossal equestrian statue of Washington on the grounds of the State Capitol at Kichmond, Va., and his stat- uary in marble and bronze for the National Capitol at Wash- ington, were all executed at a later period. Before he died orders came to him in abundance and his fame as one of the greatest of American artists is now secure. But to the end, his heart went out in gratitude for the help and encourage- ment that thus came, in the days of struggle. Writing to George Sumner, the brother of Charles, he declared that he had placed this friendship nearer his heart than any other in the United States except only that for his own family. George was at tliis time in Europe. His travels were pro- tracted beyond what Charles thought to be for his good and he did not hesitate to say so. His time was not idled away. He visited Holland and England and made a careful study from original sources of the early lives and character of the first Puritan settlers of New England. He recorded the result of his studies, and his manuscripts have since been deposited with the Massachusetts Historical Society and are referred to now with confidence, by writers upon the Puritan period of American history. George's tastes were more ex- clusive than Charles'. Politics and history interested him, but for general literature he had less fondness and he was disposed to overlook the merits of men of a more imaginative turn of mind than himself. He visited Eome and met and liked Crawford. But he preferred Paris to London and crit- icised Charles for his too great fondness for England and some of his English friends. Charles replied to him in a letter which reveals a good deal of his own character. " You enjoy conversation," he wrote, " on politics, statistics and history. Do you sufficiently appreciate talent out of this walk? For instance, Kenyon does not care a pin for these topics; but he is exuberant with poetry and graceful anec- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 107 dote; so that I must count him one of the most interesting men I have ever met. And I remember breakfasts at his house which were full of the most engaging conversation. . . . I like to find good in everything; and in all men of cultivated minds and hearts, thank God, there is a good deal of good to be found. In some it shows itself in one shape, and in some in another; some will select your favorite themes, while others enjoy ideality and its productions manifold." . . . '^ This world is full of harslmess. It is easier to censure than to praise ; the former is a gratification of our self-esteem ; while to praise seems, with minds too ambitious and un- generous, a tacit admission of superiority. It is a bane of society wherever I have known it, — and here in Boston as much as in London, — a perpetual seeking for something which will disparage or make ridiculous our neighbors. Their conduct is canvassed, and mean and selfish motives are at- tributed to them. Their foibles are dragged into day. I do not boast myself to be free from blame on this account; and yet I try to find what is good and beautiful in all that I see, and to judge my fellow creatures as I would have them judge me." CHAPTER XI IN SOCIETY — FRIENDS — THE MISSES WARD — HOWE — JULIA WARD — HOWE's MARRIAGE — LONGFELLOW — TILE PRESCOTTS — BANCROFT — WM. W, STORY — ALLSTON — CHANNING ADAMS THEIR INFLUENCE ON SUMNER — LITERARY PROJECTS OF FRIENDS — HABITS — WHY NOT MARRIED During the years succeeding his trip to Europe, Sumner was popular in Boston society. He had a fine presence and the easy address, whicli comes of familiarity with good company, besides the reputation for scholarly attainments which always counted for much in Boston, His sister Mary was then a beautiful young woman, tall, well-formed and graceful, a good dancer and of a lovely disposition, — the fairest of all his sisters. She was a great favorite with Charles and he took much pleas- ure in acting as her escort. At the time of his return, she was eighteen years of age and apparently in perfect health, though she died four years later, after a lingering illness of consumption. Julia, too, the youngest of the family, was thir- teen years old and was soon in society. The best homes in Boston were open to them. They attended parties and recep- tions together and the usual gatherings of young people. At that time horseback riding was a favorite amusement and his letters contain occasional references to excursions made, in this way, in the company of young ladies. After his death, his sister Julia wrote: "It seems but yes- terday that I was the happy, careless schoolgirl, recounting eagerly to his kindly, sympathetic ear at dinner the experiences of the morning at school, or going to him for help in my Latin lessons." While she was a student at Mr. Emerson's pri- vate school for young ladies, in Boston, the tragedian Macready played, in Boston, and Charles took her, night after night, to see his performances. It was the first really fine acting she had seen and it opened to her the wonderful beauties of Shakespeare. She never forgot the debt she owed him, to have thus opened a new world of delight. He had met and dined with Macready, was familiar with the plays and enthusiastic in pointing out the excellences in the interpretation of them. Sumner corre- sponded with Macready after his return to Europe. In January and February of ISl^i he visited his brother Albert in New York and spent a few days in Philadelphia. In 108 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 109 New York he met and dined with Halleck, Cogswell and Theo- dore Sedgwick and was again kindly received by Chancellor Kent. He wrote to Hillard that he had " had some pleasant dinners, seen some handsome women and been to two balls." It was on this visit to New York that he became acquainted with three sisters, Misses Ward, who lived on Bond Street near his brother Albert's residence. He was much attracted by their wit and beauty and might have easily conceived a tender senti- ment for one of them. But this, his circumstances, poor and in debt, with little income, compelled him to conceal. They were then beautiful, bright, vivacious girls, fond of society and music, prettily supporting one another, in their sallies of wit and laughter, and generally the centre of a circle of admirers. " The Three Graces " was the designation they acquired with Sumner and his friends. They were daughters of Mr. Samuel Ward, a banker of New York. Their mother, Julia Rush Ward was the author of some poems of merit. She was the daughter of Mr. B. C. Cutler, an eminent citizen of Boston. " The Three Graces " spent the following summer in Dor- chester, a suburb of Boston, Sumner wrote Lieber : " The three Misses Ward — a lovely triumvirate — are summering in Dorchester." He spent much time in their company. The following September he was again in New York, looking up evidence for his friction match case, but in his report to his partner of the progress he was making, among the dusty and dreary records of the clerk's office, he quietly mentions, facts of interest to him, that he had dined with Mr. Samuel Ward, his first day there, and that on the next day he dined with the Misses Ward ! And how all roads lead to New York ! In August, 1842, he writes to Longfellow, then in Europe : " I have been away on a short journey with my two sisters, Mary and Julia, and have enjoyed not a little their enjoyment of life and new scenes. Howe started in company. We went to Springfield ; thence made an excursion to Chicopee; thence to Lenox and Stock- bridge, where I left the girls to ramble about, while Howe and I started on a journey to New York, including Hell Gate, where we passed the chief of our time. The * Three Graces ' were bland and lovely." Sumner and Dr. Samuel G. Howe were fast friends then and they continued so for many years. There were times in Sumner's life when Howe was his greatest confidant. His opposition to slavery, at a later day, estranged many of his friends, but it never affected Howe. He was in full syiri- pathy with Sumner's purpose to destroy it and during this 110 -^^^-^ 0^ CHARLES SUMNER period their friendship continued, more cordial than before. In 1846 Howe allowed himself to be nominated for Congress, by the opponents of slavery and the Mexican war, wdien there was no prospect for an election. He was a high-minded man, devoted to philanthropic pur- poses and pursuits and very like Sumner in many of his thoughts of life. He was ten years Sumner's senior. In his young manhood, he had spent seven years, as a soldier in aid of Greece, in her struggle against the Turks, for independence ; and had narrowly escaped death from one of their scimeters. He was in Paris in July, 1830, on his way home, when the French people rose in revolution against Charles the Tenth and drove him from his throne. Still by instinct the champion of the oppressed, he joined the cause of Lafayette and the people against the arbitrary rule of their King. His dis- regard of danger attracted the attention of Lafayette, who urged him not to expose himself, in this struggle that should be reserved for Frenchmen, but to save his life for the aid of his own country. Reaching home he studied medicine and quickly rising in his profession he was made Superintendent of the Boston Institution for the Blind. He devoted himself to this work with his characteristic enthusiasm. Beside his work for his own Institution he visited other states and sought to interest them in the establishment of similar found- ings. At this time Sumner and Howe were much in each other s so- ciety. They took frequent horseback rides and made excursions together to places near Boston. Sumner frequently passed the night wnth Howe at the Institution for the Blind, where they talked far into the nights, of European travel, of books and friends. Two years later Howe married Julia Ward, one of the " Tliree Graces." Sumner's friend Crawford married an- other. The third became Mrs. Maillard. Julia Ward Howe became the author of several books, " Passion Flowers ", " Words for the Hour ", a volume of reminiscences. Her best known poem is her " Battle Hymn of the Republic ". This hymn has since been set to music and is now sung as one of our national anthems. Mrs. Howe was no less firm in her friendship for Sumner than her husband. During his years of struggle against slavei7, they never ceased to uphold his hands. And when Brooks assaulted him in the Senate Chamber for w^ords uttered in his speech on the " Crime against Kansas ", she promptly condemned the outrage in a poem published in the " ISTew York Tribune." No words of sympathy came to Sumner LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER HI more welcome than hers. When he published the complete edition of his works he incorporated this poem in them as a note to the speech. Howe had taken the place in the " Five of Clubs " made vacant by Cleveland, who was wasting away with disease and soon to die. The Club continued its meetings, at the homes of its members. They met to talk of the events of the week, of new books and their own literary projects and to read and discuss a poem or an article that any of them had written for the press. They never doubted the fidelity of the members to one another and usually asked their criticism upon their productions, before they were given to the public. The meet- ings were furnished with refreshments, but they were spar- ingly used. Good cheer was plenty. They were bright in- telligent men, all well educated and capital conversers. The cheery laugh and abounding good spirits of Felton never failed to touch a responsive chord in the others. Besides Sumner and his partner Hillard there were Howe, and Felton, then Professor of Greek at Harvard and afterwards its President, and Henry W. Longfellow, the poet, then Harvard's Professor of Modern Languages and Literature. Sumner and Longfellow were close friends. Longfellow was born at Portland, Maine, the son of an attorney; and grad- uated at Bowdoin. After graduation he had commenced the study of law with his father, but being called to a professor- ship in Bowdoin he had fitted himself for the place, by three years study in Europe. In 1835, he was called to Harvard. He was four years Sumner's senior and still unmarried. He had his rooms in the house in Cambridge then owned by Mrs. Craigie, fronting on the road from Harvard College to Mt. Auburn Cemetery. It was a commodious structure, surrounded by ample grounds, looking out upon the winding river Charles, with Brighton hills and Brookline in the distance. Even then it was an ancient dwelling and like an old man gracing his age, with the honors of well-spent years, it numbered among its claims to consideration that it had been the home of Everett the orator, Sparks the historian, and Worcester the I lexicographer, and the additional fact that it was the head- f quarters of General Washington in the Eevolutionary War. ', Thither Washington's wife had come to visit him, properly I: attended all the way from A^irginia, in a coach drawn by four [| horses, with a liveried postilion astride of each, according \\ to the elaborate ceremonial of the day. And there Martha '! Washington, with her inimitable grace, had enlivened the jj dreary winter of 1775-6, by dispensing touches of Virginia 112 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER hospitality. Longfellow afterwards purchased the house and it continued to be his home for the remainder of his life, with his name and fame thus adding another attraction to the place. From this house Sumner wrote his brother George, still in Europe, in 1841 : " It is Sunday and I am Longfellow's guest. One of my pleasures is of a Saturday afternoon to escape from Boston and find shelter here. We dine late, say between five and six o'clock. Felton adds to the hilarity. We talk of what we have seen abroad, of cities visited, persons seen, and the trophies of art and of old time, while all the poets and masters, in all the languages, are at hand in Longfellow's well chosen library. I think you never knew my friend. When you return (if that event ever takes place) you will find great satisfaction and sympathy in his society." After Sumner's return from Europe, he became more intimate with Longfellow than he had been. Longfellow had travelled and studied in Europe and while he cared little for law and less for politics, and statistics about war and the conduct of prisons, subjects which were attracting Sumner's attention, both friends were enthusiastic over art and literature. They delighted to sit together and talk over some gallery of pictures or the works they had seen of some old master and together revive their recollections of them. Here a library of old books and there a road, a river or some mountain fastness, which each had seen, was recalled as an afterglow of European travel. Longfellow, with more settled purpose than Sumner, was then far advanced in his literary career. He had already published his "Hyperion" and "Voices of the Night" and some translations from Spanish poetry. But Sumner at this time, with little prospect of professional or political distinction, was only beginning to turn his thoughts towards literature. Books and magazines constantly furnished new topics of con- versation. Sumner's Saturday visits to the " Craigie House " were frequently extended over Sundays, their employments keeping them apart, during the other days of the week. His tall portly form, swinging easily up the walk, among the shrubbery, is still remembered. He always found a welcome, and his sister Julia recalled that he occasionally came home, bringing a new poem from Longfellow's pen, which he read to them with fine effect, for he read poetry well. In 1843 Longfellow married Fanny Appleton, the "Mary Ashburton " of liis " Hyperion ", a lady of great sweetness and ftlevation of character as well as beauty of person. She was LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 113 the daughter of Nathan Appleton, twice a Member of Congress, from Boston. Her stepmother was a second cousin of Sumner, And thus the tie between Sumner and Longfellow was strength- ened by the event which so often separates bachelor friends. Sumner was present at their wedding. With her character- istic sweetness of disposition, the new wife sought to keep green her husband's bachelor friendship. Soon after the marriage Sumner wrote : " At Craigie Castle, the Longfellows dispense an easy and graceful hospitality, — always glad to enjoy the society of their friends at dinner or tea as it may happen." So " Craigie House " continued for Sumner a retreat where he went to find rest from the vexations of his long days of service. Another house that Sumner often visited during these years was the home of William H. Prescott, the historian. Sumner had never met Prescott before going to Europe, but while there the history of "Ferdinand and Isabella" appeared. It at- tracted attention in the circles where Sumner moved. He was enthusiastic in his admiration of it and took occasion fre- quently to recommend it to friends and interested himself in having it reviewed favorably in England. His letters to friends at home frequently referred to its success and some of these being shown to Prescott he had been led to acknowledge Sum- ner's kindness. An acquaintance followed Sumner's return to Boston, which afterwards ripened into a warm friendship. The Prescott family united three generations under one roof, Judge Prescott and his wife and their son William H. Prescott, and his wife and two children. Judge Prescott, the son of General Prescott of Battle of Bunker Hill fame, had been a member of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, when Sum- ner's father was Sheriff. He was an eminent lawyer and judge, as well as a citizen distinguished in private life for his learn- ing, his good sense and his uprightness. He was now verging upon eighty years of age, but still in the enjoyment of good health; and he continued, with almost unabated interest in events around him, till stricken with paralysis, shortly before his death, in 1844. William H. Prescott, Sumner's friend was a genial, warm- hearted man, scholarly in his tastes, full of kindness and con- sideration for the feelings of others, willing to do a favor or suffer an inconvenience, above little considerations of self and incapable of meanness. After graduating at Harvard he had entered upon the study of law, but, with an intervening trip to Europe, he abandoned it for the pursuit of literature which, notwithstanding an impaired vision, owing to the total loss of one eye and organic weakness in the other, he pursued with il4 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER signal success. Reflecting upon his career, was influencing Sumner to think of a similar one for himself, Sumner was fond of the Prescotts and was in the habit of calling there on Sunday evenings, frequently, at such times, supping with the family. They were attached to him. His want of affectation, his love of knowledge and his good sense quickly found a response in such natures as the Prescotts', father and son. They invited him to their family parties, where he met Franklin Dexter, one of the leaders of the Boston bar, and his wife, a daughter of Judge Prescott. Sumner's presence on such occasions seemed to impose no restraint on the others. He joined heartily in the amusements of the hour, played " blind man's buff ", etc. Sumner was prompt to acknowledge this kindness of the Pres- cotts. When Lord Morpeth visited Boston in 184:1, William H. Prescott was one of the select number invited to meet him at Longfellow's rooms the evening of his arrival. This recep- tion was arranged for by Sumner and Longfellow together. When Sumner afterwards gave a dinner, in his honor, at the " Tremont House ", Prescott was again one of the guests. He liked Morpeth and after that assisted Sumner in entertaining him. And when he left Boston, Sumner and Prescott attended him to the railroad station to bid him good-bye. In the spring of 1842, Sumner and Prescott visited New York together. Prescott went to visit Washington Irving and invited Sumner to accompany him. He and Irving, each with- out the knowledge of the other, had been engaged the previous fall and winter, in writing upon the " Conquest of Mexico ". They had before trenched upon one another's ground, Irving in his " Life of Columbus " and Prescott in his " Ferdinand and Isabella ". Discovering that they were about to do so again, Irving generously gave up the theme to Prescott and furnished him what materials he had already gathered. Irving having been lately nominated and confirmed Minister from the United States to Spain, Prescott desired to see him before his departure on his mission, to interest him in procuring some materials for this history, from the Spanish archives. The visit was a delightful one. Sumner and Prescott both came back full of the praises of Irving and the reception he gave them. Each was disposed to rally the other upon his enthu- siasm, over their host, and the sayings and doings to which they had been parties. Sumner insisted that Prescott was fairly " Boz-ed " — a word that had lately been coined to express the enthusiasm created by Dickens on his recent tour in the United States. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 215 Through Prescott, Sumner became acquainted with other authors, George Bancroft, Jared Sparks and George Ticknor. Bancroft had just issued the third volume of his history of the United States. He was Collector of the Port at Boston, at the time, and a Democrat. Boston, under the influence of such leaders as Webster, John Quincy Adams, Choate and Everett, was strongly Whig; and to be a Democrat there, meant to be, in a measure, ostracized. Even George Bancroft did not altogether escape this ban, though, from his literary eminence, he might reasonably have hoped to do so. But Sumner was not much in politics then and did not let such considerations influence his friendships. Bancroft frequently dropped into Hillard and Sumner's office to chat and there he always found a welcome and congenial company, Hillard, his partner, and William W. Story, their student, were hardly behind Sumner, in their love for good books. Their office was an attractive place. Story reveals how their thoughts, "when business would allow, sometimes when it would not allow," would steal away from the law to revel in talk of poetry and fiction and history and how they delighted in anecdotes about some old judge, or the bar, some great argu- ment or celebrated trial, — the literature of the law rather than the law itself. They enjoyed the rich conversation of Choate and Dexter and Judge Story, and of old Jeremiah Mason, Webster's great rival at the bar, blunt, hard-headed, full of rich experiences of former days on the New Hampshire cir- cuits. Those were delightful days to which their thoughts af- terwards often reverted. They all had a taste for literature. Two of them afterwards abandoned the law. Story for liter- ature and sculpture, and Sumner for public life. Story, in 1847, published his " Treatise on the Law of Sales " which he dedicated to Sumner, The first sentence of quaint introduction, read, like a vale- dictory to the law. " Sir Edward Coke, in the preface to the eighth part of his Eeports says : ' As naturalists say that there is no kind of fowl of the wood, or of the plain, that doth not bring somewhat to the building of the Eagle's nest — some cin- namon, or things of price, some juniper or thing of lesser value; so ought every man, according to his power, place and capacity, to bring something to the adorning of our great Eagle's nest, our own dear country ; ' and these presents I have brought to that great Eagle's nest, the law." A year after the publication of this book. Story went to Italy to live and that continued to be his home. He published the " Life and Letters " of his father, Judge Story, and two vol- j-j^g LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER umes of poems, besides some minor works. But he is best known as a sculptor. His statues of his father and Chief Jus- tice Marshall and some of his imaginative pieces take a high rank. He died in Italy in 1895 surviving Sumner more than twenty-one years. Another American artist whose friendship Sumner enjoyed, during this period was Washington Allston. He lived in Cam- bridge and was a graduate of Harvard, but had studied art in Italy and France. While in Europe he had become acquainted with Wordsworth and Coleridge and, when Sumner went to England, he commended him to these friends. After Sumner's return, he was frequently at Allston's house and was much in- terested in his work as an artist. In all his efforts to aid Craw- ford and in raising the subscription for the purchase of the " Orpheus ", Sumner constantly consulted Allston, who heartily seconded his plans. He counted on his aid in mounting it and in arranging the exhibition of Crawford's works, but, before the " Orpheus " arrived, Allston was dead. Sumner commemorated him in his oration delivered before the " Phi Beta Society " of Harvard in 1846, on " The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist and the Philanthropist ", one of the most finished productions of his life. Sumner had an acquaintance with Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams. They were Boston men and he therefore had abundant opportunity to see them in private and hear them in public and to be familiar with their careers, which during the closing years of Webster's life, especially after his speech on the Seventh of March, 1850, were the subject of much discus- sion and comparison. Sumner's frequent allusions to them in his letters show that he was observing these great men carefully. He always admired the great intellect and the grand presence and magnificent oratory of Webster, never equalled in modern times. But he thought Webster tacked too much on the ques- tion of slavery and lacked moral strength. He did not like Adams' apparent disregard of parliamentary forms in Congress, but he delighted in the moral courage of the man, as he stood, year after year, on the floor of the House, defying slavery and "defending the right of the people to petition their Eepresenta- tives. His opponents sought to deny the right of petition, by preventing those against slavery being either read or discussed in Congress. Sumner's letters, even thus early, show that much as he admired Webster, he admired Adams more. Later in life he came to know both of these men better. He saw them, con- versed with them and letters were exchanged, upon such sub- jects as are likely to bring a constituent in contact with his LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 117 Eepresentatives, but his relation to them could never be called intimate. The man who more than any other, at this time, influenced Sumner's views upon public questions was William E. Chan- ning, the Philanthropist commemorated in Sumner's Phi Beta Kappa oration. He was by profession a minister, but is much better known as a writer upon moral questions. After grad- uating from Harvard, in the class with Judge Story, he had spent some time as a tutor in a private family in Virginia. Here and on a visit later to the West India Islands he had an opportunity to observe slavery in practice and he became un- alterably opposed to it. He was outspoken in his opposition, condemned it in public addresses and wrote a book, the most extensive published work of his life, setting out his objections to it. He had also studied the question of peace and war and took the same position upon this subject that Sumner after- wards did in his oration on " The True Grandeur of Nations ". The high ethical ground that Channing assumed and the elo- quence and fearlessness with which he sustained his views made a lasting impression. He died, in 1842, cut off in the full tide of usefulness, at sixty-two years of age. His last public appear- ance was to make an address to the citizens of Lenox, Massa- chusetts, on the occasion of celebrating the anniversary of British emancipation in the West Indies. Sumner had known Channing for years. Notwithstanding the disparity in their ages they had been intimate friends and had many points of likeness. They were both well educated, graduates of the same college and both had a strong taste for literary pursuits. They both cared little for wealth, but had a generous ambition to be useful men. Each felt a deep interest in their common country, a pride in her hard beginning and her growing power and yet neither could be said then to belong to any political party. Doubtless they both voted the Whig ticket, but with no enthusiasm and without any effort to give direction to the votes of others, Channing had a fascination for young men. He appealed to conscience, pointed out a great future for them and an ideal life, motives for action generally stronger in young men than in those of advanced years. When he died, Sumner characterized him as " one of the purest, brightest, greatest minds of his age". And he added: " He has been my friend and I may almost say idol, for nearly ten years. For this period I have enjoyed his confidence in no common way. Both his last treatises he read to me in manu- script and asked my advice with regard to their publication, and mv criticism." il8 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER Speaking of his eloquence four years later, Sumner said: " With few of the physical attributes belonging to the orator, he was an orator of surpassing grace. His soul tabernacled in a body that was little more than a filament of clay. He was small in stature; but when he spoke, his person seemed to dilate with the majesty of his thoughts. * * * His voice was soft and musical, not loud or full in tone; and yet, like conscience, it made itself heard in the inmost chambers of the soul. His eloquence was gentleness and persuasion, reasoning for relig- ion, humanity and justice. * * * His eloquence had not the character and fashion of forensic effort or parliamentary debate. It mounted above these, into an atmosphere unattempted by the applauded orators of the world. Whenever he spoke or wrote, it was with the loftiest purpose, as his works attest, — not for public display, not to advance himself, not on any ques- tion of pecuniary interest, not under any worldly temptation, but to promote the love of God and man. Here are untried founts of truest inspiration. Eloquence has been called action; but it is something more. It is that divine and ceaseless energy, which saves and helps mankind. It cannot assume its highest form in personal pursuit of dishonest guardians or selfish con- tentions for a crown, not in defence of a murderer, or invective hurled at a conspirator. I would not overstep the proper mod- esty of this discussion, nor would I disparage the genius of the great masters ; but all must join in admitting that no rhetorical skill or oratorical power can elevate these lower, earthly things to the natural heights on which Channing stood, when he pleaded for Freedom and Peace." These passages are valuable as revealing the direction of Sum- ner's thoughts and studies at this time. They show his near- ness to Channing and his familiarity with the great orators of other days, Demosthenes, Webster and Burke, and that he was reflecting upon their speeches and the true springs of eloquence. It will be seen hereafter how much the eloquence of Adams and Channing became models for Sumner. In his best efforts in public life, as his " Freedom, National ; Slavery, Sectional ", or the " Crime against Kansas ", the fearless pugnacity of Adams unites with the high ethical tone of Channing and both upon the Senate and the country they made an impression that has rarely been equalled. Sumner united some of the distinguish- ing traits of both these men. He was as scholarly in his tastes and as carefully educated as either of them. He was hardly less industrious, though a man of less method, than Adams. He knew no fear ; when he had resolved that a course was right, he dared to pursue it. Even John Quincy Adams never stood be- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 119 fore the slave power and dealt such blows as Sumner in his speech on the " Crime against Kansas " and Channing never lashed the dogs of War as Sumner did in his " True Grandeur of Nations " delivered before the city authorities and people of Boston. Still it was the work of both these men that fell, in large measure, to Sumner, after they were gone. He took it up and never faltered. Sumner saw the work of Adams in Congress, after he left the White House, without a parallel, in American history. Adams then had all the benefit of his great learning and experience, and the prestige, his reputation for both gave him, and yet, having filled the highest places, he came to this later work, un- warped by any ambition for promotion. He unselfishly de- voted what was left of his life, eighteen years of unremitted effort, to the cause of universal freedom and his country's ad- vancement. This was a unique object lesson. Channing upon another stage, but with scarcely less singleness of purpose, de- voted himself to the same causes. He was more an idealist than Adams. His training had made him so; and he was so by con- stitution. They both supported one another. Adams, from his place in the House of Representatives, fought their common fight before the nation. But could he have maintained his place in Congress to make this fight, during the long years he did, if some one as eloquent as Channing had not advocated that cause in Boston? Sumner was in a position where he could see and appreciate the work of both. He was nearer to Channing and more intimate with him, felt his work more, but he admired the larger influence of Adams from his higher place. When Channing's manuscripts were submitted to Sumner, he was glad to aid him with criticisms or suggestions. Sum- ner was always interested in the literary projects of his friends. No kindlier encouragement came to Hillard upon his literary efforts than Sumner extended. He delivered the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard on August 24, 1843, and the week before we find Sumner writing his friend George W. Greene, j at home from his consulate at Rome, urging him to be present j and promising him something " refined and brilliant in the j audience and the' orator ". After it was delivered and printed, ; we find him writing to Howe, then absent, that they were " all surrounded by Hillard's glory ". " His oration has been pub- I lished ; and the press and all who read it express the warmest admiration," etc. A new poem from Longfellow's pen he heralded to his friends as an occasion to be anticipated. Long- I fellow, Lieber, Prescott and Bancroft were then in the full tide i of authorship. Sumner saw most that all of them wrote during 120 L^PE OF CHARLES SUMNER these years, before it reached the public. He was disposed like his father to say agreeable things to others. He was the last of men to wound any one's feelings by criticism needlessly severe. This trait, with his generosity of time in assisting his friends in any way they asked and his good judgment in literary mat- ters led them to consult him freely in their work. He took the kindest interest, criticised proofs, wrote reviews and gave them references from his own readings and sometimes made searches in the libraries for matter for them. To Lieber, especially, who was teaching in the South, where he did not have access to large collections of books, it was an advantage he appreciated to have such a friend as Sumner in Boston. For the company of his friends, in a social way, Sumner's fondness continued. He enjoyed good living with moderation, and frequently with Howe or some other dropped into a cafe, in the evening after the day's work was done and took some re- freshment, ices, strawberries or oysters in season and occasion- ally a glass of hock or claret, thus mingling good fare and good talk with the news of the day. It was still the society of gentle- men. Strong drinks he did not use. Saloons he did not visit. For any exliibition of drunkenness or an approach to it in con- dition he always had the utmost disgust. In his case it was the survival of the European or English habit as he had grown familiar with it abroad, in the best circles, of using a light stimulant of wine in the same way as tea and coffee, or a cup of cocoa. It was still the England of Johnson and Goldsmith and Garrick, with the coffee-house and light table-talk, surviv- ing, that he enjoyed. Upon his return from Europe, he had taken the place in the Society of the Cincinnati, formerly filled by his grandfather and now made vacant by the death of his father. The Society was originally founded in 1783 by the officers of the American army of the Revolutionary War for patriotic and benevolent purposes. Major Job Sumner, the grandfather, was the orig- inal member, then the father and now by his death Charles, being the oldest son, was entitled to the succession. He at- tended its annual banquet. The rank appealed to his pride in a career of honorable service. But with the Brook Farm com- munity, headed by George Ripley, he does not seem to have felt much sympathy. His younger brother Horace was at one time a member of this band of social reformers. ■ Charles rather humorously wrote : " Horace has commenced as a farmer. He is with Mr. Ripley eight miles from Boston. He picks to- matoes, cucumbers, beans, upsets a barrel of potatoes, cleans away chips, studies agriculture, rakes hay in a meadow and is LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 131 pleased with his instructors and associates." Yet it was a nat- ural craving for companionship in the case of both brothers that led them into these organizations. Sumner was beginning to feel his lonely position. His friends Cleveland, Hillard, Longfellow, Howe, Prescott, those with whom he was most intimate were now all married and gathered about firesides of their own. Sumner frequently- dropped in among them and shared their homes and seemed to rejoice in their hajjpiness. And yet we know it was not without a vein of sadness. Of one of his friends he wrote : " I think he will be married very soon. What then will become of me? It is a dreary world to travel in alone." To Crawford: "Long- fellow is most happily married, I am most unhappily single." To Lieber ; "^ Longfellow is to be happy for a fortnight in the shades of Cambridge; then to visit his wife's friends in Berk- shire ; then his own in Portland. I am all alone, — alone. My friends fall away from me." To Lieber again, three months later, Oct. 6, 1843; "I am more and more desolate and alone. I wish you and your dear wife lived here. You would allow me to enter your house and be at home; to recline on the sofa, and play the part of a friend in the house, I lead a joyless life, with very little sympathy." We might quote farther, ex- pressions of the same kind, but these are sufficient. That same month William W. Story was married. The question is natur- ally asked ; why did not Sumner marry at this time in his life ? He was a refined, companionable man, of pure life and good habits, fond of the pleasures of taste and society and was well qualified to do his part towards making a happy home. How- ever it may have been at other periods, at this he enjoyed the society of young ladies. It would have been natural for him to join his fortunes to those of some of the accomplished young women he met. His circumstances undoubtedly had much to do with pre- venting it. The general practice of the law, without a fixed sal- ary from some company or other employer, furnishes to a young practitioner, at best, a precarious income. Though the end of the year shows fees earned, he could not generally have fore- told, at its beginning, where they were to come from, — a con- dition not very encouraging to a young man contemplating matrimony. Sumner's trip to Europe had interrupted his pro- fessional career, consumed all his savings and left him about five thousand dollars in debt. This debt continued unpaid for several years. This shows that he was not making money rap- idly. His father's will, by leaving all the property to his mother for life left him with no improvement of his fortunes from that 122 ^IPE <^P CHARLES SUMNER source. He felt poor and with his pride and sensitiveness, shrank from asking another to share such a home as he could furnish. His ambition too, had its influence. He purposed to achieve an honorable position and leave something behind him that would be worthy of remembrance. And to accomplish this he was willing to sacrifice much of his own personal comfort and happiness. It is certain that while his mother lived he did not feel the want of a home as he might have done. He was de- voted to her and she to him. His father was dead, his brothers were gone and he was left to take their places, with his sisters, in the family circle. But this was not to last always. When later Mary and his mother were dead, and Julia was married and gone, and he was left alone, to encounter sickness and broken political friendships and the hard lines of public life, then, but not till then, was the cup of his loneliness to be full. This of course he could not then foresee, but he did feel that the mother and sisters, in their lonely position, had claims upon him which he could not disregard, either by bringing another into the home or by severing himself from it. CHAPTER XII INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS — "tHE CAROLINE^' — "tHE CREOLe" — SLAVERY AGAIN — THE " SOMERS " MUTINY — SERVICES FOR EDUCATION AT THE LAW SCHOOL — EDITS VESEY JR. — SICKNESS — HIS SISTER MARY's DEATH — AT WORK AGAIN There were ^ave questions of international law arising be- tween the United States and England during the years 1841-3, in which Sumner took an interest. During the years 1835-7, preceding his trip to Europe, he had given instruction in the Law School on the Law of Nations. The first volume of " Kent's Commentaries " was used as a textbook but with his customary fulness of preparation he had studied the subject widely in other authors. The knowledge of the subject thus acquired made international questions of peculiar interest to him afterwards. A quick succession of perplexing questions had made war imminent between the United States and England. In 1837 there had arisen a rebellion in Canada, It was suppressed, but the rebels sought refuge in New York, just across the Niagara river. There they found support and encouragement and made accessions to their numbers. They procured a vessel called the " Caroline ", in which they made incursions and carried sup- plies from Navy Island, in the Niagara river, to their friends in Canada. Some Canadians finally determined to destroy this vessel and for this purpose crossed over to Navy Island, which was British territory, where they expected to find the vessel at her accustomed anchorage. But on reaching Navy Island, they found she was not there but was moored to the American shore and outside the British boundaries. They, however, per- severed in their jrarpose of destruction and boarding her there cut her loose from the shore, fired her and turned her adrift, when she floated over the falls and was lost. In the melee, one man, named Durfree was killed, by the assailants. In 1840, Alexander McLeod came from Canada to New York and in a blatant moment, boasted that he had been in the in- cursion that destroyed the " Caroline " and that he was the slayer of Durfree. He was at once arrested and was afterwards indicted for murder. Pending his trial, the British govern- ment interfered and demanded his release and assumed the 123 ;^24 I-IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER responsibility for the invasion, Justifying it as necessary for the protection of her territory. She insisted that McLeod could not be held to answer for an act committed under the authority of his country any more than a soldier could be tried for mur- der when the deed was committed in battle against her public enemy. A flare of excitement, with talk of war followed. Sumner promptly took the side of Great Britain and declared that his country was wrong. He so wrote his friends, giving his reasons. Mr. Webster, who was then Secretary of State, insisted that Mc- Leod could only be discharged by the courts and directed the Attorney-General of the United States to appear before the courts of New York and make this defence for McLeod and demand his release. But the Supreme Court of the State of New York when McLeod was brought before it upon a writ of habeas corpus, declined to release him. The feverish state of the public mind towards England, growing out of disputes about slavery and the North-Eastern boundary, the suspense attending the protracted proceedings in McLeod's case, the determined position of New York and the threatening attitude of England, gave for a time, an alarming aspect to the situation. It after- wards became ludicrous, when, upon McLeod's trial, an aJihi was proven for him and he was acquitted. The case of the " Creole " followed close upon the exciting stage of McLeod's trouble. The " Creole " was a vessel that sailed, in 1841, from Virginia to New Orleans, with a cargo of slaves. On the way, the slaves rose in insurrection, killed their master, threw the crew of the vessel into irons and put into the English port of Nassau, in the West India Islands. There the slaves were freed and the vessel was allowed to continue its course deprived of its cargo. The occurrence recalled other oc- casions when slaves belonging to people of the South had been liberated under similar circumstances. The Southern mind was at once aroused in defence of their " peculiar institution ". During the discussion of the case in Congress, Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio, introduced a series of resolutions, since known from the name of their author as the " Giddings Eesolutions ", which sought to define the limits of slavery in the United States. They declared that slavery could have no existence outside of the States that permitted it, that an owner by taking his slaves into other free States or Territories or upon the high seas, by that act gave them their freedom and that therefore the slaves upon the " Creole " were only freeing themselves from an unlawful detention. The reading of the res- olutions aroused a storm of indignation in the House, then LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 125 strongly pro-slavery in its sympathies. A resolution was at once introduced and passed, condemning the conduct of Gid- dings as unwarranted and unwarrantable and as deserving the severest condemnation of the people of the country and of Con- gress in particular. Giddings at once resigned his seat, but was immediately re-elected by an overwhelming majority, with in- structions from his district to present his resolutions again and press them to a vote. The House did not allow the resolutions to be introduced again, but Mr. Webster, as Secretary of State, presented the " Creole " matter to Lord Ashburton, who was then in the United States as Special Plenipotentiary from Great Britain, to negotiate a treaty defining the north-eastern boundary of the United States. Mr. Webster insisted upon the return of the slaves that had escaped from the " Creole " and a treaty regula- tion which would prevent a recurrence of such troubles. The difficulty was finally adjusted by a reference of the matter under the provisions of the Treaty of Washington for the return of fugitives from justice. Webster's dispatches upon this question surprised and startled many people in Xew England and among this number was Sumner. Dr. Channing was still living and he thought the doctrines of these dispatches committed the whole Union to the defence of slavery, at home and abroad, and were so pernicious that they should at once be combated. He wrote a pamphlet upon the subject, " The Duty of the Free States." Before its publication, he submitted it to Sumner and Hillard and his son, William F. Channing, for their criticism. Sumner took a deep interest in it and made numerous suggestions, furnished him materials, and he and Hillard read the proofs as it was passing through the press. Sumner maintained that the slaves on the " Creole " had a right to their freedom and that the English government was bound, by its own laws, to recognize this. He approved the doctrines of the " Giddings Resolutions " and maintained that Giddings w^as entitled to his opinions whether right or wrong, and, as a Representative, to express them in Congress and that he should not have been censured. To Lord Morpeth, he wrote: "You will see how rapidly this question of slavery moves in the country. The South seems to have the madness which precedes great reverses. I agree with Mr. Giddings in his resolutions. Indeed they are the exact reverse of Mr. Calhoun's famous resolutions, adopted by the senate three years ago ; and from Mr. Calhoun's I most thoroughly dissent. Thank God ! the Constitution of the United States does not recognize man as properiy. It speaks of 12Q LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER slaves as persons. Slavery is a local institution, drawing its vitality from State laws ; therefore when the slave-owner volun- tarily ' takes his slave beyond the sphere of the State laws, he manumits him. This was the case with the owner of the " Creole " ; and Mr. Giddings, in asserting the freedom of those slaves under the Constitution of the United States, laid down a constitutional truth. But suppose it were not true in point of constitutional law, still Mr. Giddings had a perfect right to assert it; and the slaveholders in voting to censure him, have sowed the wind. I fear the reaping of the whirl- wind." Mr, Jacob Harvey, a gentleman of Irish birth, living in New York city, had made the acquaintance of Sumner, while on a visit to his brother Albert, who was then residing there. Know- ing Sumner's familiarity with the law of nations he wrote him for his opinion of the "Creole " affair. Sumner answered him at some length. In this letter Sumner took the position that England could not deliver up the slaves who were not impli- cated in the mutiny and murder by which the government of the ship was overthrown because she had laid down a rule not to recognize property in human beings after the date of her Eman- cipation Act. He argued that she could not lend her machinery of justice to execute laws she had already pronounced un- christian and immoral any more than she wouldto enforce a contract of prostitution or concubinage. He admitted the case of the slaves who had participated in the mutiny and murder was not so clear, but that, nevertheless, the New England courts had decided that a slave, who came to their soil, by the consent of his master, thereby became entitled to his freedom and so when taken upon the high sea, beyond the boundaries of the States where slavery was legalized, he was remitted to his nat- ural right to freedom and was justified in using whatever force was necessary to overcome the power which deprived him of it. But if they were guilty as claimed, he argued, then their crime was piracy and so it became the duty of England to retain and try them under her own law forbidding piracy and not send them to the United States, to be tried under our law. From these letters it will be seen how decidedly Sumner had taken his stand in opposition to slavery. He was long before this a subscriber and reader of The Liberator, the anti-slavery paper published by William Lloyd Garrison in Boston. It was the first paper he ever siibscribed for ; but he did not agree with many of its teachings. It was too radical in its theories and too violent in its utterances to meet his unqualified approval. He believed that slavery was wrong, a great national disgrace LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 137 and that it should be abolished. He was deeply in earnest upon this subject. His heart was full of it. Upon hardly any other subject do his letters so abound in references as this. But Garrison thou^^ht that a republic that permitted slavery constituted a lea^^e with hell; that it leagued every person who countenanced it or took any part in its affairs with the slaveholder and made all accountable for his wrongs. Hence Garrison taught that all who opposed slavery must refuse to vote or hold office or have anything whatever to do actively with the conduct of the government, that the most they could do was to passively submit to its laws. He inculcated this doctrine with burning earnestness and sometimes in violent language. Sumner, on the contrary, believed that it was the duty of all good citizens, by their votes as well as their voices, to unite in correcting the wrong and in placing men in office who were thoroughly in sympathy with their cause and that it was the duty of anti-slavery men to accept office, to promote their com- mon purpose. Though entertaining these widely different views, Sumner did not quarrel with Garrison and his followers, nor they with him. Each retained the respect and confidence of the other. It was only a difference of methods ; their cause was the same. But, in the light of subsequent events, it will hardly be disputed now that Sumner's method was more practical than Garrison's. Sumner already viewed with apprehension the growing sentiment in the South for more territory, out of which to carve slave states. In 1843, he wrote Dr. Howe, then travelling in Europe : " We fear some insidious movements in favor of Texas. The South yearns for that immense cantle of territory to carve into great slaveholding States. We shall witness in this Congress an animated contest on this matter. * * * j wish that our people and Government would concern them- selves with what we have now. Let us fill that with knowledge and virtue and love of one's neighbor; and let England and Russia take the rest, — I do not care who. There has been a recent debate in Congress, in which Mr. Charles Ingersoll said he would go to war rather than allow England to occupy Cuba. I say : ^ Take Cuba, Victoria, if you will ; banish thence slavery; lay the foundation of Saxon freedom; build presses and school-houses ! ' Wliat harm can then ensue to us ? Mr. Ingersoll proceeds on the plan of preparing for war. He adopts the moral of the old fable of ^'Esop, — which, you know, I have always thought so pernicious, — where the wild boar was whetting his tusks, though no danger was near, that he might be prepared for danger. I wish our country would cease to 128 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER whet its tusks. The appropriations of the navy last year were nine million dollars. Imagine half — nay, a tithe — of this sum given annually to objects of humanity, education and litera- ture ! I know of nothing in our Government that troubles me more than this thought. And who can talk so lightly of war? One year of war would break open and let loose all the im- prisoned winds, now happily imprisoned by that great Aeolus — Peace — and let them range over the world." Thus he placed universal emancipation and universal peace before him as the great objects to be sought for in our ever- widening civilization. Both causes, it will hereafter be seen, were to be strangely influential in moulding his own fortunes. But such a thought had probably never thus far occurred to him. His interest in them seemed to come only from his thoughtful reading and observation and his convictions upon these subjects, — so deep that he could not repress an expression of them, when he saw how generally tliey were ignored. Thus far his earnestness and the intensity of his convictions were known only to his intimate friends. To them he spoke and wrote freely his opinions and to them they were well known. But to the public who knew him, if it knew him at all, only as a struggling young attorney, of scholarly tastes and attain- ments, giving of his time largely to writing for a law magazine and hearing recitations in the Law School, what mattered it what his opinions were upon subjects occupying so little of the commercial mind as war and slavery? It was reserved for the future to develop the importance of these subjects, both to him and them. It is apparent how much Sumner was occupied at this time with subjects outside of his profession and yet involving ques- tions of international law. Another subject of this kind, that he took much interest in, attracted public attention at the time, though it is now almost forgotten. It was known as the Somers Mutiny. The U. S. brig of war Somers had sailed for the coast of Africa, under the command of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie. The " Mackenzie " was added to his name by an act of the Legislature of Xew York. He was a brother of John Slidell who with Mason, was a Confederate Commissioner to England and other European countries during the American Civil War, The crew of the Somers was partly composed of cadets from the IT. S. ISTaval Academy at Annapolis, Md., among whom was Philip Spencer, a son of John C. Spencer, then Secretary of War in President Tyler's Cabinet. During the voyage, a mutiny arose among the crew, headed by young Spencer and two others. Small and Cromwell. Their purpose LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 129 was to kill the officers, take possession of the ship and turn pirates. The mutiny was discovered and the leaders of it were arrested and thrown into irons, but it threatening to break out again, Mackenzie called a council of his officers and they recom- mended that the safety of the vessel required that the leaders be hung. Spencer, Small and Cromwell were accordingly hung at the yard-arm. Upon the return of the vessel to the United States, the matter was the subject of an investigation by a court martial. The position and influence of Spencer's father made the situa- tion a dangerous one for Mackenzie. Sumner was appealed to by the friends of ]\rackenzie to write and publish a defence of the action of the officers, to aid in keeping public sentiment right in Boston. This he did in a strong article in the North American Review, taking the position that the executions were justifiable on the ground of self-defence, that it was not a question alone, what the actual danger was, but whether the officers, in the reasonable and proper use of their faculties, had just ground, from the circumstances, for believing, that their own lives and the safety of the ship required this action. His position was approved by Judge Story and by Judge Prescott, the father of the historian. Mackenzie was acquitted by the court martial. He never ceased to remember with gratitude the kindness of Sumner. He was a man of culture and the author of some books of merit. He promptly wrote Sumner a letter acknowledging his obliga- tion and later visited Boston and again thanked him. They were entertained together by Longfellow. Sumner was later entertained by him and his wife at their home, in Tarrytown, on the Hudson Eiver. When he died, a few years later, there was among his papers a sealed note, to be opened by his wife, after he died, in which he requested some one to communicate to Sumner, in his name, his thanks for his friendship and to add an expression of his high appreciation of it. At the in- stance of Mrs. Mackenzie, this message was communicated to Sumner by Commodore Perry. This incident in Sumner's life has a sequel to it. In 1851, Sumner was at Saratoga. He had recently been elected to the U. S. Senate. He and John Slidell, then a Senator from Louisiana, were invited by a mutual friend to dine together; but Slidell at once excused himself and declined the invitation. Li defending his breach of courtesy afterwards, he admitted the obligation he was under to Sumner for the chivalrous defence of his dead brother, but justified himself, on the ground that Sumner, in a public speech, had invoked upon Massachu- 130 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER setts a spirit of such inhospitality to slaveholders, as would prevent any of them from ever setting foot within the state. Slidell declared he would never break bread with a man who entertained such sentiments. With Sumner's growing interest in slavery and war it was natural that he should take an added interest in the Presiden- tial election of 1844. The Democrats had nominated Polk and the Whigs, Clay. The former were threatening war with Mex- ico and the annexation of Texas ; the latter were opposing both. Sumner watched the struggle with interest but took no public part in it. He voted for Clay and hoped he would be elected and was much disappointed at his defeat. But it was the in- terest of a scholar or philanthropist that Sumner felt; not that of a partisan. Party ties were never very strong with him and, thus far, he could hardly be said to have any. In December, 1844, he was the Whig candidate in his ward for member of the School Committee. The ward was entitled to two members and his party was in the majority ; though his colleague was elected, he was defeated. He had become much interested in the cause of education and this induced him to allow the use of his name. He does not, however, seem to have felt much interest in the contest. He and his friend Howe were in active co-operation with their friend Horace Mann in his efforts to promote the cause of popular education in Boston, and if elected Sumner would probably have lent his influence to theirs to conform the city schools more to European models. One service he undertook for the cause of education, at this time, that afterwards seriously embarrassed him. He was chairman of a committee appointed to secure an appropriation from the legislature of Massachusetts to rebuild the state normal schools at Westfield and Bridgewater. He discharged this duty with his accustomed ardor and fidelity, distasteful as the task was to him of approaching the members of the legis- lature for this purpose. He met from them a cool reception and only after considerable effort and many discouragements was his committee able to secure a grudging appropriation of five thousand dollars and this coupled with the condition that the memorialists raise an equal amount. The towns contrib- uted one thousand dollars each ; and the other three thousand dollars the committee undertook to raise by private sub- scriptions. To hasten the buildings, Sumner injudiciously agreed to raise five thousand dollars upon his own personal note, taking the contributions of the towns when collected in part payment. Thus money, that might have been easily raised with the ex- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 131 citement of securing new buildings, was left to be raised after the buildings were completed and the enthusiasm gone. Sumner found himself a 3'ear afterwards, when the note came due, without funds to meet it and three years later it was still unpaid. He had cause of complaint against some members of the committee who did not properly support him. The private subscriptions, to anticipate which the note was partly given, were slow in being paid and some were not paid at all. It would have been better to allow the schools to continue in the buildings they had, though unsuitable, until the money was actually in hand. But with the aid of Mr. Waterston, another member of the committee, who was always with Sumner faith- ful to the enterprise, the whole difficulty was at last adjusted. He performed another service for the public in 1845. The Boston Athenaeum was to be removed to its site on Beacon Street and he was appointed upon a committee to determine the plan of the new building. He was much interested in the work of the committee. He wrote to Crawford and his brother George, telling them his objections to numerous plans sub- mitted, giving them his ideas of what the building should be and asking them for suggestions. He wished especially to secure a large, hospitable, vestibule hall and stairway and having admired the stairs leading to the Vatican on the right of St. Peter's at Eome as " of such exquisite proportions that you seemed to be borne aloft on wings," he had George send him their width, height and breadth. His interest in archi- tecture while in Europe and his acquaintances there were other- wise useful to him in his work upon the committee. In 184-i Sumner was elected a corresponding member of the New York Historical Society and to a membership in the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Mass. The former honor he owed to his friend John Jay of New York, liillard, about the same time, was made a member of the Mas- sachusetts Historical Society. The result of George Sumner's investigations, in Europe, into the history of the Puritans while in Leyden, which he had embodied in a monograph of thirty- two pages, appeared in the collections of the last named society published, in 1845. It is a valuable contribution to the early history of the Puritan fathers, — Charles pronounced it the most interesting they had ever published. It is repeatedly referred to, with commendation, by Palfrey in his History of New England. George was a discriminating, scholarly man, fairly described by Charles as, " sagacious, learned, humane, interested in all the institutions, which are the fruit and token of civilization in the true sense of that word." 132 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER Judge Story had suffered a protracted illness, in the early part of the year 1843. During his sickness, Sumner took his place in the Law School and performed half the work there, in lecturing and hearing recitations. He tried to keep up the work of his law office, at the same time, but in doing so found himself a very busy man, the lectures requiring, for their prep- aration, a great deal of attention. He continued his residence in Boston, and the daily trips to Cambridge made an addi- tional draft. He was thus occupied for eight months. During this period he withdrew entirely from society, declining all invitations, except the hospitalities of one or two intimate friends. But on the tenth of April, 1844, he commenced another task that taxed him still more severely. He undertook for two thousand dollars to edit and annotate the Chancery Reports of Francis Vesey, Jr., in twenty volumes furnishing the manu- script at the rate of a volume each fortnight, — as fast as fifty- seven printers could print it. In the notes, he was to bring the learning upon the questions decided down to date with a full reference to all the English and American authorities. It was a herculean task and well-nigh proved fatal to him. As it progressed he realized the hopeless drudgery of his undertaking and plead for more time, but the publishers were inexorable and he struggled on with his load, working till two o'clock in the morning, until the completion of the fourth volume, when he broke down and suffering from a slow, nervous fever, brought on by too great work and confinement and too little exercise, he was obliged to stop. This was about the first of June ; and he was not able to resume work until the middle of November. During June and the first half of July, he was confined to the house, unable to do anything more than write one or two letters to his brother George. About this time, his disease took a more serious turn and for the next two weeks he was com- pletely prostrated, with a raging fever and delirium, and for several weeks the physicians despaired of his recovery. But by July thirty-first, he had so far improved as to be able to dic- tate another letter to George. The vigor of his constitution gradually asserted itself and he was soon able to drive out. On the sixteenth of August, he dictated a letter to Howe that describes the progress of his disease : " You will find me a wreck. When I wrote you, July first, I seemed nearly well ; but in a few days the ship was struck again, and the bolt, it was said, had pierced the hull. I became very weak after passing through the various stages of a fever. During the season of my strength I rage(3 about my room for LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER I33 half the nights, invoking sleep (which once descended upon me so gently), in every way. One of those nights I was filled with the idea that I had a long interview with you, and I in- quired in the morning if you had not been at the house the night before. As my streng-fh wasted I kept to my bed. It was only afterwards that I knew that, at this time, all my friends (except Longfellow) abandoned all hope of my re- covery. Even Hillard, who held out long, confessed that when he saw me bereft of strength and almost speechless, he went away thinking with all others that my end was at hand. Mean- while I knew nothing of this anxiety. Felton laughed jollily each day at my bedside, and Hillard and Longfellow, the only other persons I saw, said nothing to excite my observation. But the strength of my constitution conquered; though the very day on which I felt within me the instinct of recovery, Dr. Jackson solemnly told me that my case was incurable and that if I should live t never should be able to do anything. To this I replied that I did not shrink from the idea of death; but to pass through life doing nothing, performing no duty, perhaps ' a driveller and a show ' — this was more than I could bear. He replied, ' Perhaps the vigor of your constitution will con- quer all.' Since then I have been gaining strength slowly, but each day. I am driven out nine or ten miles daily. As I meet friends, I observe the astonishment with which they regard me, apparently as one risen from the dead. Ben Pierce said to me in his artless manner, ' Well ! I never expected to see you again.' " " For such a signal recovery another person would feel un- bounded gratitude. I am going to say what will offend you, but what I trust God will pardon. Since my convalescence I have thought much and often whether I have any just feeling of gratitude that my disease was arrested. Let me confess to you that I cannot find it in my bosom. . . . Why was I spared? For me there is no future either of usefulness or happiness." He was very much worried for fear he would come out of his sickness a confirmed invalid. To Longfellow he wrote, on August twenty-eighth : " Dr. Jackson insists that my condition is ' very serious ', and commends me to great care of myself. Perhaps he is right, and my future life is to be that of a halting invalid. At the thought of this — not at the idea of death, for of this I am careless — shadows and thick darkness descend upon me." And this thought seems to have pursued him for weeks. He recurs to it repeatedly in his letters, as the one fate most to be dreaded. He did not fear death. He was despond- ent. And, indeed, this was not an uncommon state of his mind. 134 J-^^E OF CHARLES SUMNER during these years, both before and after this sickness. He was dissatisfied with what he had been able to accomplish and with his prospects in life. He felt that it was so far short of what he had aimed at, that his career was a failure. He could welcome death as a release from toil and the responsibility which he felt life imposed, — especially when it brought no recompense in honor or recognized usefulness. And to live and drag out the miserable existence of a constant sufferer, of no use to his friends or humanity, but a care and charge to others, — the thought of this was worse than the prospect of death ! But he was willing to confess that his sickness had some com- pensations. His friends were very attentive to him. \\1iile his disease was at its worst, only Hillard, Longfellow and Felton were admitted to his room, but many others called to inquire after his health and sent presents of woodcocks, plovers and other delicacies to tempt his appetite. As he grew better others were admitted to his room and helped to lighten his hours. Bancroft had been nominated, by the Democrats, against his wish, for Governor, and he came with a humorous proposition to appoint Sumner " one of his aides-de-camp ". But when the election was over he found he had no offices to fill. When Sumner was able to drive out, numerous invitations came to him for visits during his convalescence. He gratefully mentioned this kindness in a letter to George : " I cannot forbear alluding, however, to the great kindness, in- terest and sympathy which I have received from quarters from which I had little occasion to expect them. Blessed be the kindly charities of life ! They sweeten existence and come with healing even to the suffering invalid. Better than before I know now the affection and tenderness which grace the lives of many, from whom I did not expect, to such an extent, these soft virtues. Let me extract from my sickness a moral : It may not be unprofitable, if it serves to elevate humanity in my mind, and to inspire love and attachment for my fellow-men." On the twenty-eighth of August, he had so far recovered as to be able to undertake a journey to Pittsfield, where he went by invitation to spend a couple of weeks with Mr. Nathan Apple- ton's family, who were summering there. They thought the bracing air of the woody hills of Berkshire would hasten his recovery. Hillard accompanied him and remained a week; and Howe, just arrived from Europe, hastened there to see him. He spend his days, at Pittsfield, as much as possible in the open air, riding horseback and in the carriage and making repeated excursions to Lenox and Stockbridge and other neigh- boring villages. At Lenox he was the guest of Mr. Samuel LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 135 Ward and there he met the Austins, the Sedgwicks and Mrs. Butler (Fanny Kemble). This gifted woman was then making her home tliere and, in the parlor of the Sedgwicks, he heard her read " Macbeth," and sing, and enjoyed the charm of her conversation. This picture, he gives us, of his life at Pittsfleld and Lenox. On Saturday he went with Edward Austin in an open buggy to view the farms. Afterwards they looked on while the girls and others enjoyed the sport of archery. " The next day was Sunday, and I was perplexed whether or not to use Mr. New- ton's horse, as I presumed the master never used him on Sun- day. But my scruples gave way before my longing for the best of exercise. I left Pittsfleld as the bell was tolling for church and arrived at Lenox sometime before the second bell. I sat in Miss Sedgwick's room ; time passed on. Mrs. Butler pro- posed to accompany me back to Pittsfleld on horseback. I stayed to the cold dinner, making it a lunch; time again passed on, from the delay in saddling the horses. We rode the longest way, and I enjoyed my companion very much. I did not reach home till four and a half o'clock. Meanwhile the whole liouse had been filled with anxiety on my account." But with all this pleasure, he did not forget to repeatedly intercede with the Governor of the Commonwealth, whom he met there, to appoint his friend Luther S. Gushing, a judge of the Gommon Pleas Gourt. And Gushing shortly afterM'ards received the appointment. From Lenox, Sumner went to ISTewport, where his brother Albert had a cottage, hoping that the ocean breezes would sup- plement the benefits he had received from the Berkshire Hills. Here he resorted again to his favorite exercise of horseback riding, spending the days, as much as possible, in the open air and the nights in sleep. He soon felt the efi^ects of both in an abundant return of health. On September thirtieth, he wrote Howe : " I am so well that I begin to tire of my intellectual inactivity and yearn to plunge again into my affairs. I shall be with you at the beginning of next week well mended." But sad tidings from Julia cut his visit at Newport short. The word was that Mary was failing rapidly and they feared the end was near. He hurried home to see their worst fears realized. She passed away on Friday morning, October eleventh, 1844, and was buried the following Sunday afternoon. Two days later, in communicating the intelligence to George, Gharles M^rote : " I was recalled from Newport, where I was passing my time in exercise in the open air, by the tidings of 13G LIFE OF CHARLES SUM:MER the progress of Mary's disease. I found her weak, very weak, — ahiiost voiceless. Her beautiful countenance was sunken; and the sharp angles of death had appeared even before the breath had departed. She lingered on, however, — sometimes in considerable pain — and we feared with each protracted day new suffering. 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 : ' ISTo : angels are taking care of me ! ' " For more than two years she had been in failing health. Her disease finally developed into consumption, to which the family had an hereditary tendency, and, during the summer and fall of 1844, it made rapid progress. She and Charles were both sick at the same time, confined to their rooms at home, and the care of them was a severe experience to their mother and Julia. The burden of it fell on the mother. While Charles' disease was at its worst, she nursed him and then, as he improved, she turned to Mary, who was sinking rapidly. For some weeks Mary was taken to Springfield and Waltham, hoping that a change would prove beneficial, but with the gleams of hope and seeming improvement, peculiar to this disease, which charms its victims, while it steals its coils about them, she faded away and soon came home to die. Her death was a sad stroke to Charles. She was his favorite and the most beautiful of his sisters. She had a lovely disposi- tion. Having reached young womanhood, while he was in Europe, when he returned to enter upon the most enjoyable years of his young manhood, he found her a delightful com- panion. She was tall, finely formed and graceful, with a clear- cut Grecian face, enjoying society and deservedly popular. He found much pleasure and pride in their association. Her un- expected sickness, coming just as life was opening before her, with so much promise of happiness both for herself and others, the long, slow but irresistible decline, as irresistible and pitiless as fate, which he was doomed to watch with so much solicitude and yet feel himself powerless to avert, his descent into the very valley of the shadow, at her side, to be afterwards rescued, just as the final blow descended upon her, to be hurried home to see her laid away, where the winds of winter were already sweeping the grave of her young life, to go back to their old home that hardly seemed home without her and then be obliged to turn LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 137 to his own solitary ceaseless task, with this dark background of thought, — was a sad experience. He always regarded it as one of the saddest of his life. The familiar figure, in life's opening hardly conscious of its own beauty, the quiet, sweet disposition, spreading its gentle, womanly spirit over his life, was gone. And yet, not gone; — for it lingered, in memory, forever ! With the beginning of November, he was back at his work again. His " friction-match " case, which has already been noticed, was his first serious employment. The suit for damages was tried to a jury and resulted in a verdict for his client. In the argument of it, Sumner spoke ten hours, — arguments were longer then than now. Closing this business, he resumed work on his edition of Vesey, When his sickness overtook him, he was obliged to give it up and the publishers employed others to continue his work. In this way the fifth volume was edited by J. C. Perkins, of Salem, Sumner hoping that with this assistance he would be able to continue the others. And he did finish the sixth. But then he again broke down and, during his sickness, the seventh to the twelfth volumes inclusive were edited by Mr, Perkins and Mr. Charles B. Goodrich. Sumner finished the others. It occupied him fully for the next six months and before it was finished, he was compelled to realize again the drudgery of his task. One feature he added to it, unusual then and still so in law books ; he inserted sketches of the lives of the judges and others whose names appeared in the reports. He soon fell back into his old habit of working late into the night. Writing to his brother George, on December thirty-first, he said : " It is now almost midnight, — an hour after the time when my physicians sentenced me to bed. In truth, however, I am not very regardful of their injunctions. These late hours, — the crown of the night — are the choicest of the twenty-four for labor, for reading and thought ; and I feel guilty of a wasteful excess when I sacrifice them to sleep." He withdrew from society and avoided assemblages of people, but he relaxed this rigorous life, during the holidays, to dine one day with Mr. Webster and enjoy a turbot, a tribute sent to him from Eng- land. On the third day of June, 1845, he wrote Lieber, that his edition of Vesey's Keports was finished. It was_ dedicated to Judge Story, as a token of gi-atitude and admiration, which the judge gracefully acknowledged. This was Sumner's first venture in authorship, if we except his contributions to law magazines and periodicals. With this latter sort of writing he had considerable experience. Com- 138 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER menacing with his labors, as one of the editors of the Jurist, before he went to Europe, he continued it after his return, by numerous contributions to the Law Reporter and an occa- sional one to the North American Review. The Law Reporter was edited by Peleg W. Chandler, one of Sumner's friends, an attorney whose office was at Number Four, Court Street. Sumner wrote reviews of " Story's Bills of Exchange " and of the reports of New Hampshire and Maine, of " Wedgewood's U. S. Statutes " and " Perkins' Brown's Chancery Reports," articles on " The Eightieth Birthday of Chancellor Kent," '• The University of Heidelberg," " The Number Seven," " Punishment and Prisons," etc. His contributions to the Reporter, like those in the Jurist, show him to have had more interest, in the literature of the law, than in the law itself; and, indeed, many of his articles for these periodicals would now hardly be classed as matter for a legal publication. But they all show his wealth of learning, his wide reading, his mar- vellous memory and his easy, flowing style. Too much importance can hardly be given the effect of his work on these legal periodicals on Sumner's career. He was estimated a good writer among his classmates in college, but his performances there do not rank as of any permanent im- portance. But the daily practice of writing, given by his posi- tion as one of the editors of the Jurist, formed his style upon the severe model of clear, pure, practical English, at a very early period of his life. It taught him thoroughly what was good English and made him quick to recognize and ap- preciate it, when it appeared in the form of new books, as in the histories of Prescott and Bancroft. And it taught him the ways and habits of editors of newspapers and periodicals and gave an intimate acquaintance with those of Boston, his home city, and of his State. All through his after-life these things were of great advantage to him. He could promptly write a creditable review of a book or a friendly notice of a man and secure their publication ; and thus bring either to the favorable notice of the public and, what was frequently of more impor- tance, of the editors. This ability of Sumner, with his prompt- ness to use it, in behalf of his friends, made his friendship, even in these early days, valuable with such men as Prescott and Bancroft, Longfellow and Whittier, and Emerson and Story. And theirs was powerful for him. It was such men as these that opened the door of his extraordinary career as a traveller in England and even on the Continent. The people he met there were also quick to recognize and appreciate such ability. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 139 They felt that what he saw and heard would in all probability reach, in some form, a wider audience and they were, therefore, more willing to extend his opportunities for information, as well as pleasure. It is not to be understood that these beautiful friendships, that have been mentioned, sprung from selfish considerations. Far from it ! They were, by far the greater part, owing to the charming personality of the men, who formed and cherished them, and the disinterested atfeetion, I may also add, they en- tertained for one another. But notwithstanding, in reviewing Sumner's life, the practical lessons to be drawn from it must not be overlooked. They loved and therefore they helped one another and this was one of Sumner's ways of helping them. He then expected his own career to be made by his pen. It was not till May, 1845, that he made his first public ad- dress before a popular audience. It was on the occasion of a meeting of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, held in Park Street Church. The secretary of the society read the annual reports in which he took strong grounds against the system of solitary confinement, as pursued in the Pennsylvania Peni- tentiary, at Philadelphia. Howe and Sumner were present. Both had taken some interest in the subject, which was then more discussed than now. When they heard this system, as they thought, unjustly assailed, Howe arose in its defence ; and Sumner followed him with a few impromptu remarks. The discussion their remarks provoked, led to the appointment of a committee, which included both Howe and Sumner, to visit the Philadelphia prisons and make a detailed report, from actual observation, of their operation. The results of his ob- servation Sumner embodied in an article published two years later, in the Christian Examiner, upon the occasion of the erection of a new jail in Boston. He then urged with some earnestness the adoption of the system of separate confinement of criminals as pursued in the penitentiaries and some of the jails of Pennsylvania. CHAPTER XIII CHOSEN ORATOR FOR JULY 4, 1845 — THE OCCASION — THE ORA- TION ON " THE TRUE GRANDEUR OF NATIONS " — THE PUB- LIC DINNER — ESTIMATES OF THE ORATION — JUDGE STORY's DEATH — SUMNER's TRIBUTE In 1845, Sumner was chosen to deliver the Fourth of July- oration before the authorities and citizens of Boston. The occasion had been regularly celebrated, with this oration and other appropriate exercises, each year since the close of the Revolutionary War. In no other place had more been made of the occasion than in Boston. It had early been recognized by the mother country as the most rebellious and defiant city of the colonies and repressive measures were there soonest tried to reduce her to subjection, but the more repressive the measures, the higher rose the spirit of resistance among her people. It was in her harbor that the British tea was thrown overboard. This tea was treated by the colonists as the first appearance of articles of their consumption, on which they were to be taxed without representation. On her streets, in the Bos- ton Massacre, the first blood of the struggle was shed, and in her neighborhood, at Lexington and Concord, were the earliest skirmishes of the Revolution ; and, on her Bunker Hill, the first organized battle, between the raw militia of the colonists and the disciplined troops of Great Britain, was fought. In the war which followed Massachusetts furnished one soldier for every three enlisted. Such facts supplied much inspiration for a Fourth of July oration. Among a people, who have always felt a just pride in them, a sympathetic audience was always to be found. The orators selected for the occasion, had usually been men of about Sumner's age. It was a good opportunity for a young man to show the material that was in him ; for to the large audience, before which he appeared, there was to be added the much larger, to which the printed address afterwards went ; it being the custom for the city to publish the orations, after their delivery. Sumner was notified of his appointment on April twenty- fourth. At first, probably mistrusting his fitness for the place 140 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 141 he was disposed to decline it. ' But Hillard, Howe, Peleg W. Chandler and other friends urged him to accept it and he did. He then encountered some difficulty in the choice of a subject. Almost three years before, in acknowledging the receipt of a copy of his Fourth of July oration from Rev. Edgar Bucking- ham, Sumner wrote: " I thank you very much for the oration you were so good as to send me. I admire the frankness and spirit with which you turned the celebration of the Fourth of July to an occasion for moral improvement. I wish that forever this day might be set apart throughout the whole country as the National Sab- bath, to be employed in earnest inquiry into the real condition of public affairs, and in strengthening the foundations of moral principles and of concord. It should not be ushered in by the sound and smoke of cannons. Let it be a day of peace, and of those thoughts that flow from peace." The orator had turned aside from the ordinary review of the events which led up to the struggle and the events of the war and the customary eulogy of the valor of the American troops, which has made the name of Fourth of July oratory synonymous with fulsome and spread-eagle speech, to the existing condition of the country and some growing evils, for which a remedy should be found. Among these he instanced slavery, a part of the oration which, Sumner wrote him, he particularly liked and hoped would be " responded to by the universal heart of the North." An incidental protest too, against devoting the day to thoughts of war and military glory, instead of moral and intellectual improvement, attracted the attention of Sumner, when in search of a subject and probably determined his choice. The title of his oration was " The True Grandeur of Na- tions". It was in fact, an eloquent plea for universal peace. This was a subject, as we have already seen, that had interested Sumner for years. His letters contained frequent references to it, as called forth by occasion, and whenever he expressed himself he showed how deep were his convictions. The annexa- tion of Texas which was then being much discussed, as a pend- ing national question, and which was consummated the same summer, then threatened, and was shortly after followed, by the Mexican War, inspired by the hardly concealed purpose, on the part of its chief supporters, of acquiring more territory, out of which to carve slave states, gave at the time a very practical turn to the thoughts in Sumner's oration. There was also talk of war, growing out of the Oregon boundary troubles, with England. ]^42 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER The occasion was all that any one could wish. The day- dawned a beautiful one, and was ushered in, with the booming of cannon, the ringing of bells and tlie firing of crackers by boys in the streets and upon the Common. The city was gayly decorated with flags and bunting and its streets were soon alive with its population, in holiday attire, and with people, who had come in from the surrounding country, to unite in the celebra- tion. The U. S. battle-ship Ohio, then stationed in the harbor, was also decorated with flags to the water's edge and fired guns at intervals. An efl'ort had been made to make the mili- tary display greater than ever before. The U. S. troops sta- tioned at the neighboring fortifications, the crew of the Ohio and the local militia, had all been invited to participate. Promptly at ten and one-half o'clock the procession headed by Sumner and the Mayor, followed by the city council, the military and naval organizations, in full unifoi-m, with bris- tling bayonets and arms gleaming in the sunshine, attended by bands of martial music, marched from the City Hall to Tre- mont Temple, where the exercises were held. The hall was soon filled by an audience of two thousand people. A choir of a hundred voices, composed of children, selected from the public schools, all dressed in white, occupied the rear of the stage, while the front was occupied by distinguished men. The mili- tary occupied the front seats. After an invocation by the min- ister, the reading of the Declaration of Independence and a song by the choir, Sumner was introduced. As "he stepped out upon the stage, and, as it afterwards proved, into public life, he appeared the embodiment of manly beauty. He stood six feet three inches in height, weighing about one hundred and seventy-five pounds. In his earlier years he had grown rapidly and was tall and very slender and somewhat stooped, but this had now disappeared and he stood before his audience erect, handsomely proportioned, a splendid specimen of vigorous manhood. He wore a dress-coat, with brass buttons after the fashion of that time, with white waistcoat and trousers. He commenced his oration, in a measured tone of voice, yet loud enough to be heard throughout the hall: " In accordance with uninterrupted usage, on this Sabbath of the Nation, we have put aside our daily cares, and seized a res- pite from the never-ending toils of life, to meet in gladness and congratulation, mindful of the blessings transmitted from the Past, mindful also, I trust, of our duties to the Present and the Future." " All hearts turn first to the Fathers of the Kepublic. Their venerable forms rise before us, in the procession of successive LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 143 generations. They come from the frozen rock of Plymouth, from the wasted bands of Ealeigh, from the heavenly com- panionship of Penn, from the anxious councils of the Revolu- tion, — from all those fields of sacrifice, where in obedience to the spirit of their age, they sealed their devotion to duty with their blood. They say to us their children ; Cease to vaunt what you do, and what has been done for you. Learn to walk meekly and to think humbly. Cultivate habits of self-sacrifice. Never aim at what is not right, persuaded that without this, every possession and all knowledge will become an evil and a shame, and may these words of ours be ever in your minds ! Strive to increase tlie inheritance we have bequeathed to you, — bearing in mind always, that, if we excel you in virtue, such a victory will be to us a mortification, while defeat will bring happiness. In this way you may conquer us. Notliing is more shameful for a man than a claim 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 transmission to the next generation, and without addition is the extreme of ignominy. Following these counsels, when your days on earth are finished, you will come to join us and we shall receive you as friend receives friend; but if you neglect our words, expect no happy greeting from us." " Honor to the memory of our fathers ! May the turf lie lightly on their sacred graves ! Not in words only, but in deeds also, let us testify our reverence for their name, imitating what in them was lofty, pure and good, learning from them to bear hardship and privation. May we, who now reap in strength what they sowed in weakness, augment the inheritance we have received ! To this end we must not fold our hands in slumber, nor abide content with tlie past. To each generation is ap- pointed its peculiar task ; nor does the heart which responds to the call of duty find rest except in the grave." With this general introduction and brief reference to the past, he turned to the future. There was no further reference to the Revolution or the past of the Republic or the career of the Colonists, except only one or two and these the briefest, and by way of illustrating his argument. Once he referred to the peaceable example of William Penn in his treatment of the In- dians, in whose footprints smiled " the flowers of prosperity ", his people "unmolested and happy, while (sad but true con- trast!) other colonies, acting upon the policy of the world, building forts and showing themselves in arms, were harassed by perpetual alarm, and pierced by the sharp arrows of savage war." Again he insisted that Washington did not rise "to a 144 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER truly heavenly stature ", when crossing the Delaware, through ice, to capture Trenton, nor when victorious over Cornwallis at Yorktown, but when " in noble deference to justice, refusing the kingly crown." He laid ours as he did other history under tribute to illustrate his argument, but for this only he looked to the past ; his interest was with the future. The question before him was : " What can we do to make our coming welcome to our fathers in the skies and draw to our memory hereafter the homage of a grateful posterity ? " He proposed to consider " what in our age are the true objects of national ambition, — what is truly National Honor, National Glory?" He was prompt to declare that this question was of urgent interest from transactions in which they were then involved. " By an act of unjust legislation, extending our power over Texas," he declared, " peace with Mexico is endangered, — while by petulant assertion of a disputed claim to a remote ter- ritory beyond the Kocky Mountains, ancient fires of hostile strife are kindled anew on the hearth of our mother country. Mexico and England both avow the determination to vindicate what is called the National Honor; and our Government calmly contemplates the dread Arbitrament of War, provided it cannot obtain what is called an honorable peace." " Far from our nation and our age be the sin and shame of contests hateful in the sight of God and all good men, having their origin in no righteous sentiment, no true love of country, no generous thirst for fame, ' that last infirmity of noble minds * but springing manifestly from an ignorant and ignoble passion for new territory, strengthened, in our case, in a republic, whose star is Liberty, by unnatural desire to add new links in chains destined yet to fall from the limbs of the unhappy slave ! In such contrasts God has no attribute which can join with us. Who believes that the national honor would be promoted by a war with Mexico or a war with England ? " . . . "A war with Mexico would be mean and cowardly, with England it would be bold at least, though parricidal." As the orator proceeded, he warmed to his subject, his voice became clearer and louder, rising and falling in easy cadences, filling the hall and holding the undivided attention of his great audience; his gestures, apparently unstudied, were free and emphasized his meaning ; liis manner uniformly gave the im- pression of sincerity and deep earnestness and occasionally, as he recounted the horrors and wastefulness of war, amounted to intensity. He spoke for two hours, entirely from memory, unaided by notes, except for figures and statistics. The oration seemed LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 145 to impress the audience as unusual and worthy of an attentive hearing, once or twice, as when he intruded upon the politics of some of his hearers, by attacking the course of the adminis- tration, in the annexation of Texas, or made an illustration of the likeness of a wild beast, which one of the military organiza- tions present, wore as a device, a stir of disapproval appeared; but it quickly gave place to respectful deference to the manifest sincerity and candor of the speaker. He dwelt first on the brutal and debasing character of war, the misery it entailed, cutting the peaceful bands of commerce that bind mankind together, man to man and nation to nation, and scattering, as a pestilence, the earth, with death and wasting despair. He condemned it as utterly insufficient to settle any question of justice or injustice, of right or wrong. He then considered the prejudices by which it is sustained, — the belief in its necessity, the practice of nations and even of Christian ministers in upholding it, " the point of honor,'* and the pride of country. He emphasized the preparation for war, in time of peace, as wasteful and unnecessary. He inquired in succession of what use was the army, the fortifications and the militia? He denounced with unsparing words the maxim " in time of peace prepare for war." He Ijade all hail the day when Peace, with its blessings of intellectual and moral supremacy, would dawn upon the world and the nations learn war no more ! The climax of the oration was reached when he drew a com- parison between the literary and charitable institutions of Mas- sachusetts and the battleship Ohio, then lying in the harbor, and other U. S. war vessels. His audience was familiar with the good work, which these institutions had done, in the community, and knew something of the extent of their endowments; but few of them knew the costs of construction and of the main- tenance of the battleship. They were, therefore, not prepared for the comparison he made and the practical lesson he drew from it, of the cost of war. It made a decided impression. " Within cannon range of this city stands an institution of learning," he said, " which was one of the earliest cares of our forefathers, the conscientious Puritans. Favored child in an age of trial and struggle, carefully nursed through a period of hardship and anxiety, — endowed at the time by the oblations of men like Harvard, — sustained from its foundation by the pa- rental arm of the Commonwealth, by a constant succession of munificent bequests, and by the prayers of good men, — the University of Cambridge now invites our homage as the most ancient, most interesting and most important seat of learning in the land, — possessing the oldest and most valuable library. 146 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER one of the largest museums of mineralogy and natural history, with a School of Law, which annually receives into its bosom more than one hundred and fifty sons from all parts of the Union, where they listen to instruction from professors whose names are among the most valuable possessions of the land, — also a School of Divinity, fount of true learning and piety, — also one of the largest and most flourishing Schools of Medicine in the country, — and besides these, a general body of teachers, twenty-seven in number, many of whose names help to keep the name of the country respectable in every part of the globe, where science, learning and taste are cherished, — the whole presided over at this moment by a gentleman (Hon. Josiah Quincy) early distinguished in public life by unconquerable energy and mas- culine eloquence, at a later period by the unsurpassed ability with which he adminstered the afEairs of our city, and now, in a green old age, full of years and honors, preparing to lay down his present high trust. Such is Harvard University, and as one of the humblest of her children, happy in the memories of a youth nurtured in her classic retreats, I cannot allude to her without an expression of filial affection and respect." " It appears from the last Report of the Treasurer that the whole available property of the University, the various accu- mulation of more than two centuries of generosity, amounts to $703,175." " Change the scene, and cast your eyes upon another object. There now swings idly at her moorings in this harbor a ship of the line, the Ohio, carrying ninety gims, finished- as late as 1836, at an expense of $54:7,888,— repaired only two years afterwards, in 1838, for $233,013, with an armament which has cost $53,945, — making an aggregate of $834,845, as the actual outlay at this moment for that single ship, — more than $100,- 000, beyond all the available wealth of the richest and most ancient seat of learning in the land ! Choose ye, my fellow- citizens of a Christian State, between the two caskets, — that wherein is the loveliness of truth, or that which contains the carrion of death." " I refer to the Ohio because this ship happens to be in our waters; but I do not take the strongest case afforded by our Navy. Other ships have absorbed larger sums. The expense of the Delaware, in 1842, had reached $1,051,000." " Pursue the comparison still further. The expenditures of the University during tlie last year, for the general purposes of the College, the instruction of the undergraduates ; and for the Schools of Law and Divinity, amounted to $47,935. The cost of the Ohio for one year of service, in salaries, wages and provi- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 147 sions is $220,000,— being $172,000 above the annual expendi- tures of the University, and more than four times as much as those expenditures. In other words for the annual sum lavished on a single ship of the line, four institutions like Harvard Uni- versity might be supported." " Furthermore, the pay of a captain of a ship like the Ohio is $4,500, when in the service, — $3,500, when on leave of absence, or off duty. The salary of the President of Harvard University is $3,235, without leave of absence and never off duty." " If the large endowments of Harvard University are dwarfed by comparison with a single ship of the line, how must it be with other institutions of learning and beneficence, less favored by the bounty of many generations? The average cost of a sloop of war is $315,000, — more probably than all the endowments of those t-Cv^in stars of learning in the Western part of Massachu- setts, the Colleges at Williamstown and Amherst, and of that single star in the East, the guide to many ingenuous youth, the Seminary at Andover. The yearly expense of a sloop of war in the service is about $50,000, more than the annual expenditures of these three institutions combined." " 1 might press the comparison with other institutions of beneficence, — with our annual appropriations for the Blind, that noble and successful charity which sheds luster upon the Commonwealth, amounting to $12,000, and for the Insane, an- other charity dear to humanity, amounting to $27,84-4." " Take all the institutions of Learning and Beneficence, the crown jewels of the Commonwealth, schools, colleges, hospitals, asylums, and the sums by which they have been purchased and preserved are trivial and beggarly, compared with the treasures squandered within the borders of Massachusetts in vain prep- arations for War, — and upon the Navy Yard at Charlestown, with its stores on hand, costing $4,741,000, — the fortifications in the harbors of Massachusetts, where untold sums are already sunk, and it is now proposed to sink $3,875,000 more, — and the Arsenal at Springfield, containing in 1842, 175,118 muskets, valued at $2,099,998, and maintained by an annual appropria- tion of $200,000, whose highest value will ever be, in the judg- ment of all lovers of truth, that it inspired a poem which in in- fluence will be mightier than a battle, and will endure when arsenals and fortifications have crumbled to earth. Some of the verses of this Psalm of Peace relieve the details of statistics, while they happily blend with my argument." " '"Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps apd courts, 148 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals or forts; The warrior's name would be a name abhorred, And every nation that should lift again Its hand against a brother on his forehead Would wear forever more the curse of Cain.' " Sumner came directly to the answer of the question pro- pounded in his subject. The True Grandeur of Nations, when near the close of his oration, he said : " The True Greatness of a Nation cannot be in triumphs of the intellect alone. Litera- ture and art may enlarge the sphere of its influence ; they may adorn it ; but in their nature they are but accessories. The True Grandeur of Humanity is in the moral elevation, sustained, en- lightened and decorated by the intellect of man. The surest tokens of this grandeur in a nation are that Christian Benefi- cence which diffuses the greatest happiness among all, and tJiat passionless, god-like Justice which controls the relations of the nation to other nations, and to all the people committed to its charge. ..." " Oh, let it not be in the future ages as in those we now con- template ! Let the grandeur of man be discerned, not in bloody victory or ravenous conquest but in the blessing he has secured, in the good he has accomplished, in the triumphs of Justice and Beneficence, in the establishment of Perpetual Peace ! " Sumner did not claim that all wars were wrong; for he ex- cepted defensive wars, occurring when a nation was unjustly assailed and no recourse was left it, but self-defence or destruc- tion. He believed that, however wrong on the part of the ag- gressor, it was the duty of the nation thus assailed to defend itself. But he fearlessly maintained that every act of aggression by one nation upon another, on some frivolous pretext, but in reality for the acquisition of territory, that did not rightfully belong to it, was morally wrong. He maintained that a nation, like an individual, was answerable for it, in the sight of God and all good men. The illustrations that he had in mind were the prospective wars with Mexico and England, growing out of our claims in Texas and Oregon. He thought both claims were without right- ful foundations and that Texas was sought to secure the exten- sion of slavery, to which he was unalterably opposed. The Oregon dispute was soon afterward settled by peaceful negotia- tions. But Texas was annexed and the Mexican War followed, it became a slave state, a part of her territory was incorporated in Kansas, also sought to be made a slave state; other parts LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER I49 went to make up New Mexico, Indian Territory and Colorado, ominous locations; the parent territory became one of the secedinoj Confederate States and sustained with her blood and treasure the War of the Rebellion, a consummation, which even the anxious eye of Sumner did not then foresee, in its entirety. But he saw enough to condemn the project unsparingly. Orig- inally a part of Mexico and for only a few years maintaining a disputed and uncertain independence, he believed the United States should not be permitted to become embroiled in the troubles of Texas so as to create a pretext for her annexation. To take what did not belong to a man, merely by right of superior strength, lie believed to be robbery ; and he did not esteem it anything less when accomplished by the aggregation of men composing a nation. The numbers engaged could not change the morality of the act in his eyes and for such cause he would not silently see the treasure of the nation consumed. He thought the maintenance of such a war establishment as the United States then had, in time of peace, when no enemy was near, encouraged her to seek such occasions to show her strength and should be abolished ; and the treasure thus expended saved for the promotion of intelligence, righteousness and religion. His speech was an eloquent plea for universal peace, a condi- tion generally considered to be far beyond the reach of living generations; but it was an urgent appeal to all that is best in our nature to lend its aid to this cause. The oration revealed a lofty nature, filled with the love of justice, and morality, a cultured mind, stored with the rich fruits of hard study, a high ideal, placing its standard far in advance of the position of its own generation and a determined purpose to bring civ- ilization up to it. It was an earnest of Sumner's life-work. But the oration did not meet with universal approval. At the public dinner, given in Faneuil Hall, immediately after the exercises in Tremont Temple, the feeling of dissent, that had so far been hardly concealed, broke out and composed the burden of the responses, to a number of the toasts. The officers of the military and naval organizations, that had taken part in the parade, at first hesitated, but finally consented to be present at the dinner. Sumner had made some unrelished allusions to them. Referring to the militia he had, for example, said : " And when the youth becomes a man, liis country invites his services in war and holds before his bewildered imagination, the prizes of worldly honor. . . . The contagion spreads beyond those subjects to positive obligation. Peaceful citizens volun- teer to appear as soldiers, and affect in dress, arms and deport- ment, what is called the ' pride, pomp and circumstance of 150 J^^FE OF CHARLES 8UMNER glorious war,' The ear-piercing fife has to-day filled our streets and we have come to this church, on this National Sahbath, at- tended by the tlmmp of drum and with the parade of bristling bayonets." This and some similar allusions were resented by the soldiers. Having been invited to be present and take part, these references were regretted by some of the audience. This may have influenced some of the speakers at the dinner. Sumner's friend, John G. Palfrey, led off in the dissent, and he was followed by Eobert C. Winthrop, who closed by an- nouncing this toast, afterwards somewhat notorious : " Our country, bounded by the St. John's and the Sabine, or however otherwise bounded or described ; and be the measurements more or less, still our country to be cherished in all our hearts, to be defended by all our hands." Others followed; some of them ap- proaching coarseness in their allusions to the oration ; and even these received unmistakable evidence of approbation from their hearers. Sumner sat by Winthrop and heard all, apparently without resentment and with hardly any perceptible embarrass- ment. In his own thoughts, he probably felt content to leave the issue with the larger audience, by which he hoped his effort would live to be tried. At the close, Peleg W. Chandler, who presided, sought "to pour oil on the troubled waters," by some good-humored refer- ences to the oration and the toasts, that caused a little merri- ment and restored a better feeling. He then announced the toast : " The orator of the day ! However much we may differ from his sentiments, let us admire the simplicity, manliness and ability with which he has expressed them." Sumner re- sponded briefly, saying he would not follow with one word the apple of discord, he seemed to have thrown into the exercises of the occasion, and closed by adding that, however much they might differ as to the principles he had advocated, he was sure there was one sentiment they would all approve and that was admiration for the youthful choristers, who had gladdened the occasion, with the music of their voices. He proposed the toast : "The youthful choristers of the day! May their future lives be filled with happiness, as they have to-day filled our hearts with the delight of their music ! " The dignity with which he bore himself, the absence of all appearance of resentment and the tact 'with which he turned discussion from himself helped to disarm criticism and left a favorable impression upon those present at the dinner, though he had not retracted any of his previously expressed convictions. The impression made by the oration upon the general public was a remarkable one. The demand for printed copies was un- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 151 precedented. Eight editions of it were issued in America and two in England, within a year, making about ten thousand copies that came from the press in that time. Other editions have since been printed. It was distributed as a tract by the Peace Societies of Boston, Philadelphia, Liverpool and London ; and it is still printed for this purpose. In this and other ways copies of it were distributed systematically to many newspapers in America and Great Britain and to many of their leading statesmen and publicists. Many of the newspapers to which it was sent, noticed it and some of them printed extracts from it, in their columns ; the religious papers generally approved its doctrines while the secular ones generally criticised them as im- practicable ; but all that discussed it agreed in commending the learning and eloquence which it displayed. The same remarkable character of the oration was attested by private communications which Sumner received. But many of these frankly expressed dissent. Old Jeremiah Mason, always original and always to the point, bluntly told him that " an anti-war society is as little practicable as an anti-thunder- and-lightning society." William H. Prescott wrote, he could not go along with him in the expression of the sentiment, " There can be no war that is not dishonorable ", when he remembered Marathon, Morgarten, Bannockburn, Bunker Hill, the wars of the Low Countries, — all those wars which have had and which are yet to have free- dom for their object. " I can't acquiesce in your sweeping de- nunciation, my good friend." He added, " I admire your moral courage in delivering your sentiments so plainly in the face of that thick array. ... I may one day see you on a crusade to persuade the great Autocrat to disband his millions of fighting men, and little Queen Vic to lay up her steamships in lavender ! You have scattered right and left the seeds of a sound and en- nobling morality, which may spring up in a bountiful harvest, I trust, — in the millennium; but I doubt." John A. Andrew, afterwards the War Governor of Massa- chusetts, wrote, in different vein : " You will allow me to say that I have read the oration with a satisfaction only equalled by that with which I heard you on the fourth of July. And while I thank you a thousand times for the choice you made of a topic, as well as for the fidelity and brilliant ability which you brought to its illustration, (both to my mind, defying the most carping criticism), I cannot help expressing also my gratitude to Prov- idence, that here in our city of Boston, one has at last stepped forward to consecrate to celestial hopes the day — the great day 152 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER — which Americans have at best heretofore held sacred only to memory." Judge Story wrote thanking him for a copy of it and added : " I have read it with uncommon interest and care, as you might well suppose, as well on your own account as from the various voices of fame which succeeded the delivery. It is certainly a very striking production, and will fully sustain your reputation for high talents, various reading and exact scholarship. There are a great many passages in it which are wrought out with an exquisite finish and elegance of diction and classical beauty. I go earnestly and heartily along with many of your sentiments and opinions. They are such as befit an exalted mind and an enlarged benevolence. But from the length and breadth of your doctrine as to war, I am compelled to dissent. In my judg- ment, war is under some (although I agree, not under many) circumstances, not only justifiable but an indispensable part of public duty." " I have spoken in all frankness to you because I know that 3'-ou will understand your friends too well to wish them to sup- press their own opinions; but be assured that no one cherishes with more fond and affectionate pride the continual advance- ment of your professional and literary fame than myself, and no one has a deeper reverence for your character and virtues. Believe me, as ever, most truly and affectionately." It will be noticed that these are expressions from men of world-wide reputation upon the effort of a young gentleman hardly past thirty-four years of age on his first studied appear- ance before a popular audience. Sumner received many other letters from persons, at home and abroad. Perhaps no oration in the history of modern literature ever had a success at once so immediate and so permanent. It influenced the course of Sumner's life. Until the fourth of July, 1845, he had not known the powers of oratory he pos- sessed, but that day brought a revelation to him as well as to the public. For several years, a disposition to despondency and dissatisfaction with himself and with his past in life had been growing upon him ; but now he was taught that he had a work to do and a talent for it; and his sadder moods became less frequent. His relation to the public was changed ; atten- tion had been attracted to him and there was a desire to hear farther from him. It was the first of a series of brilliant ora- tions that established his fame and carried him to a seat in the TJ. S. Senate. With strict propriety, Sumner, twenty-five years later, nearing the close of life and gathering his woAs together, in permanent form, placed this oration first in the collection. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 153 Whatever he had written or said before, he was willing to let pass into oblivion, but with this oration he designated that his work commenced. The same year that marked Sumner's appearance before the public in his " True Grandeur of Nations," witnessed the loss of his earliest and best friend. Judge Story died on September tenth, 1815, at the age of sixty-six, stricken down in the full tide of his usefulness. He had been thirty-four years a judge of the U. S. Supreme Court and sixteen years a professor in the Law School at Harvard. Two days before the commencement of his illness, he was in court and pronounced the decision, in a complicated case. After his death, another was found among his papers, ready for delivery. Eight days after he was stricken, he was dead. He was buried in Mount Auburn cemetery at Cambridge where were already laid his children who had pre- ceded him. He died as became a Christian, with a prayer on his lips that his Father would take him to himself. This closed a friendship that had lasted from the time of Sumner's earliest recollection, through the years of a generation, without a jar. Though the disparity of their ages may suggest such a relation between them as that of father and son, in reality it was a closer relation than this ordinarily is. The abounding life and vivacity of the judge, his hearty sympathy with the young, in their troubles and triumphs and ambitions, and the glamour of his official position, with the respect it in- spired, had attracted Sumner very early in life and for many years he had seen in Judge Story his ideal of a man. In college ; in the law school, as a student and later as an instructor; in his private reading and his recreations ; in hi'? thoughts of Eu- rope, in securing the means for his trip and in opening the doors of society and the avenues for improvement while abroad; and still later, in his efforts at the bar and in literature, Sumner had always found in Judge Story his faithful mentor and friend. Step by step he had followed him with more than a father's care. But he was destined never to see the good seed he had sown ripen into its full harvest. It is a touching thought that, where ' Sumner's ivorl- commenced, this faithful friend's ended. The last letter of importance Judge Story wrote, was the one we have quoted ; and the touching words at its close, comes through the lapse of years like a parting benediction: "be assured that no one cherishes with more fond and affectionate pride the con- tinual advancement of your professional and literary fame than myself, and no one has a deeper reverence for your character and virtues," and then the last word of parting, destined to be 154 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER the last word between them, " affectionately," — summing up in that one word the measure he felt for the relation thus closed. The second production in Sumner's Works and the one imme- diately following the fourth of July oration is a beautiful tribute to Judge Story which Sumner wrote for the Boston Advertiser, of September sixteenth, 1845, " I have just re- turned," it commences, " from the funeral of this great and good man. Under that roof where I have so often seen him in health, buoyant with life, exuberant in kindness, happy in family and friends, I have stood by his mortal remains sunk in eternal rest, and gazed upon those well-loved features, from which even the icy touch of death had not effaced all the living beauty. The eye was quenched and the glow of life extin- guished ; but the noble brow seemed still to shelter, as under a marble dome, the spirit that had fled. And is he dead, I asked myself, — whose face was never turned to me, except in affection, — who has filled the civilized world with his name, and drawn to his country the homage of foreign nations — and who was of activity and labor that knew no rest, — who was connected with so many circles by duties of such various kinds, by official ties, by sympathy, by friendship and love, — who according to the beautiful expression of Wilberforce, ' touched life at so many points,' has he, indeed, passed away? " In early life Judge Story had a strong taste for a literary career but yielding to necessity he entered upon the study of law. It is related that when struggling to master the dry pages of Coke's Commentaries upon Littleton, the first textbook placed in his hands, he gave way in despair; and covering his face with his hands at the prospect in life that confronted him he shed a copious baptism of tears upon his open book. From this unpromising entrance on the law, he rose to be a judge of the highest court in the country, the leading professor in Har- vard Law School and the author of one of the most widely celebrated series of Law-books known to the common law. It was upon these three relations of judge, author and teacher that Sumner dwelt. He recalled with astonishment the extent of his work, the written judgments he pronounced upon the Circuit and his works as an author, comprising twenty-seven volumes and his opinions pronounced in the Supreme Court, filling a large measure of thirty-four more, administering the law in all its branches, civil and criminal and displaying 'everywhere a mas- tery of it. He thought there was much in Judge Story's char- acter as a public official that was appreciated by those who saw his work, but which could not be preserved, — his courtesy, his ii LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 155 quickness of perception and his promptness in the dispatch of business. His mind seemed to grasp at once the controlling questions in a case and thus often to anticipate the slower move- ments of the attorneys. And when he came to decide he was careful to assign reasons for each position he took, so as to make it clear that it was not the judge, but the law that disposed of it. Sumner recalled the fact that as a legal writer, Lord Camp- bell had declared in the course of a debate, in the English House of Lords, that Judge Story had a greater reputation " than any author England could boast since the days of Blackstone," and that his works had been reviewed with praise in all of the countries of Great Britain, as well as in France and Germany. As a teacher he instanced his exquisite faculty of interesting the young and winning their affections, that he had often seen him surrounded by a group of them, all intent upon his earnest conversation and freely interrogating him on matters of in- terest ; in the lecture-room he was overflowing with learning and unrelaxing in effort, yet patient and gentle. He had grown to be a living example of love for the law, which seemed to grow warmer with his accumulating years. As evidence of his success he mentioned the fact that larger classes of law students were gathered to his classes in Harvard than to any other similar school in England or America. Sumner recalled by way of comparison to him some of the great lawyers he had known in Europe, Dupin and Pardessus of France ; Thibaut, " with flowing silvery locks, who was so dear to Germany " ; and Savigny, " so stately in person and peculiar in countenance whom all the continent of Europe delights to honor " ; but, he added, " my heart and my judgment, un- trammelled, 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 ? " The influence of Judge Story upon Sumner's character can hardly be over-estimated. It was of incalculable benefit, for him, ito have daily in example and in intimate association a man of Judge Story's pure life and large attainments and wonderful industry; with the aid of his advice and direction. Take as an instance of this training the beautiful truth he inculcated, referred to by Sumner as a reminiscence of his college days, that " No man stands in the way of another," that the world is so broad and its opportunities so numerous, that no one's suc- cess need interfere with any one else's. How much of an an- tidote to bickering and jealousy there is in it ! It may not have 156 ^^^^ OF CHARLES SUMNER been altogether to the earnestness with which Judge Story en- forced this lesson upon his group of youthful hearers, that Sumner owed it, but it is certain that one of the strongest and most lovable traits of his character was his loyalty to his friends and the earnestness with which he seconded all their efforts for advancement, without jealousy and without envy, and with never a thought disclosed that he might himself be crowded out. This is a single illustration of what this association brought to Sumner. What the rest was we can imagine. CHAPTER XIV JUDGE story's professorship NOT SOUGHT FIRST SPEECH AGAINST SLAVERY — AS A LYCEUM LECTURER — ARTICLE ON PICKERING PHI BETA KAPPA ORATION — PLACE AS AN ORATOR. The place, which Sumner had aspired to for many years. Judge Story's professorship in the Law School, was now vacant. Sumner's desire for it had been more than a passing wish. It had been a guiding motive and a stimulant in his studies and a cherished ambition of his life to fill this place worthily and from it with voice and pen exert a wide influence in teaching and systematizing the law. In this ambition he had been en- couraged by Judge Story and also by Professor Greenleaf, But how we all change ! The long wished for place remained vacant a year and yet Sumner did not apply for it. He frankly admit- ted that if it were offered him, the chances were that he would decline it. For several years he had been growing away from it. He had become interested in public affairs and in literature; and those things were giving a new direction to his life. He now wished for greater independence than he could have in the service of conservative Harvard ; he was ambitious for a wider fame than was there in prospect. On the evening of November 4, 1845, he attended a meeting in Faneuil Hall, called to devise means to resist the admis- sion of Texas as a slave state. Sumner prepared the reso- lutions that were adopted, the first political resolutions he ever prepared ; and he supported them by a speech, the first political speech he ever delivered. Texas was asking admission to the Union with a constitution, prohibiting her Legislature from passing any law to emancipate the slaves or to abolish her slave trade with other states. The resolutions prepared by Sumner condemned the annexation as an extensioh of slavery involving the free, as well as the slave states, in the two greatest national crimes, Slavery and War. Copies of the resolutions were sent to every Senator and Representative in Congress. They called upon them to resist the consummation of the movement to the utmost at every stage. The President of the meeting, Charles Francis Adams, made a speech on taking the chair and he was followed by John G. Palfrey, Sumner, Wendell Phillips, Henry 157 158 ^^^^ OF CHARLES SUMNER B. Stanton, Hillard, William H. Channing and William Lloyd Garrison. In this, his first public utterance upon the question of slaver}^ Sumner's opposition to it is pronounced. He declared that the horrors of the " middle passage " when Africans stolen and carried by sea far from their homes, pressed on shipboard, into spaces of smaller dimensions for each, than a coffin, were be- lieved to be of less deadly consequence than those attending the wretched coffles driven from the exhausted Northern Slave States to the sugar plantations farther South; one quarter part were said often to perish in those removals ; and yet it was an extension of the coffle system that was proposed in the scheme for the admission of Texas. He insisted that this should be considered well, the inauguration of a new slave trade, secured by constitutional guaranties. He was determined that it should not take place with his consent ; but on the con- trary should meet his vigorous opposition. If such an extension of the slave trade was to take place Massachusetts should wash her hands of all participation in the guilt of it. He warned her Representatives that they must not yield to dalliance with slavery. The seductive influence of the pro- slavery atmosphere of Washington, which had for many years been diffused by the statesmen of the South, was well known in Boston. This was to be resisted and only men who could withstand its fatal influence should be sent there. The depth of Sumner's feeling upon the question of slavery is shown by an incident which occurred about this time. He had been invited to lecture before the New Bedford Lyceum and had accepted, but before the date fixed for his lecture, he learned that colored persons were excluded from the privileges of the course. He at once wrote a letter to the committee de- clining the appointment. It seemed to him, to found such a discrimination on difference of complexion, was contrary to the divine injunction, " Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." He closed his letter to the committee with these words : " In lecturing before a Lyceum which has introduced the prejudice of color among its laws, and thus formally reversed an injunction of highest morals and politics, I might seem to sanction what is most alien to my soul and join in disobedience to the command which teaches that the children of earth are all of one blood. I cannot do this." Shortly after, the obnoxious rule was rescinded, and Sumner then delivered his lecture. The lecture lyceum played an important part in Sumner's career. It was a means of entertainment quite common in Mas- sachusetts. A society would be organized in a community and LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 159 a committee would be thus appointed to secure a course of lectures for a winter season. The lecturers were paid, the money to defray the expense being raised by charging an ad- mission. The fame of Sumner's oration on The True Grandeur of Nations, distributed by the friends of peace to the news- papers and noticed and portions of it published by many of them, had carried his name abroad and created a general desire to see and hear him. To the work of preparation for these lectures, both in matter and delivery, he brought his usual thoroughness, carefully writing and re-writing and amending them and practising their delivery, before they were presented to the audience. His earnest and easy style of speaking and his attractive personal appearance, as well as the freshness of the matter and interest of the subjects chosen for his lectures, made him a popular lecturer. During the four years, from 1846 to 1850, he filled many ap- pointments of this kind, speaking in almost every part of the State. The lyceums were frequently connected with churches and had a membership composed of educated Christian people, with a bent for moral and intellectual reforms, but not bound together by any political tie. These audiences were peculiarly susceptible to such reforms, as the abolition of slavery and war, in which he was interested. His lectures gave him a large ac- quaintance over the State, with this class of people and was the origin of that strong hold which he acquired and retained over them as long as he lived. His subjects were " The Employment of Time " and " White Slavery in the Barbary States " ; the former lecture was deliv- ered for the first time before the Boston Lyceum in February, 1846, and the latter before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, a year later; both were delivered many times afterward and were never entirely laid aside until his election to the Senate. For this event, they aided materially in paving the way. The former lecture was an earnest effort to teach the young the value of time and the importance of a just distribution of it between labor, self-improvement and rest. He draws the lessons of it largely from the lives of Franklin, Gibbon, Cob- bett and Scott, holding them up in succession as examples of what can be accomplished by men, in moderate circumstances, or even in poverty, by the judicious and industrious husbandry of time. " Time," he said, " is the measure of life on earth. . . . Its divisions, its days, its hours, its minutes, are fractions of this heavenly gift. Every moment that flies over our heads takes IGO LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER from tlie future and gives to the irrevocable past, shortening by so much the measure of our days, abridging by so much the means of usefulness committed to our hands. . . , Waste or sacrifice of time is, then, waste or sacrifice of life itself; it is partial suicide." He computed that the loss of one single hour each day for a year amounts at its end to thirty-six working days, allowing ten hours to the day, — sufficient when applied to the study of a new language or an unexplored field of history to make an im- portant acquisition in the accumulation of knowledge. He in- stanced a French jurist who had composed a learned and im- portant work " in the quarter hours that draggled between dinner ordered and dinner served ". He gave curious examples of the division of their time made by numerous men, well-known to fame: Lord Coke, six hours for sleep, six to the study of law, four to prayer, the rest to Nature; Sir William Jones, six to law, seven to slumber, ten to the world and all to Heaven. He instanced Napoleon and Alexander Von Humboldt as only allowing four hours, out of the twenty-four, to sleep; while Judge Story, given as a high example of what may be wrought by wakeful diligence, who had accomplished more than any one within the circle of his individual observation, retired always at ten o'clock, to rise at seven, allowing nine hours for sleep. It would have been in- teresting for us to have had Sumner's judgment upon the whole matter, but this he discreetly withheld, contenting himself by saying that different constitutions require different amounts of sleep, even the same individual in youth and old age requiring more than when in middle life. An occasional passage of this lecture gives us an insight into Sumner's own habits and opinions. In speaking of the time when literary men have done their best work he says it may be doubted if the student can be weaned from those habits which lead him to continue his work far into the night, so that from time immemorial he has been said to " consume the mid- night oil " and his productions marked by peculiar care to " smell of the lamp." And he adds : " They who confess them- selves among the slaves of the lamp say that there is an ex- citement in study, increasing as the work proceeds, which flames forth with new brightness at the close of the day and in the stillness of those hours when the world is wrapped in sleep and the student is the sole watcher." Sumner's habit of work- ing late in the night had already been formed and it continued with him through life. In another passage he warns his hearers against the tendency LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 161 to absorption in one pursuit. The mere man of business, he insists, is " a man of one idea ", which has its root in no gener- ous or humane desires, but in selfishness. He lives for himself alone, and though he may send his freight to the farthest quar- ters of earth, his real horizon is restricted to the narrow circle of his own personal interests. He would not, he added, weaken the just attachment to the business of one's choice, but he re- called the advice of Goethe to every one, to read daily a short poem and, in this spirit, he would refine and elevate business by enlarging the intelligence, widening the observation and awakening new sympathies. He points his argument with the examples of Ben Jonson, working as a bricklayer, with a trowel in his hand and a book in his pocket, of Burns, " wooing his muse as he followed his plough on the mountain-side " and of Franklin beginning those studies which made him immortal while a toiling printer's boy, straitened by small means. Summer's lecture upon White Slavery in the Barbaiy States was first delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library Asso- ciation on February 17, 1847, and was afterwards given before many other lyceums of the State. It was a carefully prepared monogram on the origin, history and character of slavery as it existed in the States of Northern Africa. In the sensitive state of the public mind upon the question of slavery in the United States, it would have been suicidal for a lyceum lecturer to at- tempt to discuss this subject before an audience. He would have encountered the prejudice of a large class of his patrons. Sumner sought to evade this and yet teach an instructive lesson upon a subject in which he had become interested, by laying the scene of his lecture in Africa instead of America. He was better enabled to bring the enormities of slavery home to his audience by this example, because the people of the Barbary States were black, while their slaves were white people who had been the unhappy victims of piratical excursions. The prey of Barbary seamen was often vessels upon voyages to and from America; and our own countrymen were thus frequently en- slaved. The United States government repeatedly paid large sums for the ransom of its citizens. But the pirates continued to in- crease and finally became so much of an annoyance to our commerce that war was declared and in a short naval campaign, distinguished by the victories of Decatur and Bainbridge, a treaty was extorted from the Dey of Algiers, stipulating that henceforth no Americans should be made slaves. But the distinction of abolishing slavery there, was reserved for an English Admiral, Lord Exmouth. 162 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER In 1846, John Pickering, one of Sumner's friends, died. His father was the Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Washington at the time of the son's graduation from Harvard, in 1796. The next year the son, through his father's influence was made Secretary of Legation to Portugal, where he remained two years, and then for two more he was private secretary to Mr, King, our Minister to England, with his residence in London. Upon his return to Massachusetts he read law with Hon. Samuel Putnam, at Salem, afterwards a judge of the Supreme Court of the State, who was also the legal preceptor of Judge Story. Pickering was three times a Representative and as often a Senator in the Legislature of Massachusetts, and was for sixteen years the City Solicitor of Boston, besides filling the vacancy, on the commission to revise the statutes, caused by the death of Professor Putnam. He was a frequent con- tributor to the American Jurist and the Law Reporter. But this was only one side of the life of this laborious man. Along with his legal pursuits, by a careful husbandry of his time, he pursued the study of philology and became the master of nine different languages, five of which he spoke. He studied the Indian languages of North America and devised an alpha- bet for them. But his best known work was his Greek-English Lexicon, still the standard in use in American colleges. He was elected Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental languages and later to the chair of Greek Literature in Harvard. But he declined both. His name was twice proposed in the public prints for President of the University. But he continued to the last, a modest, hard-working lawyer. Although he was many years Sumner's senior, kindred tastes as well as the common experiences of foreign travel had made them friends. Upon Pickering's death, Sumner commemorated him in a carefully prepared article, published in the Law Reporter of June, 1846. It is one of the best sketches of its kind he ever produced. He enforced again by the example of Pickering, the two thoughts he had kept uppermost in his lecture on the Employment of Time, the importance of the careful husbandry of the passing moments of life and the neces- sity of avoiding the absolute absorption of one's self in the single business of his choice. Sumner showed that Pickering was a painstaking, laborious attorney, absorbed in the business of his office, during the working hours of the day, and arose to a high rank at the bar; but he emphasized how much he was able to accomplish for humanity and his own fame by the oc- cupation of his hours of leisure in useful studies. Sumner commemorated Pickering on another occasion. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 163 When he was invited to deliver the address on the anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University in August, 1846, he made it the occasion of his oration on The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, and the Philanthropist, com- memorating under these heads his former friends, Pickering, Story, Washington Allston and William Ellery Channing. They had all been members of the Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity and graduates of Harvard, It was customary to issue a cata- logue of the Fraternity every four years, marking with a star the names of those members who had died. These names were all so starred in the catalogue of the year. The audience before which the oration was delivered was a brilliant one. The First Church of Cambridge was filled with the culture and beauty of the old university town and its friends. Edward Everett, the graceful and impressive orator, then just returned from his mission to the Court of St. James, was present to assume his duties as President of Harvard, and the retiring President, Josiah Quincy, was there, now laying aside the robes of office, after years of distinguished service in the National House of Eepresentatives, in the Mayoralty of Boston and at the head of his Ahna Mater. The venerable John Quincy Adams was there to grace by his presence, for the last time, this anniversary of his college fraternity, and William Kent, the newly elected successor to Judge Story in the Law School, the Governor of Virginia, Congressmen, poets and his- torians. And those nearer to Sumner were there, Longfellow, Prescott, Howe and his accomplished wife, who, " for the first quarter of an hour did not dare to look at him, dreading mistake or failure and who was then completely surprised and carried away, who had no idea he could do anything like it." Perhaps a sight of her and a touch of his old admiration reached Sumner. There too was his mother and sister to witness his triumph. He was dressed with his usual care. He had been too much under the influence of Daniel Webster not to appreciate the value of this. And his handsome figure never appeared to better advantage. He spoke for two hours, easily and forcibly, without the aid of notes or manuscript, apparently all thought of himself lost in his interest in his theme. Once he turned to address the President of the University and seemed to forget his audience and for some minutes with his back to them con- tinued speaking to him alone. But his delivery was so effective that fifty years afterwards persons still living could recall distinctly certain passages and the peculiar emphasis he gave them, it is considered by some his greatest oratorical triumph. The production excels any of his others in style and finish, and 164 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER the subject being of permanent interest it will probably con- tinue to be one of the most popular of his orations. In the edition of his works he prefaced it with this sentiment from Schiller ; " Give the world beneath your influence a direction towards the good, and the tranquil rhythm of time will bring its development." As the title of his oration was The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, the Philanthropist, so his theme was Knowledge, Jus- tice, Beauty, Love, "the comprehensive attributes of God," as he declared ; and he used the lives of his four friends as threads on which to string a discussion of these subjects. His aim was not so much to commemorate the men as to advance the objects they had so successfully served. Speaking of Pickering, he paid this tribute to the uses and the graces of scholarship: " He knew that scholarship of all kinds would gild the life of its possessor, enlarge the resources of the bar, enrich the voice of the pulpit, and strengthen the learning of medicine. He knew that it would afford a soothing companionship in hours of relaxation from labor, in periods of sadness, and in the evening of life ; that when once embraced, it was more constant than friendship, — attending its votary, as an invisible spirit, in the toils of the day, the watches of the night, the changes of travel and the alternations of fortune or health." In speaking of Story's love for literature and the fact that he would frequently turn aside from the sterner studies of the law to cultivate the love of poetry and polite letters, he likened him, in this, to Seldon, Somers, Mansfield and Blackstone in England, and L'Hopital and D'Aguesseau in France, and he ventured the assertion that it would not be easy to mention a single person winning the highest place in the profession of the law, who was not a scholar also. In this address he fixed for us his definition of the term, Jurist. It is interesting to us because we know that during many of the years of his early manhood it was Sumner's am- bition to be one. He described him as a " student and ex- pounder of jurisprudence as a science, — not merely lawyer or judge, pursuing it as an art " — who examines every principle in the light of science, and, while doing justice, seeks to widen and confirm the means of justice hereafter by reducing his pro- fession to an exact science, — such men as Grotius, Pothier, Coke and Kent, expounders of the law and therefore higher than lawyers and not to be confounded with such men as Dun- ning, and Pinkney, mere practitioners, though tlie one be the acknowledged leader of Westminster Hall and the other of the American Bar. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 165 In his treatment of the part of his subject devoted to Wash- ington Allston, the artist, Sumner's love of the beautiful in life and in art becomes easily apparent. It is not often in a young man that this trait comes out in such marked degree. And it shows how unerringly Sumner's attention had already been fixed on the pure and the good and how earnestly he looked forward to the enlargement of their influence. " Allston," he said, " was a good man, with a soul refined by purity, exalted by religion, softened by love. In manner he was simple, yet courtly, — quiet, though anxious to please, — kindly to all alike, the poor and the lowly not less than the rich and great. As he spoke in that voice of gentlest utterance, all were charmed to listen; and the airy-footed hours often tripped on far toward the gates of morning, before his friends could break from his spell. His character is transfigured in his works . . . Allston was a Christian artist; and the beauty of expression lends uncommon charm to his colors. All that he did shows purity, sensibility, refinement, delicacy, feeling rather than force. His genius was almost feminine. As he advanced in years, this was more remarked. His pictures became more and more instinct with those sentiments which forai the true glory of Art. ... He looked down on the common strife for worldly consideration. With impressive beauty of truth and ex- pression he said. Fame is the eternal shadow of excellence, from which it can never be separated.' Here is a volume, prompting to noble thoughts and action, not for the sake of glory, but for advance in knowledge, virtue, excellence." It was, however, in Channing that Sumner found the master spirit that had exerted most influence in shaping his own thoughts of reform. We have already seen in his oration on The True Grandeur of Nations how firmly he had set his face against war and slavery. This was largely an inheritance from Channing, who though a minister, serving a Boston congrega- tion, had given much time to these subjects and seems to have had a peculiar attraction for young men. In the mention of him, which Sumner reserved to the last in his oration, although his death had been the first of the four, an opportunity was presented for a renewed discussion of the inhumanity of war and slavery. Sumner did not let it go unheeded. In recalling with what earnestness Channing had discussed them and with what success, Sumner was led to speak of the style of his oratory. What he said has already been quoted in these pages as showing the models upon which he formed his own ideal of an orator. In the contemplation of such exemplars well might Sumner IQQ LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ' exclaim in closing his oration : " In their presence, how truly do we feel the insignificance of office and wealth, which men so hotly pursue ! What is office ? and what is wealth ? Expres- sions and representatives of what is present and fleeting only, investing the possessor with a brief and local regard. Let this not be exaggerated ; it must not be confounded with the serene fame which is the reflection of generous labors in great causes. The street lights within the circle of their nightly glimmer, seem to outshine the distant stars, observed of men in all lands and times, but gas-lamps are not to be mistaken for celestial luminaries. They who live for wealth, and the things of this world, follow shadows, neglecting realities eternal on earth and in heaven. After the perturbations of life, all its accumulated possessions must be resigned, except those only which have been devoted to God and mankind. What we do for ourselves perishes with this mortal dust; what we do for others lives coeval with the benefaction. W^orms may destroy the body, but they cannot consume such a fame." The success of the oration was instantaneous. At the dinner of the Society held after the exercises in the church, John Quincy Adams offered the toast : " The memory of the Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, the Philanthropist ; and not the memory, the long life of the kindred spirit who has this day embalmed them all." And in a letter dated two days later, after con- gratulating Sumner on his oration, he wrote : " Casting my eyes backward no farther than the 4th of July of last year, when you set all the vipers of Alecto a-hissing by proclaiming the Christian law of universal peace and love, and then casting them forward, perhaps not much farther, but beyond my own allotted time, I see you have a mission to perform. I look from Pisgah to the Promised Land ; you must enter upon it." The old anti-slavery warrior doubtless realized that in Sumner the cause had found a new champion, but he could hardly have realized the weight of the blows this new champion was destined to deal his ancient enemy on the floor of Congress. Edward Everett wrote Sumner : " Should you never do any- thing else, you have done enough for fame ; but you are, as far as these public efforts are concerned, at the commencement of a career destined, I trust, to last for long years, of ever in- creasing usefulness and honor." Chancellor Kent, to whom one of the pamphlet copies of the oration was sent, pronounced it one of the most splendid productions, in point of diction and eloquence, he had ever read. This was high praise, from high authority. It was appreciated by Sumner. He valued the friendship of these men. His transparent nature made him LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER iQ>^ ever ready to accord just praise to others and to value theirs of himself as a frank acknowledgment of his merit. Sumner's place in Boston as a public orator was now estab- lished. His work as a lyceum lecturer had satisfied his au- diences. His oration on The True Grandeur of Nations had awakened an unusual interest in him and attracted general public attention, but there was still a doubt whether it was not a fortunate effort upon a favorite subject that furnished no just estimate of the man. Even taken at its best, this oration lacked the smoothness and finish of the " The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, and the Philanthropist/' The standard, at Cambridge, where the influence of the college was felt, was high and the audiences critical in their estimates of new men, but Sumner had fairly satisfied them. However much in the future they doubted the soundness of his views on slavery and the rights of the colored race they did not afterwards question his ability as an orator. He now took his position among them as an ac- ceptable speaker, much sought for on public occasions and a child of their own, in whom they felt a just pride. This distinction he laboriously earned. At this time of his life he wrote out his orations in full before delivery and after carefully criticising them himself and receiving suggestions from friends, he memorized them. He was careful of details in delivery that would contribute to the effect of an address. In the absence of Longfellow and his wife, from Cambridge, we find him taking advantage of the retirement of their housed to memorize and practise the delivery of some of them. He' could there speak aloud without being* heard. He followed this manner of preparing an address for many years,— even after he became a Senator and after his fame was established in Wash- ington, He was equally careful in the revision of his orations for publication. Felton made a playful reference to it, when Sumner was revising his True Grandeur of Nations for the press. Owing to the convenience of Felton's house to the Har- vard College library, where he wished to obtain works of refer- ence, Sumner used a room there as a convenient place to work. Felton wrote to Longfellow: "You have no idea, what an arsenal of peace my house has become ; Lives of William Penn, sermons on war, tracts of the American Peace Society, journals' anti-everything. Scriptural arguments, estimates of the cost of navies and armies, besides a great many smaller arms, the pis- tols, hand grenades, cutlasses and so forth of the Peace Es- tablishment, are arranged in every part of the house, upstairs, downstairs, in the attics and in the cellars." 168 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER Sumner^s diligence in revision did not always impress people so good-naturedly as it had Felton. In publishing the edition of his orations and addresses in 1850, he made so many changes, even upon the third proof, that his printers remonstrated vigor- ously and told him they could not bear the extra expense and that he must thereafter finish his revision before handing his manuscript to the printer. But the reproof did not cure the habit. For in the final revision of his works, which he was making at the time of his death, he was as exacting as ever and still making numerous changes. A comparison of almost any oration in this with the same one in the earlier editions will illustrate my meaning. The changes, I think, in some instances did not add to the value of the works. They sometimes de- tracted from their freshness and made them appear unnatural and labored to those at least who had known them in their earlier form. But the great idealist was still to the last reach- ing out after excellence that he felt as constantly eluding his grasp. CHAPTER XV ORIGIN OF Sumner's interest in the cause of universal PEACE — interested IN THE SUBJECT OF PRISON DISCI- PLINE — THE BOSTON PRISON DISCIPLINE SOCIETY EQUAL RIGHTS OF COLORED CHILDREN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS — DIVERSIONS In 1848, a friend suggested to Sumner that his interest in his favorite reforms had been imputed by some to a desire for public notice. Sumner felt hurt at this imputation. He replied at some length explaining the real origin of his interest. The explanation is interesting as a matter of personal history. His attention had been attracted to the question of universal peace by an oration of President Quincy delivered in old South Church, Boston, when he was scarcely nine years of age. It was at a meeting of the American Peace Society. The lecture made a deep impression upon the youthful mind of Sumner by showing the appalling waste of life and property war involved. While in the reading of after years he was attracted by the glamour of military glory, the good seed sowed by this lecture seemed never to have been choked out. Shortly after he left college, this early impression was deepened by a lecture of William Ladd, in tlie old Cambridge Court House. As this con- viction grew upon Sumner and the notes of years of reading accumulated in support of it, he did not hesitate to express in conversation his abhorrence of war. As an illustration, while in Paris, he was asked by M. Victor Foucher, to read a part of the manuscript of his treatise upon the law of nations. Upon returning it with his criticisms, Sumner called his attention to the portion of his work that placed war among the recognized arbitraments for the determination of questions between nations. While admitting the truth of this position, Sumner urged him to combat it as barbarous and unchristian. Within a month after his return from Europe, Sumner was attracted by a notice in a newspaper of a meeting of the Amer- ican Peace Society and attended. It was held in a small room under Marlboro Chapel, with scarcely a dozen persons present. Sumner was placed upon its Executive Committee and there- after became one of its active members. But his part for peace consisted in attendance upon its meetings and work upon its 169 170 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER committees, until 1845, when being pressed to deliver the Muni- cipal Oration, he unburdened his mind of the accumulation of years of study and thought upon this subject. It could hardly be expected that he would escape criticism altogether, after this bold assault upon such a time-honored institution as war, with its well paid armies of apologists. He was frequently called upon to defend his positions. But he did it as fearlessly as he had announced them. His public orations that followed, as the one on " The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, and the Philanthropist," and another, on " Fame and Glory," showed that his conclusions were not hastily formed and that he would take no step backward. They both reiterated the conclusions expressed in his Municipal Oration. In 1849, he was invited to address the American Peace Society at its annual meeting and he delivered an elaborate oration. His purpose was to show that as all human trials of right, be- tween individuals, by mere physical prowess, had been abolished so war ought also to be abolished, in the settlement of disputes between nations. The address was replete with learning and abounded in historical quotations to sustain his position ; but it lacked the eloquence and the exuberant diction of the others. In the fall of 1849, Sumner was appointed chairman of a committee to secure a proper representation of the United States at a Peace Congress to be held in 1850 at Frankfort-on- the-lMain. He prepared the address of the committee to the people of the United States, urging upon them systematic work in the appointment of delegates and in securing some con- gressional action upon the subject. The address was also signed by the secretaries Elihu Burritt and Amasa Walker, Sumner was chosen a delegate to the Congress but felt con- strained by lack of means to decline the place. Public interest in the subject was, however, beginning to wane. In the United States it was soon completely overshadowed by the slavery question and in Europe there was a reaction against it. With this address, Sumner's public work in the cause of universal peace may be said to have ended. His election to the Senate and absorption in the slavery question, with the other duties of his office withdrew him entirely from this work. But his convictions remained unchanged and he never hesitated to express them upon proper occasions. One of the provisions of his will set apart a fund for an annual prize to be given the student of Harvard College for the best dissertation on uni- versal peace and the methods by which war may be permanently superseded. And he added in his will, after this provision, these words: "I do this in the hope of drawing the attention of LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 171 students to the practicability of organizing peace among na- tions, which I sincerely believe may be done. I cannot doubt that the same modes of decision, which now prevail between individuals, between towns and between smaller communities may be extended to nations." But it seems strange that any one would consider the cause of universal peace at the time Sumner was engaged in it a fruit- ful field for gathering fame. The little meeting under Marlboro Chapel of a few enthusiastic friends of humanity almost objects of merriment to a more numerous, though perhaps a less thoughtful public, was hardly a company into which an ambitious young man, bent on fame, would find his way. The whole story of Sumner's connection with the peace question shows how utterly without foundation such an imputation was. Those who knew Sumner, his sincerity and disinterestedness, with his crowning wish to be useful, in permanently improving the condition of his fellow-men, knew how unjust it was. Sumner scouted the thought that it was done for any purpose of popularity. " I have little sympathy with office-seekers, — I might add with self-seekers, in any way," he wrote. " My own fixed purpose has always been to lead a life without office. This has been a cherished idea. I would teach, if I might so aspire, by example, that a useful and respectable career may be spent without dependence upon popular favor and without the possession of what you have called ' power.' " And then, as if reminded that it was his own motives, that were assailed, he continued : " In the expression of my opinions I have hoped to show a proper regard for those from whom I differ. Well aware thart where freedom of tliought exists, difference must ensue, I have always desired that these should be tempered by mutual kindness and forbearance so that we might all at least ' agree to disagree.' In this spirit while leaving others to determine their course towards me, I have endeavored, on my part to allow no debates of opinion to interfere with any pleasant personal relations ; and though sometimes condemning or criticising the public conduct of men, I trust that I have never failed to do homage to their unquestioned virtues." Sumner's interest in the subject of prison discipline, a sub- ject considerably more discussed then than now, was not alto- gether of his choosing. His friend Howe had urged it upon him. Howe had made a study of the subject, which was being agitated by Prison Discipline Societies in nearly all the large cities of the United States and Europe, and he was a convert to what is known as the Pennsylvania system, which enforced the entire separation of the prisoners from one another, as 172 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER contradistinguished from the Auburn system which required them to labor together during the day, only separating them at night. The Boston Prison Discipline Society was holding its annual meeting, during the last week of May. Its President was Dr. Francis Wayland, its Secretary Rev. Louis Dwight and its Treasurer, Samuel A. Eliot. Dr. Wayland was an excellent man, but being absorbed in his duties as President of Brown University, gave little attention to the society. Mr. Eliot was a merchant, the Treasurer of Harvard College, but knew little of the subject of prison discipline, had no training as a public speaker, and little taste for controversy. But he was thor- oughly loyal to Dwight, the only paid officer of the society, a man of limited ability and rather slow of comprehension, nar- row and opinionated, who had been educated for the ministry, but devoted his time to this work, kept the office, solicited con- tributions to it and prepared its annual reports. In fact Dwight was the Society. He was a firm believer in the Auburn system. In his annual reports, he had pretty uniformly aired his views, treating the Pennsylvania system and its separation of the prisoners, in the main, rather unfairly. Howe had noticed this and called Sumner's attention to it. By an arrangement he and Sumner attended the annual meet- ing of the society held in 1845 in Park Street Church and de- termined that, if the Secretary pursued his usual course, they would publicly remonstrate. The customary report of the Secretary was read, with its customary strictures on the Penn- sylvania system, and according to previous arrangement, the motion had been made to adopt it, when Sumner, seated two or three pews to the left of the platform mounted the rail of his pew, passed quickly over the backs of the intervening ones till he stood in front of the President, with a bundle of papers in his hand. Hardly addressing the President, who did not seem to know who he was, Sumner proceeded without ceremony to tear the views of the Secretary to pieces. For full half an hour, to the annoyance of the Secretary and the surprise of the audience at this unexpected breach in the customary routine of the programme, Sumner poured forth an accumulation of facts and figures to disprove the Secretary's position, and show his want of fairness. The Secretary, in his dull, inconclusive way, undertook to reply, but the audience was with Sumner and compelled a reference of the report to a committee to revise and modify it, with power to visit Philadelphia, in the name of the Society and ascertain on the spot the true character of the sys- tem Dwight had condemned. Howe, Sumner, Eliot, Horace Mann, Walter Channing, LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER I73 Dwight, George T. Bigelow and J. W. Edmonds were appointed as the committee. Howe, Sumner, Eliot and Dwight visited Philadelphia and examined the prison on three successive days. Dwight was sullen and silent, taking little interest in what he saw, while Sumner was alert, prying into everything, bent on knowing about the prison and its workings and the results. He plied the directors with questions and finally took Dwight to task before them for having misrepresented some of the facts. Howe prepared the report of the committee and he and Sumner sought to have it embodied in the report of the Society for the following year; but Dwight was strong enough to pre- vent this. The following January, Sumner published an article in the Christian Examiner, setting forth the merits of the separate system. Boston was about to build a new jail and he was anx- ious that she should show the same superiority in her prisons that she did in her schools and colleges. And he was especially anxious to correct the erroneous impressions, about the Penn- sylvania system, created by Dwight's reports. Another anni- versary of the Prison Discipline Society was approaching and he and Howe were determined to down Dwight. The article opens with a tribute to Miss Dix, who was devoting her life unselfishly to the visitation of the charitable and penal insti- tutions of the Northern and Middle States, and it did not close without a notice of Dwight who, he insisted, had never failed to present all the evils of the separate system, particularly as ad- ministered in Philadelphia, sometimes even drawing on his imagination for facts, while he carefully withheld the testimony in its favor. At the anniversary of the Society in May, 1846, Sumner, dis- appointed at not getting a hearing through a report, again presented the subject to the meeting and supported it at length, with a vigorous speech, closing with a motion for the appointment of a committee to examine the reports and the course of the Society and see if something could not be done to extend its usefulness. Sumner was appointed on the com- mittee which was to make its report at the next anniversary of the Society. Meantime the controversy was attracting pub- lic attention. Sumner's speech was printed in the papers and commented on. It was reprinted in Liverpool, in a pamphlet ; and from England, France and Germany came letters attesting interest in the controversy. De Tocqueville, the author of Democracy in America, who had been interested in the subject and for that reason had visited many of our prisons using both systems, wrote Sumner that he was " surprised and pained " at 174 ^^FE OF CHARLES SUMtJEB the course of the Society. At home it called forth an able pam- phlet on the subject by Francis C. Gray. Meantime the anniversary of 1847 came. Sumner for him- self and Hillard and Dr. Wayland presented a report of the committee. It closed with a scries of resolutions which de- clared that the Society was not the pledged advocate of any system and that its reports should impartially set forth the merits of all, deprecating anything in the former reports that may have pained the directors of the Eastern Pennsylvania Penitentiary and asking the management of the Society to organize a new system that should enlist the co-operation of its individual members. The adoption of the resolutions was op- posed and the consideration of them was adjourned from May 25th to the evening of May 28th, when Sumner made a speech supporting them. The discussion thus opened was followed up by adjournments to June second, fourth, ninth, eleventh, sixteenth, eighteenth and twenty-third. Attracted by the contest, the meetings held in Tremont Temple, were largely attended, sometimes as many as two thousand people being present, and the audiences partook largely of the feeling of the speakers. They were supported, besides Sumner, by Howe, Hillard, Rev. Francis Parkman and Henry H. Fuller, they were opposed by Eliot, Dwight, Gray, Bradford Sumner, Rev. George Allen, Dr. Walter Channing and J. F. Stephenson. On the evening of June 18th Sumner spoke again. It was the intention that, as Chairman of the committee reporting the reso- lutions, he should, with this speech, review and close the debate. But it had acquired too great momentum to be so suddenly and so decorously stopped. This speech shows something of the accrimony of the debate. Commencing, Sumner said : " Mr. President, I approach this discussion with regret, feeling that I must say something which I would gladly leave unsaid. I shall not, however, decline the duty which is cast upon me. In its performance I hope to be pardoned, if I speak frankly and freely; I trust it will be gently and kindly. I will borrow from the honorable Treas- urer, with his permission, something of his frankness, with- out his temper. As I propose to adduce facts, I shall be grate- ful to any gentleman who will correct me where I seem to be wrong. For such a purpose I will cheerfully yield the floor, even to the Treasurer, though his sense of justice did not suffer him, while on the floor, to give me an opportunity of correcting a misstatement he made of what I said on a former occasion." Referring to the fact that Nathaniel Willis, a near relative of the Secretary, had nioved a resolution that it was not e:^- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ^75 pedient to discuss this subject at the anniversary meeting, he said : " It was at the anniversary meeting, however, that I was determined to discuss the subject, being assured that in the presence of a wakeful public, the will of one or two individuals could not control the course of the Society. Accordingly I took the floor and proceeded to speak, when I was strangely encoun- tered by the Secretary, who ejaculated : ' Mr. President, the an- nual meeting was interrupted in this manner last year ; there are gentlemen present who are invited by the committee of arrange- ments to address us.' On this remarkable fragment of a speech I made no comment at the time. I shall make none now, but I cannot forbear quoting the words of the able editor of the Law Reporter with regard to it. ^ It would seem,' he says, ' that the addresses at the public meetings of this Society are all cut and dried beforehand, made to order, — a fact that might as well have been kept back, under the circumstances, for the credit of all concerned.' Notwithstanding this interference, I pro- ceeded to expose the prejudiced and partisan course of the Society and its consequent loss of credit, concluding with a motion for a committee to consider its past conduct and the best means of extending its usefulness. The motion though opposed at the time, was adopted. It is the report of that com- mittee which is now before you." " This report, when offered to the Society, was first opposed on grounds of form. It is now opposed on other grounds, hardly more pertinent, though not of form only. Thus at every step have honest efforts to elevate the character of the Society, and to extend its usefulness, been encountered by op- position. Under the auspices of the Treasurer and Secretary, the Society shrinks from examination and inquiry. Like the sensitive leaf, it closes at the touch. Nay, more, it repels all endeavor to wake it to new life. It seems to have adopted, as its guardian motto, that remarkable epitaph which for more than two centuries has preserved from examination and intru- sion the sacred remains of the greatest master of our tongue : — " ' Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here! Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones ! ' " In urging the adoption of a resolution, asking that a new system should be adopted by the management of the Society so as to enlist the co-operation of the individual members, Sumner showed his entire want of appreciation of this management of the Society. " Look at our grandiose organization," he said. 176 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER " We have a President with forty Vice-Presidents, — or borrow- ing an illustration from Turkey, ' a pacha with forty tails.' Then we have a large body of foreign correspondents, whose names we print in capitals, — ' fancy men ' as they have been called, because they are for show, I suppose, like our Vice Presidents. Then there are scores of Directors, and a Board of Managers. Now I know full well, that of these very few interest themselves so much in our Society as to attend its sessions. At the meeting last year for the choice of officers there were ten present. We ten chose the whole array of Vice-Presidents and all. And then, too, the Secretary politely furnished us printed tickets bearing their names and his own. Certainly, sir, something should be done to mend this matter. We must cease to have so many officers, or they must partici- pate actively in the duties of the Society." " Look at our annual income. Notwithstanding the special pleading of the Treasurer, I must insist that this is upwards of $3,000." "But what does it accomplish? On looking at its journal for the last three years, it appears that the chief business of the Managers, who have met some three or four times in the year, only has been to vote a salary of seventeen hundred dollars to the Secretary, with fuel and rent for his office sometimes and also to vote a vacation for four months in the country during our pleasant summers." So the debate ran on. It was about midnight of June 23rd when it closed. Dwight was crushed ; but Eliot was as pompous as ever. The audience, more interested in witnessing the con- test than in the vote, were beginning to leave, when an unex- pected motion to lay the question on the table prevailed ; and so the whole matter went over for that year. But the society was discredited. It never held another public meeting. It con- tinued in existence for a few years longer, supported mainly by Dwight's friends, to furnish him a livelihood and when he died, it died with him. The officers recommended its dissolution for the reason that no suitable successor to Dwight could be found. Amusing as much of this controversy seems, it is important as showing the earliest development of a strong point in Sum- ner's character. For the first time, he then showed his ability to maintain himself in a sustained and heated controversy. Save his studied addresses he had been enured thus far only to books and friends, and an occasional decorous contest of the court-room. But now for the first time was seen his ability to give as well as take blows, in the free discussions of a delibera- tive body. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 177 Another good work that Sumner sought to promote about this time, more nearly allied to his efforts against slavery, was his effort to prevent colored children being longer excluded from the white schools in Boston. With Eobert Morris, a col- ored attorney, he brought suit for Sarah C. Roberts, a colored child, against the city, for damages for refusing her the privil- eges of the white schools. The contest had been going on for some years, in the School Committee, before it found its way into the courts. Attorneys had submitted opinions upon the question to the Committee, the newspapers had discussed it, but the Committee was still divided. It was urged that, as there were not so many colored as white children, to require their separation was to compel the colored to travel long distances, and often suffer other inconveniences, to reach a school. In this case a little girl only five years old, was compelled, if she attended a colored school, to travel 2,100 feet and pass on the way five white schools; while the nearest white school was only 900 feet from her door. This was a hardship that was not to be disregarded by the parents of a child, so tender in years, during the severe winters of Boston. Another instance was given of a respectable colored man of East Boston, separated from the mainland by water and having no colored schools, where he lived, who was compelled to pay the ferry tolls for his three children, a severe tax upon the small means of a poor man, and then see his children travel a long distance in all kinds of weather, likewise a severe tax upon their strength. And all this was done that children in a country where schools were free, might enjoy the privileges of an edu- cation. Besides, it was urged that the separation degraded the colored children and placed them under the ban of a caste, that was alike unjust to them and contrary to the spirit of our in- stitutions. Sumner in opening his argument, before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, said " It would be difficult to image any case appealing more strongly to the best judgment of the court, whether you regarded the parties or the subject. On the one side was the city of Boston, strong in wealth, influence, char- acter ; on the other a little child of degraded color, of humble parents and still within the period of natural infancy, but strong from her very weakness, and from the irrepressible sym- pathies of good men, which by a divine compensation come to succor the weak." This little child, he said, asked at the hands of the court her personal rights. So doing she called upon it to decide a question which concerned the personal rights of other colored children — which concerned the Constitution and 178 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER laws of the Commonwealth, which concerned the common schools of New England and likewise the Christian character of the community. Sumner then proceeded to make a careful argument in sup- port of his position. He insisted that the Declaration of Inde- pendence holding that all men are created equal was embodied in substance in the bill of rights of the constitution of Massa- chusetts. He argued that this provision, of necessity secured to all children of the State the same educational advantages, that it was a violation of the fundamental law of the State for the School Committee of Boston to fix just two primary schools in that great city, where colored children might receive instruc- tion, while the city was dotted all over with schools for the education of those of a more fortunate color. He then showed that this declaration of the Constitution Iiad been embodied in the statutes of the State and the decisions of the Courts, that within the language of all there was nowhere any room for the discrimination that was being made. He dwelt upon the evil results to follow the creation of an aristocracy by law. He made his argument more a discussion of the intrinsic merits of the question than is customary in arguments to a court, with a view to its being read by the general public. It was some time afterwards distributed as a tract in other states where an effort was being made to abolish the discrimination against colored children in the schools. In closing, he reverted to his own experience, when at the Law School in Paris, he had sat for weeks on the same benches with colored pupils listening to the lectures of I)e Gerando and Eossi and could see no feeling shown towards them except of companionship and respect. And again at the Convent of Palazzolo, on the shores of the Alban Lake in Italy, where "amidst scenes of natural beauty enhanced by historical as- sociations," he had seen a native of Abyssinia mingle familiarly with the Franciscan friars whose scholar he was. " Do I err," he asked, " in saying that the Christian spirit shines in these examples ? " But the court refused the relief sought and sustained the dis- crimination made by the School Committee. Sumner always regretted that they thus refused the opportunity of establishing a precedent upon the question of schools, as the court had al- ready done upon the subject of slavery. But five years later the Legislature of Massachusetts advanced to the position Sum- ner had taken, by enacting a law declaring that race, color or religious opinion should make no distinction in the admission of any child to the public schools of the State and making tlie LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 179 School Committee excluding a child, for such reason, from any public school, liable to him for damages. And this has ever since remained the law of Massachusetts. As in other instances Sumner was now only in advance of the public. For a member of the bar, a profession proverbially conserv- ative, he was singularly free from devotion to anything merely because it was established. But it is probable that we should now class him among reformers instead of among lawyers. Much of his time was given to the reforms he had interested himself in and he was much in the company of their advocates. The law was fast losing its charms. William Kent, Judge Story's successor in the Law School, and others of his friends, remembering how enthusiastic he had been in his legal studies and what an ornament, one, of his literary tastes, had promised to be to the profession, saw the change with regret and kindly remonstrated with him about it. But he knew better than they his reasons for it. His success in the law had not met his expectations. He did not often appear in court in the trial of cases. And his fees were not large. It is estimated that his yearly earnings, in his profession, did not exceed $1,000 to $2,000, a year, not more than sufficient for his personal expenses, tliough boarding, with- out charge at the family home. Wliat law business he did was carefully done ; but it was mostly work in his office for clients, who sought his advice or assistance in the settlement of es- tates and in making collections. These things he naturally felt were beneath the deserts of one who had spent such years in toilsome preparation as he had. It was galling to see young men, of much less desert, but of more fortunate connections, distancing him in the race for business. His experience as a Lyceum Lecturer had been an attractive one and his public addresses had been notably successful. They opened up to him new fields of pleasure and usefulness and were a new spur to his ambition. The delightful friendships, the public recognition, the consciousness of a widened influence and the hope of a larger fame, in this new field, were all unit- ing to draw him away from the law, a profession whose active practice he had to confess had never been attractive to him. At his office his friends still dropped in upon him and they rarely found him too busy to spend an hour in discussing the newest book or latest poem. He still spent his evenings at home, reading far into the night, — so late as to draw frona Horace Mann, who was solicitous for his health, the remarlf that he yielded obedience to all God's laws of morality, but thought "he was exempt from every obligation to obey his laws of physiology. CHAPTEE XVI ADMISSION OF STATE OF TEXAS — MEXICAN WAR — SUMNER's OP- POSITION TO IT — NOMINATED FOR CONGRESS — DECLINES — DELEGATE TO "WHIG CONVENTIONS — SPEECH FOR ACTION AGAINST SLAVERY WHITTIEr's POEM, " THE PINE TREE " WINTHROP RE-ELECTED CANDIDATES OF OLD PARTIES FOR PRESIDENT UNSATISFACTORY — VAN BUREN NOMINATED BY THE ANTI-SLAVERY PEOPLE — SUMNER A CAMPAIGN SPEAKER — AGAIN NOMINATED FOR CONGRESS AND AGAIN DECLINES — CHAIRMAN OF STATE COMMITTEE OF FREE SOIL PARTY On the 29th day of December, 1846, the State of Texas was admitted into the Union, with a pro-slavery constitution. This was another victory for slavery. It gave her two more votes in the Senate and six more in the House. The friends of Freedom had resisted, but in vain. Slavery was then dominant every- where. She had a submissive President and a well-trained representation in both the Senate and the House. By a skilful manipulation of the votes she could furnish, for the tariff and the internal improvements desired by the North, and the ad- vantages in training, by reason of the longer terms of service usually accorded her statesmen, she had a compact and efficient organization for the advancement of her interests. Her repre- sentatives in Washington were frequently men of large property, who had been accustomed to spend their summers on their plan- tations, with the easy life of country gentlemen and their win- ters in city homes, fond of society and pleasure, and everywhere dispensing an easy hospitality. They frequently brought their slaves to the capital and entertained handsomely and thus ruled the society of Washington. To enjoy their favor was to have social recognition in abundance, but their disfavor often made life in the capital unpleasant. So far, the South had not ex- perienced political adversity. She knew what she wanted and how to get it. The consciousness of this power naturally made Southern statesmen bolder. When they had added Texas as a new State to the Union, they were not satisfied with her boundaries as defined, by the river ISTueces, but they coveted the country be- tween that river and the Rio Grande. United States troops, 180 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 181 under General Taylor, were sent to occupy it. Mexico resisted this encroachment upon her territory and the Mexican War fol- lowed. Congress was asked to vote the necessary supplies and a bill was promptly introduced which declared : " Whereas, by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between that Government and the United States, — " Be it enacted, etc.. That for the purpose of enabling the Government of the United States to prosecute said war to a speedy and successful termination, the President be, and he is hereby authorized to employ the militia, naval and military forces of the United States, and to call for and accept the ser- vices of any number of volunteers, not exceeding fifty thousand, and that the sum of ten millions of dollars be and the same is hereby appropriated for the purpose." This bill was passed by overwhelming majorities in both Houses of Congress and was promptly approved by the Pres- ident. The administration was in favor of this defensive war. But of the Massachusetts delegation in the House only two voted for it, one of these was Eobert C. Winthrop, who repre- sented Sumner's own district. He was a personal friend of Sumner, about his own age, and they had known each other from childhood. They had been at the Boston Latin School together and together again at Harvard. After leaving Harvard, their paths had diverged. Winthrop had been elected to the State Legislature and later became Speaker. Later still, he was sent to Congress and now he was a prospec- tive candidate for Speaker of the House ; coming thus early and continuously to public life, with good ability and a fine pres- ence, he had developed into an able and graceful speaker. He was descended from one of the Puritan Governors of the Colony and living in a city where ancestry always counted for much, he numbered among his friends and relatives many of the best people of his district. As would be expected from these sur- roundings, Winthrop was an agreeable, companionable gentle- man. He was always careful to observe the amenities of life and Sumner himself was indebted to him for many courtesies, often met him in society, had dined with him in Washington and was familiar in his home in Boston. With his strong anti-slavery convictions, Sumner, however, was chagrined at Winthrop's vote, on the Mexican War Bill. He had publicly denounced the annexation of Texas as an un- just aggression of slavery. And now that we should be plunged into a war, for the acquisition of the territory of a neighboring friendly nation, and an offensive war too, which Sumuer be- lieved to be wrong, was, as he felt, the perpetration of a national 182 I^I^E OF CHARLES SUMNER crime. There was a considerable party of people in Boston who felt as he did. Boston was the home of William Lloyd Garrison, the leader of the anti-slavery men of the country ; and there he published his paper, The Liberator, which advocated the aboli- tion of slavery, even at the sacrifice of the Union. Quincy, a suburb of Boston, was the home of John Quincy Adams, who had been sustained for years as the member for that district in the House of Representatives, where almost alone he had defied the slave-power and was now the recognized champion of Free- dom upon the floor. So that the anti-slavery movement in Boston at that time had some strength and some ability to make itself felt. But still it must be admitted there was a decided majority of the voters of Boston against it. Her seamen had a considerable carrying trade with the South and her merchants had many customers there. They felt that the interest of this trade and the tariff which was to be regarded as an off-set in the ITorth to slavery in the South, both of which appealed to their pockets, were to be placed above this merely moral issue. Daniel Web- ster was the ruling spirit and he, with such men as Nathan Appleton and George Ticknor, intensely conservative, satisfied with the present order of things, which guaranteed their su- premacy and opposed to any change, which might result in bringing new men to the front, were still easily able to control Boston. And so it was to continue yet awhile. But influences were at work which were soon to bring about a revolution in sentiment. The excitement following the declaration of war, caused Win- throp's vote to be overlooked, for two months after it was cast. Charles Francis Adams, in the Whig, was the first to call atten- tion to it. It was then taken up by other papers and an ex- tended and somewhat acrimonious discussion followed, some justifying it, and others condemning it. Sumner did not at first enter into the discussion, but being pressed by his friends, Adams and Howe, who knew from conversation, how he re- garded the vote, he took up the discussion and wrote three articles, which were published anonymously, but whose author- ship he did not attempt to conceal from Winthrop. On the 25th of October, 1846, Sumner addressed Winthrop an open letter. He carefully disclaimed any feeling, other than that of good will, mingled with recollections of pleasant social intercourse with him and insisted upon discussing his vote merely as an official act for which he was responsible to the people who had elected him and whose Representative he was. He also declined to discuss it, according to any scale of party LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 183 expediency, but only asked whether it was Eight or Wrong. He argued that Congress alone had power to declare war and that without the passage of this act, which his vote sanctioned, the war could have no legal existence, that it was thus created and legalized and the means were thus furnished to continue an un- just and cowardly attack by a strong nation upon a weak one, merely with intent to rob it of its territory. He insisted that the preamble of the law, reciting that "by the act of the Eepublic of Mexico, a state of war exists," was a " brazen false- hood, and that, through him, his constituents were made to declare unjust and cowardly war, with superadded falsehood, in the cause of slavery/' To Winthrop's apology that he simply voted with the majority of the Whigs, Sumner answered " These majorities cannot make us hesitate to condemn such acts and their authors. Aloft on the throne of God, and not below in the footprints of a trampling multitude, are sacred rules of Right, which no majorities can displace or overturn." He insisted that the rules of right and wrong are the same for nations as for individuals and that as Winthrop would not lie, in his private life, so he ought not by his official vote to involve his constituents and his country in falsehood. He appealed to him to remember that he represented the conscience of Boston and the churches of the Pilgrims and urged him upon his return to Congress to lose no time in righting the wrong he had com- mitted. " It were idle to suppose," Sumner wrote, " that the soldier or officer only is stained by this guilt. It reaches far back and incarnadines" the Halls of Congress ; nay, more, through you, it reddens the hands of your constituents in Boston." Again: " Blood ! Blood ! is on the hands of the Representative from Boston. Not all great Neptune's ocean can wash them clean." These expressions were especially offensive to Winthrop. He insisted that his vote had been conscientiously given and that it was unfair to employ such language towards him. He declined any further communications with Sumner and refused his hand, saying: "his hand was not at the service of any one who had denounced it with such ferocity, as being stained with blood." Coming, as all this did, on the eve of Winthrop's re-election, it was freely discussed as one of the issues in the campaign. The canvass of his votes and speeches in Congress, where they touched upon the slavery question, gave him a disagreeable prominence. Winthrop was a sensitive man and in his speeches in the campaign resented Sumner's action and referred to his strictures in no complimentary terms. The affair caused a com- plete rupture of their friendly relations and for fifteen years 184 ^^FE OF CHARLES SUMNER they did not speak or even recognize one another when they met. Each pursued his own way upon the question of slavery and it is curious to note with what results. During his absence upon a lecturing tour in Maine, Sumner was nominated for Congress. The feeling against Winthrop among anti-slavery men had become so strong, that they would not vote for him. It could do no good and would show no more consistency to vote for either of the other candidates, the Democrat or the Independent. Besides anti-slavery men felt that the time had come for them to act independently of the old parties and unite, as a separate organization, upon the one issue of slavery. A meeting was held in Tremont Temple on the evening of October 29, 1846. It was called to order by Dr. Howe. Charles Francis Adams was elected President and John A. Andrew, afterwards the War Governor of Massachusetts was chairman of the committee to propose a candidate and draft resolutions. Sumner when privately approached had repeatedly refused to allow the use of his name as a candidate. Besides his un- willingness to enter public life he did not desire his criticism of Winthrop to be weakened, by the imputation that it was inspired by an unworthy ambition for his place. Mr. Andrews made a speech before the meeting, in support of the nomination, in which he said : " this nomination has been made upon the entire responsibility and sense of duty of this committee, — not only without the knowledge, approbation, or consent of Mr. Sumner, but in the face of his constant, repeated and determined refusal, at all times, to allow his name even for a moment, to be held at the disposal of friends for such a purpose." They felt, how- ever, that Sumner was the logical candidate and they hoped to overcome his scruples against standing for the place. But Sumner was determined ; and upon his return from Bangor, two days later, by an open letter, he declined to allow the use of his name ; and that of Dr. Howe was substituted. At the Whig primary in 1846, Sumner was chosen one of the delegates from Boston to the State Convention. The Conven- tion was held in Boston. A caucus of the Boston delegation was held at the United States Hotel, the evening preceding the Con- vention, at which the differences between the older and younger Whigs became apparent. The older leaders desired that there should be no split in the party and urged that the delegation should stand together, in the convention, for a platform which would put forward the old issues of the tariff and internal im- provements and keep back those of slavery and State rights, — a platform which would be broad enough to unite both wings of LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER J85 the party, North and South. The younger Whigs believed that the moral issues were of paramount importance and should be put forward. The same difference appeared in the Convention, the next day. It had been arranged that after the business of the Con- vention had been transacted about which there was little con- troversy, the selection of othcers and candidates, that Robert C. Winthrop should introduce the other business, that of drafting the platform, in a carefully prepared speech, counselling mod- eration and an adherence to the landmarks of the party. But the younger Whigs, advised in advance of this programme, be- fore Winthrop could be brought forward, called loudly from different parts of the hall for Sumner. He responded to the call and advanced to the platform and spoke earnestly upon the anti-slavery duties of the Whig party, urging the Convention not to lose sight of the great responsibilities of the hour, but to act firmly and take high ground upon the question of slavery. When Sumner stopped, Winthrop followed him, with his speech as previously arranged and showed some feeling in his manner, towards Sumner. By this time the committee on resolutions, which had retired before the call was made for Sumner, was ready to report. Its report was not satisfactory to the anti-slavery Whigs and an amendment was offered by Stephen C. Phillips, embodying their views. In offering his amendment he supported it by a brief speech, which was answered by Linus Child, and he was in turn replied to by Charles Francis Adams, all showing some feeling. Each of the speeches was loudly applauded by their respective supporters. By this time the convention was in an uproar and bid fair to disband in confusion. Lawrence, Win- throp and Child were seen in anxious consultation, and imme- diately Fletcher Webster left the hall. He soon returned and after a whispered conversation, Lawrence went out. In a few minutes Lawrence was seen, returning with Daniel Webster on his arm. The sight of the aged statesman with his marvelous presence and manner, such as perhaps no other man ever had, around which was now gathered the halo of his great name, was enough to set a Whig convention in Boston wild with enthusiasm. On the arm of Lawrence, Webster walked slowly |Up the aisle the whole length of the hall, to the platform. The ■delegates mounted upon their seats, waving their hats and handkerchiefs and shouted themselves hoarse. It was a scene ,long to be remembered. \ The debate upon the amendment to the platform ceased upon the appearance of Mr. Webster. When he reached the stage 186 J-IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER and took his seat, after order was restored, the debate was resumed. But the fate of the amendment was already sealed. His appearance at the decisive moment, with Mr. Lawrence, whose opposition was already known, Mr. Webster's own views upon the necessity of a union of all the Whigs, so often ex- pressed and emphasized, something in his manner now, which told where he stood, the encouragement it gave the opposition and the embarrassment it caused the supporters of the amend- ment, were too much. Besides, the country delegates were compelled to leave, to catch the trains for their homes. This operated against the anti-slavery men, for they were generally in favor of the amendment, while the Boston delegates, a large proportion of the Convention, were generally opposed to it. And the amendment was lost. Mr. Webster, thus far, had not spoken a word. But after the vote was taken, he made a short speech to the Convention and again aroused it to the highest enthusiasm. He urged the im- portance of a union of all the Whigs, saying: " Others rely on other foundations and other hopes for the welfare of the country ; but for my part, in the dark and troubled night that is upon us, I see no star above the horizon promising light to guide us, but the intelligent, patriotic, united Whig party of the United States." Sumner had referred to Webster in addressing the Conven- tion and had urged him to espouse the cause of Freedom, and add the title of Defender of Humanity to the other titles he had already earned — Defender of the Constitution and De- fender of Peace, — assuring him that he would thereby add to the fame that was already his. Two days later he addressed Mr. Webster a letter in which, after expressing his high regard for him, he again pressed him to declare himself against the ag- gressions of the slave power. To this letter, ten days later, Mr. Webster replied that he had ever cherished a high respect for Sumner's character and talents and had seen with pleasure the promise of his future eminence, but confessed that in politi- cal affairs they entertained a difference of opinion and took a different view of the line of duty most fit to be pursued. John G. Whittier, on the other hand, after reading the report of Sumner's speech and the other proceedings of the Conven- tion, sent him his poem, " The Pine Tree," in autograph. " Lift again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted shield, Give to Northern winds the Pine Tree on our banner's tattered fields; Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board, Answering England's royal missive with a firm " Thus saith the Lord " Rise again for home and freedom ! — set the battle in array ! — What the fathers did of old times we their sons must do to-day." LIFE OF CHARLES SVMNER 187 "Tell us not of banks and tariffs — cease your paltry, pedler cries, — Shall the good State sink her honor that your gambling stocks may rise? Would you barter man for ccjtton ? That your gains may sum up higher, Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our children through the fire? Is the dollar only real? — God and Truth and Right a dream? Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood kick the beam? * * * Where's the man for Massachusetts? Where's the voice to speak her free? Where's the hand to light up bonfires from her mountains to the sea? Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? Sits she dumb in her despair? — Has she none to break the silence ? Has she none to do and dare ? O 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 ? " Little did Whittier then see the future of the young man he addressed and how fully he was to realize, in him, the wish of that hour ! But it was too early then for any one to see far into the future upon tlie question of slavery. The election came. Winthrop had 5,980 votes; Howe only 1,334; Homer (Democrat), 1,688; Whiton (Independent), 331. The issue which Winthrop repre- sented and the fight made against him by the anti-slavery men, attracted to him a good many votes from the Democrats, who had no chance of electing their candidate, and he was trium- phantly elected. The large vote he received was an apparent vindication of his vote on the Mexican War bill as well as his record upon the slavery question. Sumner's efforts to the con- trary seemed futile. But the end was not yet ; and the subsequent careers of Win- throp and Sumner present a curious contrast in the anti- slavery contest. Winthrop, in 1847, was a candidate for Speaker of the House and his course in Congress and in the last campaign having satisfied the Southern wing of his party he was elected, though the anti-slavery Whigs, Giddings, Pal- frey and Tuck voted against him. Two years later he was again returned to Congress and was again a candidate for Speaker and was again opposed by the anti-slavery Whigs, now increased in number to nine; but this time he was defeated by Howell Cobb of Georgia, the candidate of the extreme pro-slavery men. In July, 1850, Winthrop was appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts to fill the vacancy in the Senate caused by the resignation of Daniel Webster; and he was a candidate for the full term succeeding, but was defeated. In 1851, he was a candidate for Governor and was again defeated. There his political career ended. He had favored the annexation of Texas, with a pro-slavery constitution, had voted for the Mexican war and had supported 188 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER it, he had refused to assist in excluding slavery from the Ter- ritories and favored President Taylor's policy of non-interven- tion, he had approved the course of Webster in his seventh of March speech and had fought the efforts of the anti-slavery men of Massachusetts to check the encroachments of the slave power. They had come to regard him as the leader of the pro- slavery influence of the State and they therefore marked him for defeat. They triumphed in the election of Sumner to the Senate and Winthrop's official career ended where Sumner's began. Sumner's ended with his death. Winthrop lived till 1894 and maintained his reputation to the end as a refined and scholarly gentleman. Being an accom- plished speaker, he was frequently called upon to deliver ad- dresses upon commemorative occasions. As a lecturer, he also gained a wide reputation and in Boston was ranked second only to Wendell Phillips. But he was not, after 1851, known as a factor in politics. He spent the balance of his life devoted to literature and scholarly pursuits. In January, 1847, Sumner argued before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, an application for a discharge, made by some volunteers, in a regiment enlisted for the Mexican war. The regiment was organized, upon the proclamation of tlie Governor of Massachusetts, under the act of Congress authorizing the President to call for 50,000 volunteers. The application for discharge was made on behalf of some minors, who repented their too hasty enlistment. It was based upon the unconstitu- tionality of the Act of Congress, and the question whether a minor is bound by a contract of enlistment. Sumner argued earnestly, and especially desired the court to hold, tliat the act was unconstitutional, but the court, while deciding the case in favor of his clients, placed its decision upon the ground of the minority of the applicants. To give expression to their feeling and, if possible, to enlist public sentiment with them, the opposition in Boston to the war, called a mass meeting, to be held in Faneuil Hall, on February 4, 1847. They urged the withdrawal of the United States troops from Mexico. The speakers were Sumner, James Freeman Clarke, John M. Williams, Theodore Parker, Elizur Wright and Walter Channing. They were young men and some of them afterwards became famous. But the men who were older and were recognized as leaders in Boston were not there. Some of them were pro-slavery in their sympathies and favored the war; others while questioning the justice of it, did not care to antagonize the popular enthusiasm which our victorious army had aroused. The meeting did not prove a very enthusiastic ° 1 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER jgg one. The speakers were repeatedly interrupted by persons in the audience, some recognized as volunteer soldiers, who tried to drown their voices. Sumner's speech was mainly a parallel between the condition of our people in the war for independ- ence and that of the Mexicans in the present war, — a train of thought which he afterwards enlarged upon in some other addresses. However dark the prospect had so far seemed to the friends of freedom in Boston, they were not disposed to be discouraged. They had at least the consciousness of a good cause. Their in- terest in politics was not prompted by a desire for office, but by an abiding conviction that slavery was wrong and a blot upon the fame of their country that should be removed. They there- fore persevered. On the 5th of September, 1847, Sumner attended the primary of the Whigs in Washingtonian Hall, Boston, for the choice of delegates to the State Convention. He introduced a series of resolutions declaring the Mexican war one of aggression and conquest and therefore a national crime and rendered more hateful, as seeking to extend and strengthen the slave power; and that for the sake of the constitution which it violated and the treasure which it wasted and the innocent lives which it cost, our troops should be at once recalled. They declared against the acquisition of any more territory and insisted that if any more was acquired, slavery should be forbidden in it. Sumner, Charles Francis Adams and J. S. Eldredge spoke in favor of them ; James T. Austin and William Hayden against them. A motion to lay them on the table finally prevailed. It was too soon for the Whigs of Boston to be thus frank upon the question of slavery. But the name of Sumner was placed at the head of the list of delegates to the State Convention chosen at the primary. The Whig Convention was held at Springfield on September 29. Daniel Webster was present and addressed the convention and a resolution was adopted indorsing and recommending him to the National Convention as a candidate for President. While this resolution was pending, John G. Palfrey moved an am.endment to it, that the Whigs of Massachusetts would sup- port no man for President or Vice-President, who was not known by his acts and declared opinions to be opposed to the extension of slavery. Webster, as was already well known, was hedging upon this question and seeking for the vote of both wings of the party. But this amendment was not aimed alto- gether at him. It was the outcome of a conference among the anti-slavery Whigs, who felt aggrieved at the Southern mem- ;^90 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER bers of the party, who would not support any one for office who was not known to be favorable to slavery. The anti-slavery men hoped by pursuing the same course to secure concessions to themselves or at least to show the futility of undertaking to longer unite two such discordant elements. Palfrey, Sumner, Charles Francis Adams, William Dwight and Charles Allen spoke in favor of the amendment and Winthrop and John C. Grey against it. The amendment was lost. Sumner closed his speech to the convention, full of earnest- ness, with these words : " Be assured, sir, whatever the final de- termination of this convention, there are many here to-day who will never yield support to any candidate for the Presidency or Vice-Presidency, who is not known to be against the extension of slavery, even though he have freshly received the sacramental unction of a * regular nomination.' We cannot say with delect- able morality, ' our party right or wrong \ The time has gone by when gentlemen can expect to introduce among us the disci- pline of the camp. Loyalty to principle is higher than loyalty to party. The first is a heavenly sentiment, from God ; the other is a device of this world. Far above any flickering light or battle lantern of party is the everlasting sun of Truth, in whose beams are the duties of men.'* Sumner was disappointed at the vote of the convention. It was taken late in the evening, when the light in the hall was not good; and though the amendment was declared lost, there were some who questioned the correctness of the count. The " Con- science Whigs," as the anti-slavery members of the party were now called, left the convention dissatisfied and debating what course to pursue, some were for submitting, others for bolting. Sumner was for some months in correspondence with Thomas Corwin of Ohio, whose vigorous speech in the United States Senate, in opposition to the Mexican war, met his hearty ap- proval. He desired an organized, independent movement of anti-slavery men of all parties and favored the nomination of Corwin for President. Corwin himself at first favored independent action. But by October, 184:7, he had changed his mind and was back in the ranks of the Whig party to stay and to uphold its waning for- tunes to the end. He was growing old and had been an orator of rare power and dramatic talent. His efforts in Congress and on the stump had gathered around him multitudes of admirers in the party. They had honored him with a seat in Congress, the Governorship of Ohio and the seat in the Senate he now occupied. These were high places ; and he could not find it in his heart to break these associations of a lifetime. Who LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 191 would now blame him for it! He was afterwards Secretary of the Treasury, a member of Congress and Minister to Mexico. It was left to younger men, of fewer political attach- ments and perhaps of sterner mould, to bear the brunt of the fight that was now opening. Sumner regretted the defection of Corwin from them, as well as the failure to establish an anti- slavery test for office in the Whig convention. It was left to the great parties to compel, by their action, a break with the anti-slavery forces. The Democrats in Balti- more, in May, 1848, nominated Lewis Cass for President, who had lately by his vote against the Wilmot Proviso given satis- factory evidence to pro-slavery men of his loyalty to them. The Whig convention met in Philadelphia, in June, and nominated Zachariah Taylor, himself a slaveholder and the successful general of the Mexican war. How could anti-slavery men con- scientiously vote for either? Webster had few votes and no chance of the nomination at Philadelphia. The nomination of Taylor was a foregone conclusion, but when it came it caused a scene in the convention. Charles Allen and Henry Wilson of Boston, both delegates, as soon as the result was announced, arose in the convention and, amid great confusion, declared they would not support the candidate. Wilson insisted that Taylor did not represent the sentiment of the party and that he would do all he could to defeat the ticket. The declaration was met by a storm of hisses, but it found some approving spirits, in the convention as well as out of it. That day's work gave birth to the party that destroyed slavery. The new movement was at first known as the Free Soil, and afterwards as the Eepublican, Party. The dissatisfied Whigs, anticipating what was likely to, and really did happen, in the nomination of Taylor had prepared in advance a call for a mass convention of persons of all parties who were dis- satisfied with the nomination of Cass and Taylor to meet at Worcester, on June 28, and take such action as the occasion demanded and to co-operate with the other Free States in a convention for the same purpose. Charles Francis Adams' name stood first of those who signed this call and Sumner's next. Sumner was active in procuring speakers and making preparations for the convention. As many as five thousand per- sons assembled at Worcester in answer to the call and the City Hall, where they had arranged to meet, being too small to ac- commodate them, they adjourned to the Commons. Samuel Hoar of Concord was made chairman and Dr. Howe one of the vice-presidents, and Allen, Wilson, Joshua R. Giddings, Chas. F. Adams, Sumner and E. Kockwood Hoar, were among the 193 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER speakers. The speakers were all deeply in earnest and united firmly in renouncing former party ties and in favoring the nomination of candidates for President and Vice-President, to represent those who were opposed to the extension of slavery. Sumner's speech was short. He dwelt upon the power that the advocates of slavery had acquired in our politics. He re- minded them that the great men of our Revolution had all deplored the evils of slavery and that the Constitution had placed it where it was believed to be in the course of ultimate extinction. But it had not been extinguished. It was reaching out for more territory out of which to make more slave States. It was insisting that it should be legalized in places where it was supposed to have been forever excluded. It had proposed a new test for office, that would have excluded Washington, Jefferson and Franklin from the public service, placing its ban on every one, who dared to pronounce it wrong. It had lately, he re- minded them, dictated to both parties their nominees for Pres- ident. Sumner especially deplored the combination which had accomplished the nomination of Taylor, " an unhallowed union — conspiracy, let it be called — between two remote sec- tions : between the politicians of the Southwest and the politi- cians of the Northeast — between the cotton planters and flesh- mongers of Louisiana and Mississippi and the cotton-spinners and traffickers of New England, — between the lords of the lash and the lords of the loom." He argued that the triumph of either party would be a victory for slavery and insisted that the only course left for anti-slavery men was to nominate a ticket of their own and thus the slave power would be confronted with the power of freedom. '^ But it is said," he exclaimed, rising to his full height, " that we shall throw away our votes and that our opposition will fail. Fail, sir ! No honest, earnest effort in a good cause can fail. It may not be crowned with the applause of men; it may not seem to touch the goal of immediate worldly success, which is the end and aim of so much in life. But it is not lost. It helps to strengthen the weak, — 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 precious blood they sowed the seed of the church ? Did the discomfited champions of Freedom fail, who have left those names in his- tory that can never die ? Did the three hundred Spartans fail, when in the narrow pass, they did not fear to brave the innu- merable Persian hosts, whose very arrows darkened the sun ? Overborne with numbers, crushed to earth, they left an ex- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 193 ample greater far than any victory. And this is the least we can do. Our example will be the mainspring of triumph hereafter. It will not be the first time in history that the hosts of Slavery have outnumbered the champions of Freedom. But where is it written that Slavery finally prevailed ? " The convention adopted resolutions and an address to the people, and chose six delegates at large to the National Conven- tion, called to meet at Buffalo on August ninth. Charles Francis Adams headed the list of these delegates. Delegates were afterwards chosen to represent each congressional district. E. H. Dana was chosen in Sumner's district, Sumner was not a delegate but concurred, in the choice of Dana to represent his district and of Adams as their State representative. He was a cordial and enthusiastic worker in the cause, unselfish in his devotion to it and loyal in the support of his friends. He, how- ever, attended the convention at Buffalo and was pressed to speak but declined. Salmon P. Chase was the chairman of this convention and Joshua R. Giddings, David Dudley Field, Preston King and Samuel J. Tilden were among the delegates. It was an un- usual gathering. It lacked in large measure, the place-seekers and the customary scrambling for office, while an unaccustomed religious air pervaded many of its meetings, showing that more than usual, the people of principle and men who would repre- sent principle were there. Martin Van Buren was nominated for President and Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. No question could be made of the sincerity of Adams. But there was some doubt of the real purpose of Van Buren in joining the movement and accepting the nomination. He had already filled the office of President and had well earned the distinction of being one of the shrewdest politicians the country had produced. This new move proved again his title to this distinction. Daniel Webster appreciated the situation, when he said, a few weeks later : " If Van Buren and I were to find ourselves together under the Free-Soil flag, I am sure that with his accustomed good nature, he would laugh. . . . That the leader of the Democratic party should so suddenly have become the leader of the Free-Soil Party would be a joke to shake his sides and mine." But it was not altogether a joke with Van Buren. Cass was now the candidate of the Democratic party, — the party Van Buren had so often guided to victory. Between Van Buren and Cass there was an old grudge. Cass had allowed himself to be received upon his return from the Ministry to France in 1843, 194 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER with great popular demonstrations, as a candidate for Pres- ident ; and in the Democratic convention of 1844, had allowed himself to be voted for by the pro-slavery wing of his party, who were seeking to punish Van Buren, also a candidate, for opposing the annexation of Texas, and who did accomplish his defeat, by the nomination of Polk. Besides, the Van Buren faction of the New York Democracy had sent a contesting delegation to the Baltimore convention that nominated Cass and if admitted their votes could have defeated him. Afraid to exclude them entirely, for New York, with her large electoral vote, could decide the election, — the convention had oifered to admit both delegations, with an equal division of the vote. But the Barn-Burners, as Van Buren's wing was called, who repre- sented the New York anti-slavery Democrats, had spurned this proffered compromise and returned to their homes. The Hunker wing had remained, but afraid of the effect of their votes in the election, if it should be said that they had nom- inated Cass, they refrained from voting and his nomination was made without the participation of New York. The Van Buren wing, upon their return home, had issued a call for a State convention to be held at Utica on the 22d day of June. But before this day came, the widespread dissatis- faction, with the candidates of both parties and the call for the Buffalo convention of August ninth had absorbed the atten- tion of those who were dissatisfied and all other movements were merged in that. Sumner had preferred Corwin or Webster as the candidate and Judge McLean had been approached, but each after dallying with the movement, had drawn away from it. But Van Buren, seeing an opportunity to square some old accounts had expressed his willingness to stand. He was sup- ported by the compact organization of the New York Barn- burners and was nominated. Sumner, frank of nature him- self, was ready to take men at their word and welcome new recruits to a good cause from every side. He heartily accepted the result. On the evening of August twenty-second, he presided at a meeting in Faneuil Hall to receive the report of the delegates to the Buffalo convention and to ratify the nominations. On taking the chair he made a brief speech. He said that the meet- ing was in the interest of Freedom whose cause was in danger, that the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence were assailed and that a body of men whose principles were un- known to the framers of the Constitution, the slave power, had seized the government and now controlled both parties, that Whigs and Democrats were but rival factions of one party — the LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 195 slave party, that at Baltimore the delegations of the most im- portant State of the Union known to be in favor of the Wilmot Proviso had been refused admission to the convention, while at Philadelphia the Proviso itself was stifled amid cries of " Kick it out," that Cass was nominated at Baltimore, pledged against its whole principle, while at Philadelphia, Taylor, a slave- holder, was nominated without any platform ; but at Buffalo men of all parties united in opposition to slavery. In speaking of the candidates, he said that some like himself had once voted against Van Buren, the Democrat, and he regarded some portions of his career with anything but satisfaction, and that others of those present had doubtless voted against Adams, the Whig, but that these differences were forgotten now. " Time changes," he said, " and we change with it. He has lived to little purpose, whose mind and character continue through the lapse of years, untouched by these mutations. It is not for the Van Buren of 1838 that we are to vote, but for the Van Buren of to-day." Sumner took an active part in the campaign, speaking at the principal places in Massachusetts, beginning at Plymouth. He gave one week to Maine and, though he was invited to take part in the campaign in other States and to speak in New York, Philadelphia and Brooklyn, he declined. His speech ordinarily occupied three hours in the delivery and though it was some- times past midnight when he closed, he kept the attention of his hearers to the end. Contemporary chroniclers are uniform in their testimony of the beauty and winning power of the speech. Though his cause was not popular, in the twenty-eight places that he spoke in Massachusetts, he was never rudely in- terrupted, but once, and this was at Cambridge, the scene of so many pleasant associations of his youth, where a considerable sprinkling of students from the South and from the aristocratic and conservative families of Boston, reflected their home sen- timents. Here he was interrupted with some yells and hisses. But he met them promptly and by singling out and shaming the ringleaders, he quelled the disturbance. The sounds grated harshly on the refined and sensitive ears of Longfellow, who was present and thought he saw the loss of Sumner to the literary career he had coveted for him. Others saw it differently. To them it was the appearance of a new man, in the political arena, representing a new party. He was estimated to be the ablest speaker of his party and widened his fame as an orator. His addresses so far had been before colleges or societies for the promotion of some reform, or in lecture lyceums, where privileged classes of superior 196 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER culture had heard him. But now he came before the plain people of his State. Others, perhaps, like Charles Allen, who was elected to Congress from the Worcester district, drew larger numbers of converts to the cause. This was owing to the re- moteness of the influence of Webster and of aristocratic Boston, where party lines were more sharply drawn. And something must be granted to Sumner even in Worcester, for he spoke there in the convention and in the campaign. But by common consent he drew the most admiration and won the first place in the estimation of his party. In October Sumner was nominated for Congress in the First ]\Iassachusetts district. He was not present at the convention, but had authorized a delegate, if his name was mentioned as a candidate, to publicly announce his declination to accept any political office. Notwithstanding, he was nominated by ac- clamation and the committee in notifying him of it, urged that a political crisis had come which called upon every man to forego his personal wishes. He accepted the nomination in a letter dated October 26, 1848. Keferring to his own wish he said: " The member of the convention who spoke for me, at my special request, did not go beyond the truth. I have never held political office of any kind, nor have I ever been a candidate for any such office. It has been my desire and determination to labor in such fields of usefulness as are open to every private citizen, without the honor, emoluments or constraint of office." " You now bid me renounce the cherished idea of my life, early formed and strengthened by daily experience, especially by circumstances at the present moment. In support of this request you suggest that a political crisis has come which calls upon every man to forego his personal wishes. Upon serious deliberation, anxious to perform my duty, I feel myself unable to resist this appeal. In my view a crisis has arrived, which requires the best etforts of every citizen, nor should he hesitate with regard to his peculiar post. Happy to serve in the cause he should shrink from no labor and no exposure." The Presidential election took place on November seventh. In Massachusetts, Taylor had 61,072 votes; Van Buren 38,133 and Cass 35,284. By dividing the Democratic vote, the Free- Soil party had made Taylor's success easy. In New York where the electoral vote was much larger and the issue conse- quently much more important, the same result was brought about." Taylor had 218,603 votes; Van Buren 120,510 and Cass 114.318. The vote of New York controlled the election and Taylor won. The Whigs of that State^ both pro- and anti- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 197 slavery, mistrusted Van Buren. They had fought too many battles with him to be easily cajoled. William H. Seward, who possessed the unbounded confidence of the anti-slavery men, on the stump, seconded by Horace Greeley, in the editorial chair, with Thurlow Weed to organize the campaign, made a combination perhaps never equalled; and they fought a most earnest fight for General Taylor. But while A^an Buren, as he was shrewd enough to anticipate, could get few Whig votes, he hopelessly divided his old companions in victory, the Demo- crats, defeated Cass and squared one of his political accounts. He was then ready to return to his first love and ever after, to the day of his death, in 1862, continued a consistent Democrat. The election in Massachusetts for State officers and members of Congress took place the week after the Presidential election. Little time remained for farther work. Sumner had been made chairman of the State Committee of the Free-Soil party. Two days after the Presidential election he prepared, and the com- mittee adopted, an address to the voters of the State. After congratulating them upon the fact that almost 40,000 had de- clared their adhesion to tlieir party and that they were not now the third party, he urged them in the next election, by greater efforts, to make themselves the first. " Ours is the cause of truth, of morals, of religion, of God. Let us," he wrote, " be united in its support ! ' A stout heart, a clear conscience, and never despair.' These were the last words addressed in writing by John Quincy Adams to a person deeply interested in our movement." The address urged them to apply these words to themselves. It was signed by Sumner as chairman, and by the other members of the committee ; and it is interesting to note among the names of these members of the committee, then mere politicians for the sake of principle; J. A. Andrews, afterwards War Governor of Massachusetts; John G. AAHiittier, the poet; E. Eockwood Hoar, later a Congressman; and Amasa Wahvcr, the Political Economist. Sumner's nomination for Congress had been, as he himself expressed it, "like a forlorn hope." The party had been or- ganized only six months before the election. Until the Presi- dential election, the estimate of the vote it would poll could be little better than conjecture. The large vote it received, with the older politicians and political speakers working against it, with their compact organizations, and only the younger men in its favor, and they little kno^vn to fame or influence, showed how strong a dislike there was among the plain people to the principles and bullying attitude of the slave power. In the two great States of New York and Massachusetts, it had a larger 198 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER vote than the Democratic party. In Sumner's district, it poled at the Presidential election 1,909 votes as against 8,427 for Taylor and 2,997 for Cass. This was in conservative Boston. But in the week following, these figures were materially changed. At the Congi-essional election then held, Sumner increased the vote of his party from 1,909 to 2,336, a fact which showed something for his personal influence and popu- larity. Winthrop had 7,72G and Hallett 1,460. Winthrop was elected ; but Sumner was second. The election of 1848 had a great influence upon the political fortunes of the country. Prior to that time, there had been a great deal of discussion of the slavery question, both in Congress and before the people. Many good people had deplored the existence of slavery and by constant agitation had done what they could to arouse public sentiment against it. But till now there had been no organized political movement against it, no independent effort, when the people were squarely appealed to, by their votes to curb its power. Always before, this feeling of opposition had been hushed up with threats of disunion, or so complicated with other issues that the anti-slavery question was hardly recognizable. But now, for once. Freedom had ob- tained a hearing and the people had spoken with emphasis, and it was found how considerable a number of voters was ready to join a party under this battle-cry alone. Its success gave a bolder tone to its voice and confidence to its advocates. Hence- forward it was to be a distinct force in politics, becoming con- stantly more powerful till it finally triumphed. For Sumner the influence of the election was no less decisive. He could be fairly said to have earned the title of leader of the party in Massachusetts. True, there was Charles Francis Adams, who had been the candidate for Vice-President on the ticket with Van Buren. But he was the editor of The Daily Whig, and his duties had confined him to his paper. And there was Charles Allen, of Worcester, who had been carried into Congress on the top wave of the movement. But Sumner's fame as a speaker had outreached all the others. And his chair- manship of the committee had brought him into prominence and into intimate relations with the workers of the party. The people liked the fearlessness, the earnestness, the absence of self-seeking and the high moral tone of the man. The move- ment was partly a rebellion against the leadership of men in politics, who, in their care for themselves and the offices gave too little heed to the needs of their constituents and the rights of humanity. Sumner was more according to their ideal than the men they had been supporting for high places. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 199 He was honest. This was the tower of his strength. ITe made it the rule of his life to see where the right lay and then pursue it. And he voiced the sentiment of many good people when he wrote on July 0, 1849: "The National Government has been for a long time controlled by Slavery. It must be emancipated immediately." He hailed the promise now of a North which would spurn the " mockery of a Republic with professions of Freedom on its lips, while the chains of slavery clanked in the Capitol." As chairman of the State Committee of the Free-Soil party, Sumner called the State Convention to order in Worcester. on September 12, 1849. He had arranged for speakers to address the convention. Among them were Charles Francis Adams, Charles Allen, Anson Burlingame and Edward L. Keyes. Stephen C. Phillips, of Salem, was nominated for Governor. He was a wealthy merchant who had previously been a Whig and had been sent by his party to Congress. John Mills, for- merly a Democrat, of Springfield, was nominated for Lieuten- ant-Governor. Sumner was made chairman of a committee to report an address and resolutions, to be published to the people of the State, setting forth tlie principles and purposes of the party. The committee was composed of one member from each county of the State. John G. Whittier was the member from Essex. Sumner prepared the address and read it to the convention. It occupied more than an hour in the reading. It was an elaborate and carefully prepared vindication of the principles of the Free-Soil party. It insisted that the old political issues of the Bank, the Sub-treasury, the Public Lands and even the Tariff were all obsolete. Quoting from both Clay and Polk, the leaders of their respective parties, he showed that both Whigs and Democrats occupied the same ground upon tlie Tariff and that Webster for the Whigs, and Walker for the Democrats, were both pleading for its withdrawal from the list of issues, so that the industries of the country might not further suffer from the uncertainty caused by its discussion ; that the great issue now was. Are you for Freedom or are you for Slavery? He regretted that we had drifted away from the sentiment of the great men who had achieved our independence and organized our government, and that from being anti- slavery we had now become a pro-slavery nation. The address then enumerated the usurpations of the slave power : The Slave States were far inferior to the Free States, in population, wealth, education, libraries and resources of all kinds, and yet they had taken to themselves the lion's share of 200 I^I^E OF CHARLES 8UMNER honor and profit under the Constitution. They had held the Presidency for fifty-seven years, while the Free States had held it for twelve only. Early in the century, when the District of Columbia was occupied as a National Capital, the slave power succeeded in defiance of the spirit of the Constitution and even of the express words of one of its amendments, in securing for slavery, within the district the countenance of the government. Until then slavery existed nowhere on land within the exclusive jurisdic- tion of the nation. It secured for slavery another recognition in the Territory of Louisiana, purchased from France. It placed slavery under the sanction of the government in the Territory of Florida, purchased from Spain. It was able, after a severe struggle, to compel the government to receive Missouri into the Union with a pro-slavery con- stitution. It instigated and carried on a war in Florida, mainly to recover fugitive slaves. It wrested Texas from Mexico to extend slavery and finally secured its admission as a State with a constitution making slavery perpetual. It next plunged the country into a war with Mexico to gain new lands for slavery. It compelled the government to refuse to acknowledge the republic of Hayti, where slaves had become freemen and had established an independent nation. It compelled the government to stoop before the British queen to secure compensation for slaves who had asserted and achieved their freedom on the Atlantic Ocean and afterwards sought shelter in Bermuda. It compelled the government to seek the negotiation of treaties for the surrender of fugitive slaves. It joined in declaring the foreign slave trade piracy, but in- sisted upon legalizing the coast-wise slave trade. It had rejected for years petitions to Congress against slavery, thus denying the right to petition. It had imprisoned and sold into slavery colored citizens of Massachusetts. It had insulted and exiled, from Charleston and New Or- leans, the representatives of Massachusetts, who were sent to those places as commissioners of the State to protect her colored citizens. In the formal dispatches of John C. Calhoun, as Secretary LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 201 of state, it had made the Republic appear as the vindicator of slavery. It iiad put forth the doctrine that slavery could go to all newly acquired territories and have the protection of the flag. In defiance of the declared desire of the Fathers to gradually extinguish slavery, it had successively introduced into the Union, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and Texas as slaveholding States to fortify its political power and make the government lend it new sanction. By such steps, he argued, the national government had been perverted from its original purposes, its character changed and its power subjected to slavery. This should not have been per- mitted to befall a government nursed by Freedom into strength and quickened by her into those activities which are the highest glory of a nation. The Address then asked the question, Shall slavery be ex- tended into the territories of California and New Mexico and they be admitted as slave States? It insisted that a direct pro- hibition by law was necessary to prevent this. It defined the position of the Free-Soil party towards these accumulated and threatened aggressions — that it was pledged to the prohibition of slavery in the Territories and wherever else the national government was responsible for it, that the District of Colum- bia was national territory and must be cleared of it, that the nation must be made to stand openly, actively and perpetually on the side of freedom and that while it might have no power to abolish it in the States where it already existed it should be made to step to the very verge of its authority in this direc- tion. This, with cheap postage, the Address added, and an economical administration of the government, abolishing un- necessary officers and electing the others, as far as practicable, by the people, the improvement of our rivers and harbors and free public lands, enough for homes for actual settlers, were the principles of the Free-Soil party. The Address was violently attacked by the Daily Atlas and other Whig papers of the State. In one issue the Atlas ques- tioned a statement of the Address that Washington had de- clared his sympathy with the work of the Anti-slavery Societies and that in any movement for the abolition of slavery his vote should not be wanting. Sumner, then in New York, wrote in reply to the denial of the truthfulness of these statements, an open letter, quoting numerous writings of Washington to sus- tain his position. The attitude of the press towards the Free- Soil party and its advocates had been peculiarly personal. The 202 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER increasing circulation of the Whig, the anti-slavery organ, edited by Charles Francis Adams, which Sumner had assisted in establishing and to whose columns he was a frequent con- tributor, was disturbing the older papers, as the large vote of the Free-Soil party was disturbing the Whig politicians. They referred to Sumner, Adams and Palfrey as " The Mutual Admiration Society," " Charles Sumner & Co." Sumner they called " a transcendental lawyer," Palfrey was " Judas," Adams, " a political huckster," etc. This bitterness of the Whigs naturally made political combinations between the Free- Soilers and Democrats easy. The State was Whig in politics. This party had, therefore, everything to lose by a change in party lines, as then existing. The Democrats, on the contrary, had everything to gain and hence were willing to let events take their course and even help along dissensions among the Whigs. In the election of 1849 therefore, the most important feature was the combination made between the Free-Soilers and Democrats. They elected, in this way, thirteen Senators and one hundred and thirty Representatives, in the State. The Free-Soil vote of the previ- ous year had been kept well up and the results secured were suggesting to thoughtful men that these combinations could be made useful in the future. CHAPTER XVII FRIENDS DROPPING AWAY THE CAUSE — EFFECT ON SUMNER — NATHAN APPLETON, ABBOT LAWRENCE, THE TICKNORS GONE — BUT NOT LONGFELLOW, HOWE, BANCROFT, PRES- COTT, KENT — NEW FRIENDS The years from 1845 to 1850 were eventful ones in the private life of Sumner. Judge Story was dead and with him was gone one of the strongest ties that bound Sumner to Har- vard and the quiet student life of his youth and early man- hood. Professor Greenleaf was in failing health. He resigned his professorship in 1848 and died in 1853. Their places in the Law School were filled. The old, familiar faces about the college were disappearing and new ones were taking their places. Sumner felt the distance between him and Cambridge increasing. The friends of his own age were changing also. Their paths were diverging. Most of them were not interested in slavery and were not willing to go to the lengths upon this subject that he went. They thought him extravagant and visionary, in his views. He was too much of an idealist for their practical eyes. The subject which occupied so much of his time and thoughts was distasteful to them, slavery was unpopular in the circles where they moved and they did not wish to be compromised with it. It was far away from them, out of their sight and /they knew little and cared less about it, while the good will of their own community brought bread and butter to them and their families and was much more important. Sumner's controversy with Winthrop about his vote on the Mexican war bill has already been mentioned. It alienated many of his friends. He and Winthrop, being young men, of about the same age, always living in Boston and educated together, had many mutual friends. But Winthrop had the advantage of Sumner, in this : he was the member of Congress and controlled the appointments to the Federal offices in his district. This naturally attached a wide circle to his interest. Sumner had no political prestige, except such as in a private station, his talents gave him. The controversy in the papers was long and acrimonious and was renewed in their speeches. On the part of Winthrop it became personal. Sumner was care- 203 304 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER ful not to allow it to be so on his part. He wrote his brother George, still in Europe, that if he met Winthrop, who was ex- pected in Paris, he should not allow it to make any difference in his treatment of him, that he had no feeling towards Winthrop personally, but of kindness, and would not if it were otherwise, wish his relatives to take up liis controversy. John Quincy Adams died in Washington during the progress of the controversy. When the aged statesman was stricken with paralysis in his seat in the House, Winthrop being Speaker, had him carried to the Speaker's room, where he lay till he died, two days later. With his abounding courtesy, Winthrop was unremitting in his care of him and offered many civilities during the progress of the funeral to the friends. Charles Francis Adams, the son, could not forget this. He had till then been the editor of The \Y\ng; and had written some caustic criticisms of Winthrop's vote, but touched with this kindness and occupied with the settlement of his father's affairs, he felt he could no longer take part in the controversy and soon gave up the management of the paper. During the interval between his father's death and his retirement from The Whig, some two months, Sumner edited the paper. He was urged to become the permanent editor, but declined. Palfrey and Howe, who had taken some part in the criticism of Winthrop, had long before disappeared from the controversy, and on the retirement of Adams, Sumner was left alone to end it and to inherit the accumulated ill-will reserved for the last champion of the fight. Having entered it reluctantly and only after it had been commenced by others, and upon their solicita- tion, he had received more than his share of the ill-feeling it engendered. When later he went into the movement to organize the Free- Soil party and appeared upon the stump, championing its cause with all the earnestness he did, he touched Boston society at another tender point. He was striking at the success of the Whig party and around it gathered much in which Boston took a just pride. The massive eloquence of Daniel Webster and liis great career as a statesman ; the more ornate, if less power- ful oratory of Choate and Winthrop and Everett ; the charming society of George Ticknor and his accomplished wife (he had been Minister to Spain) ; the accumulated capital of the Boston merchants and manufacturers in their commerce with the cot- ton planters of the South ; the youth and beauty, the best eociety and the pleasantest homes, for a quarter of a century, had gathered about the Whig party. It had given offices and honors to her citizens. There is no surer way to cause a separa- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 305 tion of pleasant lifetime acquaintances than to join and persis- tently advocate a new political party, hostile to one that has long held sway in a community. Sumner had dared to do this and he encountered the customary storm. He did it fully realizing the consequence to himself. " I do not say that I can," he wrote his brother George, "but I do strive in what I do, to think as little as possible of what others may think of it and of its influence on my personal affairs. In such a mood, criticism unfavorable and hostile, neglect and disfavor, lose something of their sting. What is it to an earnest laborer, whether one or ten societies recognize him by their parchment fraternization, or whether reviews frown or smile? And yet it cannot be disguised that praise from the worthy is most pleasant and that all tokens of kindly recognition are valu- able. But it is not for these that we live and labor." And a little later, just after the election of 1848, he wrote George again: " You will see that the Free-Soil party comes out second best; it is no longer the third party. I have spoken a great deal, usually to large audiences and with a certain effect. As a necessary consequence I have been a mark for abuse. I have been attacked bitterly; but I have consoled myself with what John Quincy Adams said to me during the last year of his life : ' No man is abused whose influence is not felt.' " But strive against it as he would, Sumner realized his isola- tion. He had no wife and no children to occupy his thoughts or afford him relaxation. His home was with his mother, who was growing old and lived very quietly. It was not convenient for him to entertain his friends there. In the years following his return from Europe, he had been a general favorite and was much sought for in society, and with his social disposition he had become accustomed to pleasure and relaxation. He was fitted to be a good fellow, was not ascetic in his tastes, enjoyed good fare and was not averse to a glass of wine. He was a good talker and having travelled much and read more could sustain his part in company. To feel that he was cut off from many of the homes where he had been so welcome before, bore heavily upon his sensitive nature. Riding one day in a car- riage with Richard H. Dana, Jr., down Beacon Street, one of the centres of Boston's best social life, he said sadly: "The time was when there was hardly a home within two miles of this place, at which I was not a welcome guest. Now hardly one is open to me." Dana, too, had felt the burden of social ostracism, but being surrounded by an interesting family, it bore less heavily upon him. The " Five of Clubs " was now little more than a memory. 206 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER Cleveland having died in 1843, Howe had taken his place, but its members, save Sumner, were all married and had families. They had no regular meetings. Each was absorbed with his own work; Howe with the Asylum for the Blind, Felton and Longfellow with their professorships. Hillard and Sumner oc- cupied offices together at Number Four, Court Street; but there was a want of the old cordiality between them. Hillard had come under the influence of the Ticknors. But there had been no break. When he went to Europe, in 1847, he left his will with Sumner and wrote him an affectionate farewell, in which he referred to their happy relations of other years and admitting they had not been so cordial of late and had differed in politics, he begged Sumner not to remember it unkindly, that he had been subjected to other influences and, at most, it was only an honest difference of opinions, to which each was en- titled. " I have never loved you the less," he added, and * * * " I write these words for you to think upon in case we should never meet again." But upon his return Hillard took other offices. Sumner and Felton differed radically. Felton did not undertake to conceal his disapproval of Sumner's course in politics; and they parted. One of the houses where Sumner had long been intimate was that of Nathan Appleton, a distant connection by mar- riage. He was a wealthy merchant, the father-in-law of Longfellow, had repeatedly represented Boston in Congress and was a man of considerable influence. But he was an uncompromising Whig and ready to follow where his party led. He had been a loyal friend of Sumner till his controversy with Winthrop, but took offense at that and again at tlie statement in Sumner's speech at the organization of the Free-Soil party in Worcester in 1848, that Taylor's nomination had been the result of a conspiracy between the lords of the lash of Louisiana and the lords of the loom of New England. Seeing the drift of Sum- ner's course in the controversy with Winthrop and before, ho had at first sought to win him back. " I have regretted," he wrote, " your course the last two years but more in sorrow than in anger. I have regretted to see talents so brilliant as yours and from which I had hoped so much for our country, take a course in which I consider them worse than thrown away." But after the Worcester speech, considering the reference to the " lords of the loom " to be partly to himself, he desired a retrac- tion of it. He called upon Sumner to produce the proof to sustain such a charge ; and he did. An acrimonious letter from Mr. Appleton followed, which terminated their friendship. LIFE OF CHARLES 8UMNER 207 In defending the language of the Worcester speech, Sumner had referred to a conversation with Abbot Lawrence, at his house, before the Philadelphia convention, in which Mr. Law- rence had expressed himself to him as favorable to Taylor's nomination and had said that he did not think Webster could be nominated, or, if nominated, could be elected and had named other prominent Massachusetts Whigs, among them Nathan Appleton, who were of the same opinion; and that Mr. Law- rence had permitted and promoted the use of his name as a candidate for Vice-President on the ticket with Taylor, and all the while Webster was being held up as the candidate of the State for the nomination for President, During the campaign, Sumner had also made use in his speeches of a letter of Law- rence, who was a prominent manufacturer, another of the " lords of the loom " to prove that the tariff was not the cause of the existing depression in business. Lawrence had authorized The Atlas to say that Sumner had perverted the language of the letter and Sumner called upon him for an explanation. All this angered Lawrence and he wrote him a caustic letter, in which, without undertaking to give the explanation Sumner had asked, he proceeded to condemn Sumner's Worcester speech and his course upon the slavery question. " I could name," he wrote, " scores and scores of men whom you have honored your whole life who regret and condemn the course you have taken." And again, after the election, to an overture of Sumner for a renewal of their friendship, he wrote : " You and I can never meet on neutral ground. I can contemplate you only in the character of a defamer of those you profess to love, and an enemy to the permanency of the Union." The evidence shows that Sumner was right in believing there was an arrangement among some of the JIassachusetts Whigs to nominate Lawrence for Vice-President on a ticket with Taylor and thus ignore Webster, who was the ostensible candidate of the State. Lawrence was voted for, and it was thought would have been nominated, but for the defection of Henry Wilson and Charles Allen of the Massachusetts delega- tion, who, it will be remembered, both arose in the convention, after Taylor's nomination was announced and declared it did not represent the Whig party, and Allen added that he would do all he could to defeat the ticket. So John Tyler was nomi- nated for Vice-President and Massachusetts got nothing. But after the election Lawrence was made Minister to England. I think, however, in this sweeping charge of dislo5^alty to W^eb- ster some men, like Eufus Choate were included who were en- tirely innocent. Webster felt his defeat keenly and the guilty 208 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER as well as the innocent regretted the incident. The discussion of it, however, was calculated to produce intense feeling and do little good. Among others that it offended were the Ticknors. They were very loyal to Webster and hesitated to believe that any one in Massachusetts could be otherwise. They regretted that his last days were to be embittered by the thought that his friends were untrue to him. They were leaders in the society of Boston and exerted much influence in determining who were to be received in their set. Their loss was a severe one to Sumner. George Ticknor had been a professor in Harvard, was the author of a History of Spanish Literature, had travelled much and was wealthy. His wife was a brilliant woman. Both were fond of society and they entertained a great deal. Their home was the centre of the kind of society that Sumner enjoyed, where books and art and public men and measures were discussed and what was refined and gentle held sway. They united with others to carry politics into society. It so resulted that Sumner was almost banished from the social life of Boston for a number of years. Feeling became so great that if he went into society, he was likely to meet with persons, who by turning their backs upon him, by cold looks and slighting remarks, often purposely loud enough for him to hear them, and by such other annoyances, made it so unpleasant that he did not care to go again. The young people of Boston at that time were accustomed, if they danced, or even if they did not, but enjoyed a social gathering, to meet at some public hall for an evening's enjoyment. But the social pressure became so great that Sumner gave this up too. Even wlien his friends invited him to smaller and more select parties, to avoid the unpleasant meeting of persons who would not speak, they were obliged to choose the company he was to meet, with care. But party feeling, warm as it became, was not able to control the social life of some homes where Sumner was familiar. Notable among these was Longfellow's. Though Longfellow's wife was the daughter of Nathan Appleton, who had shown so much feeling towards him on account of his deflection from the beaten path, Sumner's habit of taking Sunday dinner at the Craigie House, their home in Cambridge, going thither after church and remaining for a social chat of two or three hours, suffered no interruption. The occupants of the Craigie House were far too high in their ideals to let a political differ- ence control their friendships. Sumner continued, as before, to take his European friends, when in Boston, there to call, LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 209 and when they had invited company that they knew he would enjoy, they did not hesitate to make liim one of the number. Through all the years their friendship continued the same, till terminated by death, and it impresses us still as one of the most beautiful friendships in history. That with the Howes continued unbroken. They were in complete sympathy with Sumner's political course. And at their apartments in the Asylum for the Blind, Julia Ward, now Mrs. Howe, presided with the same grace that had exerted so strong a charm over Sumner's earlier years. There he found pleasant society to which he was always one of the most wel- come. In her girlhood she was, it will be remembered, one of the " Three Graces ", and the sentiment of those days, when the colors of life's picture were brightest, clung around her still with softening tints as the struggle became more stern and lonely to him. She was an accomplished musician and her husband's earlier career had been full of interest. Sumner delighted to spend an evening with them and thus break the solitude of his bachelor life. The awakening of Sumner's taste for music belongs to this time of his life. He had resorted to the opera a good deal in earlier years, in company with his sister Julia. When cut off from society he found a new pleasure in it. It seemed, as he expressed it, as if he had found a new sense. He went very frequently and did not often let an opportunity go unimproved to hear a prima donna. He never became a musician himself, but lie was very fond of music. In Washington, at any unusual musical entertainment, when his Senatorial duties would per- mit, his place was seldom vacant. It became a common source of recreation to him. During the long winter evenings he plunged into his books and read late into the night. Some of his friends remonstrated that such hours, as he kept, must result in breaking down his health. But he confessed to them that he felt lonesome. They were happy in their homes with their wives and their families, while he was deprived of this source of pleasure. He admitted that he envied them the happiness they enjoyed. They rallied him about remaining single, and he enjoyed this raillery, in fact seemed rather to encourage it; but the old excuse remained, he did not think his income sufficient, his mother needed his company ; and perhaps his thoughts wandered tenderly back to ■other days when, with a kindlier fortune, a happiness such as these nearer friends enjoyed might have come to him. One of the homes he most enjoyed was that of George Ban- croft, the historian. He was a Democrat and hence did not 210 I-JFE OF CHARLES SUMNER have the feeling of his \^^iig friends, whose party was being split up with dissensions about slavery. It will be remembered that lip to this time, the anti-slavery Whigs had been making combinations in Massachusetts with the Democrats so as to help one anotlier with their elections. Bancroft and his wife were interested in the slavery discussions and were fond of Sumner. He frequently spent an evening at their house and watched the progress of the History of the United States, upon which Bancroft was engaged, reading the proofs of the volumes before their publication. He did a similar service for Long- fellow and Prescott. Mrs. Bancroft was a kind, motherly woman to whom Sunmer was much attached. But Bancroft went to Europe in 1846, as Minister to England. Sumner cor- responded with them and enjoyed their letters. They cautioned him not to be too extreme in his political views and discussed them with his European friends, who were eager for news of him. But Sumner had in turn to correct the erroneous impres- sions of some of his English friends, which they seemed to have received from the Bancrofts. Lord Morpeth wrote him not to be quixotic, even in so right- eous a cause, and Sumner in answer wrote that his position was simply that " the Federal Government should make all legal and constitutional efforts for the removal of this monster evil,'* but he was careful to add, that he was not one of those who at- tacked the Constitution and the Union and would destroy both to destroy slavery. He reminded Morpeth that he was not in good standing with tlie Abolitionists, because he fell so far short of their views, but admitted that he could not see with complacency this curse unchecked in its career in his native land. He urged Morpeth to jar Prescott a little, who seemed to be so indifferent about it. Morpeth did not enjoy letter-writing, yet he was still loyal to Sumner and seemed to take an almost brotherly interest in his success. But Sumner's correspondence with European friends was not so frequent as it had been. He had an occasional letter from Lady Montagu, who still maintained her kindly interest in him. Richard Cobden, Robert Ingham, Joseph Parkes, John Kenyon and Professor Whewell also wrote him occasion- ally from England; Professor Mittermaier and Dr. Julius •wrote from Germany; George W. Greene from Rome, others as Earl Fitzwilliam and Earl Wharncliffe, commended their friends to him by letters of introduction, when they were about to visit Boston. They all showed their continued friendly in- terest, reminding him of their pleasure in his former visit and hoped he would come to Europe again. And he took pleasure LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 211 when they or their friends were in Boston in taking them to such homes of his friends as Longfellow's and Prescott's. Prescott like Longfellow never allowed politics to interfere with his friendship for Sumner. But, unlike Longfellow's, his view differed radically from Sumner's. He belonged to the intensely conservative class then numerous in Boston and, in- deed, generally in the North, who while admitting slavery was wrong, still insisted it was none of their business, that it be- longed to the South and it was her duty to destroy it, that the North had suffered too much disturbance on account of it al- ready. Prescott and Longfellow both had summer homes, out of tiie city and Sumner was in the habit of visiting at both. He and Prescott occasionally took a trip together — to Wash- ington and to New York. Prescott being unable to write by reason of his defective sight, Sumner then acted as his sec- retary. Their relations were too pleasant to be disturbed by politics, for which Prescott confessedly cared little. And some, other than Sumner's literary friends, refused to participate in the disposition to cut him for his politics. Of these was William Kent, the son of Chancellor James Kent of New York. They appreciated him for other reasons and would not let this one flaw, as they considered it, destroy their ap- preciation of so much beside, that they saw good in him. Kent was for two years after the death of Judge Story, a lecturer in the Harvard Law School, the place Sumner had once coveted ; and while there he and Sumner had formed a lasting friend- ship. He left Cambridge in 1847, but continued to correspond with Sumner. He called him, in one of his letters, his " warm- hearted, but politically considered, most erring friend," ad- mitted the generous and noble motives in his career and tried to reclaim him to the Whigs. But Sumner was not to be re- claimed. He was too firmly convinced he was right and felt hurt that Kent should have thought so lightly of his convic- tions. Kent answered : "^ Rightly considered, what I wrote was proof of esteem, like Parson Thwackum's birching of Tom Jones. Had you been an ordinary philanthropist, a common abolition- ist, a mere ranting patriot, like some of your friends, I should never have troubled myself about you. * * * Now, my dear Charlie, believe that you have a most affectionate friend in me. I will fret and carp no more. Ride your hobbies all over the cote gauche. I will get out of the way when the fit is on you, and always be, yours truly and faitlifully." It argues something for Sumner's decision of character that he was able to see one friend after another drop away from 212 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER him, or criticise his course as wrong, and still go calmly on to the accomplishment of his great j^urpose, sinking all thoughts of himself and of his own comfort, in the attainment of what he had dedicated himself to accomplish. He loved the society of his friends and he was sensitive to the slights that were thrust at him, but he was bent on doing his duty as he saw it, and for this he was willing to put aside other considerations, waiting for a later time to bring him the plaudit that he thought would follow. "To the motto on my seal, ' Alter i saeculo ' ," John Quincy Adams had written him, " add, Delenda est servitus ". Unlike Adams, Sumner lived to see the service for another generation become the work of his own. While Sumner lost many friends, by his political course he also gained some new ones. It brought him into close relations with John Quincy Adams, whose warfare for freedom was draw- ing to a close. He had retired from the Presidency in 1829, sixty-two 3'ears of age, a time in life when most men consider their life work done and their laurels gathered. But Adams the next year accepted a seat in Congress and there for eighteen years he worked out the greatest part of his career. He had occupied the highest office in the gift of his country, his fame Avas secure, his position with his constituents in the Quincy District was also secure and so without ambition and without fear, the Scylla and Charybdis of so many political careers he was left, with great ability and with unparalleled industry to devote himself to the anti-slavery cause. It can truly be said that no slave-holder ever held the whip over him. His atten- tion was first attracted to Sumner by his oration on " The True Grandeur of iSTations ". But it was after Sumner en- listed in the anti-slavery cause that they became intimate. From that time to the close of his life, Sumner saw and con- versed with him frequently, during the vacations of Congi"ess, when at his home in Quincy. Some of this intimacy was brought about by Sumner's as- sociations with his son, Charles Francis Adams. He was four years Sumner's senior. They had known each other for a long time but their intimacy sprang from their activity in the anti-slavery campaigns. They, with others, had purchased a Boston newspaper. The Whig, that they might have a means of reaching the public. The editing of this paper brought them much together. Sumner was a frequent con- tributor and the controversy with Winthrop, on his part, was carried on through its columns. In the absence of Adams, Sumner was its editor. They were thus brought closely to- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 213 gether and a similarity of tastes resulted in a lasting friend- ship and comj^ensated Sumner for the loss of other friends. It was fruitful of great results to both. Adams was instrumental in placing Sumner in the Senate ; and it was largely on Sum- ner's recommendation that Adams became Minister to Great Britain, during the Civil War, in which position he gained a lasting fame. The Adams family was the most prominent one in Massachusetts and while not distinguished for some popular traits, their marked ability, their industry and their sturdy honesty, with the prestige of their history, made their influence at the time an important one. Another friend who came to Sumner in the same way was Henry Wilson. This friendship too was lasting. From 1855 to 1873, Wilson was Sumner's colleague in the Senate. From a poor boy, the son of a farm laborer, apprenticed first to a farmer and then to a shoemaker, by name Jeremiah Jones Colbait, which he had changed to Henry Wilson by the Legis- lature, he arose through successive grades to the second place in the Republic. He was elected Vice-President on the ticket with Grant. He had been a member of the Legislature and a State Senator and was now one of the foremost champions of the anti-slavery cause. He had gone out of the convention, offended at the nomination of Taylor and promptly joined the Free-Soil Party and became Chairman of its State committee, in 1849, to succeed Sumner. He was the editor of a Free-Soil paper, the Boston Republican, from 1849 to 1850, and in 1851 he was the unsuccessful candidate of the party for Congress and in 1853 the unsuccessful candidate of his party for Gov- ernor. The mere statement of these facts shows how close his course lay to Sumner's and how firm their friendsliip was. Prominent among Sumner's new friends should be mentioned Joshua R. Giddings, for twenty years the Representative in Congress of the North-east Ohio district and next to John Quincy Adams, the greatest early champion of Freedom in the House. Adams had said to Sumner, as he lay on his sick bed in Quincy, after he was stricken with the paralysis that later, at Washington, closed his life, that he looked to Giddings with more interest than to any other member of the House. Sum- ner had sent Giddings a copy of his oration on " The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist and the Philanthropist." Giddings ac- knowledged it in a complimentary letter, the first that passed between them. Sumner met him first, at the convention to organize the Free-Soil Party, held in Worcester in 1848, where they both spoke and again when Giddings came to Boston to 214 -^-^^^ ^^ CHARLES SUMNER attend the funeral of John Quincy Adams, It is a curious fact that ostracism on account of his political creed was carried so far in the House, that Giddings was denied a place on the Congressional committee to attend the remains of his venerable colleague to their last resting place, though they had together, bravely and almost alone, for many years, borne the storm of the unpopularity of the anti-slavery cause in the Capitol. But he went privately to pay his debt at the grave of his friend. From this time until Gidding's death in 1864, he and Sumner, when not together in Wasliington, maintained a cordial correspond- ence. Until his election to the Senate, Sumner relied on him for information of what was transpiring at Washington and asked his advice about political movements at home. Such were some of Sumner's more intimate new made friends, but by no means all of them. He was also making a wide circle of acquaintances in his campaign work, among the members of his party, in the places where he spoke ; and his chairmanship of the State Committee of the Free-Soil Party in 1848, contributed largely to the same result. He had thereby of necessity become acquainted with the leaders of his party in every county of the State. This acquaintance was often slight, but such persons coming to Boston, frequently dropped into his office and a passing acquaintance often ripened into a lasting friendship. Such anti-slavery men as resided in Bos- ton often brought him business, as well as their good will. It was so in the case of the Adams family. But, generally speaking, his politics did not contribute to his professional success. Clients who furnish the most business are not usually much engaged in politics, especially politics of his kind, that furnished no material advantage and was be- sides unpopular. They could easily see that Sumner's thoughts were not absorbed with his law office and he did not get the business because they thought it would not receive his best attention. With feeling running against the anti-slavery men. in Boston, some thought to gratify their dislike, by inaugu- rating a systematic boycott against the members of the unpopu- lar party. They withheld from them their own business and sought to influence others to do likewise. The prominence of Sumner in the party, made him a shining mark for their dis- like. His professional income at this time was not more than sufficient for his own personal expenses, and they were mod- erate, — only the ordinary expenses of an unmarried attorney, with a modest office and a summer's vacation. Sumner devoted much of his time in 1850 to an edition of LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 216 his Speeches and Addresses which was published in Boston in two volumes. A third volume, of more recent addresses, in- cluding his speech on the Crime against Kansas was issued in 1856. Before their publication he made a careful revision of them. CHAPTER XVIII THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 — WEBSTER's SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH THE ELECTION COALITION OF FREE-SOILERS AND DEMOCRATS SUMNER A CANDIDATE FOR SENATOR THE LONG CONTEST — SUMNER ELECTED — HIS ACCEPTANCE OF THE OFFICE The year 1850 was an eventful one for Massachusetts. Henry Clay had been returned to the United States Senate, in the hope that he might present some measure that would pacify the constantly rising animosity between the North and the South and he again established his right to be called " the great pacificator ". The territory that we had acquired by the war with Mexico and out of which tlie South had hoped to gain more slave states had proved a disappointment to that section. The discovery of gold in California had caused a large influx of population, mostly from the North into this part of the newly acquired territory. It was now seeking ad- mission with a constitution prohibiting slavery. This had an- gered the South. Clay introduced a series of resolutions to pacify this feeling. They provided for the admission of Cali- fornia, without slavery, and as the Nortli had been insisting upon the prohibition of slavery in all the territory acquired from Mexico, a second resolution provided governments for this territory without prohibition or permission of slavery, — a concession to the South. Another concession to the South 'was the allowance of $10,000,000 to Texas in aid of the payment of her debt. As a counter concession to the North, the slave- trade, — the buying and selling but not the holding of slaves — was to be prohibited in the District of Columbia. As an off- set to this, a law for the apprehension of fugitive slaves was to be enacted. As proposed, it had two provisions in it that were especially obnoxious to the North ; first, it provided no trial by jury of the right of the alleged slave to his freedom, and, sec- ond, it allowed the IT. S. commissioner, who had the sole power of deciding upon his right to freedom, a fee of Ten dollars in case of a conviction and only Five dollars, if freed, thus offer- ing the judge a bribe for conviction. At the beginning of the session Robert C. Winthrop, of Bos- ton was defeated, as has been mentioned in his race for the 216 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 217 Speakership of the House by Howell Cobb, of Georgia. Cobb was elected by a plurality, but not by a majority of the vote cast. This was the first time that a speaker had been so elected; and, by anti-slavery men it was regarded as another encroachment of the South. As the Session wore away the people watched with new interest the debate on the compromise measures. One after another of the leaders of the section had spoken, — Clay and Cass, Benton and Douglas, Jefferson Davis and R. M. T. Hunter, John P. Hale and William H. Seward, Thos. Corwin and Salmon P. Chase. These were great men and they have a permanent place in history. One incident gave the debate in the Senate a dramatic interest. John C. Calhoun, the veteran champion of the South was passing away. He prepared his last set speech, on these resolutions and attempted to deliver it on March fourth, but his strength failed and he had to have it read for him. Within a month he was dead. New England waited for the voice of Daniel Webster. She had waited for it often, to lift her head in triumph after he had spoken. He had never spoken otherwise than for free- dom, from the time when he had bid the distant generations hail and farewell at Plymouth Rock and hurled his bolts at the South in his reply to Hayne, down to this hour. He was by conviction and training a religious man. Some of the most effective passages in his orations had been spoken when he paused in the course of his argument to make some graceful acknowledgment of the obligations of religion and of the wisdom and goodness of God. Once, at least, in the Girard Will case, he had appeared as the champion of the Christian ministry and his argument had become a classic. How could New England believe that he would now prove false to these pledges ! First came intimations that he was hesitating in his lifelong course, that he was dallying with slavery and that he was not right upon the Compromise. The few who heard the report did not believe it. But on the seventh of March, 1850, he delivered the speech that has ever since been known by the date of its delivery and has made that day memorable. While from a literary standpoint, it is one of the least inter- esting of all his speeches, the reproach it has brought upon its author has made it one of the best known. The worst fears of the friends of freedom were realized. The speech coming from some of the extreme pro-slavery men of the South would not have attracted attention. But Webster had deliberately said that all Christendom was " bound by everything which belonged to its character and to the character of the present age, to put a stop to this inhuman 218 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER and disgraceful traffic." How could New England believe that Daniel Webster who had spoken so decidedly upon this question and who had never abated one jot of his deliberately formed opinion would now say: " There are thousands of religious men, with consciences as tender as any of their brethren at the North who do not see the unlawfulness of slavery, and there are more thousands, perhaps, that, whatsoever they may think of it in its origin, and as a matter depending upon natural right, yet take things as they are, and, finding slavery to be an established relation of society in which they live, can see no way, in which, let their opinions on this abstract question be what they may, it is in the power of the present generation to relieve themselves from this relation. And candor obliges me to say, that I believe they are just as conscientious, many of them, and as religious people, all of them, as they are at the North who hold different opinions." In this same speech, he said: "I wish it to be distinctly understood that according to my view of the matter, this Gov- ernment is solemnly pledged, by law and contract, to create new States out of Texas, with her consent, when her population shall justify and call for such a proceeding, and, so far as such States are formed out of Texas territory lying south of 36° 30', to let them come in as slave States. That is the meaning of the contract which our friends the Northern Democ- racy, have left us to fulfil; and I for one mean to fulfil it, because I will not violate the faith of the Government." He then proceeded to prove the proposition that all the territory of the United States was irrevocably fixed as free or slave, — part of it by the pledge of the Government in its pre- vious compromises and part of it by the laws of physical geog- raphy which would prevent slave labor from being profitably employed in such hilly and mountainous territory, as California and New Mexico. It was in this connection that out of defer- ence to the feelings of the South whom it might offend he declared that if " a proposition were now here to establish a government for New Mexico, and it was moved to insert a provision for a prohibition of slavery, I would not vote for it." Such passages as this were calculated to astonish his constit- uents in New England, where they had not yet reached the conclusion that the whole of their country had been irrevocably partitioned between slavery and freedom. But when he turned from these things to criticise the whole North, because she did not sufficiently bestir herself in the business of hunting down and returning fugitive slaves to LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 219 their former masters and " insisted that the South had been injured in this respect and the North had been too careless," the surprise of New England was still greater. It was only equalled when he proceeded a little further on to criticise the legislatures of the North for memorializing Congress on the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and the States; and emphatically said he " should be unwilling to receive from the Legislature of Massachusetts any instruction to present res- olutions expressive of any opinion whatever on the subject of slavery as it existed at that moment in the States." He went out of his way in the course of his argument to compliment Hillard, Sumner's former law-partner, for opposing such reso- lutions in the Senate of Massachusetts. His next attack was upon the Abolition Societies, " He did not think them useful. He thought their operations for the last twenty years had produced nothing good or valuable." These were strange things for Daniel Webster to say. His Boston — his ever faithful Boston — was ready to follow him even to this length. But the balance of the State would not. By a very large majority, the newspapers of the State, outside of Boston, condemned the speech. In Boston the Wliig papers were still loyal to him. It was estimated that only six out of seventy of the newspapers of New England approved the speech. About the same proportion of the people were against it. His admirers still seeking as of old, to show their loyalty to him, sought by circulating memorials, approving its doc- trines, to stem the popular tide against it. These memorials when presented to him, drew forth a series of letters in an- swer to them, that confirmed the people in their belief in his apostacy and in their judgment of the speech. Daniel Webster no longer represented Massachusetts. Proud as his position had been in the confidence of her people he had forfeited it. So far they would not go even with him. He doubtless felt all he said of the dangers of the further agitation of the slave question to the Union whose preservation had been the cherished object of his political life ; but he had grown old and somewhat out of touch with the public and this sentiment of fear for the Union, for which, in his childhood, he was taught his father had toiled, through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolu- tionary war and which he shrunk from no danger and no hard- ship to serve, and to which he had dedicated so much of his own labor through so many years now drawing to their close, had grown out of its due proportion. The history of the years from 1861 to 1865 has indeed proved how well his fears were founded. But fear for the Union had ceased to have its former 320 ^^^^ Oi!' CHARLES SUMNER power with younger men now coming to control. They had made up their minds to heed it no longer, but to be true to their consciences and bear what came. They felt that too much had been yielded already to slavery and that the North could go no farther without a sacrifice of its manhood. The sands of Webster's term in the Senate were fast running out. The Legislature was to be elected this year that would choose his successor. With all the effort his friends were mak- ing to prepare the way for his re-election, he doubtless saw that his return would be doubtful and was glad to escape the trial by accepting the position of Secretary of State in Fillmore's cabinet, where his lately expressed opinions were not unpopular. The election came and Webster's worst fears were realized. The Whigs were defeated. The part Sumner took was much the same as in the two previous campaigns. The demand for him as a speaker continued to grow with his increasing fame. The Free-Soil and the Democratic parties united upon can- didates for the Legislature and for Congress, in all the counties of the State except Middlesex. The result was a victory for the combination, giving them a majority of ten over the Whigs in the Senate and a majority of fifty-four in the House. There was much rejoicing at the result. It was fairly regarded as a rejection of the Compromise and of Webster's speech. True, by retiring before the storm into Fillmore's cabinet, he was not a candidate, but Robert C. Winthrop had been appointed his suc- cessor by the Governor, at Mr. Webster's suggestion, and had entered the Senate in time to vote for the Compromise. The Free-Soilers at once took up the gage thus thrown down and freely insisted that he stood for all Webster did and that a vote against him was a vote against the Compromise and Webster and his views on the slavery question. It is certain that without the indignation aroused by the Compromise and by Webster's abandonment of his lifelong convictions upon the slavery question, the result would not have been possible. The consequences were not less far-reaching. Without the election resulting as it did, no way would probably ever have opened for Sumner to enter the Senate. He might have been known among scholars as an accomplished orator and he might have had a permanent place as the author of some historical work ; but this would have been far short of the fame he gained in his seat, in the Senate, by his efforts against slavery. What his loss might have been to the country is harder to measure. Whether the country was ripe for the changes he did so much to bring about and whether, if he had not, others would have reaped the same fields, may fairly be questioned. Others were LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 221 there before him and still others came afterward to the Senate to represent the same cause; but faithful as they were and much as they accomplished, they lacked the fearless and aggressive leadership of Sumner. Without these qualities being developed in some one else, the same help of the Senate at least would have been wanting in the days of struggle. What attracted especial attention to Sumner and probably made him the choice of his party for Senator was his speech on " Our Immediate Anti-Slavery Duties " delivered at a Free- Soil meeting, held in Faneuil Hall a few days before the elec- tion of 1850. The Fugitive Slave Law had only recently been enacted and its provisions were imperfectly understood by the public. Sumner's speech was the first discussion of it before the people. It was an earnest and emphatic denunciation of the provisions of the law and it was Sumner's purpose by the speech to render it so odious and awaken such a feeling against it as to make its enforcement in Boston impossible. The speech touched a popular chord and aroused immense enthusiasm. The audience at its close proposed and gave, with a will, three cheers for Charles Sumner. It is more popular in its tone, more direct and emphatic in its purpose and is more spon- taneous, — smells less of preparation, than any of his other speeches. After expressing his approval of the combination of Free- Soilers with the Whigs to elect Mann and Fowler to Congress and with the Democrats, in the senatorial and legislative dis- tricts, to secure control of the State Legislature, he congratu- lated them on the admission of California as a State, with a constitution prohibiting slavery and the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. He then proceeded to discuss the Fugitive Slave law. He insisted that, denying the person apprehended a trial by jury, it was unconstitutional; that it was also unconstitutional because of the unprecedented and tyrannical powers it conferred upon the petty office of IT. S. commissioner, providing him a fee of Ten dollars for a conviction and only Five dollars for an acquittal of the prisoner, virtually offering a bribe to the judge. It permitted him to convict the prisoner and consign him to perpetual bond- age, upon mere ex parte affidavits, taken, perhaps, in a distant state,^ so as to deny the accused the right to face and cross- examine the witnesses produced against him. Sumner signifi- cantly said, that, while he was a commissioner, himself and might be called upon to sit in such a case, he could not forget that he was a man, although he was a commissioner, and that he would not dishonor the home of the Pilgrims and of the 222 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER Revolution by admitting, — nay, by believing that this bill would be executed in Massachusetts. He invoked an irresist- ible public opinion to prevent it and to prohibit any slave- hunter from ever setting his foot in the Commonwealth. It was a powerful arraignment of the law, into which the speaker threw his whole force. " And yet," he said, " in the face of these enormities of legislation, — of Territories organ- ized without the prohibition of slavery, and of this execrable Fugitive Slave Bill" (he refused to call it a Law) " — in the face also of slavery still sanctioned in the District of Columbia, of the Slave Trade between domestic ports, under the flag of the Union, and of the Slave Power still dominant over the National Government, we are told that the slavery Question is settled. Yes, settled, — settled, — that is the word. Nothing, sir, can be settled which is not right. Nothing can be settled which is contrary to the Divine Law. Nature and all the holy senti- ments of the heart repudiate any such false, seeming settle- ment." " Amidst the shifts and changes of party, our Duties remain, pointing the way to action. By no subtile compromise or ad- justment can men suspend the commandments of God. By no trick of managers, no hocus-pocus of politicians, no mush of concession, can we be released from this obedience. It is, then, in the light of duties that we are to find peace for our country and ourselves. Nor can any settlement promise peace which is not in harmony with these everlasting principles from which our duties spring." He demanded the immediate repeal of the Bill, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the prohibition of it in the Territories, the refusal to receive into the Union any new slave States, the abolition of the slave trade on the high seas and the exercise of all its constitutional powers by the National Government to relieve itself of its responsibility for slavery everywhere. And he insisted that the slave Power be over- turned and the National Government be put openly, actively and perpetually on the side of Freedom. He demanded that this Power, which in the game of office and legislation, had always won should now be suppressed. He emphatically said, as to the men to be chosen for office: " Admonished by experience, of timidity, irresolution and weak- ness in our public men, particularly at Washington, amidst the temptations of ambition and power, the friends of Freedom cannot lightly bestow their confidence. They can put trust only in men of tried character and inflexible will. Three things at least they must require: the first is backbone; the second is LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 223 backbone; and the third is backbone. My language is homely; I hardly pardon myself for using it; but it expresses an idea which must not be forgotten. When I see a person of upright character and pure soul yielding to a temporizing policy, I cannot but say, He wants backbone. When I see a person talk- ing loudly against slavery in private, but hesitating in public, and failing in the time of trial, I say, He wants backbone. When I see a person who co-operated with anti-slavery men and then deserted them, I say, He wants backbone. When I see a person leaning upon the action of a political party and never venturing to think for himself, I say. He wants backbone. When I see a person always careful to be on the side of the majority and unwilling to appear in a minority, or, if need be, to stand alone, I say. He wants backbone. Wanting this they all want that courage, constancy, firmness, which are essential to the support of principle. Let no such man be trusted." " For myself, fellow-citizens, my own course is determined. The first political convention which I ever attended was in the spring of ]845, against the annexation of Texas. I was at the time a silent and passive Whig. I had never held political office, nor been a candidate for any. No question ever before drew me to any active political exertion. The strife of politics seemed to me ignoble. A desire to do what I could against slavery led me subsequently to attend two different State Con- ventions of Whigs, where I co-operated with eminent citizens in endeavor to arouse the party in Massachusetts to its anti- slavery duties. A conviction that the Whig party was disloyal to Freedom and an ardent aspiration to help the advancement of this great cause, has led me to leave that party and dedicate what of strength and ability I have to the present movement. To vindicate Freedom and oppose Slavery so far as I may con- stitutionally, — with earnestness, and yet I trust without un- kindness on my part, — is the object near my heart." At the time of the coalition between the Free-Soilers and the Democrats for the election of a Legislature, there was an un- derstanding between them that the Democrats, in case of suc- cess, should have the state officers to be elected and the Free- Soilers should have the Senatorship. No names were, however, decided on for the offices. The candidates were to be chosen later, by the respective parties. Earlier in the campaign several names were mentioned for the Senatorship, Stephen C. Phillips, Sumner, Charles Francis Adams. The first was this year, and had been in 1849, the unsuccessful candidate of his party for Governor, and felt that the honor should have come to him. After Sumner's uominatjon he wrote tc him pathetically, " I re- 224 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER joice in the conviction that this, while it is the severest is the last of my political trials and though it is far from being such a close of a public career as is desirable I derive satisfaction from the thought that your race begins, where mine ends, and that a high destiny awaits you." It was the sad confession of failure in the career he had coveted and makes his seem like the lives of so many good men in politics, who have deserved a better fortune than came to them. Adams did not expect the Senatorship. He and Palfrey had not entered heartily into the movement for a combination with the Democrats, as Sumner had, and hence could not expect a favorable consideration. Adams, besides, had been prominent as a Whig before he joined the Free-Soil movement and was on that account still more unacceptable to the Democrats now. Sumner had never been much of a Whig and the little part he had taken in their coun- cils, was to advance the anti-slavery cause. He had never held an elective office. As the campaign progressed, the choice for Senator tended more and more to Sumner. After his Faneuil Hall speech, there was little mention of any one else. He had never regarded himself as a candidate. The first information he had, of a fixed purpose on the part of others to so consider him, came to him through a note, left at his door, by Seth Webb, Jr., the morning after the election, telling him the result and adding: "You are bound fox Washington this winter." Whittier had met him before this during the sum- mer, at Lynn, and one evening as they loitered by the sea, had predicted the success of the combination and that he would be the Senator. Sumner had told him that he did not think it pos- sible, that there were others better fitted for it, and besides, that he did not especially desire it, that his ambition lay in other fields. But Whittier urged him not to forbid the use of his name as a candidate, insisted upon his peculiar qualifica- tions and predicted a large future for him if elected. Years after, at the close of one of Sumner's fiercest struggles in the Senate, in a poem addressed " To C. S.," Whittier reminded him of this prediction. After the result of the election was fully known and the con- trol of the State was found to have come into the hands of the coalition, the trend of public opinion continued steadily towards Sumner for Senator, without any effort of his friends to work it up. There came to be a conviction, with the public, of his fitness to represent the general feeling of the State upon the new issues. " I think," one of the leaders wrote him, "you are nearer my ideal of a Free-Soiler of this time than anybody else; so does the whole Free-Soil heart of New England. And LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 225 you may depend that the actual triumpli of just such a man as you are will give a heavier blow to the conspirators against Freedom and do more to fortify the general trust in the ulti- mate ascendency of uncompromising right, than that of any other living being. You cannot escape from your position." Charles Francis Adams wrote him from Washington, of the difficulties as he saw them, of an alliance with tlie Democrats, but added : " If our friends decide to risk themselves in that ship, I trust we may get a full consideration for the risk, and the only full consideration that we can receive is in securing your services in the Senate. If anything can be done with that iron and marble body, you may do it. You know how hopeless I think the task." Adams was at the time Sumner's most intimate political friend and, in replying Sumner wrote fully and frankly his feelings upon the Senatorship: "I appreciate your generosity and am proud of your confidence. I am not entirely insensible to the honor that post would confer, though I do not feel this strongly, for I have never been accustomed to think highly of political distinction. I feel that it would to a certain extent be a vindication of me against the attacks to which in common with you and others of our friends, I have been exposed. And I am especially touched by the idea of the sphere of usefulness in which it would place me. But notwithstanding these things I must say that I have not been able to bring myself to desire the post or even to be willing to take it. IMy dreams and visions are all in other directions. In the course of my life I have had many ; but none have been in the United States Senate. In taking that post I must renounce forever quiet and repose; my life henceforward would be in public affairs. I cannot eon- template this without repugnance. It would call upon me to forego those literary plans and aspirations which I have more at heart than any merely political success. Besides, even if I should incline to this new career, there are men in our ranks, my seniors and betters, to whom I defer sincerely and com- pletely. Mr. Phillips by various titles should be our candidate. If he should be unwilling to take the place, then we must look to you. In seeing you there I should have the truest satisfac- tion. You are the man to split open the solid rock of the United States Senate. I shrink unfeignedly from the work. For this I have never ' filled my mind.' " Sumner maintained this position to the close of the contest. It had no purpose of self-seeking with him. The cause was everything and he insisted even with his own prospect of the office before him, that the promotion of that must be kept 226 ^J^E OF CHARLES SUMNER steadily in view and whoever could best serve it, ought to have the place. He mistrusted his own fitness for it and he did not believe he should fill it, if he could not fill it best. He steadily refused to seek the place before his nomination by the caucus. Others must determine the question of his fitness. But after he had been chosen by the caucus and his success thus became welded to that of the cause, he met with his supporters several times in council and discussed plans with them and received and made suggestions and did what he could to promote their success. But when the contest was protracted and his success seemed doubtful, he urged them whenever they pleased, and without consulting him, to abandon the effort to elect him and unite on any one else whose prospects were better. His course showed the absence of self-seeking and the ideals with which he entered public life. The sequel will show that he maintained them to the close. The letters he received from anti-slavery friends in other States helped to confirm him in his determination to stand for the place. Chase and Giddings both wrote him from Washing- ton, insisting that he could not refuse to be a candidate and reminding him of the pleasure it would give the friends of Free- dom to see him in the Senate. John Jay wrote from New York : " I trust most sincerely you are to occupy the seat which Webster, in bygone days has filled so worthily, but where in the hour of temptation, he betrayed the Commonwealth which had trusted and honored him." Joshua Leavitt also wrote him from New York that he wished for his election both for his own sake and that of the cause, that it would be, " a worthy rebuke of cotton arrogance pronounced in earnest and sealed by action in the name of the good old Commonwealth." Other letters from other States also showed that Free-Soilers were disposed to treat his candidacy as the test of the strength of the opposition to the cringing attitude of Northern statesmen, to the South. Upon this issue Sumner was already firmly com- mitted. His dissent from the recent course of Webster in his seventh of March speech was a familiar illustration. At the election held in Massachusetts, in November, 1850, none on the State tickets were elected. The constitution then required the successful candidates to have a majority of all the votes cast, a mere plurality not being, as now, sufficient. In case of the failure of the people to elect, it devolved upon the Legislature to make a choice from the three candidates for the office who at the general election had received the highest num- ber of votes. The Free-Soilers and the Democrats having together a majority and having formed a coalition controlled LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 227 the Legislature. It was agreed by them that the Democrats should have the Governor, State Treasurer and the United States Senator for the short term, — the balance of Webster's term, expiring March fourth, 1851, and that the Free-Soilers should have the United States Senator for the next full term. This gave the control of the State Government to the Demo- crats. It was left to the respective parties, to determine whom they would nominate for the offices assigned to them, the other party agreeing to unite in electing them. Henry Wilson, Free- Soiler, was chosen President of the Senate, and N. P. Banks, Democrat, Speaker of the House. At a caucus of the Free-Soilers held on January seventh, 1851, Sumner was unanimously nominated for Senator for the long term. E. L. Keys, in communicating the result to him, wrote : " We have sworn to stand by you, to sink or swim with you, at all hazards. If you shall fail us in any respect, may God forgive you : — we never shall." The Daily Commonwealth, the organ of the Free-Soilers in speaking of the reason for this selection for Senator, said : " Mr. Sumner was selected as the candidate for the Senate, because, while true as the truest to Free-Soil principles, he was supposed to be less obnoxious than any other prominent Free-Soiler in the State to the Democratic party. He was never identified with any of the measures of the Whig party, except to sustain the sentiment, not of the Whig party alone, but of Massachusetts, against the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War." After the nominations were made, the Legislature proceeded to a choice, electing George S. Boutwell, Governor; Henry W. Cushman, Lieutenant-Governor and Eobert Rantoul, Senator for the short term, all Democrats, according to the previous agreement. On the fourteenth of January, the House voted for Senator, for the long term; whole number of votes, 381, necessary to a choice, 191, Charles Sumner 186, R. C. Win- throp 167, scattering 28, blanks 3. A second ballot was taken the same day, with the same result. Sumner had all the Free- Soil votes, 110, and 76 Democratic votes. The Free-Soilers insisted that they had taken the candidates of the Democrats without pledge and without question and that having selected their own candidate, they would never desert him. On Jan- uary twenty-second, the Senate elected Sumner : whole number of votes 38, necessary to a choice 20, for Charles Sumner 23, for Robert C. Winthrop 14, for Henry W. Bishop 1. The only question that now remained was, whether Sumner could get enough votes in the House to elect him. The anger of the Free-Soilers at their desertion by the House 228 ^IFE OF CHARLES SUMNER Democrats was hardly concealed. They had carried out, to the letter, the arrangement on their part, and at the crucial point, they had been deserted by their Democratic allies. Some were for renouncing all farther communication with them and ar- ranging for an alliance with the Whigs to run the Democrats out, the next year; others were for the resignation of every fruit of the alliance thus far gathered by the Free-Soilers ; others still were for demanding of Governor Boutwell and his Demo- cratic colleagues the surrender of the offices they had acquired by the coalition. But the more sturdy leaders, with cooler heads and greater steadiness of purpose, like Henry Wilson, were determined not to break with their allies, but hold them to their promises and meanwhile insist that they had made choice of their candidate and would adhere to him, to the end, and would have no other. They knew that all their allies were not unfaithful and that those that were steadfast, ought not to be charged with the faults of the faithless. These counsels finally prevailed and for more than three months, they steadily refused to hear any proposition of surrender or compromise. They freely said and firmly insisted that Sumner was their first, last and only choice. The ballots were taken, sometimes more than one on the same day and sometimes with intervals of weeks. There were twenty- six in all, in the House. Sometimes Sumner was within one vote of an election and again he lacked as many as twelve. As the contest dragged its weary length along, both sides became tired of it, but neither would yield. The Free-Soilers felt that they were only asking their right and that having chosen their candidate, with due reference to his acceptability to the Demo- crats, they ought not to yield. The " Hunker " Democrats, or " Indomitables," as they were called, who had thus far refused to vote for Sumner, saw the folly of their position and that they ought not to have taken it, but did not like to recede. They offered to compromise on any other man and named Wilson. He promptly declined. The opposition among the Democrats was led by Caleb Gush- ing. He had been present at the caucus of his party and had voted to abide by the candidate for whom two-third-s would vote. Sumner having received more than that number, Gushing had then joined another caucus called to oppose his election on the ground that the choice of so pronounced an anti-slavery man would injure their standing with the national organization of their party. He called Sumner " a one-ideaed abolition agitator." Later in the canvass, when his followers faltered and Sumner's election seemed probable, he sought to escape LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 229 from his position by asking of him a pledge tliat, if elected, he would not give undue prominence in the Senate, to the slavery- question. But Sumner declined to give any such pledge and also declined to have any communication with Gushing about politics. To a friend who asked him to write something he could use to quiet the charge that he was a Disunionist, Sumner wrote " You know well that I do not seek or desire any political office, that I am not voluntarily in my present position as candidate, and that prescribing to myself the rule of r?on-intervention, I have constantly declined doing anything to promote my elec- tion, and have refused pledges or explanations with regard to my future course beyond what are implied in my past life, my published speeches and my character." The Whig papers did everything they could to aid their party, in the Senate and House, to prevent his election. They hurled almost every epithet at the coalition of the Democrats and Free-Soilers and insisted that such a bargain and sale of the offices as had been made was an indictable offence and ought to be so punished. They published extracts from Sumner's speeches, prominently printed with hostile comments, almost daily. His speeches were charged with being " treasonable " and himself as being a " disunionist ". The Whigs believed that if an election could be prevented, by this Legislature, the next year would enable them to recover the State and choose a Sena- tor from their own party and part of their plan was to encour- age the House to hold out in its opposition to Sumner. Even the Democratic press was not friendly to him. The editor of the Times called upon him and asked him to modify some of his utterances on the slavery question, especially in "his recent Faneuil Hall speech, on "Our Immediate Anti-Slavery Duties." This he declined to do. The editor then asked him how he would like to have that speech printed, so that it might be read by the members of the Legislature. Sumner replied that nothing would give him greater pleasure. It accordingly appeared the next day in the Times, with this comment : "Mr. Sumner avows that what is called his Faneuil Hall speech contains his calm, deliberately formed, and well matured opinions — opinions by which his actions would be governed in the event of his election to the office of United States Senator. * * * We hope that every Democratic member of the Legis- lature will read the speech of the man for whom they are asked to vote, and then consider whether it is not their duty to vote for some other person." The Commonwealth, the Free-Soil organ, then printed it with 230 J^I^^ OP CHARLES SUMNEB the defiant introduction : " We treat our readers to-day to the noble speech of Charles Sumner at that great " treasonable " meeting in Faneuil Hall. We are proud of it and of the man who made it. We give it as it was reported by Dr. Stone for the Traveller, and as it was copied into the Times. The apologists for slavery have heaped abuse on Mr. Sumner for this speech, and garbled it to serve their base purposes; but here it stands. Not a glorious word of it shall be rubbed out. We ask any member of the Legislature, whatever may be his politics or party, as a man, as a son of New England, and as an admirer of Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Han- cock and Samuel Adams, to read this speech, and tell us how he can do a better thing than to vote for its author next Wed- nesday. Here you have the intellect and heart of a man — a man for the times, a man for Massachusetts ! " A little later, closing an appeal to the Free-Soilers to stand firmly by their choice, the Commonwealth said : " One pecul- iarity attending this election is, that it involves a true issue of principle. * * * The election of such a man as Charles Sum- ner in the room of such a man as Daniel Webster may be con- strued to be quite as much a complete disavowal of the late conduct of the one as a sanction of the system advocated by the other. Herein it is not difficult to trace the real causes as well of the extraordinary opposition on the one side as of the tena- cious adherence on the other." Sumner himself as the weeks rolled away and ballot after ballot was taken, with still no election, despaired of success and fearing that the Free-Soilers, by persisting in voting for him alone, as their candidate, and refusing to consider any proposition for a change, were emperilling their prospect of success and, perhaps, sacrificing all the fruits of their hard- earned victory, wrote to Wilson, February 22, 1851 : " Early in life I formed a determination never to hold any political office, and, of course, never to be a candidate for any. My hope was (might I so aspire!) to show, that, without its titles or emolu- ments, something might be done for the good of my fellow-men. Notwithstanding the strength of this determination often de- clared, I have, by the confidence of the friends of Freedom in Boston, more than once been pressed into the position of can- didate ; and now by the nomination of the Free-Soil and Demo- cratic members of the Legislature of Massachusetts, contrary to desires, specially made known to all, who communicated with me on the subject, I have been brought forward as their can- didate for the Senate of the United States." " Pardon me, if I say, that personal regrets mingle with LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 231 gratitude for the honor done me. The office of Senator, though elevated and important, is to me less attractive than other and more quiet fields. Besides there are members of our party, to whom I gladly defer as representatives of the principles we have at heart." " I trust therefore that the friends of Freedom in the Legis- lature will not, on any ground of delicacy towards me hesitate to transfer their support to some other candidate, faithful to our cause. In this matter, I pray you, do not think of me. I have no political prospects which I desire to nurse. There is nothing in the political field which I covet. Abandon me, then, whenever you think best without notice or apology. The cause is everything ; I am nothing." Sumner asked Wilson to communicate the contents of this letter, in some proper way, to the Free-Soil members of the Legislature; which he did. But there was a feeling among them, that he better represented their cause than any one else, that he was really more acceptable to the Democrats than any one they could name and that to abandon him now would be half a confession of defeat. They also knew that, with his courage and power of speech, he was best qualified to stand for them in the Senate. They, therefore, resolved to persevere. Wilson and his colleagues could see that the " Indomitables " were hardly longer indomitable and that they were already seeking an escape from their position, that to hold on just a little longer must, in all probability, result in success. A clause, in the Bill of Eights of the constitution of Massachusetts, allowed the people to meet in mass convention and instruct their Representatives how to vote. In some instances this was done, the only occasion when this right was ever known to be exercised. This furnished some of the opposition a pretext for changing their votes. Others, seeing the risk to hold out to the close of the session and go before the people for re-election, with this record, after the pledges that had been made, the Free- Soilers being ready to unite with the Whigs to compass their defeat, were glad to escape from their position ; and so on one pretext or another the " Indomitables " found their way into the ranks. On April twenty-third, another ballot was taken, — the eight- eenth. The result was announced : whole number of votes 387, necessary to a choice 194; Charles Sumner 194, Robert C. Win- throp 167, scattering 26. On the announcement it appeared that Sumner was elected and, for a few minutes, the rejoicing i of his supporters was unbounded. But the correctness of the i count was challenged. One ballot that had Sumner's name 232 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER printed upon it, had also the name of John Mills written upon it, in pencil, below his. The opposition insisted, that it should be counted for Mills and not thrown out as it had been, thus making one more vote necessary to a choice. Three other ballots were taken the same day, with the same result, Sum- ner each time lacking one vote of an election. The Free-Soilers were on tiptoe with excitement; they felt that success was at hand, and still they were afraid to rejoice. Success had seemed within their reach so often and yet it had so far eluded their grasp On April twenty-fourth another ballot was taken, without success. Sumner was two votes short. At this stage Sidney Bartlett, a Whig, moved that thereafter the voters be required to place their ballots in separate envelopes, that the envelopes should all be uniform, that where two votes should be found in the same envelope, if for the same person only one should be counted, if for different persons both should be thrown out. The members had previously been required to give their votes while passing in front of the Speaker's chair, their names being called and checked when they deposited their ballot. The purpose of the motion was thought to be to secure changes against Sumner; but it had the contrary effect. Being secret, it enabled some persons, without being known, to vote for Sumner. Perhaps they were Whigs, perhaps Indomitables, — ■ just who, was never known, though different claims have since been made for the distinction. The result announced was: whole number of votes 384, necessary to a choice 193, Charles Sumner 193, Eobert C. Winthrop, 166, scattering 25. Thus on that day nearly four months after the voting commenced and on the twenty-sixth ballot, in the House, Sumner was elected Senator. It was a notable election; a struggle for the seat of Daniel Webster, in the Senate, while he was still living, upon an issue which was already dividing the country, and drawn out by its closeness for weary weeks and months ! It attracted general attention. The dignity with . which Sumner bore himself through it and his constant refusal to make any promise or pledge or to modify his previously expressed opinions, though votes were offered in exchange, raised the people's estimate of him. To a Democrat who had called upon him for this purpose, he said : " If by walking across my office I could secure the Senatorship, I would not take a step." He was not to be swerved by self interest. This sentiment found a response among the plain people. It can fairly be concluded now tliat any other course would have lost him votes. His power was in LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 333 his leadership of a conscience party. No sacrifice of principle for votes could have strengthened that leadership. So without sacrifice of conviction and without pledges other than were to be implied from his past life, Sumner came to the office of Senator. But it must not be inferred that he had been indifferent to the result. As we have seen he met his supporters in caucus more than once, and was at all times during the contest ready- to give them his advice. But his position was that the cause was everything; while he was nothing, — that no mere personal ambition should be allowed to interfere with its success, — that all should unite and work and, if need be, sacrifice for it. The result was received with various feelings. Most of the members of the House were tired and glad to have the long con- fer ended, many of the Free-Soilers were jubilant, seeing in this unusual victory an earnest of something to be done to check the onward march of Slavery; others still were questioning. It was a new departure in the politics of Massachusetts. Would it bring the same honor and renown to the Common- wealth that Webster and his party had done? Time showed. It marked the closing of the period, when love of the Union and compromises for its support predominated under the great leadership of Webster; and it marked the beginning of the period of the Civil War when men believed that compromise could be carried too far — that Union and Universal Freedom ought to be made to stand together. With the heat of battle, they finally welded these two principles into constitutional law. In the evening a ratification meeting was held in State Street at which speeches were made by Henry Wilson, Joseph Lyman and Thomas Russell. After the meeting the crowd marched to Sumner's house, but he had left the city. It then proceeded to the home of Charles Francis Adams who addressed them. They afterwards went in a body to the home of R. H. Dana Jr. who being absent, was represented by his father. He said that he had " kept his bed until noon through illness ; but on learn- ing the news of the election of Mr. Sumner he suddenly be- came better." Sumner first heard the news, while dining at the house of I Charles Francis Adams, in Mt. Vernon Street within a minute's , walk of the State House. He was very intimate with the family ; and dined with them, on an average as often as once a week. ' He had been there the day before, when his election was an- \ nounced and the ballot afterwards being corrected, left him one [l short of a majority. Knowing that another ballot would be taken on the twenty-fourth, and that the result must be very 334 L^PE OF CHARLES SUMNER close, he came there again, so that he with Adams might promptly hear the result. A little son of Mr. Adams' brought them the news, about three o'clock in the afternoon, while they were dining; and another son, then about sixteen years of age, seated beside Mr. Sumner at the table was the first to con- gratulate him. He did not seem at all elated, or show any sign of rejoicing. In a few minutes a number of friends, learning he was there called to offer their congratulations and were re- ceived in the library. A proposition to have a public demon- stration, at his own home in the evening, he put aside, being unwilling that a victory for a cause should assume any ap- pearance of a personal triumph. He soon left the house and the city, going to Longfellow's home in Cambridge where he passed the evening, with him and Palfrey and Lowell, and spent the night, away from the excite- ment caused by his election. In his diary of that day, Long- fellow wrote of Sumner : " He is no more elated by his success than he has been depressed by the failure heretofore and evi- dently does not desire the office." Sumner, in fact, mistrusted his ability to meet the expectations of his friends and to dis- charge the duties of the office, according to his own ideal. Wliat if he should fail, after all the hopes that had been held out by his party to the people ! To a young friend who said to him ; " This is too good ; I fear you will die before taking your seat; " Sumner thoughtfully replied, " Perhaps that will be the best thing for me." To John Bigelow, then associated with Bryant on the New York Evening Post, he wrote : " Every heart knoweth its own secret, and mine has never been in the Senate of the United States, nor is it there yet. Most painfully do I feel my inability to meet the importance which has been given to this election and the expectation of enthusiastic friends, but more than this, I am impressed by the thought that I now embark on a career, which promises to last for six years, if not indefinitely, and which takes from me all opportunity of study and meditation to which I had hoped to devote myself. I do not wish to be a politician." But his friends refused to participate in his misgivings. The newspapers in commenting upon his election, recognized the independence of his position in the Senate, unfettered as he would be by pledges and promises. The London Times, in a leader, interpreted the election of Sumner, " the most active and able representative " of the cause of the Free-Soilers, as showing the strength of feeling in Massachusetts against the Fugitive Slave Law and as an emphatic declaration that the LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 235 law at least in its existing form, was not to remain unassailed. Congratulations came to him from every side, — from Bryant, Bigelow, Epes Sargent and Neal Dow; from Chase, Giddings, Jay and Burritt. John G. Whittier wrote : " I rejoice that unpledged, free and without a single concession or compromise thou art enabled to take thy place in the Senate. I never knew such a feeling of real heart pleasure and satisfaction as is mani- fested by all except inveterate Hunkers in view of thy election. The whole country is electrified by it. Sick abed, I heard the guns, Quaker as I am, with real satisfaction." John Van Buren wrote : " I was as much pleased with seeing your frank as I was with the inside of your note. Independent of the fact that it proves your election to the United States Senate, the inscrip- tion *" Free. Charles Sumner,' seems to me mighty pretty read- ing." Sumner gratefully acknowledged the assistance of his friends. Henry Wilson especially had been unwearied in his efforts. He was chiefly instrumental in bringing about a coalition with the Democrats to secure the election of members of the Senate and House, and after the election he had been no less diligent in holding the Democrats to their pledges of sup- port. He possessed large capacity for organization and a cool head as well as an honest heart. In the darkest days of the struggle he never despaired. When others were ready to give up and adopt measures to punish the recalcitrant Democrats, his better judgment restrained them. When thoughts of an- other candidate and of a compromise were suggested, his warning voice said : " No, Sumner is our candidate; his choice, was our right, and we will have no other." He was tireless in his efforts and his judgment was good. In this campaign he developed the ability and the traits of leadership which five years later made him Sumner's colleague in the Senate. Writ- ing to him, on the day after the election, from Craigie House, Sumner gratefully said : " To your ability, energy and fidelity, our cause owes its present success. For weal or woe, you must take the responsibility of having placed me in the Senate of the United States." And in the same letter he placed it upon record, that all Wilson did was done without the suggestion of any selfish consideration and without any thought of personal advancement. Having received from the Secretary of the Commonwealth his certificate of election, Sumner on the fourteenth day of May, addressed to the Senate and House of Representatives of Mass- achusetts a formal letter of acceptance of the office. In it he recognized that he owed his first duty to the cause of Liberty; 236 J^IPE OF CHARLES SUMNER but as he had, during the contest been charged with being a Dis- unionist and a Sectionalist, he took this occasion to correct the false impression that had been sought to be given out by his op- ponents. He declared liimseif in favor of the Union and against any effort to destroy it and as opposed to all sectionalism whether of the North to carry Freedom into the Slave States, or of the South to carry the evils of slavery into the Free States or the sectional domination of slavery over the National Govern- ment. He declared his belief in a Union so firm that no part could be permanently lost from its well-compacted whole and that it could be separable only by a crash which would destroy the whole. He bespoke the candid judgment of his constituents to promote the general welfare, assuring them that true politics and right which are a law alike to individuals and communities are the same for the lowly and the great. Referring more directly to the office, he said : " The trust conferred on me is one of the most weighty which a citizen can receive. It concerns the grandest interests of our own Com- monwealth, and also of the Union in which we are an indissol- uable link. Like every post of eminent duty, it is a post of eminent honor. A personal ambition, such as I cannot con- fess, might be satisfied to possess it. But when I think what it requires, I am obliged to say that its honors are all eclipsed by its duties." " Your appointment finds me in a private station, with which I am entirely content. For the first time in my life I am called to political office. With none of the experience possessed by others to smooth the way of labor, I might well hesitate. But I am cheered by the generous confidence which, throughout a lengthened contest, persevered in sustaining me, and by the conviction, that, amidst all seeming differences of party, the sentiments of which I am the known advocate, and which led to my original selection as a candidate, are dear to the hearts of the people throughout this Commonwealth. I derive, also, a most grateful consciousness of personal independence from the circumstance, which I deem it frank and proper thus pub- licly to disclose and place on record, that this office comes to me unsought and undesired. " Acknowledging the right of my country to the services of her sons wherever she chooses to place them and with a heart full of gratitude that a sacred cause is permitted to triumph through me, I now accept the post of Senator." i CHAPTER XIX REGRETS AT LEAVING BOSTON — FIRST DAYS AT WASHINGTON AND IN THE SENATE — WELCOME TO KOSSUTH — AID TO RAIL- ROADS IN IOWA — EULOGY ON RANTOUL — ANXIETY TO BE HEARD ON SLAVERY — SECURES A HEARING THE SPEECH, " FREEDOM, NATIONAL ; SLAVERY, SECTIONAL " — HIS BROTHER GEORGE RETURNS FROM EUROPE SUMNER's VACATION — TAKES NO PART IN CAMPAIGN In the campaign of 1851, the same coalition was made be- tween the Free-Soilers and Democrats, as had been made the previous year and with similar results. The Legislature, both House and Senate, were again in the control of the coalitions, but the majorities were not so large as they had been the prev- ious year. Some congressional districts were lost, where the coalition had before elected their candidates. The first use Sumner made of his frank was in distributing documents, to promote the re-election of John G. Palfrey to Congress. But Palfrey was defeated. Sumner did not do so much speaking as he had done the previous year. He was busy making prep- aration for his removal to Washington, by putting his affairs at home in such shape that they would not suffer by his ab- sence. Besides, he did not wish to have another contest with Winthrop who was still taking part in politics though defeated for election to the Senate. Sumner entertained for him per- sonally a kindly feeling and sincerely regretted his political course. To carry a personal controversy further, after the events of the last year, might seem like seeking a quarrel for its own sake, than which nothing could have been farther from Sumner. He wished that Winthrop might still be induced to join the anti-slavery movement, where his ability and his popularity would have found a wide field for usefulness. But this was destined never to be. Winthrop had gone too far now, to be willing to retrace his steps, he had been prominent as a Whig and his opinions had been given such wide publication that they could only be retracted with some sacrifice of personal pride; besides others had the places he coveted. To join the new party would seem like commencing his political life over again. It was a source of regret, to his friends, that he was not induced 337 238 ^^^E OF CHARLES SUMNER to make the sacrifice so that a new and, perhaps, larger career might have been opened to him. Sumner did not forget his many good qualities. He hoped that friendly feelings would yet prevail between them. He was always disposed to look charitably on his political antagonists and, while tenacious of his convictions, he did not believe that they should interfere with private friendships. And besides the weight of social ostracism, he was often made by others to feel, during his long career, made him careful not to do the same injustice to others. He went to Washington the week before Congress opened. In leaving Boston there were three separations he felt keenly, — from his mother and sister at the old home, from the Long- fellows at Cambridge and from the Howes, at the Blind Asylum. Many were the happy hours he had passed in these quiet places, where love and sympathy had never failed him. When others had insisted on misconstruing his efforts against slavery, had snubbed him in public, and privately closed their doors against him, he always found these places of retreat open. His quiet home, with the books he loved, his frequent evenings with the Howes, his Sunday dinners at Longfellow's, with the congenial talk and companionship, the joyful part of his bachelor life, — these things had formed ties whose strength he did not appreciate, until they were about to be broken. The thought of the separation made him sad. From New York he wrote to Howe : " Three times yesterday I wept like a child, — I could not help it; first in parting with Longfellow, next in parting with you, and lastly as I left my mother and sister. I stand now on the edge of a great change. In the vicissitudes of life I cannot see the future; but I know that I now move away from those who have been more than brothers to me. My soul is wrung and my eyes are bleared with tears. God bless you ever and ever, my noble, well-tried, and eternally dear friend ! " To Longfellow he wrote : " I could not speak to you as we parted, my soul was too full; only tears would flow. Your friendship and dear Fanny's have been among my few treas- ures, like gold unchanging. For myself I see with painful vividness the vicissitudes and enthrallments of the future, and feel that we shall never more know each other as in times past. Those calm days and nights of overflowing communion are gone. Thinking of them and of what I lose I become a child again. From a grateful heart I now thank you for your true and constant friendship. Whatever may be in store for me, so much at least is secure ; and the memory of you and Fanny will LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 239 be to me a precious fountain. God bless you both, ever dear friends, faithful and good ! Be happy and think kindly of me." A little later Longfellow answered : " Your farewell note came safe and sad; and on Sunday no well-known footsteps in the hall, nor sound of cane laid upon the table. We ate our dinner somewhat silently by ourselves, and talked of you far off, looking at your empty chair." One source of Sumner's feeling of loneliness at parting from these home friends was the untried future that stretched out before him and the dread of his responsibilities. Daniel Web- sters, from his place in the Senate, had occupied a large meas- ure of public attention. His massive eloquence would have attracted attention anywhere. And yet Sumner had succeeded after a short interval, to his place, by a contest, in which Web- ster and his friends were defeated. Naturally Sumner would be contrasted with him. Every effort he was to put forth for the cause he represented must be made before an audience utterly unsympathetic, Tlie leader of the New England anti- slavery men could hope for no sympathy from the United States Senate in his effort for this cause. And yet the cause was the very one he was commissioned to represent. No one had blazed the way for him. John Quincy Adams and Joshua E. Giddings had been pioneers in that work in the House, but it may fairly be said there was none before Sumner in the Senate. When he took his seat, on the first day of December, 1851, the only two Free-Soilers in the Senate were Hale of New Hampshire and Chase of Ohio, the former elected by a coalition of Free-Soilers with Whigs, and the latter by a coali- tion of Free-Soilers with Democrats. Neither of them had been there long, — Hale, four years; Chase, but two. Though both were able and earnest men, neither had acquired distinc- tion for aggressive leadership of the anti-slavery cause in the Senate. Seward was also there, but he still maintained his affiliation with the Whigs. Wade entered the Senate the same day as Sumner. The cause was still in need of an earnest, aggressive man, of singleness of purpose, who could attract national attention and from his place in the Senate awaken the North to a realization of the enormities of slavery and its aggressions and the dangers that lay in them to the country. It is a singular fact that as he entered upon his duties, 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 240 L,^FE OF CHARLES SUMNER 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." What a strange prediction this was, in the light of subsequent history ! And yet, perhaps, it was not a strange prediction for one to make then, who had passed the thirty years prior in the public service ! Calhoun was dead. He . had died the year previous, in Washington, at his post as Senator. Webster had resigned, a few months before to enter Fillmore's cabinet, an old man worn out, destined to die a year later. Clay was in his seat, in the Senate for the last time, the day Sumner entered. They were the giants of their day. All gone ! The National issues of the formative period of the Government over which they had struggled, were many of them settled, — Nullification, the constitutionality of a Tariff and of Internal Improvements. The national boundaries had been defined and new territory had been acquired. But some of the issues over which they had struggled and now considered settled, we know were far from it, — the perpetuity of slavery, the right of Secession, the indis- solubility of the Union. How such issues as the Bank, the Tariff and Internal Improvements dwarf in comparison with them. The work of these statesmen should not be belittled. They fostered, maintained and strengthened the Government until it learned its own powers and a great majority of its peo- ple appreciated its blessings. But the work of the statesmen of the succeeding period, — the period commencing with the en- trance of Sumner and his anti-slavery co-laborers upon public life, — the period of the Rebellion, of Emancipation and Recon- struction — was destined to be, beyond all comparison, the most eventful in our history. And when Clay, the " great compro- miser " with slavery went out of the Senate, on that day another, greater than he, came in, — a man who knew no compromise with slavery, who always fought his battles against it to a finish, and was always for a clean victory or a defeat. Sumner was conducted before the presiding officer, to take the oath of office by Lewis Cass, his oldest personal acquaint- ance among the Senators. Their friendship extended back to the days in Paris, when they had prepared for publication a discussion of the question of our North Eastern Boundary, then in dispute with England. By a curious chance, Sumner chose for his seat on the floor of the Senate, the chair just LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 241 made vacant by Jefferson Davis, when he entered Fillmore's cabinet. It was beside the seat of Chase, which fact led to its selection, and was immediately behind the seat of Butler of South Carolina, one of the mofft extreme apologists of slavery. It was on the Democratic side of the floor; there was no anti- slavery side then, and Sumner had been elected, partly ly Democratic votes. In the distribution of appointments to committees, he was placed at the foot of two unimportant ones, — the committee on Revolutionary Claims and the committee on Roads and Canals. His social reception at Washington was more cordial than he expected. His familiarity all his life, with intellectual people, his friendly manner and fondness for conversation, united with a certain novelty in his position in the Senate and a reputation for oratory that preceeded him, assisted in opening a way for him. He was already acquainted with Chase and during the remaining four years of his term they were intimate. He soon became intimate with the New York Senators, Seward and Fish, and their families. Even the Southern Senators, to his surprise met him cordially, and with one of them, at least, Soule, of Louisiana, whom he regarded as the most brilliant man in the Senate, eloquent even in a language he could not speak distinctly, he entered upon a sincere and lasting friend- ship. He also became intimate at the French, English and Spanish embassies. His ability to speak French and his ac- quaintance with the wife of the Spanish Ambassador, a Boston lady, his large acquaintance in Europe, especially in England, and his recollection of days of travel, naturally attracted him to these houses. Since his return from Europe, few foreigners of distinction had come to Boston, from England, who did not bring letters to him ; and after he became a Senator fewer still came to Washington without meeting him. News of his social success in Washington was not long in reaching Boston, where the eyes of many were upon him. There was great fear with some, that the attractions of society and the blandishments of the Southern members would seduce him from the settled purpose of his election. Slavery had been so resourceful, that Northern men had grown distrustful of the ability of their representatives to withstand it. There was some foundation for this distrust and there was much of it without foundation. The influence of the South in Washington society was greater than it should have been ; but people thought it greater than it was. There were good men, Giddings, Chase, Hale and their circle of friends over whom it had no power. Sumner was well on his guard for it. He knew the 242 ^JFE OF CHARLES SUMNER work he was sent to do, but he thought he could succeed better by having a social standing at the Capitol, so that he might have an opportunity to influence men by private conversation. He felt he could not acquire this acquaintance and confidence, by at once and without hesitation pitching into the favorite opinions of his associates and thereby, perhaps, making it im- possible for him ever to acquire position among them. He preferred to gain their good opinion first. Sumner was at this time in the prime of manhood. He was forty years of age. The unshapeliness and slenderness of his youthful days had disappeared and his frame had filled out broadly so as to make him tower like a tribune among men. He had not yet acquired the weight he did in later life. His wealth of dark brown hair, not even tinged with gray, but worn according to the fashion of the time, a little long, hung full about his forehead. His clear blue eyes and open countenance showed the enthusiasm of young manhood. His mouth and nose were large but well shaped and his features clean cut, showing lines of intelligence, noble aspirations and thoughtful, student-life, not yet graven by age into furrows. To fill out a face inclined to be long, he wore, as he did most of his life, short side-whiskers. His face was otherwise smoothly shaved. He always dressed in the fashion, but with good taste, and was scrupulously clean. He was withal noticeably fine looking, bearing with him the marks of a well-bred, temperate, intel- lectual man, absorbed in the purpose of his life, approaching the earnestness of an enthusiast. His friendly smile, easily provoked, seeming to invite others, his hearty laugh, his naturalness, his friendly greeting won him acquaintances in many directions. A leader of the New England Abolitionists, with some reputation for eloquence sent to Washington to represent an apparently hopeless cause, he was the most inter- esting new figure in the Senate. There was from the first, among his colleagues a good deal of curiosity to hear him; and the opportunity was not long wanting. The Hungarian patriot, Louis Kossuth, had escaped from Poland into Turkey and was there in friendly exile. The President was authorized by Congress, at its previous session to employ a ship of war to receive him and his fellow exiles and convey them to the United States. One of the best ships of the Navy, the Mississippi, was detailed for this service. On the homeward voyage she touched in England, where for a few weeks, by brilliant speeches, Kossuth invoked the aid of her people for his oppressed country, and created a great en- thusiasm. The vessel was soon to arrive in New York and the LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 243 question arose what form his welcome should take. Mr. Web- ster, the Secretary of State, thought that having been invited and brought, as the guest of the nation, some Congressional recognition of the event would be proper. Following this sug- gestion, a resolution had been introduced on the first day of the session, by Foote of Mississippi providing for his reception and entertainment; but some objection being made to its form, it was withdrawn. On December eighth, Mr. Seward introduced a resolution that " Congress, in the name and on behalf of the people of the United States, give to Louis Kossuth a cordial welcome, to the Capitol and to the country." An amendment was moved to this resolution, that " while welcoming Kossuth and his associates, it was due to candor to declare that it was not the purpose of Congress to depart from the settled policy, which forbids all interference with the domestic concerns of other nations." It was on this resolution and amendment that Sumner arose to speak on December ninth, but it being late in the day, he gave way to a motion to adjourn. The consideration of the resolution was resumed the next day and Sumner spoke. After recognizing the importance of the resolution as calculated to create, combine and inspire sentiments for Freedom both in our own and foreign countries, he said he was ready to vote for it, without the amendment. He argued that we could not afford to do things by halves, that the invitation having in the name of Freedom, been extended to Kossuth and the hearts of the people, being open to receive him, Congress could not now turn its back upon him. He insisted it was a duty they owed, not only to the last Congress, but to their guest himself. He referred to the great and brilliant service of Kossuth for the cause of Freedom and Equality, and said he saw " in him more than in any other living man the power which may be exerted by a single, earnest, honest soul in a noble cause." He could find nothing in the law of nations, which forbade us to welcome an exile to freedom ; he would seek no precedent for that. But while he recognized the greatness of the guest, the charm of his eloquence and the popularity of his cause, he could agree in his behalf, to no belligerent intervention by our nation in the affairs of Europe. He insisted that such a thing was neither, upon the face of the resolution proposed by Seward, nor in any way to be implied, from anything contained in its terms. He wished to be distinctly understood as favoring no such intervene, tion. While he inculcated no " frigid isolation " of ourselves, — = while he hoped that we would never close our ears to the cry of distress and that we would never ce^se to gwell 244 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER witli indignation at the oppression of tyranny, — while he would offer sympathy to all, in every land, who struggled for human rights, yet, nevertheless, against every pressure, against all popular approaches, against all solicitations, against all blandishments, he would upliold, with steady hand, the peaceful neutrality of the Nation. And still, with these con- victions he could not join, in the amendment, proposing a declaration of non-intervention, in the resolution. To an act of courtesy and welcome, it attached a most ungracious con- dition. " A generous hospitality will not make terms or condi- tions with a guest ! " he exclaimed, " and," he added, " such hospitality, I trust. Congress will tender to Louis Kossuth." The proposed amendment was lost, but the resolution offered by Seward, welcoming Kossuth to the capital and the country, in the name of the people, was passed, by a vote of thirty-three to six, in the Senate, was concurred in by the House, and ap- proved by the President. Kossuth became the Nation's guest and was welcomed by Daniel Webster, as Secretary of State, at New York, in a notable speech. He visited Washington and made a tour of the country, speaking in the principal cities. Sumner met him repeatedly in Washington. The charm of the man and the success of his eloquence was greater than ever before. He was received everywhere with unbounded enthusiasm and aroused for his oppressed and dismembered country, the deepest sym- pathy. The enthusiasm for his cause, was so sweeping that it threatened for a time to become a national issue, whether our Nation should interfere or not. A charm still gathers about his name ; and his visit is remembered, as one of the brighest episodes in our history, and one of the most impressive in the history of eloquence. But after the first wave of excitement had passed, the sober second thought of the people prevailed. The country lost none of its admiration for Kossuth or of its sympathy for his unfortunate country, but it was seen that the armed intervention he advocated would not be granted by our people and would probably be unavailing if it were. , Sumner had struck the true note, in his speech, the one that finally prevailed, welcome without stint, to a noble and eloquent man, admiration for his work, sympathy for struggling human- ity everywhere, — but no belligerent intervention, by our nation, in the tangled web of European politics. His speech was a clean cut expression of national duty and a generous tribute to a pure patriot and a good man ; but it in no way committed us to a cause that was already hopeless. Just at the beginning of his career, it was well-timed for Sumner ; and it was well-timed LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 245 for the country. It helped him in the estimation of his fellow Senators, to whom he had been represented as an agitator and an enthusiast, a man of one idea. It showed that he was not as represented, that on one subject at least, he was careful, con- servative and sensible. Thoughtful men generally approved his course. It satisfied the people of Massachusetts, especially of Boston, always of a strongly conservative tendency; and it helped to correct the false impression of Sumner which many of tlie newspapers of the Wliig party had sought to convey during the contest for the Senatorship. Rufus Choate, one of his Whig opponents, in acknowledging the receipt of a copy of the speech, in a characteristic letter wrote : " I thank you for the copy of your beautiful speech, and for the making of it. All men say it was a successful one, par- liamentarily expressing it; and I am sure it is sound and safe, steering skilfully between cold-shoulder ism and inhospitality, on the one side and the splendid folly and wickedness of co- operation, on the other. Cover the Magyar with flowers, lave him with perfumes, serenade him with eloquence, and let him go home alone, — if he will not live here. Such is all that is permitted to wise states, aspiring to the ' True Grandeur.' " I wish to Heaven you would write to me de rebus Con- gressus. How does the Senate strike you ? The best place this day on earth for reasoned and thoughtful, yet stimulant public speech. Think of that. Most truly yours, — in the Union. — " But there were voices of dissent from Sumner's speech, — not many, it is true, and not loud. It is a curious fact, that some of them came from his closest, friends. They did not agree with his views of non-intervention. Wilson was one of them and Howe was another. It would hardly be expected that one of the revolutionary tendencies of Howe, would have much fear of granting the assistance sought by Kossuth. When a young man he had found his way to Greece to take part in her revolution and again he went to Paris, where in active sym- pathy with Lafayette, he took part in the convulsions of the city against Charles the Tenth. The consequences which might follow such a step as intervention by our country in the affairs of Hungary would have little terror for him. His sympathy for human suffering and for the oppressed everywhere, carried him readily over questions of state policy. But he was loyal to Sumner, He wrote him chidingly, yet pleasantly, saying he would not have believed, that one who had gone so fearlessly into the Broad Street riot, where they had first become ac- quainted, would now hesitate to lend his vote and his voice to help this oppressed people. Wilson agreed with him. He wel- 246 LIFE OF CHARLES SVMNEH corned Kossuth to Boston and entered heartily into his mission. Other Free-Soilers agreed with Howe and Wilson. But the excitement was short-lived ; and within a few months serious thought of intervention disappeared. Sumner continued faithful in his attendance upon the ses- sions of the Senate, watching its proceedings closely and ex- tending his acquaintance, but he did not take much part in the public work. He did not think it would be becoming in him to do so and such part as he did take he wished to be entirely distinct from the slavery question. But he was determined that the session should not close without being heard upon it. He wanted to make sure of his ground, to learn the rules of pro- ceeding and debate and when he did speak deliver one hard telling blow. On January twenty-seventh, 1852, he spoke upon a bill, under consideration in the Senate, granting public land to the State of Iowa in aid of the construction of railroads within that State. He had made some study of the subject, which led him to believe that such aid should be granted. He advanced the argument that the National Government owed a debt to the States having this land within their borders. There were many million acres of it, and all exempt from taxation. The burden of protecting and improving it was a tax upon the States, where it happened to lie. New people moved into the State, crime had to be suppressed; the school enumeration in- creased and new schoolhouses had to be built ; canals and roads were opened and the taxable property had to pay for them. Such things all gave permanent improvement to the country and enhanced the value of all the adjacent land. But it laid a great burden upon the owners of private property. Sumner estimated that there had been, up to January first, IS-iO ; 289,- 961,954 acres of the public land proclaimed for sale, that is, surveyed and placed upon the market, and that it had remained upon the market, for an average of twenty-five years, before it was actually sold. All this time it was receiving protection and development, but paying nothing. He placed the actual cost of this protection, at the low rate of one cent per acre each year, while it probably should have been two or three cents a year. But at this low rate of one cent, it amounted in twenty- five years to $72,490,475, an immense sum, clearly illustrating the amount the National Government was actually debtor to the States which embraced the land. He argued that tardy justice required, when opportunity presented, as it did then, ithat the Nation make reasonable grants of the land, in aid of these improvements. " Coming from different States and LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 247 opposite sections we are all," he said, " Senators of the Union, and our constant duty is without fear or favor to introduce into the national legislature the principle of justice." He could see no more appropriate object of such a grant than the building of good roads. " It would be ditticult to exaggerate the influence of roads as means of civilization," he said. " Where roads are not civilization cannot be ; and civil- ization advances as roads are extended. By roads, religion and knowledge are diffused ; intercourse of all kinds is promoted, — producer, manufacturer and consumer are all brought nearer together, — commerce is quickened, — markets are created, — property, wherever touched by these lines, as by a magic rod, is changed into new values, — and the great current of travel, like that stream of classic fable or one of the great rivers in our own California, hurries in a channel of golden sand. The roads together with the laws of ancient Eome, are now better remembered than her victories. The Flaminian and Appian ways, once trod by such great destinies, still remain as benefi- cent representatives of ancient grandeur. Under God the roads and the schoolmaster are two chief agents of human im- provement. The education begun by the schoolmaster is ex- panded, liberalized and completed by intercourse with the world ; and this intercourse finds new opportunities and in- ducements in every road that is built." The argument of Sumner attracted attention. It was a new view of the subject; and the subject was one of present and growing importance to the country. Government aid to roads and railroads had always met with opposition. The building of the National Eoad, from Baltimore westward, over the mountains, in the face of steady and persistent opposition had been one of the triumphs of the statesmanship of Henry Clay, for which the people of Wheeling, through whose city it passed had erected to him a monument. Railroads were only begin- ning to be built ; our country was large and its wants growing. To build them would require the expenditure of millions. Should the National Government establish the precedent of furnishing this aid ? True it was not money, but public lands they now asked, yet the public lands had a value and Sumner was in favor of giving such aid. But the question of the disposition of the public lands was as interesting as that of internal improvements. The Senators from many of the other states, having none of this land, within their boundaries, thought it should be preserved to be sold. The debate continued from day to day until the seventeenth day of February when Sumnei*'s argument was assailed by Hunter of 248 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER Virginia, who with Underwood of Kentucky was particularly radical in opposition to the bill. When Hunter ceased speak- ing, Sumner arose to restate his argument and call attention to the fact that if wrong it should be answered, that Hunter had only claimed he had overstated the figures but nowhere denied that they were figures even if overstated and had not even attempted to answer them. The debate still continuing, an effort was made to amend the bill, by providing that portions of the public land should be distributed to each of the thirteen original states and to Maine, Vermont, Tennessee and Kentucky in the proportion of one acre to each inhabitant, according to the last census to be used for purposes of education and in- ternal improvements. Sumner opposed this amendment. The Senators from the West and Southwest appreciated the service Sumner had done them in this debate and felt under ob- ligation to him. It was valuable aid from an unexpected source. His argument attracted a good deal of attention, in the Senate, and over the country, — especially in the West where most of the lands lay. In Massachusetts it was made the occasion of criticism of Sumner by the Whigs and of a resolution on the subject, in the Legislature. The Whig papers in Boston took it up against him and criticised his course. But the Free- Soilers were satisfied with it. They were largely composed of young men and controlled by conscience more than by questions of finance. They had sent Sumner to the Senate and were loyal to him. At this time he was in consultation or correspondence with many of them and appreciated their advice and confidence. One of their leaders was Eobert Rantoul, Jr., who was elected to Congress, the previous fall, by the same coalition of Free- Soilers and Democrats as had placed Sumner in the Senate. He had also been chosen, by the same coalition, to fill the unexpired term of Webster in the Senate, an interval of a few weeks expiring next March 4, and had he lived, he would probably have become Sumner's colleague, after the next election. He died at Washington, while serving his first term in the House. He belonged to one of the substantial families of Beverly, was an able lawyer, had been carefully educated to his profession and of such tastes as led him to continue his literary studies in connection with the law. He had at the time of his death, in contemplation, the preparation of a his- tory of France. His father before him had filled important positions, had been a Member of the Legislature, Collector of Eevenue at Boston, and United States District Attorney for Massachusetts, so that, by training and experience, the son had been fitted for a public career. But it was ended all too soon. LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 2-19 at the early age of forty-six, suddenly, after a brief illness, — so brief that Sumner did not know of his sickness, till he heard he was dying. His interest in the anti-slavery cause, his posi- tion in Congress, his ability to maintain himself, in public speech, made him one whose death at the time, was a loss. Two days after his death in a eulogy in the Senate, Sumner said of him : " There was no topic within the wide range of national concern, which did not occupy his thoughts. The resources and needs of the West were all known to him and Western interests were like his own. As the pioneer, resting from his daily labors learns the death of Rantoul, he wall feel a personal grief. The fishermen on the Eastern coast, many of whom are dwellers in his District will sympathize with the pioneer. These hardy children of the sea, returning in their small craft from late adventures, and hearing the sad tidings, will feel that they too have lost a friend. And well they may. During his last fitful hours of life, while reason still struggled against disease, he was anxious for their welfare. The speech which he had hoped soon to make in their behalf, was then chasing through his mind. Finally in broken utterances, he gave to them his latest thoughts. The death of such a man, so sudden in mid career is well calculated to arrest attention and to furnish admonition," After enumerating the good causes, — public improvements, particularly railroads, common schools, temperance, etc., for which he had struggled, Sumner said : " There is another cause that commanded his early sympathies and some of his latest endeavors, to which had life been spared, he would have given the splendid maturity of his powers. Posterity cannot forget this ; but I am forbidden by the occasion to name it here. Sir, in the long line of portraits on the walls of the Ducal Palace at Venice, commemorating its Doges, a single panel where a portrait should have been is shrouded by a dark cur- tain. But this darkened blank, in that place, attracts the be- holder more than any picture. Let such a curtain fall to-day upon this theme." The reference was to slavery, — the first Sumner made to it in the Senate. But even this slight allusion in the sensitive condition of the Senate, caused such irritation, that Sumner's colleague, John Davis, gave it as his reason for not speaking on the resolutions and allowing the vote upon them to be taken at once. But the slavery question could not be kept out of the Con- gressional Record. Frown on it, resolve against it, compromise it as they might, still it seemed to be the one subject that always 250 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER appeared. The mention of it was almost sure to provoke a scene. Members were tired of it. They folt that little good could come of farther discussion of it. They ruled it out of order, but the people sent new men, wiio would bring it to the attention of Congress again and insist upon discussing it. During his first winter in Washington, Sumner was asked to present to the Senate a memorial asking for the release of Drayton and Sayres, master and mate of the schooner Pearl, who had been convicted and imprisoned for the crime of trans- porting slaves. This was the first work in the anti-slavery cause that Sumner was asked to do in Washington. It is an interesting episode in anti-slavery history and on this account,' aside from Sumner's connection with it, is worth preserving. On the morning of the sixteenth of April, 1848, the people of Washington were surprised, with the intelligence that seventy- six slaves had escaped on board the Pearl, a vessel, that had been quietly lying in the river and sailing down the Potomac, were then hurrying off to Freedom. The news and the thought that their own property might thus easily flee away, caused much excitement among the slave-holders of the city. Other vessels were immediately dispatched in pursuit, the Pearl was over- hauled and the slaves with Drayton and Sayres were brought back to the city. Upon landing, the offending master and mate were met on the wharf by a mob that threatened to lynch them. The police however succeeded in getting them to the jail, when the mob surrounded the building and learning that Joshua E.. Giddings was there in consultation with the prisoners, as their attorney, they demanded that he be at once expelled or they would cause bloodshed. And the jailer obliged him to retire. The case of the offending master and mate was promptly brought before a grand-jury and one hundred and fifteen in- dictments were found against them. Horace Mann, then a Eep- resentative in Congress from Massachusetts, at Sumner's re- quest, defended them, on their trial, Sumner assisting him with authorities. They were, however, convicted and were sentenced to pay fines amounting to more than twenty thousand dollars and were remanded to jail till the fines and costs were paid. They had already lain in jail more than four years. Some good people in Boston, among them Wendell Phillips, united in a petition to Congress asking for their release and sent it to Sumner for presentation in the Senate. Sumner, feeling that such a petition presented to a body of such sentiments would only raise a new storm against Drayton and Sayres, took the liberty to withhold it and applied to President Fillmore, in LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 251 their behalf, for a pardon. The President questioned his power to grant a pardon in such a case, part of the fines being payable to the owners of the slaves abducted; and so the matter rested for some months. Upon Sumner pressing the matter farther, the President asked him to furnish some authorities in support of his power to grant a pardon in such cases. Sumner thereupon prepared a brief upon this question, which the Presi- dent submitted to the Attorney-General. He sustained the view of Sumner as to the power of the President to grant the pardon, but expressly refrained from expressing any opinion as to the propriety of granting it in these cases. Soon after, the Whig Convention nominating General Scott for President, thus defeating Fillmore, the pardons were granted. The President informed Sumner, by a note that he had signed them, when Sumner fearing that the prisoners would be arrested on other charges, went to the jail, in a car- riage and placing them in charge of a friend, they were driven under the darkness of night to Baltimore, where they arrived in time to take the early train for the North and were soon in a Free State and out of danger. By some persons Sumner was criticised for not following the request of the petitioners and presenting their prayer to Con- gress. Such a course they thought would have given publicity to the application and would have aroused indignation at the treatment of the prisoners, and would also have provoked a discussion of the slavery question in Congress. But whatever of benefit it might have brought in this way, would the chance of the good have justified the additional suffering it would have entailed on Drayton and Sayres? Sumner thought it would not and the prisoners, when he visited the jail for the purpose of consulting them, agreed with him. They felt they had suffered enough already for the cause, without additional martyrdom being placed upon them. Wendell Phillips frankly admitted the wisdom of Sumner's course. It was not the intention of either the Whigs or Democrats to have any discussion of the slavery question during this ses- sion of Congress. The Compromise measures, which were to settle everything, and on which Webster had made his fatal seventh of March speech, had been passed only the previous ses- sion, after a long and anxious debate. The recollection of it was too fresh for them to permit this Compromise to be at- tacked thus early. Both parties in their National Platforms, during the summer of 1852, while Congress was still in ses- sion, had declared the question settled and were pledged against any attempt to reopen it. They both hoped to be rid of it 253 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER during the coming campaign. They were determined that whoever attempted to open it, should be put down if possible. This did not bode well for Sumner, who had been sent to the Senate to do this very thing and because of his especial capacity for it. But he was not a party to the Compromise, and the pledges of others to sustain it, did not bind him. He was there- fore determined to discuss it. On the 26th day of May, he offered in the Senate, the pe- tition of some residents of Massachusetts, of the Society of Friends for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. This law was enacted as a part of the Compromise. He had read only a part of it, the prayer of the petition, setting out in respectful terms, that they asked the repeal of the law, because of its in- justice to a long oppressed race and especially because it placed them in jeopardy of the penalties of a law, which they could not conscientiously obey. He was prefacing his motion for a refer- ence of the petition to the proper committee with the remark: " This memorial is commended by the character of the religious association from which it proceeds, — men who mingle rarely in public affairs, but with austere virtue seek to carry the Chris- tian rule into life ; " when he was abruptly stopped by the Presiding officer, Mr. King, of Alabama, who called him to order, telling him that he had no right to say anything more than state the contents of the memorial and move its reference, that more than this was ont of order. Yet Sumner had ob- served that it was the constant practice, upon any other sub- ject to do just as he was doing. Upon being assured that it was not his purpose to make a speech on the subject of slavery, the Senate allowed him to proceed. He then completed his statement, but gave notice that at some appropriate time he proposed to address the Senate upon this question. He moved to refer the petition to the Committee on the Judi- ciary. A discussion of the motion arose. Finally on motion of Badger of North Carolina, the memorial was laid on the table. Without saying much about it, except to his most intimate friends, Sumner felt discouraged by the prospect. Senators knew he wished to speak on the subject, but they were resolved, and openly made their boasts, that he should not be allowed to do so. He felt that he could not expect to change their convictions by what he would say, but he insisted that he should be allowed the right of free discussion, in the place to which he had been elected. Almost pleadingly he reminded them, that thus far during the session, he had forborne to obtrude his views upon them, that it was only justice he asked, that LIFE OF CHARLES S^VMNER 253 both sides should be heard and he hoped they would hear him patiently, while he candidly and courteously presented the views of another portion of the country differing from theirs. On the 27th day of July, Sumner made another attempt to be heard. He offered a resolution in the Senate instructing the Judiciary Committee to consider the expediency of reporting a bill repealing the Fugitive Slave Law and gave notice that he would ask to be heard on the next day. Accordingly the next day, July 28th, he called up the Resolution and asked "the Senate for leave to speak upon it. " In allowing me this privilege," he said, " this right, I may say, you do not commit yourselves in any way to the prin- ciple of the resolution ; you merely follow the ordinary usage of the Senate, and yield to a brother Senator the opportunity which he craves, in the practical discharge of his duty, to ex- press convictions dear to his heart, and dear to large numbers of his constituents. For the sake of these constituents, for my own sake, I now desire to be heard. Make such disposition of my resolutions afterwards, as to you shall seem best; visit upon me any degree of criticism, censure or displeasure; but do not refuse me a hearing. ' Strike, but hear.'" A debate ensued, all the speakers except one, being opposed to taking up the resolution. They assigned the want of time and danger to the Union as the reasons. When the vote was taken, there were only ten in its favor; while thirty-two voted against it. Sumner was deliberately denied the privilege of speaking. He now saw that if he spoke at all, it would have to be as a matter of right, at a time when the Senate under its rules could not stop him. He must therefore watch for such a time and find it, or go back to his constituents, at the close of the session, unheard and, perhaps, discredited. His constituents did not understand his silence. How was it possible for plain people, — farmers at work in the fields, or the smith at his forge, or the fisherman toiling at his oar, to know the rules of the Senate? Who would explain his silence to them ? And yet they were the people around whose hearths, the newspapers were daily read in hope of learning of some of the powerful strokes for Freedom, they had been accustomed to hear from him on the platform and at the hustings. Would they think, that he, who had talked to them of the need of more backbone and whom they had supported because he was thought to have this essential qualification, had been seduced from the path of duty. And yet these were people whose good opinion Sumner valued. Such thoughts troubled him. In certain quarters in Massachusetts, there was already dis- 254 ^l^E OF CHARLES SUMNER satisfaction with his silence. The Free-Soilers, the party which had really placed him in the Senate, were men usually of high moral purposes, but intent on the one object before them and so absorbed in it, that they were apt to forget all other con- siderations. They were often impracticable. They were ex- acting in their claims upon public officials and inclined to be pessimistic and to believe that men in office were not faithful or honest. When their confidence in a man was once shaken they were unreasonable in their opinion of him and usually loud in expressing it. This was a hard party to serve. As their servant, Sumner felt during his first winter in Washington that his position was a hard one. He feared they were requiring more of him than human skill could accomplish. Sumner's Free-Soil constituents were frequently taunted on the subject of his silence, by the Whigs on one side and by the non-voting Abolitionists, on the other. Of course the Whigs after fighting his election, wished him to fail. This would con- firm their estimate of him, when they said before his election that he was unfit for the place. They had abundant means of calling attention to his silence and giving publicity to his course, for they controlled the leading newspapers of the State. These papers had generally pursued a disparaging course towards him. For example, in the Iowa land debate, they gave prominence, in their accounts of it, to the views of his adversaries and to what was said in criticism of Sumner, while they gave no space to his remarks or to his arguments. In a note to an edition of his speeches which he was then publishing, Winthrop called disparaging attention to Sumner's silence. Another Whig made a reference to it, in a speech in the State Senate, so pointed and offensive that Wilson left the chair to reply to it. Such thrusts were common in conversation. The non-voting Abolitionists were even worse than the Whigs. Wliile it must be conceded they meant well to the anti- slavery cause, they had such a disagreeable way of showing it, that it may fairly be questioned whether they did not do the cause more harm than good. They stubbornly refused to help it by their votes, yet after their more sensible anti-slavery friends, by working and managing and voting had secured a victory, they presumptuously rushed in to take charge of who- ever was thus elected assuming to direct him in everything and if he did not at once bow to their nod, they proceeded to dis- card him and proclaim him untrue. Just at this time they were busy denouncing Sumner. William Lloyd Garrison, at a meeting of the Norfolk County Anti-Slavery Society, held at Dedham, offered a resolution, LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 255 criticising Sumner for his silence for four months. But the resolution was successfully opposed by others, who knew the reasons for his silence, from correspondence and who approved his course. Among its opposers was Wendell Phillips. He spoke against the resolution and said that the man who delivered that City Oration and who not being aware of the sacrifice he was making for his principles, yet had stuck to them as he did after finding it out, and who had afterward advanced to the prison discipline and anti-slavery struggles and maintained himself as he had done, had earned the right to be trusted, farther than men could see his steps or know his reasons and that he proposed to trust him to the end of the session. Eichard H. Dana, Jr., best characterized the situation, how- ever, when he wrote Sumner : " There are some men who think that nothing is doing, unless there is a gun firing or a bell ringing. They are superficial persons in whom is no depth of root ; they are easily offended. The work we have to do is a long one ; there is no pending question. Patience and judgment and preparation are as necessary as zeal and more rare." The effect, however, of all this carping criticism of the Whigs and the non-voting Abolitionists was to the disadvantage of Sumner, who had not yet an established reputation as a states- man to give confidence to his supporters. It made his position difficult, and it stirred up opposition to him in his own party. But in the main, while many of the party did not understand his course, they continued loyal to him. The leaders, however, realized that they could not be depended on to continue this support indefinitely. Voters had been attracted from the old parties, by the promises held out by the new and these promises must be fulfilled. They advised him that to let the session close, without speaking would destroy confidence in him and weaken his position with the people and would injure the party, for whose success they were all anxious. What Sumner feared was that he might not be able to speak. He realized now that the Senate would not consent to hear him. He realized also that he could not be heard as of right and without the consent of the Senate except on the appropriation bill when it came up for consideration. Some of the Senators, like Soule, had expressed to him privately, a desire to hear his views, but the discipline of the party was so great upon this question, that upon July 27 and 28, when he had asked the privilege of speaking, these very Senators had voted with the majority against hearing him. Upon any other question this courtesy would not have been denied him. Some of them urged him to ask leave to print his speech, in the Eecord without 256 LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER delivering it; others had begged that he would not press the Senate to a vote on slavery, at this session and thus embarrass some supporters of General Scott, like Seward, by compelling them to record their position. But Sumner's answer was that he would speak and, God willing, he would press the question to a vote, even if he were left alone. This being known, he feared the consideration of the appropriation bill would be postponed till the last day of the session to prevent him being heard, and thus compel him to either not speak at all or if he did, to not be heard fully. He might prevent the passage of the bill and thereby cause an extra session. Sumner, however, was a man not easily turned from his purpose. He knew he had a right to be heard, and he determined he would be heard, even at the risk of an extra session. But as he did not wish to take before the country the respon- sibility for an extra session, he kept his purpose of speaking on the appropriation bill a secret, except from a few close friends, upon whom he laid the injunction of secrecy. To prevent its being suspected, he cleared away the evidence of preparation, removed the books and papers from his desk and gave attention to the routine work of the Senate. He, however, pressed his preparation vigorously, at all times when the Senate was not in session, knowing that no work now would be lost, that the time was approaching when he must be heard. At last that time came. The appropriation bill was reported to the Senate, on the nineteenth day of August, but it was not until August twenty-sixth, within three days of the close of the session, that any item of the bill was reached for considera- tion, to which his speech would be relevant. His purpose was, when the clause was reached, providing for the expense of the United States Courts in executing the Fugitive Slave Law, to move to strike out every appropriation for the execution of it and ask that the law itself be repealed. On the twenty-sixth day of August, Hunter, of Virginia, on recommendation of the Committee, moved to amend the bill, as follows : '•' That where the ministerial officers of the United States have or shall incur extraordinary expenses in executing the laws thereof, the payment of which is not specifically provided for, the President of the United States is authorized to allow the payment thereof under the special taxation of the District or Circuit Court of the District in which the said services have been or shall be rendered, to be paid from the appropriation for defraying the expenses of the Judiciary." This was Sumner's opportunity and he promptly seized it and offered the following amendment to the one offered by Hunter: LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 357 " Provided that no suc^li allowance shall be authorized for any expenses incurred in executing the Act of September 18, 1850, for the surrender of fugitives from service or labor, which said Act is hereby repealed." On this he took the floor and spoke. In commencing he did not conceal the exultation he felt, in having at last secured this opportunity to discuss slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law. " Here is a provision for extraordinary expenses," he said, " incurred in executing the laws of the IJnited States. Extra- ordinary expenses ! Sir, beneath these specious words lurks the very subject on which by a solemn vote of this body, I was refused a hearing. Here it is no longer open to the charge of being an ' abstraction/ but actually presented for practical legislation; not introduced by me, but by the Senator from Virginia, on the recommendation of an important committee of the Senate; not brought forward weeks ago, when there was ample time for discussion, but only at this moment, without any reference to the late period of the session. The amendment which I offer proposes to remove one chief occasion of these extraordinary expenses. Beyond all controversy or cavil it is strictly in order. And now, at last, among these final crowded days of our duties here, but at this earliest opportunity, I am to be heard, — not as a favor, but as a right. The graceful usages of this body may be abandoned but the established privileges of debate cannot be abridged. Parliamentary courtesy may be forgotten, but parliamentary law must prevail. The subject is broadly before the Senate. By the blessing of God it shall be discussed." He referred to the responsibility he assumed in attacking an institution engrafted as slavery had been upon the constitution and laws of the country. In the existing distemper of the public mind and at the present juncture no man, he said, could enter upon the service which he now undertook, without per- sonal responsibility such as could be sustained only by the sense of duty which, under God, is always one's best support. But he was willing to be held responsible for this act before the Senate and the country and for every word which he was about to utter. He was painfully convinced of the unutterable wrong and woe of slavery and he believed that according to the true spirit of the Constitution it could find no place under our National Government. " I have never been a politician," he said. " The slave of principle I call no party master. By sentiment, education and conviction a friend of human rights in their utmost expansion, I have ever most sincerely embraced the Democratic Idea, — not. 258 L-^FE OF CHARLES SUMNER indeed, as represented or professed Jjy any party but accord- ing to its real significance as transfigured in the Declaration of Independence and in the injunctions of Christianity. In this idea I see no narrow advantage merely for individuals or classes, but the sovereignty of the people, and the greatest liappiness of all secured by equal laws. I shall hold fast always to this idea and to any political party which truly embraces it." He reminded them that he would not forget the amenities which belong to debate and which especially became the Sen- ate. It was the institution of slavery which he assailed, not its apologists. It was this wrong which he condemned without fear and without favor but as without impeachment of any person. Coming to the question of slavery he said that at the thresh- old he encountered the objection that there had been a final settlement in principle and substance of this question and that all discussion of it was closed, that both tlie old political parties in their conventions had recently united in this declaration ; and yet this was the very subject which was palpitating in every heart and burning on every tongue. He insisted that such party declarations were tyrannical. They curtailed the power of legislation and trampled upon the right of free speech. On slavery as on every other subject he claimed the right to be heard. In words almost prophetic he added : " The movement against slavery is from the Everlasting Arm. Even now it is gathering its "forces, soon to be confessed everywhere. It may not be felt yet in the high places of office and power, but all who can put their ears humbly to the ground will hear and com- prehend its incessant and advancing tread." For a long time the demands and the threats of the South had been growing. As it reached out for more territory, of which to make slave states, it became intolerant of opposition. The refusal of its demands was met witli prompt threats of se- cession and complaints that the North was not fair to the South, that while the North had its tariff, largely favorable to its manufactures, it was ready to wrest from the South its cheap slave labor without which the rice and cotton fields could not be tilled with profit. Whoever advocated the aboli- tion of slavery was, therefore, charged by the slave power as being a sectionalist, as wishing to drive the South out and break up the Union. Accordingly an anti-slavery party was a sectional party, but a pro-slavery party was a national party. To be an an/t-slavery Whig was to be a Sectional Whig; but to be a pro-slavery Whig was to be a National Whig. " Anti- LIFE OF CHARLES SUMNER 259 slavery " had become a term of reproach in the North, as well as in the South. Both the Wliitlier, 82. iner, George''- )S, 343, 4V-'S, ' M-% ner, Henri's Reports," 99. ner. Horf^^ife, 119-121. ner, Inc-s Mutiny, 128-130. ner. Jar/" Vesey Jr.", 132. ner, Jo'.css, 132-5. 'I aer, Ji'ion Match Case, 100, ^137 1. i>n Discipline, 130. ler, \sue Grandeur of Nations,' ler, .440-153. 'er, Ppearance, 142. ;ibute to .Tudce Story, 154. y/pposes Annexation of Texas. Opposes Slavery. 158. P r FTrnployment of Time," 159- sl l*'l- ej" White Slavery," 159-161. (Tribute to .Tohn Picljering, 162. Phi Beta Kappa Oration, 163-7. As an Orator, 167-8. Universal Peace, 140-153, 169- 170. Prison Discipline, 171, etc. Equal School Privileges, 177-8. Law Practice, 179. Lyceum Lecturer, 179. Mexican War, 181. Dolefrate to Whig Conventions, 184, 189. Favors new Party, 190-3. Attends Free-Soil Convention, 193. Ratification Meeting, 194-5. Free-Soil Campaign, 195-6. Nominated for Congress, 196- 202. Loss of Friends, 203-212. New Friends, 212-14. " Five of Clubs," 205. Taste for Music, 209. European Correspondence, 210. Edits his Speeches, 214. " Our Immediate Anti-Slavery Duties," 221. Attacks Fugitive Slave Lavf, 221-3. Candidate for Senator, 223-232. Elected, 232. First News, 233. Goes to Longfellow's, 234-5. Accepts, 236. Regrets at Leaving Boston, 237-9. Benton's Prediction, 239. Reception in Washington, 241-2. Speaks on Reception of Kossuth, 242-5. Iowa Land Bill, 246. Eulogy on Rantoul, 248-9. Pardon for Drayton & Savers, 250-1. Seeks to Speak on Slavery, 052-7. Spof^h " Freedom, National," 257. Against Fugitive Slave Law, 262-5, 2J^'>. 475-6. His Egotism, 1 267. Free-Soil Convention. 268. Massachusetts Constitutional Convention. 270-7>._j , Repeal of Missouri (';;mpromise, 276-8. Midnight Speech, 281-3. Threats of Violence, 283-4. Abuse of, 287-8. 315-16, ."^26. Talks back. 289-290, 31G. Speaks to Republican Coaven- tion, 292-3, 305. Literary Recreation, 394-5.' " Anti-Slavery Entejpjrj^e,;' ,^99- 302. ivi ' Visits West and Soutb. ,302-5. " Crime against KansasT'''' 316- 328. Assaulted by Brooks, 330-3. Injuries, 333, 342. Congressional Action, 334-5. Resignation and Re-election of Brooks, 336. College Degrees, 345. Reception af Boston, 347-8. Second Election, 348-9. Visits De Tocquevillo, .360-1. Harriet Martineau. 361. Dunrobin Castle. 363. Teddesley Hall, 367. Stafford, 367. Hawarden, 368. Study of Engravings, 372. Submits to Moxa, 375. Rome and Turin, 381. On Foreign Relations Commit- tee, 386, 409. " Barbarism of Slavery," 387- 394, 399. First Lincoln Campaign. .398. "^32 INDEX As an Orator, 399. Lecture on Lafayette, 400. Firmness at opening of War, 404-9. Threatened by Baltimore Mob, 410. Slavery, the issue in War, 411-5. " Rebellion, its Origin," etc., 417-19. ., , "Trent Affair," 425-9. .'.u Mason and Slidell, ,425«aji3 Leader in Senate,' 430, 552, 569. Reconstruction, 432-3, 4537-0. Emancipation, 411-5. 434, 4r!0- 441, 442-3, 445-451, 482-7, 504. .. Compensated ITinancipation, 434- Y, 456. ■■•■' Ambassadors for Haiti and Li- beria,- "^4 37-8. Slavp ■'Trade, 438-9, 474. To /ree Slaves of Rebels, 439. L5sal Tender Notes, 443. i'hird Election, 446-7, 452. Enlistment of Colored Troops 453. Shaw Memorial, 454. Our Foreign Relations, 464-7. Intimacy with Lincoln, 473, 514. Slavery and Freedom Committee, 474. Persistency, 478. Civil Service Bill, 479-480. Colored Witnesses, 481. Equal Pay for Colored Troops, 488. French Spoliations, 489. Oppo.ses Tax on Banks, 489. Supreme Court, 497, 499. Suffrage, 499, 504, 610-1, 567-8, 625. Freedmen's Bureau, 501, etc. Discharge of Smith Bros., 515. At Richmond, 516-7. Assassination of Lincoln, 518-19. Eulogy on Lincoln, 520-2. Relations with Johnson, 524. 559, 534-5, 540-1, 54.5-0, 600-3. " Equal Rights for All," 542. Senator Stockton, 550. Viva Voce Ballot for Senators, 550. Death of Mother, 555. Marriage, 557-8. " One Man Powtr » gress," 559; ; On Education, olV'i K'.ies of Cs^r,;Xm^ " Sumi, Social Somer Edits Purcbase of Divorj-g^ J 5g4 _'"r^l617. " I\>ophetic •' The Nation His Fortune, iTRfHabits. 590-1. ' Impeachment, 600-3. Opposes Repudiation, 60;. 25, For Grant, 608-610, 646. Fourth Election, 612. 32. Motley and Fish, 613-16. 81. Eulogies on Stevens auu senden, 617. Edition of Works, 619. f " Question of Caste," 621. " Equal Rights," 622-3, 61 Opposes Southern Inde 1 623-4. ! Resumption, 607, 630. Opposes Income Tax, 630. Opposes Tariff on Books, 63 Cheaper Postage, 631-3. ^ Johnson-Clarendon Treaty, 6 , 640. Opposes Annexation of Sa mingo, 656-664, 672. Removal from his Comn 663-670. I Medal from Haiti, 674. I Speech against Grant, 6S3-. j Advises Colored Voters to I port Greeley, 688. j Letter of Blaine, 688. , His Answer, 688-9. Speech for Greeley, 690. 1 His AVill, 690-1. ' Nominated for Governor and de- clines, 694. \ London and Paris, 695. j Visits John Bright, 696. Battle Flag Bill, 699-700. Censured, 701-3. Last Summer, 705-8. Toast before Now England Soci- ety, N. \., 709-711. Last Days in Senate, 711-715. Last Sickness and Death, 716- 718. Funeral, 718-721. Eulogies, 722-3. Sumner, Charles P., 12-15, 82. INDEX 733 Sumner, Edwin ■ L 10. Sumner, George^- 106, 131, 204-5, -68, 343, 4T'l- Sumner, Ilenr 1- Sumner, Horr'. L 120. Sumner, incase, 1. Sumner, Jar. 1- Sumner, Jo! 2, 120. Sumner, Ji^a, 1. 108, 109, 112, 135, 721. Sumner, '.atilda, 1, 24. Sumner, vlary, 1. 108, 109, 135-7. Sumner, Relief Jacobs, 5-6, 555-7. Talfourd, Thos. N., 67, 68, 69. Tanoy, Chief Justice. 497-9. ?>ylor, Zachariah, 191, 196. red desley Hall, 367. Tenure of Office Law, 563-6. Tfxas, Annexation of, 127, 130, 180. " The Three Graces," 109. ^I'hrcats of Violence, 283-4. 395. "The Nation," Lecture, 586-8. Thomas, Lorenzo, 594. Thiers. L. A., 42. Tichnor, Professor Geo.. 16, 41, 115, 204, 208. Thibaut, Professor, 94, 155. Tilden Samuel J., 193. Tindal, Chief Justice, 51, 59. Toombs, Senator, 332. Toucey, Bill, 296-7. Tower, C, 13, 18. "Trent Affair." 425. Trumbull, Senator, 314, 679. Tyler, John, 207. Van Buren, Martin, 98. 193-4, 196. Vallandigham. C. T., 408. Vattemare. Alexr., 353. Voorhees, Daniel W., 487. Von Humboldt, Alexr., 160. W Wade, Senator, 596. Walker, Amasa, 170. Ward, Julia R., 109. Ward, Julia (Howe), 109, 110, 163, 702. Ward, Samuel, 109, 134. Washburn, Elihu B., 614. Washington, George, 143. Washington, Treaty of, 644-5. Wayland, Francis, 172, 174. Webster, Daniel — Hears his Eulogy on Adams and .Jefferson, 19. In " Harrison Campaign," 99. Friendly Help, 100. Estimate of Hedging, 116, 125, 189. 191. Marvelous Presence, 185. His Estimate of Van Buren as a Free-Soiler, 193-4. Seventh of March Speech, 216- 220. Webster, Fletcher, 185. Webb, Seth, Jr., 224. Wentworth House, 70, 72. Wharncliffe, Earl, 70, 210. Whewell, Professor, 210. Whitticr, John G. — Urges Sumner for Senator, 224-5. Congratulates him, 235, 186, 275. 291. Campaigns for him, 451. Seeks Repeal of Censure, 702. Commemorates him, 721-2. Wilde. Thos., 59. Willis. N. P., 96. Windsor Castle, Visits, 72. Williams, J. M.. 188. Wilson, Vice-President — Bolt's Nomination of Taylor, 191, 207. Friendship, 213. In Election of Sumner to Senate, 227, 233, 235. Nominated for Governor, 293. Elected to Senate. Elected Vice-I'resident. Friendship unbroken, 706-7, 721. Williamson, Passmore, 304. Wilson, James F., 592. Winthrop, Robert C, 8, 150, 167, 181, 188, 190, 203, 216, 220, 227, 232, 349. Witherell, Sir Charles, 49. Witnesses, Colored, 481. Vrright, E., 188. Wordsworth, William (poet), 65, 116. Young Men's Republican Union, 467. \ 627 Tpi Tf -•?- A^^'