formalities of the Senate were ever tightening their grasp on Sumner's
mode of life. One afternoon, as he was leaving Dr. Howe's garden at South
Boston, the doctor's youngest daughter ran out from the house, and called
to him, "Good-bye, Mr. Sumner." His back was already turned, but he faced
about like an officer on parade, and said with formal gravity: "Good
evening, child," so that Mrs. Howe could not avoid laughing at him. Yet
Sumner was fond of children in his youth. L. Maria Child heard of this
incident and made good use of it in one of her story-books.
The grand fact in Sumner's character, however, rests beyond dispute that
he never aspired to the Presidency. That lingering Washington malady
which victimized Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Seward, Chase, Sherman, and
Blaine, and made them appear almost like sinners in torment, never
attacked Sumner. He had accepted office as a patriotic duty, and, like
Washington, he was ready to resign it whenever his work would be done.
Sumner's speech on the barbarism of slavery, timed as it was to meet the
Baltimore convention, was evidently intended to drive a wedge into the
split between the Northern and Southern Democrats, but it also must have
encouraged the secession movement. Sumner, however, can hardly be blamed
for this, after the indignity he had suffered. That a high member of the
Government could have been assaulted with impunity in open day indicated
a condition of affairs in the United States not unlike that of France at
the time when Count Toliendal was judicially murdered by Louis XV.
Washington City was an oligarchical despotism.
A dark cloud hung over the Republic during the winter of 1860-'61. The
impending danger was that war would break out before Lincoln could be
inaugurated. Such secrecy was observed by the Republican leaders that
even Horace Greeley could not fathom their intentions. Late in December
John A. Andrew and George L. Stearns went to Washington to survey the
ground for themselves, and the latter wrote to William Robinson, "The
watchword is, _keep quiet_." He probably obtained this from Sumner,
and it gives the key to the whole situation.
It demolishes Von Hoist's finely-spun melodramatic theory in regard to
that period of our history, in which he finally compares the condition of
the United States to a drowning man who sees lurid flames before his
eyes. In the Republican and Union parties there were all shades of
compromise sentiment,--from those who were ready to sacrifice anything in
order to prevent secession, to Abraham Lincoln, who was only willing to
surrender the barren and unpopulated State of New Mexico to the
slaveholders. [Footnote: A not unreasonable proposition.] But Sumner,
Wade, Trumbull, Wilson, and King stood together like a rocky coast
against which the successive waves of compromise dashed without effect.
Von Hoist was notified of this fact years before the last volume of his
history was published, but he disregarded it evidently because it
interfered with his favorite theory.
The last of January, however, a report was circulated in Boston that
Sumner had joined the compromisers for the sake of consistency with the
peace principles which he had advocated in his Fourth of July oration.
Boston newspapers made the most of this, although it did not seem likely
to Sumner's friends, and George L. Stearns finally wrote to him for
permission to make a denial of it. Sumner first replied to him by
telegraph saying: "I am against sending commissioners to treat of
surrender by the North. Stand firm." Then he wrote him this memorable
letter.
WASHINGTON, 3d Feb., '61.
My Dear Sir:
There are but few who stand rooted, like the oak, against a storm. This
is the nature of man. Let us be patient.
My special trust is this: _No possible compromise or concession will be
of the least avail._ Events are hastening which will supersede all
such things. This will save us. But I like to see Mass. in this breaking
up of the Union ever true. God keep her from playing the part of Judas
or--of Peter! You may all bend or cry pardon--I will not. Here I am, and
I mean to stand firm to the last. God bless you!
Ever yours,
CHARLES SUMNER.
The handwriting of this letter is magnificent. Sumner had a strongly
characteristic hand with something of artistic grace in it, too; but in
this instance his writing seems like the external expression of the mood
he was in when he wrote the letter.
The question may be asked, Why then did not Sumner rise in the Senate and
make one of his telling speeches against compromise during that long,
wearisome session? I think the answer will be found in the watchword:
"Keep quiet!" He perfectly understood the game that Seward was playing
and he was too wise to interfere with it. Seward was the cat and
compromise was the mouse. Whatever mistakes he may have afterwards made,
Seward at this time showed a master hand. He encouraged compromise, but
he must have been aware that the proposed constitutional amendment, which
would forever have prevented legislation against slavery, would not have
been confirmed by the Northern States. He could easily count the
legislatures that would reject it. It finally passed through Congress on
the last night of this session by a single vote, and was ratified by only
three States!
As soon as Lincoln was inaugurated there was no more talk of compromise,
and Seward was firmness itself. He declined to receive the disunion
commissioners; [Footnote: At the same time he coquetted with them
unofficially.] he compelled the Secretary of War to reinforce Fort
Pickens; he overhauled General Scott, who proved an impediment to
vigorous military operations. These facts tell their own tale.
After Seward and Chase had left the Senate Sumner was _facile
princeps_. Trumbull was a vigorous orator and a rough-rider in debate,
but he did not possess the store of legal knowledge and the vast fund of
general information which Sumner could draw from. One has to read the
fourth volume of Pierce's biography to realize the dimensions of Sumner's
work during the period from 1861 to 1869. Military affairs he never
interfered with, but he was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs,
the most important in the Senate, and in the direction of home politics
he was second to none. No other voice was heard so often in the
legislative halls at Washington, and none heard with more respect. A list
of the bills that he introduced and carried through would fill a long
column.
The test of statesmanship is to change from the opposition to the
leadership in a Government,--from critical to constructive politics. Carl
Schurz was a fine orator and an effective speaker on the minority side,
but he commenced life as a revolutionist and always remained one. If he
had once attempted to introduce legislation, he would have shown his
weakness, exactly where Sumner proved his strength. Froude says that to
be great in politics "is to recognize a popular movement, and to have the
courage and address to lead it"; but three times Sumner planted his
standard away in advance of his party, and stood by it alone until his
followers came up to him.
He was always in advance of his party, but conspicuously so in regard to
the abolition of slavery, the exposure of Andrew Johnson's perfidy, and
the reconstruction of the rebellious States. We might add the annexation
of San Domingo as a fourth; for I believe there are few thinking persons
at present who do not feel grateful to him for having saved the country
from that uncomfortable acquisition.
The bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia was introduced by
Wilson. Sumner did not like to be always proposing anti-slavery measures
himself, and he wished Wilson to have the honor of it. Wilson would not,
of course, have introduced the measure without consulting his colleague.
Lincoln evidently desired to enjoy the sole honor of issuing the
Emancipation Proclamation of 1862, and he deserved to have it; but Sumner
thought it might safely have been done after the battles of Fort
Donaldson and Shiloh, and the victories of Foote and Farragut on the
Mississippi, six months before it was issued; and he urged to have it
done at that time. Whether his judgment was correct in this, it is
impossible to decide.
Early in July, 1862, he introduced a bill in the Senate for the
organization of the "contrabands" and other negroes into regiments,--a
policy suggested by Hamilton in 1780,--and no one can read President
Lincoln's Message to Congress in December, 1864, without recognizing that
it was only with the assistance of negro troops that the Union was
finally preserved.
In spite of the continued differences between Sumner and Seward on
American questions they worked together like one man in regard to foreign
politics. Sumner's experience in Europe and his knowledge of public men
there was much more extensive than Seward's, and in this line he was of
invaluable assistance to the Secretary of State.
Lowell could make a holiday of six years at the Court of St. James, but
during the war it was a serious matter to be Minister to England. In the
summer of 1863 affairs there had reached a climax. The _Alabama_ and
_Florida_ were scaring all American ships from the ocean, and five
ironclad rams, built for the confederate government, were nearly ready to
put to sea from English ports. If this should happen it seemed likely
that they would succeed in raising the blockade. As a final resort
Lincoln and Seward sent word to Adams to threaten the British Government
with war unless the rams were detained.
Meanwhile it was necessary to brace up the American people to meet the
possible emergency. On September 10 Sumner addressed an audience of three
thousand persons in Cooper Institute, New York, for three hours on the
foreign relations of the United States; and there were few who left the
hall before it was finished. He arraigned the British Government for its
inconsistency, its violation of international law, and its disregard of
the rights of navigators. It was not only a heroic effort, but a self-
sacrificing one; for Sumner knew that it would separate him forever from
the larger number of his English friends.
At the same time Minister Adams had an equally difficult task before him.
War with England seemed to be imminent. He held a long consultation with
Benjamin Moran, the Secretary of Legation, and they finally concluded to
see if an opinion could be obtained on the confederate rams from an
English legal authority. They went to Sir Robert Colyer, one of the lords
of the admiralty, and asked him if he was willing to give them an
opinion. He replied that he considered the law above politics, and that
he wished to do what was right. After investigating the subject Colyer
made a written statement to the effect that the United States was wholly
justified in demanding detention of the rams. Adams then placed this
opinion together with Lincoln's notification before the British Cabinet,
but the papers were returned to him with a refusal of compliance. "There
is nothing now," said Adams to Moran, "but for us to pack up and go
home"; but Moran replied, "Let us wait a little; while there is life
there is hope"; and the same evening Adams was notified that Her
Majesty's Government still had the subject under consideration. The rams
proved a dead loss.
When Benjamin Moran related this incident to the Philadelphia Hock Club
after his return, he added: "We owe it to our Irish-American citizens as
much as to the monitors that we did not suffer from English
interference."
Seward, and also Chase, wished to issue letters of reprisal to privateers
to go in search of the _Alabama_, but Sumner opposed this in an able
speech on the importance of maintaining a high standard of procedure for
the good reputation of the country; and he carried his point.
Sumner's greatest parliamentary feat was occasioned by Trumbull's
introduction of a bill for the reconstruction of Louisiana in the winter
of 1864. There were only ten thousand loyal white voters in the State;
and nothing could be more imprudent or prejudicial than such a hasty
attempt at reorganization of the rebellious South, before the war was
fairly ended. It was like a man building an annex to one side of his
house while the other side was on fire; yet it was known to be supported
by Seward, and, as was alleged, also by Lincoln. It was thrust upon
Congress at the last moment, evidently in order to prevent an extended
debate, and Sumner turned this to his own advantage. For two days and
nights his voice resounded through the Senate chamber, until, with the
assistance of his faithful allies, Wade and Wilson, he succeeded in
preventing the bill from being brought to a vote. It was an extreme
instance of human endurance, without parallel before or since, and may
possibly have shortened Sumner's life. Five weeks later President
Lincoln, in his last speech, made the significant proposition of
universal amnesty combined with universal suffrage. Would that he could
have lived to see the completion of his work!
Something may be said here of Sumner's influence with Mrs. Lincoln. If
Don Piatt is to be trusted, Mrs. Lincoln came to Washington with a
strong feeling of antipathy towards Seward and "those eastern
abolitionists." She was born in a slave state and had remained pro-
slavery,--a fact which did not trouble her husband because he did not
allow it to trouble him. Fifteen months in Washington brought a decided
change in her opinions, and Sumner would seem to have been instrumental
in this conversion. It is well known that she preferred his society to
that of others. She had studied French somewhat, and he encouraged her to
talk it with him,--which was looked upon, of course, as an affectation on
both sides.
At the time of General McClellan's removal, October, 1862, Mrs. Lincoln
was at the Parker House in Boston. Sumner called on her in the forenoon,
and she said at once: "I suppose you have heard the news, and that you
are glad of it. So am I. Mr. Lincoln told me he expected to remove him
before I left Washington."
Sumner resembled Charles XII. of Sweden in this: there is no evidence
that he ever was in love. His devotion to the law in early life,
surrounded as he was by interesting friends, may have been antagonistic
to matrimony. The woman he ought to have married was the noble daughter
of his old friend, Cornelius Felton, whom he often met, but whose worth
he never recognized. The marriage which he contracted late in life was
not based on enduring principles, and soon came to a grievous end. It was
more like the marriages that princes make than a true republican
courtship. Sumner apparently wanted a handsome wife to preside at his
dinner parties in Washington, but he chose her from among his opponents
instead of from among his friends.
Since there has been much foolish talk upon this subject, it may be well
to state here that the true difficulty between Mr. and Mrs. Sumner was
owing to the company which he invited to his house. She only wished to
entertain fashionable people, but a large proportion of Sumner's friends
could not be included within these narrow limits. As Senator from
Massachusetts that would not do for him at all. This is the explanation
that was given by Mrs. Sumner's brother, and it is without doubt the
correct one; but women in such cases are apt to allege something
different from the true reason.
Sumner's most signal triumph happened on the occasion of President
Johnson's first Message to Congress in January, 1865. He rose from his
seat and characterized it as a "whitewashing document." That day he stood
alone, yet within six weeks every Republican Senator was at his side.
Sumner knew how to be silent as well as to talk. On one occasion he was
making a speech in the Senate when he suddenly heard Schuyler Colfax
behind him saying, "This is all very good, Sumner, but here I have the
Appropriation bills from the House, and the Democrats know nothing about
them." Sumner instantly resumed his seat, and the bills were acted on
without serious opposition. He would sometimes sit through a dinner at
the Bird Club without saying very much, but if he once started on a
subject that interested him there was no limit to it.
Sumner's speech on the "Alabama claims" was considered a failure because
the administration did not afterwards support him; and it is true that no
government would submit to a demand for adventitious damages so long as
it could prevent this; but it was a far-reaching exposure of an
unprincipled foreign policy, and this speech formed the groundwork for
the Treaty of Washington and the Geneva arbitration. It was a more
important case than the settlement of the Northeastern boundary.
Sumner died the death of a hero. The administration of General Grant
might well be called the recoil of the cannon: it was the reactionary
effect of a great military movement on civil affairs. Sumner alone
withstood the shock of it, and he fought against it for four years like a
veteran on his last line of defence, feeling victory was no longer
possible. Many of his friends found the current too strong for them; his
own party deserted him; even the Legislature of his own State turned
against him in a senseless and irrational manner. Still his spirit was
unconquerable, and he continued to face the storm as long as life was in
him. It was a magnificent spectacle.
It was the last battlefield of a veteran warrior, and although Sumner
retired from it with a mortal wound, he had the satisfaction of winning a
glorious victory. No end could have been more appropriate to such a life.
_Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori._
Since Richard Coeur de Leon forgave Bertram de Gordon, who caused his
death, there has never been a more magnanimous man than Charles Sumner.
Once when L. Maria Child was anathematizing Preston S. Brooks in his
presence, he said: "You should not blame him. It was slavery and not
Brooks that struck me. If Brooks had been born and brought up in New
England, he would no more have done the thing he did than Caleb Cushing
would have done it,"--Cushing always being his type of a pro-slavery
Yankee.
In 1871 Charles W. Slack, the editor of the Boston _Commonwealth_,
for whom Sumner had obtained a lucrative office, turned against his
benefactor in order to save his position. When I spoke of this to Sumner,
he said: "Well, it is human nature. Slack is growing old, and if he keeps
his office for the next six years, he will have a competency. I have no
doubt he feels grateful to me, and regrets the course he is taking." At
the same time, he spoke sadly.
Sumner resembled Lord Chatham more closely than any statesman of the
nineteenth century. He carried his measures through by pure force of
argument and clearness of foresight. From 1854 to 1874 it was his policy
that prevailed in the councils of the nation. He succeeded where others
failed.
He defeated Franklin Pierce, Seward, Trumbull, Andrew Johnson, Hamilton
Fish, and even Lincoln, on the extradition of Mason and Slidell. He tied
Johnson down, so that he could only move his tongue.
In considering Sumner's oratory, we should bear in mind what Coleridge
said to Allston, the painter,--"never judge a work of art by its
defects." His sentences have not the classic purity of Webster's, and his
delivery lacked the ease and elegance of Phillips and Everett. His style
was often too florid and his Latin quotations, though excellent in
themselves, were not suited to the taste of his audiences. But Sumner was
always strong and effective, and that is, after all, the main point. Like
Webster he possessed a logical mind, and the profound earnestness of his
nature gave an equally profound conviction to his words. Besides this,
Sumner possessed the heroic element, as Patrick Henry and James Otis
possessed it. After Webster's death there was no American speaker who
could hold an audience like him.
Matthew Arnold, in his better days, said that Burke's oratory was too
rich and overloaded. This is true, but it is equally true that Burke is
the only orator of the eighteenth century that still continues to be
read. He had a faulty delivery and an ungainly figure, but if he emptied
the benches in the House of Commons he secured a larger audience in
coming generations. The material of his speeches is of such a vital
quality that it possesses a value wholly apart from the time and occasion
of its delivery.
Much the same is true of Sumner, who would have had decidedly the
advantage of Burke so far as personal impressiveness is concerned. His
Phi Beta Kappa address of 1845 is so rich in material that it is even
more interesting to read now than when it was first delivered, and his
remarks on Allston in that oration might be considered to advantage by
every art critic in the country. It should always be remembered that a
speech, like a play, is written not to be read, but to be acted; and
those discourses which read so finely in the newspapers are not commonly
the ones that sounded the best when they were delivered.
Great men create great antagonisms. The antagonism which Lincoln excited
was concentrated in Booth's pistol shot, and the Montagues and Capulets
became reconciled over his bier; but the antagonism against Sumner still
continues to smoke and smoulder like the embers of a dying conflagration.
CHEVALIER HOWE.
The finest modern statue in Berlin is that of General Ziethen, the great
Hussar commander in the Seven Years' War. [Footnote: Von Schlater's
statue of the Great Elector is of course a more magnificent work of art.]
He stands leaning on his sabre in a dreamy, nonchalant attitude, as if he
were in the centre of indifference and life had little interest for him.
Yet there never was a man more ready for action, or more quick to seize
upon and solve the _nodus_ of any new emergency. The Prussian
anecdote-books are full of his exploits and hairbreadth escapes, a number
of which are represented around the base of the statue. He combined the
intelligence of the skilful general with the physical dexterity of an
acrobat.
Very much such a man was Samuel Gridley Howe, born in Boston November 10,
1801, whom Whittier has taken as the archetype of an American hero in his
tune.
If a transient guest at the Bird Club should have seen Doctor Howe
sitting at the table with his indifferent, nonchalant air, head leaning
slightly forward and his grayish-black hair almost falling into his eyes,
he would never have imagined that he was the man who had fought the Turks
hand-to-hand like Cervantes and Sir John Smith; who had been imprisoned
in a Prussian dungeon; who had risked his life in the July Revolution at
Paris; and who had taken the lead in an equally important philanthropic
revolution in his own country.
Next to Sumner he is the most distinguished member of the club, even more
so than Andrew and Wilson; a man with a most enviable record. He does not
talk much where many are gathered together, but if he hears an imprudent
statement, especially an unjust estimate of character, his eyes flash out
from beneath the bushy brows, and he makes a correction which just hits
the nail on the head. He is fond of his own home and is with difficulty
enticed away from it. Once in awhile he will dash out to Cambridge on
horseback to see Longfellow, but the lion-huntresses of Boston spread
their nets in vain for him. He will not even go to the dinner parties for
which Mrs. Howe is in constant demand, but prefers to spend the evening
with his children, helping them about their school lessons, and listening
to the stories of their everyday experiences.