We can give no better sketch of Mr. Rantoul’s life than to quote from
Hon. Charles Sumner’s eulogy pronounced in congress. He was born
August 13th, 1805, at Beverly, in the county of Essex, the home of
Nathan Dane. Here under happy auspices of family and neighborhood, he
commenced life. His excellent father, honored for his public services,
venerable also in years and flowing silver locks, yet lives to mourn
his last surviving son. The sad fortune of Burke is renewed. He who
should have been as posterity, is now to this father in the place of
ancestry. Mr. Rantoul was early a member of the legislature of
Massachusetts, and there won his first fame. For many years he
occupied a place in the board of education in that state. He was also,
for a time, collector of the port of Boston, and afterwards attorney
of the United States for Massachusetts. During a brief period he held
a seat in the senate, and finally, in 1851, by the choice of his
native district, remarkable for its intelligence and public spirit, he
became a representative in the other branch of our national
legislature. In all these spheres he performed most acceptable
service, and the future promised opportunities of a higher character,
to which his abilities, industry and fidelity would have amply
responded. By fitness, by study, knowledge and experience, he was
formed for public service, but he was no stranger to other pursuits.
Early devoted to the profession of the law, he followed it with
assiduity and success. In the antiquities of our jurisprudence, few
were more learned, and his arguments at the bar, were thorough. Nor
were his intelligence and promptness in all emergencies of a trial
easily surpassed. Literature, neglected by many under the pressure of
professional duties, was always cultivated by him. His taste for books
was enduring. He was a constant student, amidst his manifold labors,
professional and public. He was a reformer in the warfare with evil.
He was enlisted earnestly and openly as a soldier for life. As such,
he did not hesitate to encounter opposition, to meet obloquy, and to
brave his enemies. His conscience, pure as goodness, sustained him in
every trial, even that sharpest of all, the desertion of friends; and
yet while earnest in his cause, his zeal was tempered beyond that of
the common reformer. He knew well the difference between the ideal and
the actual, and sought by practical means, in harmony with public
sentiment, to promote the public interest. Recognizing in the social
and political system the essential elements of stability and progress,
he discerned the office of the conservative and the reformer; but he
saw, also, that a blind conservatism was not less destructive than a
blind reform. He was the faithful supporter of common schools, the
glory of New England. By word and example he sustained the cause of
temperance. Some of his most devoted labors, commencing in the
legislature of Massachusetts, were for the abolition of capital
punishment. With its final triumph, in the progress of civilization,
his name will be indissolubly connected. In harmony with these noble
reforms was the purity of his private life; there he was blameless. In
manners, he was modest, simple and retiring. In conversation, he was
disposed to listen rather than to speak, though all were well pleased
when he broke silence, and in apt language declared his glowing
thoughts. But in the public assembly, before the people, he was bold
and triumphant. As a debater, he rarely met his equal. Fluent,
earnest, rapid, incisive, his words at times came forth like a
flashing scimitar. Few could stand against him; he always understood
his subjects, and then clear, logical, and determined, seeing his
point before him, pressed forward with unrelenting power. His speeches
were enriched by study, and contained passages of beauty――but he was
most truly at home in dealing with practical questions arising from
exigencies of life. Few had studied public affairs more intelligibly.
As a constant and effective member of the democratic party, he had
become conspicuous by the championship of its doctrines. There was no
topic of national moment that did not interest him. Northwestern and
Western interests were near his heart.
[Illustration: FRANKLIN PIERCE.]
[Illustration: WILLIAM R. KING.]
In person, Mr. Rantoul was of medium height, of spare figure, and
restless activity both of mind and body. His manner of speaking was
peculiar to himself; with great rapidity of utterance, his sentences
were simple in their construction, and his language selected less with
reference to ornament than to strength. Devoted to his profesion and
studies, of abstemious habits, great purity of character, the friend
of all moral movements of society, he was snatched away in the prime
of life, when his talents, matured by earnest study, were unfolding
themselves to the world with much power.