Washington sentinel., 1856-05-24
MR.. SUMMERS SPEECH.

oome Oh the Black Republicans appear over
joyed at the compilation by Senator Sumner OF
extracts from Latin and Greek authors, and at
some flighty attempts at audacity of assertion
which lacked the truth to give them direction
or effect-mere explosions which made noise
and smoke, leaving neither killed nor wounded
on the field
In the examination of this speech, if the
reader will lop off the pedantry which is alto
gether extraneous to the matter in hand, and
which serves only as gilt frame to charcoal
sketch, and will also strike out all that is un-
true, we do not hesitate to say that very ordi
nary stump orators speak more forcibly and
more pertinently to the point.
Mr.. Sumner is neither statesman, logi-
gician, nor practical man. He has q good
ear for the harmony of language, but he has
not the heart to manufacture good sentiment,
nor the judgment to discern truth and logic.
He is man of rather good literary attain
gents, and it was supposed that he would
makea good slang-whanger in Congress, to in
flame the imaginations of the ardent and the
ignorant He is now what he was put in the
Senate to be-a puppet to wire-workers with
brains, hunting for plunder; he undoubtedly
receives his instructions from them-he does
his best to earn their approval. He knows not,
until told by them, whether he has we'll done
or i'll done. His task is to minister to what
these parties tell him viii arouse and CRAFTY
his abolition supporters at home. Therefore
it is that he addresses himself, not to the ques
tions at issue before the Senate--not to the
judgment of the nation-but he simply racks
his ingenuity under cover of the question al
issue, to disembogue himself of an oration
which he has prepared to tickle the ears of the
abolitionists at home
We think, therefore, that Senators do both
him and themselves injustice, when they hold
him to account for his speech, as though j,
we're a serious address intended for effect in the
Senate.
Senator Sumner is something Of rhetori
tician, but not logician as such he is almost at
the zero mark Of his friend Greeley-and both
of these gentlemen mistake the loud cracking
of their whips for efficiency of blows; and ye,
the more completely they miss their object
the louder they crack their whips, and the
greater their glee.
Mr.. Sumner has neither ready wit nor his
torical information to make him q debater-
and the mere resources of memory in stuffed
pedant i'll avail where practical knowledge and
close logic abound, as in the Senate.
Senators become irritated when a man OF
polite learning, as Mr.. Sumner is, plays the
parasite to disgusting prejudices and malevo.
lence and cupidity, and cannot restrain the ex.
preston of their Indignation.
But all history shows that mere literary men
have always been the plastic and ready tools
of the cunning; that like hounds they hunt
indiscriminately and bark at all upon whom
they are set by their masters, and know no rule
of right or wrong, except their masters will.
Mr.. Sumner was emphatcally PUT into the
Senate-he had no part or lot in the matter
and those who pat him into the Senate pat the
speeches into his mouth--thcy tell him what
will best effect their purpose-and straightway
his library and midnight lamp are put in re-
QUESTION, and as soon as the period of gesta.
tion is over, he delivers himself without particu-
lar reference to time or occasion.
Poor Sumnerl We feel for a scholar drudging
in such unsuitable, if not uncongenial labors-
wasting energies in rhetorical folies, that might
be employed in useful literature, which has
lost genuine votary, while politics has gained
but bunger. Deal gently with him; his vir.
tues are his own-his faults but the graftings
on his vanity
Be 10 his virtues very kind,
Be TO bis faults little blind"