Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1871-03-23
2olitifaI.
Charles Summer.

Charles Sumner.
From the n. Y. Tribune. o.
J. For nearly twenty years, Mr.. Sum.
ner has been the special target of, abuse
and defamation from the Democratic
press. His virtues which are many
and great, have been deniedand secuted;
| his faults, which are few and yenial,
have been magnified and paraded, un-
til habitual reader of the World, the
Age, or the Albany Argus, must have
been led to regard the senior Massachu-
sets Senator as a charlatan, Pecksnif,
and a Pharisaic champion of negro
equality with intent to degrade and dis
honor the race which has the misfOr-
tune to be White and to have given
| birth to Charles Sumner. Whenever
(as in 1862 a few Republicans have tried
to oust him from the Senate, every
Democratic heart and voice have in
stinctively sympathized with the effort
and cheered on its engineers. Nay: the
most imperative dictates of propriety
and decency have been Overridden by
Democratic malevolence, and the sane
titles of his home and hearth have been
ruthlessly, cruelty invaded and defied,
and domestic affiiction which he had
nowise deserved nor provoked has been
dragged into glaring publicity and made
the theme of gross eXaggeratlon and
malignant, exulting criticism, though
no one believed Mr.. Sumner at fault in
the premises. The man was most cruel
ly assailed and traduced only because
the statesman was eminent and his
character invulnerable.
Mr.. Summers failings at once. arrest
attention. A dogmatic temper, which
-renders him impatient of contradiction
and unable readily to comprehend that
another may differ widely from him
and vet be honest, statelineSs of man.
ner which distances him from all but
the few; an honest but somewhat too
manifest pride in his position and his
well-earned fame-these exhaust the
catalogue: and whose faults are fewer
or less grave? On the other hand, are
an eye so single, heart so pure, q
career so spotiess, that the most ribald
and licentious press that ever impeded
the progress of civilization has never
yet dared to impeach the purity of his
motives or the lOftinesS of his aims. In
an age when nearly every public man
is accused of venality-Often most un-
luSlly-llO aSNCh NShtoAON w
suggest or insinuate that Charles Sum-
ner ever gave vote or made 9 motion
in Difference to any sOrdid impulse or
in the expectation that his always mod
est income would thereby be increased.
The most reckless and scurrilOus DEM
ocratic partisan orator, while abusing
Mr.. Summer without scruple or stint,
under the stimulus of applauding yells,
would have instantly checked the flow
of his hearers enthusiasm had he VEN
mred tpusesl the integrity and moral
worth of him whom they all dotested
as fanatic and a deadly foe to the in
tegrity and perpetuity of our Union:
After all fair deductions and qualifi-
cations have been made, Mr.. Sumner
stands to-day the foremost American
Senator. Say, if you will, that he has
been needlessly harsh and bitter in his
opposition to SantO Domingo-that he
might have sternly, fGrcibly resisted
annexation without making a personal
issue with our mild-mannered Presi-
dent and his most urbane Secretary of
State-that emitting his speech against
Annexation 'Naboth's Vineyard was
excessively severe and offensive-what
does all this amount to but that he
might better be somebody else, and not
Charles Sumner? In this world of limi-
tatiOns and imperfections, it seems
wiser to value every one according to
the good we find in him, and not exact
of each the possession and display of
every conceivable excellence. ti<..4
That it was mistake in the Senate
to remove Mr.. Sumner from the Chair
manship of its Committee on Foreign
Relations, we cannot doubt. And yet,
the position to which he was transferred
was better adapted to his genius, and
more accordant with his lofty renown.
For, while we have had no Senator
since Salmon P. Chase entitled to rank
Charles Sumner, and though that must
be very meager scompend of Ameri-
can history which Omits his name, yet
his honorable eminence has been noWise
achieved through the Craftsmanship
aforesaid, but wholly through that
eager, uncompronising unsleeping de-
vOtion to the Equal Rights of Man
which the position just assigned him by
the Senate must afford him the largest
opportunities to subserve. If he had
asked the Senate to relieve him from
further service in the Committee on
Foreign Relations, and assign him in
stead to just such duties as have now
been imposed on him, the wisdom and
fitness of his choice would have been
generally admitted. s7 y.
Ne man in ounday is so great that he
might not be greater. The best soldier
does not prescribe his own rank or posi-
tion on the battlefield; he takes that
assigned him, and allows others to say
that he was worthy of and would have
been more useful in a higher.
Theirs not tn make reply;
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die"
"Where McGregor sits is the head of
the table" was the dictate of manly
selftnst. And r, if Mr., Sumner had
been great enough to say to his fellow
Senators, Put me on any Committee,
or ON s1p,1a as Won. iIldoe mOst cOnd,Iciyo