Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1871-03-21
The Press on Summers Removal.

oeIIous "IoW W the hepuolican party, |
and the Herald takes the same view. |
The New York Times says that the |
President had good reason for desir-
ing the removal. but it was done. not
by him, but by the large majority of
men whose devotion 10 Republican |
principles are as tried and true as
Mr.. Summers. The Washington
Chronicle, Boston Advertiser. Chicago |
Tribune and Republican, Milwaukee |
Wisconsin aud Detroit Tribune de-
nounce the removal of Sumner.
The New York Tribune says:
"For nearly twenty years, Mr.. Sumner has
been the special target of abuse and defama-
ton from the Democratic press. His virtues
which are many and great, have been denied
and secuted his faults, which are few and
venlal, have been magnhed ami paraded, until
a habitual reader of The WORLD, The AGE, or
The ALBANY ARGUS, must have been led TO
regard the senior Massachusetts Senator as a
charlatan, a Pecksnif, and a Pharisaic cham
pion of negro equality with intent TO degrade
and dshonor the race which has the misfortune
TO be White and to have given birth to Chas
Sumner. Whenever Gas in 1862 few Re-
puDltCdilS nave hiSu " Oust from the
Senate, every Democratic heart and voice have
instinctively sympathized with the effort and
cheered on its engineers.
MIR. Summers failings at once arrest atten-
ton. A dogmatic temper, which renders him
impatient OF contradiction and unable readily
TO comprehend that another may differ widely
from him and yet be hon est a stateliness of
IN amer which distances him from all but the
few an honest but somewhat too manifest
pride in his position and his wel-earned fame
these exhaust the catalogue; and whose
faults are fewer or ess grave? On the other
hand, are an eve so single, a heart so pure. a
career so spotless, that the most ribald and
licentious press thai ever impeded the progress
OF civilization has never yet dared TO smpeach
the purity of his motives or the holiness of
his aims. In an age when nearly every pub.
lie man is accused of venalty--o.ten most
unjustly-no one has even ventured 10 suggest
or insinuate that Charles Sumner ever gave
vote or made a motion in Difference 10 any
sordid impulse or in the expectation that his
always modest income would thereby be in
creased.
= fter all fail deductions and qualifications
have been made, Mr.. Sumner stands to-day
the foremost American Senator. Saw. if YOU
will, that he has been needlessly harsh and
bitter in his opposition TO Santo Domingo-that
he might have strenuously, torciby resisted
annexation without making a personal issue
wi h our mild-mannered President and his
most urbane Secretary of State. What does
all this amount TO but that he might better be
somebody else, and not Charles Sumner?
That il was mistake in the Senate TO re-
move Mr. Sumner from the Chairmanship 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 M % acpOrfapt with bic faCt,
For, while we have had no Senator since Sal
mon p. Chase entitled to rank Charles Sum
ner, and though that must be a very meager
compend of American history wh ch omits
his name, yet his honorable eminence has
been nowise achieved through the Chairman
ship aforesaid, but wholly through that eager,
uncompromisng, unseeping devotion 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 fur
Their service in the Committee on Foreign Re-
latons, and assign him instead TO just such
duties as have now been imposed on him, the
wisdom and fitness of his choice would have
been generally admitted"
The Milwaukee Sentinel says:
"Senator Sumner has been for lorg time
the most conspicuous member of the Repub-
can party in the Senate Of the United States
He first took his seat in that body when the
shareholders of the South ruled the nation
with a rod of iron-made and unmade its
great men-dictaied its foreign and domestic
policies, and decided Presidential contests as
they pleased. For a long time Sumner stood
in the front of the battle, doing, the most vail
ant service, and when Bully Brooks beat him
down in the Senate for his attack upon slavery.
he seemed to bear in his own person the
wounds and the humiliation of that whole I'M
fortunate race then grooming in bondage
What he has done for liberty in the past, has
been crystaliZed ito history, and no matter
what mistakes he may commit, or what else
betides him, posterity will freely accord TO
him front seat among freedoms most able
and vigilant champions. But with all his
great learning and rich public experience IN
national affairs, he has his weaknesses, his
foicles, and his mental quirks. Latterly, as
the infirm,ies of age have gradually grown
upon him, the defects in his character have
become more and more apparent, until some
of his public acts have met with the decided
disapprobation of his most intimate personal
and political friends. Always excessively
vain and egotistical, his long and successful
career in the Senate and the adulation of his
party associates throughout the country. have
stimulated those traits until now his domineer-
ing spirit can brook no crosses nor Iii stem 10
the voice OF advice, unless it be in cOnsonance
with his own preconceived ideas. Failing to
control General Grant as he desired TO do, and
to manipulate and arrange the details of his
administration as he pleased, he took mortal
offence at the President and is determined TO
break him down and bring the public acts of
that great soldier into disrepute. To that end
he has labored most diligently for the past
year For more than twevemonth he has
mt ban go he k.tl
the most formal and official communication
with Secretary Fish, Grants crime is in not
allowing Sumner to have his own head in
everything, and Fish's ofense consists in car
rying out the wishes of the Administration
When Mr.. Sumner found that he could not
agree with the foreign policy adopted by the
President and his Cabinet, il would seem that
the simplest dictates of modesty, not TO men,
lion the paramount necessities of the public
service, demanded Of him that he should strip
the case of all embarrassment at once and
voluntarily retire from that committee. But
that was not E'hs way" What were the
President and his Cabinet and a definite and
harmonious foreign policy. compared with the
wishes OF Charles Sumner? Nothing at all,
and so he kept his place until depoSed by lis
associates in the Senate.
Of course il IS an unfortunate affair viewed
from any standpoint we please. II is nnfor-
tun ate for the country that a master spirit in
the nations councils should become unfit for
the highest service, either through age, failing
health, or perverseness of temper. 1t is un-
fortunate that name so illustrious IN the past
as in that Of Charles Sumner, should become
clouded for any cause whatever. But there
are other things more important 10 the country
than the breaking of its Idols. The Senator
from Massachusetts has fought the good fight
for the equal rights of all men; he has kept
the faith-we do not write that he has finished
his course, for we do not believe shat his use
iulnesS Is at an end, but that depends now al
together upon himself. If, like true soldier.
he goes cheerfully forward to perform is duty
on whatever part of the field II is assigned
him, it is well but if he refuses 10 fight at
his post, or deserts TO the enemy, then he
must suffer the consequences.
The Albany Journal says:
"The majority of the American Senators
have deemed it expedient that Mr.. Sumner
should no longer remain at the head of the
Committee on Foreign Relations. If there
were simply difference of opioion between
Mr.. Sumner on the one hand, and the major
ity and the President on the other. there
would have been no change. But Mr.. Sum-
lar AaWf al 49,