New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-09-05
Senator Summers Arrangement
Presidents Foreign Policy.

| CHARGES OF A GENERAL MIDDLE
Ms. SUMNER IN A MUDDLE-A
CLEAR EXPOSITION OF
THE FACTS.
On the sIst of May, 1872, the honorable
! Charles Sumner delivered an deliberately
bitter and vindictiye argument, which was
designed to be a crushing Indictment OF
President Grant, and an overwhelming ar
ragnment OF his Administration. The Sen
ator was especially severe on its foreign pol
icy. summing up his chargesin the following
manner:
"Perhaps, then, it is in foreign relations
| that he claims the laurels he is to wear.
| knowing something Of these from careful
study and years Of practical acquaintance,
am bound to say that never before has their
management been so wanting in ability and
so absolutely without character. with SO
| much pratension and so little knowledge,
how could IL be otherwise? Here the Presi
dent touches nothing he does not muddle.
In every direction is muddle-muGdle with
Spain. middle with Cuba. muddle with the
Black Republic, muddle with distant Corea,
STA, middle with England-on all sides one
diversified muddle. Ifthere liz not muddle
| with Germany and France, it mnst be from
their forbearance To this condition are we
reduced. When before in our history have
we reached any such bathos rs that to which
We have been carried in our questions with
England? Are these the laurels of a Presi
Dental candidate?'
In the columns Of the St. Louis Daily
Globe, Of August s, there appeared the an
nexed reply, written by its regular Washing
ton correspondent, Mr.. Richard J. Hinton,
writer whose acquaintance with the themes
of which he treats will lend to his vigorous
production value equal at least to the abil-
ity with which the subject is handled:
ALLABOUT SUMMERS MUDDLES.
THE VENEZUELA, RUSSIAN, SPANISH, CUBAN,
AND BRITISH MUDDLEs ALL ECLIPsED BY THE
sUMNERIAN MIDDLE.
WASHINGTON, d. c., Aug. 4, 1872.
no ONE HAS BEEN so ovERRATED
on one side of his intellectual and personal
life as Senator Sumner. In saying this do
not desire in any way to be regarded as be-
lifting his great services in behalf of equal
and exact justice to all persons under the
Constitution. Always an Abolitionist my
self. and that, too. in times and under cir
cumstances when it cost something-when
life, prosperity, and ambition were in peril
Il could not throw one stone at the anti
slavery motives and actions of Charles Sum-
ner. But it is not doing so to say that his
services owe far more of their value to the
splendid personality Of the man, than they
do to the practical ability and intellect of
the Senator. hazard nothing in declaring,
from my memory Of events, that Mr.. Sum.
ner has never originated practical and sue
cessful piece of anti-slavery legislation, but
that he has hindered the success Of many,
by sadding them with amendments impos-
sible to carry, and generally burdened with
impractcable formulas. If the Senator only
claimed, as his friend and peer, Wendell
Phillips, does, that in all this he was only
seeking as an agitator to shape opinion, and
not as statesman endeavoring to mould it
into legislative acts, there would be more of
logic in his course than is now apparent.
But Mr.. Sumner is, in his own opinion, the
statesman par excellence of this country.
Others are but accidental men, rising by
fortuitous circumstances to eminence. There
are few whom he recognizes as his peers,
blu. they are very few.
However, it was another part of his public
life than the anti-slavery one, that desired
to call attention to. mean his pretensiens
to an exclusive possession of all knowledge
and craftsmanship in foreign affairs. Mr..
Summers recent course has undoubtedly
been greatly influenced by the fact that this
pre- eminence has not been
RECOGNIZED BY PRESIDENT GRANT.
Under the veil and glamor his domestic
views have naturally raised about him, Mr.
Sumner has gained Fictitious respect ard
freedom from criticism in regard to his
craftsmanship in foreign affairs, which the
practical facts by no means justify. The
man who was so bold and radical in demand
ing freedom at home, has oftener than not,
when not a mere sentimentalist, soldering
over subject as he does over what he terms
",he Black Republic" administered kick
to struggling liberty in other countries, in
ways which show him controlled by vanity,
subterfuge, and disingenuousness, quite as
much as the pettiest believer in Talleyrand-
ism or The smallest Catacazian that ever in
trigued, lied, and cheated. and dreamed all
the time they were diplomats. Mr.. Sum.
ner's pretenses in this direction are as great
as his criticisms on General Grants foreign
policy are unfounded and baseless.
Mr.. Sumner criticises the foreign policy of
this Administration as a "Muddle" In do
ing this he only proves himself to be the
"MUDDLEsr OF MEN.
In that bitter and vindictve speech, which
Mr.. Sumner, when he delivered it, fully be-
lieved would defeat the denomination of
General Grant at Philadelphia, the Senator
declared that when the President was in
augurated, he found peace everywhere ex.
cept Great Britain, and that now all was a
':muddle. He ''saw things as through
glass, darby" The "damnable iteration
as the Senator fondly imagined. Of this &C.
cusation commends itself to the cooler critic,
who is in possession of the facts, as most