New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-04-30
EIrLOGY BY CARL sCHURz.


sUMNER-AN ANALYSIS OF HIS POSITION, MO-
TIvEs. AND LABoRs IN THE ANTI-sLAvERY
STRUGGLE.
When the news went forth. "Charles Sumner is
dead" tremor of strange emotion felt all over
the land. 1t was as if magnificent STAR star un-
like all Others which the living generation had been
won't to behold fixed and immovabie above their
heads had all at disappeared from the sky. and
the people stared into the great void darkened by
the sudden absence Of the familiar light.
On the 10th of March funeral procession passed
through the streets of Boston. Uncounted thousands
of men, women, and children had assembled TO see
IT pass. No uncommon pageant had attracted them;
no military parade with glittering uniforms and gay
banners no pompous array of digDitaries In oihcai
robes; nothing but carriages and hearse with
coffin and in it the corpse Of Charles Sumner But
there they stOod-a multitude unreasonable to the
eye, rich and poor. white and black, old ana young
in grave and mournful silence, to bid last sad
farewell to him who was being borne TO his grave.
And every breeze from every point OF the compass
came loaded with a sigh of sorrow Indeed, there
was not city or town in this great Republic which
would not have surrounded that funeral procession
with the same spectacle of profound and universal
sense of great bereavement.
Was it love was it gratitude for the services rem
dered to the people; was it the baffed expectation
of greater service still to come il admiration of
his talents or his virtues that inspired general an
emotion of sOrrowf
THE UNIVERSAL LOSS.
He had stood aloof from the multitude the friend
ship Of his heart had been given to but few; to the
many he had appeared distant, self-satisfed, and
cold His public life had been full of bitter conflicts.
No man had aroused against himself fiercer animosi-
ties Although warmly recognized by many. the
liz ryin nf had hear m RI
moniously questioned by opponents. No statesman's
motives, qualities of heart and mind, wisdom and
character except his integrity had been the subject
of more heated controversy; and yet, when sudden
death snatched him from us, friend and foe bowed
their heads alike. Every patriotic citizen felt poorer
than the day before. Every true American heart
trembled with the apprehension that the Republic
had lost something it could i'll spare.
Even from far distant lands, across the ocean,
voices came, mngling their sympathetic grief with
our own.
When YOU Mr.. Mayor, in the name of the City
Government of Boston, invited me to interpret that
which millions think and feel. l thanked you for
the proud privilege you had conferred upon me- and
the invitation appealed irresistibly to my friend
shipfor the man had lost, that could not decline
it. And yet the thought struck me that you might
have prepared a greater triumph to his memory had
you summoned, not me, his friend, but one of those
who had stood against him in the struggles of his
life to bear testimony to Charles Summers virtues.
There are many among them to-day to whose sense
of justice you might have safely contded the office,
which TO me is task of love.
Here see his friends around me- the friends of
his youth of his manhood, Of his advancing age
among them men whose illustriOus names are house
hold words as far the English tongue is spoken,
and far beyond | saw them standing round his
open grave, when it received the fOwer-decked
coffin mute sadness heavily clouding their brows.
understood their grief for nobody could share it
more than /. In such presence, the temptation is
great seek that consolation for our loss which be-
reaved friendship finds in the oxatation of its be-
reavement. But not TO You or me belonged this
man while he lived; not to you or me belongs his
memory now that he is gone. His deeds, his ex-
ample, and his fame, he left legacy to the
American people and to mankind; and it is my
Office to speak of this inheritance. l cannot speak
of it without affection. l shall endeavor to do it
with justice.
SUMNER UNIQUE AMONG OUR HISTORIC CHARACTERS.
Among the public characters of America, Charles
Sumner stands peculiar and unique. His Senatorial
career is a conspicuous part of political history
But in order to appreciate the man in the career
must look at the story of his life.
The American people take pride in saying that
almost all their great historic characters were self
made men, who without the advantage of wealth
and early opportunities, their education. raised
themselves TO usefulness and distinction, and
achieved their greatness through rugged hand-tO-
hand struggle with adverse fortune. 1t is indeed
log cabin; ragged little boy walking baretooted
to lowly country schoolhouse, or sometimes no
school-house at all "a lad after days hard toll
the farm, in the workshop porting greedily. some
times steathily over volume of poetry. history
or travels "a fOrlorn looking youth. with elbows
out, applying at a lawyers Office for an opportunity
to study then the young man successful prac-
titioner attracting the notice of his neighbours
then member of State Legislature. representa-
tive in Congress, Senator, maybe Cabinet Minis
ter. or even President. Such the pictures pre-
sented by many proud American biography.
And it is natural that the American people should
be proud of it, for such biography condenses only
in the compass of single life the great story of the
American nation, as from the feebleness aud misery
of early settlements in the bleak solitude it ad-
yanced to the subJugation of the hostile forces of
nature plunged into srduous struggle with dam
gers and difficulties only known to itself gathering
strength from every conflict and experience from
every trial; with undaunted pluck widening the
range of its experiments and creative action until
at last it stands there Of the greatest powers
| of the earth. The people are fond of seeing their
image reflected in the lives Of their foremost repre-
| sentative men.
| But not such life was that OF Charles Sumner.
| He was descended from good old Kentish yeomanry
stock, men stalwart Of frame, stout of heart, who
used to stand In the front of the fierce battles of
Old England; and the first of the name who came to
America had certainly not been exempt from the
roughstrugges of the early settlements But already
from the year17 long line of Summers appears on
Ia. Dc of I'd Cnllene md a.