The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1874-03-27
HON. CHARLES SUMNER.
IFrom the Washington Capital.

IErom the Washington Capital.
The death of this eminent man ere
ated less sensation than might have
been expected, from the prominent
part he took in the most eventful period
of our history. The fact is, however
that Charles Sumner died some twelve
years since. When the sectional CON
tfict, i'll which he was such 4 prominent
leader, became one of arms, he turned
his commission over to new men.
When the time for theories and argu-
ment passed to that OF action, the ora
tor gave way to the soldier, and the
soldiers leader found in men of action
only. Any one may tell when the war
of arms begins; no man can tell when
or where it will end. The appeal from
brain to brute force shuts out all reason,
of course, and lives and fattens on the
deadly passions it invokes. The war
inaugurated in 1861 by Charles Sumner,
and others OF like sort, survives them
all; and for four years the scholarly
orator had his voice drowned in the
roar of an armed conflict. And from
that after, until his eyes were closed in
death, he found himself supplauteu by
the spawn of Ignorant soldiers and cor
helped bring OH.
Charles Sumner was Il pure, single
minded, learned, and eloquent man,
but he had no claims whatever to states
manship. He had no breadth Of intel
lect, no depth, and possessed of but one
idea, he obeyed but one impulse, utterly
unable to discount events or measure
results in advance. He was finer
sort of fanatic, a learned hot gospeler,
differing from the GarrisOnS and Tap
pans only in being educated and refined.
He was amazed and heart broken to
see the race he has labored for through
life taken from physical slavery,
which at least was harmless, to Il polit-
cal scrvitude that is dangerous to the
well-being of the republic, and then,
worst of all turn upon their benefactor,
as did the party he had helped create.
He saw his followers, against his warm
ing, throng after a coarse and, as he
believed, corrupt soldier, while his
high place in the Senate was taken
from him with every mark of scorn
and contempt, to be given to man
whose name is Synonymous with all
that is vile. It was the old story of
Act:eon hunted down by his own dogs,
differing only in the fact that the modern
Act.eon created the dogs that destroyed
him.
His private life was AS pitiable as his
public career. With the same blind
infatuation that drove him to the one
political extreme he sought and mar.
ried qualities he could neither sympa-
thize with nor control. If tho true
story of the ill-natcd match is ever
told he will be found in all its relations
as pure, high-toned, and honorable as
he was in his public life. AS he stood
alone politically he lived alone socially,
and passed in his last hours from the
Senate, where he had little or no in
fiuence, to the house, where ";t lack of
woman's nursing and lack of woman's
tears' was lily supplied by friends who
felt his pulse and counted his dying
breath.
His cgutism was positively sublime
while his admiration for wealth and
rank was only cqunlcd by his i'll
hammered treatment of associates and
interiors.
On the day he died the resolutions
resembling the censurc passed upon him
by the Massachusetts, legislature rcucll-
cd Washington and went to record in
the Senate, and now the people of his
native State and the people OF all the
States will lift their voice in I, wall of
1amcntatiOn, and cuIOgicS will be
delivered, and resolutions passed, and
perhaps monuments crcctcd-and there
is comfort in knowing that in this
instance the sorrow is deserved. We
may well lament the loss OF an earnest,
single-hearted, pure man. Upon the
heart that throbbcd through life for the
oppressed arc folded hands pure and
unstained as those of AN angel. lie
gave his commission back to God as he
returned his trust to the people, with
out stain or faint upon the page. En-
crsOn said Of him. he ssncvcr knew so
white q soul,' and Il white soul has
gone to God. lie died young and full
of honors, while Morton and Cameron
survive.
EXEMPTION LAW.