The New York herald., 1874-03-12

| was not ''pOputar man. he dld not iefu u
! party. He was not identified with any special
policy. He was not a great writer great
orator or great statesman. he did not pos
sess the aasouciance of Clay, the mighty III
teliect OF Webster, the subtle analysis OF Cali
houn. He was not as skilled in politics us
Seward, or AS resolute leader as Chase.
Yet somehow his death falls upon the coun-
try with sense of personal bereavement
such as it has felt for the death OF no man
since Lincoln. It is not death that
should surprise US, for if any event has
beer expected for the last three years it is
that Charles Sumner would die. For three
wears he has been very i'll, and it has been q
marvel to his friends and to those who have
known the conditions Of his body that he has
endured so long
There was solemnity, stern beauty
about his death in keeping with his charac-
ter. He died virtually in the Senate Cham
ber The day before his death Massachu-
sets, which he loved with the fervent
passion of o son, had publicly Withdrawn
the censure passed upon him for certain
opinions expressed in reference to the war.
He died also from the effects of the cruel out
rage inflicted upon him by a trenzied South
Carolinian, and, not unlike Lincoln, in
a certain sense martyr to Liberty.
He was the oldest Senator in point
Of continuous service for although Mr..
Cameron and Mr.. Hamlin were members
OF the body before his election. their services
have not been continuous His Senatorial
tic, character. He entered the Senate
accompanied by Chase and Hale, alone,
despised, contemned, abused, to fight the
battle of freedom. Alone he fought it for
while Chase and Hale were as sincere
in their anti-slavery convictions, with him it
was on earnest burning passion, growing
into intense anger. We are not far removed
from that time, but even now it is hard to
comprehend it. The Southern statesmen had
commanded the Republic for many years
Their policy had been to develop class of
trained rulers, accustomed to authority to
whom public life was profession. Sus-
tanned by the wealth that came from slavery,
mastery and disdaining compromise or con-
cession, despising mere scholarship or COM
merce or skill in trade, regarding labor as
misfortune, perhaps, but certainly degrada-
ton, willing enough to fight for their opinions,
and rather preferring combat to any other
form of argument, with a certain rude,
stately, highbred courtesy not unpleasant
saw in this small obscure group Of fanatics
the first who ever sincerely challenged their
dominion. They had before encountered
Northern statesmen, gifted men, too, like
Choate and Webster, and Everett and Bu-
chanan but they had come to serve and not
TO dsobey No public man from the North
had ever entered the Senate Chamber without
swearing allegiance to the royal power of
slavery, without, we fear, being too willing
to take the oath, or any oath, however dishon-
orable, to ''preserve peace" And the South
meant that there should be no peace unless
slavery was respected as sacred institution
above the Union and the constitution, as the
very corner stone of the Republic So
the relation was always humiliating,
and the Northern people were despised
as shopkeepers and mud sllls'' and
the dregs of society. Sumner held
different tone from that Of any Senator who had
preceded him. He came as CASTELAR, into the
Cortes of Spain-as Gambetta into the Impe-
! rial Assembly. In Continental political
speech he was an 'sirreconcilable :" he
would have no compromise, would war upon
slavery as crime, a perfidy, a dishonor to
the Union. He never concealed this purpose
or moderated it There is the fervor of the He
brew prophets of old in the declarations of his
early speeches by the supreme law which
commands me to do no injustice by the
comprehensive Christian law of brotherhood
by the constitution which have sworn to
support, I am bound to disobey this act
Never in any capacity can render voluntary
aid in Its execution Pains and penalties
will endure; but this great wrong l will not
do! Better suffer injustice than do it Better
be the victim than the instrument of wrongi"
These words we're spoken at the outset
of Summers career, but they give us the
temper of his life. In every controversy,
and many came to him during his twenty
three years of duty he took the same tone.
When the Kansas-Nebraska question arose he
carried into the debates an acerbity, a scornful
anger and plainness of speech which sound
strange in these calmer times. 1t is difficult
to imagine the scholarly and accomplished
Sumner speaking of another Senator as
skunk. Yet this was the term he applied to
no less man than Stephen A. Douglas. All,
those were sad, earnest, angry, heart-burning
days, ftly preluding the terrible hours Of
combat and fury that were so soon to come
1t was this debate that led to the atro-
cious assault of Preston S. Brooks,
which made Summers further life torture
and finally caused his death. 1t is well to
remember that this anger, and more especially
the extraordinary severity of speech which
exasperated Brooks, did not originate with