The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-05-15
SUMNER
Remarks of Gen. Lamar, of Mississippi
in the House, i'm sculOgy of the
Dead Statesm an.


Dead Statesm an.
. Mr.. Speaker rise to second the re-
: solutions presented by the member from
: Massachusetts. believe that they ex-
r press a sentiment which pervades tn z
? hearts of all the people whose represen-
{ tatives are here assembled. Strange as
? in looking back upon the past the asser-
I ton may seen, impossible as it would
| have been ten years ago to make it, it is
| not the less true that to-day Mississippi
deeply regrets the death of Charles
, Sumner and sincerely unites in paving
honors to his memory. Not because of
the splendor Of his intellect, though in
him was extinguished one of the bright
est of the lights which have illuminated
the councils of the government for near
ly quarter of century: not because
of the high culture, the elegant scholar
ship, and the varied learning which re-
vealed themselves so clearly in all his
public efforts as to justify the applica-
ton to him of Johnson's felicitous ex-
preston, che touched nothing which he
did not adorn ;" not this, though these
are qualities by no means, it is to be
feared, SO common in public places as
to make their disappearance, in even
single instance, matter of indifference:
but because of those peculiar and
strongly marked moral traits of his
character which gave the coloring to
the whole tenor of his singularly drama
tic public career; traits which made
him for a long period to large portion
of his countrymen the object of as deep
and passionate a hostility as to another
he was one of enthusiastic admiration,
and which are not the less the cause
that now unites all these parties, ever
so widely differing, in a common sor-
row, to-day, over his lifeless remains.
1t IS OF these high moral qualities which
l wish to speak; for these have been the
traits which in after years, as I have
considered the successive acts and utter
ances of this remarkable man, fastened
most strongly my attention, and impress
sed themselves most forcibly upon my
imagination, my sensibilities, my heart.
[ leave to others to speak of his intel
lectuaI superiority, of those rare gifts
with which nature had so Iavishly en-
dowed him, and of the power to use
them which he had acquired by educa-
ton. I say nothing of his vast and
varied stores of historical knowledge.
or Of the wide extent of his reading in
the elegant literature of ancient and
modern times, or of his wonderful power
| of retaining what he had read, or of his
readiness in drawing upon these fertile
resources to illustrate his own argIl-
meuts. l say nothing of his eloquence
as an orator, of his skill as a logician,
or of his powers of fascination in the
| unrestrained freedom of the social cir
Gle, which last it was my misfortune not
to have experienced. These, indeed,
were the qualities which gave him emf
| nence not only in our country but
throughout the world and which have
made the name of Charles Sumner an
integral part of our nations glory.
They were the qualities which gave to
those moral traits of which T have
spoken the power to impress themselves
upon the history of the age and of civil |
lization itself; and without which those |
traits, however intensely developed, |
would have exerted no influence beyond |
the personal circle Immediately sur
rounding their possessor. More elo-
quent tongues than mine will do them |
justice. Let me speak of The character
istics which brought the illustrious SEN
ator who has just passed away into |
direct and bitter antagonism for years |
with my own state and her sister states |
of the south.
Charles Sumner was born with an in |
stinctive love of freedom, and was edu- |
Gated from his earliest infancy to the |
belief that freedom is the natural and |
indefeasable right of every intelligent |
being having the outward form of man.
In him, in fact. this creed seems to have
been something more than a doctrine |
imbibed from teachers, or a result of |
education. To him it was grand in
tuitive principle inscribed in blazing
letters upon the tablet of his inner con-
sciousness, to deny which would have
been for him to deny chat he hiWItn
existed. And alone with this all !Tom
trolling love of freedom, he possessSe @ VI"
moral sensibility keenly intense aSts m
vivid, a conscientiousness which woum O
never permit him to swerve by tH pc
breadth of hair from what he picturwert
to himself the path of duty. Thand
were combined in him the cheracteI9pe
tics which have in all ages given toSSrr of
ligion her martyrs and to patriohe lab
her self-sacrifcing heroes. unshi
To man thoroughly permeated Sde,"
imbued with such creed, and animaay tr
and constantly actuated by snch sire tim
of devotion, to behold a human bpp.a pagIt @
or race of human beings restrainsnr WI ~
what he deemed their natural rightoupb
liberty, for no crime by him or %onde
committed, was to feel all the bell The
ent instincts of his nature rousebefore
combat. The fact was to him a vpear as
which no logic could Justify, It ttlIGi tl.i II l
tered not to him how humble iiiIled u
scale of rational being let OF
this restraint might be, how @tq>l TX his
skin or how dense his ignorance Be-
hind all that lay for him the great prin-
ciple that liberty is the birthnight of
all humanity, and that every individual
of every race who has soul to save is
entitled to the freedom which may ena-
bic him to work out his salvation. It
mattered not to him that the slave might
be contented with his lot; that his ac-
tual condition might be immeasurabIy
more desirable than that from which it
had transplanted him that it had given
him physical comfort, mental elevation
and christian truth, possessed by his
race in no other condition that his
bonds had not been placed upon his
hands by the living generation that
the mixed social system, of which he
formed an element, had been regarded
by the fathers of the republic, and by
the ablest statesmen WHO had risen up
after them, as too complicated to be
broken up without danger to society
IbSSlIs VI even bO CiF4I1ZhblOu OF H0aIIy |
that the actual state of things had been
recognized and EXPLICITLY sanctioned
by the very organic law of the republic.
Weighty as these considerations might
be, formidable as were the difficulties
in the way of the practical enforc ment
of his great principle, he held none the
less that it must sooner or later be en-
forced, though institutions and consti-
tutions should have to give way alike
before it. But here let me do this en-
inent man the justice which amid the
excitement of the struggle between the
sections, now past, may have been dis
posed to deny him. In this fiery zeal
and this earnest warfare against the
wrong, as he viewed it, there entered no
enduring personal animosity toward the
men whose lot it was to be born to the
system which he denounced. It has
been the kindness of the sympathy
which in these latter years he has dis
played toward the impoverished and
suffering people of the southern states
that has unveiled to me the generous
and tender heart which hnat hanaotb