The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1874-03-19

| time mas yet been liked therefor, Tho
funeral ceremonies will take place in thu
Senate Chamber. Mr. Summers age a
the lime of his death, was sixty three
years, two months aud FIVE days. Senator
Sumner had been solicitous for his health
several days past, the earnest part he ha.
| taken in questions before the Senate
having given him reason to pay specia
regard to it, and he remarked last night
to friend, some hours before he was
attacked with the serious spasm which iu
few hours eliminated in his death that
he wanted to talk to him about his health;
he was afraid he was working too hard
Senator Sumner, at about two o'clock
yesterday afternoon, moved from his seat
in the Senate Chamber to one beside
Senator Sargent, and inquired Of Mr..
Sargent, who, like himselt, and taken a
prominent part in opposition to the Cen
tennisl bill, whether he had received any
anonymous insulting letters on the sub
ject; adding that he (Sumner) had
received number Of such letters, and
packages of more offensive character,
both through the mail aud by express. He
seemed considerably annoyed by these
insults, and Mr.. Sargent therefore turned
the conversation to the resolutions Of the
Massachusetts, Legislature resembling its
censure of Mr.. Sumner. and he expressed
himself greatly pleased with this action.
An hour or more afterwards, Mr.. Sum,
ner called Senator Ferry, of Connecticut,
aside to to a seat on q sofa in the Senate
Chamber, and talked with him, as he had
frequently done before, in regard to their
respective states of i'll health, both result.
ing from affections of the spinal cord He
told Mr.. Ferry that he had suffered so
much from his heart the night previons
that he had sent for his physician to obtain
some relief by an injection of morphine
under the skin. He asked MIR. Ferry's
opinion of such hypsrdcrmic injections,
and from time to time complained of
severe pain while they were talking
Finally, little before four o'clock, Mr.
Sumner took his hat aud overcoat and
went home. His last words in the Sen
ate Chamber having been uttered in this
conversation with Mr.. Ferry The
apparent vigor manifested by Mr. Sum
ner in his recent speeches on the CenteD
niai bill excited considerable surprise, 10
view Of his long continued feebleness of
health the past year, aud many of his
friends expressed their appreht nsion that
he was overtaxing his strength 10 these
efforts. 1t is regarded as a remarkable and
fortunate coincidence that the resolution
of the Massachusetts Legislature, rescind
ing its vote of eensure upon Mr.. Sumner,
should have been presented and read in
the Senate before he left it on the last
day of his presence in the Chamber as
member of that body.
Charles Sumner, Senator of the United
States from Massachusetts,, was born in
Boston, Massachusetts, January 6, 1911.
He was descended from Revolutionary
stock, his grand father having been Ma
jor in the Continental army. He appears
to have partly inherited his literary aud
scholastic tastes and tendencies from his
father, who published an eulogy on Wash
ington. The Compass" poem recited
before Harvard University, and delivered
poem. and addresses on various occasions
Charles was graduated at Harvard Uni
versity in 1880. He continued in pri
vate the studies of college life for year,
and then entered the law school at Cam
bridge, where be formed with his teacher,
Judge Story, an intimate friendship
which continued until the death Of that
eminent jurist. He was admitted to the
bar in 1884, aud was appointed reporter
to the Circuit Court; leetured to the
law school in l835-'37, 1913;
travelled in Europe in l837-'40 and iu
1878, and in 1851 succeeded Dan
iel Webster as United States Senator
Though voting with the Whig party, he
he took no active part ia politics until
1915, when on the 4th of July he pro
ncuoced before the municipal authorities
of Boston an Grafton on "The True Gran
ieur of Nations" in which. prompted by
the menacing aspects of affairs between
the United States and Mexico, he de
bounced the war system as the ordeal by
battle still unwisely continued by interna
tional law as the arbiter of justice between
nations, and insisted that this system
ought to give way to peaceful arbitration
for the adjudication Of international ques-
tions, as the private ordeal Of battle had
given way to such substitutes in the ad
Of justice between iudivi
luals His oration attracted unusual at
tention, led to much controversy, and
was widely circulated both in America
and Europe, Richard Cohen pronounciug
it TO be "the most noble contribution
made by any modern writer to the cause
of peace"
His first important speech in the Sen
ate was upon the Fugitive Slave act,
a gainst which he argued that Congress
had no power under the Constitution to
leyislate for the rendition of fugitive
slaves and that if it had, the act in many
essential particulars conficted with the
Constitution, and was also cruel and ty-
rapieal. In this speech Mr.. Sumner laid
down as a guide for political action, the
we'll known formula that freedom is ma