Litchfield enquirer., 1874-03-19
CHARLES SUMNER.


 cured on Wednesday last after. very brief illness removes another of those great Americans who have been greater than presidents-a man who for more years than perhaps any other statesman Of this generation has been the foremost leader of the dominant political opinion. A sound lawyer, thorough scholar, and brilliant orator, he added to high cul- ture burning earnestness for those grand democratic principles that un- deriie popular government. High cul- ture is usually an enemy to enthusiasm. but in Charles Sumner it only added fuel to the flame; and in the heart of the scholar there burned hatred of ipius- tce as vivid and as inextinguishable as that which urged John Brown on to his memorable attack at Harper's Ferry. Charles Sumner leaves few behind him who- raixos 60 ittlo as ho did the aims of the politician with the aims of the states man. During his twenty years senatorial term no one ever charged him with in- trIgue. He did not intrigue for his seat Ill the Senate, nor did he ever intrigue for the presidency. Least of all, would he have intrigued for the control of offices and of spells. About half of his long term he was in opposition, and ne was about as long in sympathy with the party Ill power; but in neither case did he abate one jot of his independence. In fact his was one of those sturdy, grand characters that are born ill opposition and yet never yield to the seductions of power. He raised his voice just as resolutely against President Lincoln or President Grant. when he thought them wrong, as against President Pierce, President Buchanan or President Johnson. No amount of per- sonal risk or personal inclination ever swerved Charles Sumner from his allegi- ance to a great principle. He attacked Republican administrations with the same unbending severity with which he had denounced the compliances of Douglass or Pierce. A notableinstanc of his inde- pendence of those personal considerations that have SO often influenced statesmen is to be found in his terrible rebuke of Eng lands conduct regarding the Alabama claims. Till that time he had been the most popular of our great Republicans, in Great Britain. He had crowds of per- sonal friends and admirers there, yet he sacrificed all to his unrelenting sense of duty.
 That great faults should be found mix cd with such merits as were peculiar to Mr. Sumner was unavoidable. He was something of psdant as we'll as a great scholar. With his enthusiasm was min- gIed the occasional crudities of thought and congregations of expression that are always found in his ardent type of char acter. His contempt for the true politi- clan and his independence, sometimes bordering on arrogance, no doubt made him personally unpopular and injured his influence with such men as form the majority of our legislators. His char acter fitted him admirably to be the pio- neer of great reforms, but he lacked the pliancy and the usbanity that are neces- sary for the successful conduct of ordina- ry administration.
 Whether the fact that he was never called to high administrative position in the Republican party influenced him in his final withdrawal from that party we can only guess. Had the customs of the English government prevailed here, he would have been the natural Republican premier upon the accession of Grant to the presidency in 1872. Very likely a feeling of disappointment had something to do with his denunciation of "personal cabinets three years afterward.
 We doubt whether Mir. Sumner would have been the leading statesman in fu- ture years he had been in the past, even had his life continued and his health been restored. He took no leading part, cer- taInly, i'll any of the rising issues that are the attention of the public. Still speculations on such matters are hardly just to the memory of the great American who did so much for reform, and set noble example of purity, patriotism, and stern devotion to duty. to the very last.