American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1874-03-21
Charles Sumner.

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Charles Sumner.
CHARLES SUMNER was born in Boston
Mass, on the 9th of January, 1911, sc
that at his death he had but recently com
pleted his sixty-third year. He was the
son of Charles Pinckney Sumner, High
Sheriff of the county of Suffolk, soldier
a lawyer, and a man of no mean literary
attachments. In 1880 Charles Sumner
graduated at Harvard College, after which
he became pupil of Judge Story in the
law school at Cambridge. In 1884 he
was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts
practiced law in Boston, and was ap-
pointed reporter in the Circuit Court of
the United States. During that year he
paid his first visit to Washington, and
there is now living in that city a gentle.
man-Dr. Blake-who remembers the tall
Massachusetts, youth as he came to live in
the boarding-house of Mrs. Peyton, at the
corner of the avenue and Four-and- a. half
street. Young Sumner had come to
attend the Supreme Court, and it
was then for the first time, upon
the stage road between Baltimore
and the capital that he beheld slave.
The curiosity Of DR.. Blake and the other
| bOarders was great when the Marshal OF
the Supreme Court stopped with his car
| rage and left the cards of the Justices for
the young lawyer. In the course of the
| three following years MIR. Sumner pub
| lished three volumes of reports, edited the
| A.asrican yurist, and, in the absence of
Judge Story, lectured to the students of
the law schools of Cambridge. Between
the years 1887 and 1910 he visited Europe,
making the grand tour, and laying the
foundation of that intimate acquaintance
with foreign courts and customes which,
in the brilliant years of his after career,
gained for him the position of Chairman
of the Committee of Foreign Relations,
and made him the acknowledged author
ity upon all matters of foreign i'm
port. On the 4th of July, 1915, he
pronounced in Boston his celebrated
Grafton on "The True c andeur of
Nations" which attracted great attention
both at home and abroad About this pc
Rod he sepa, led himself from the Wing
party and joined the Free-Soilers. In 1S4S
he supported Martin Van Buren, for the
Presidency, and in 1850 published vol
ume of oratiOns and lectures. In 1851 he
succeeded Daniel Webster as United
States Senator, and from that date COM
menced that brilliant career which has
associated his name with every great
movement connected with the welfare of
the nation. One of his first efforts in the
Senate was his opposition to the Fugitive
Slave bill, and he took an active part in
the debate on the Nebraska Kansas bill in
1854. Upon the 10Th and Goth of May,
1856, he made that celebrated appeal on
the contest in Kansas and on the aggres-
sions of the slave power. 1t was this
speech which raised the ire of Preston S.
Brooks, a Southern member of Congress,
and brought on that disgraceful scene
which is thus described by Mr.. Greeley
Mr.. Summer had made an elaborate speech in the
Senate on the Kansas question: speech not
without grave faults OF conception and OF STYLE
but nowse obnoxious to the charge Of violating the
decencies Of debate by nnjustif liable personalities
Yet on the assumption that its author had therein
unwarrantably assailed and ridculed Judge Butler
one of South Cardinals Senators, and a relative
of Mr. Brooks-he was assaulted by surprise while
sitting in his place Though few minutes after
the Senate adjourned for the day., knocked TO the
floor seuseless. and beaten. while helpless and
conscious, till the rage of his immediate assaiani
thoroughly satisfied. Mr.. Sumner was so
much injured as to be compelled to abandon his
seat and take a voyage to Europe, where, under
the best medical treatment, his health was slowly
restored.
In January, 1857, Mr.. Sumner was re-
elected unanimously to the Senate and
returned home. In the spring of 1858 he
returned to Europe and did not again re-
sumo his seat until the close of 1859. His
speech against the Bar Darism of Slavery"
which was published about this time,
produced an immense effect. In 1860 he
advocated the election of Abraham l. in
coin to the Presidency In March, 1861,
he was appointed Chairman of the Com
mittee on Foreign Relations, and about
the end of 1862 he was again elected a
Senator for six years ending March 4,
1869. He was the author of the resolu-
tions on foreign mediation which were
passed March 3, 1868, by both houses of
Congress- After the close of the civil war
he advocated the reconstruction of the
seeded States on the basis of impartial
suffrage. During the war his sage coun-
sci was often sought by President Lin
coin.
In private life Charles Sumner was
man of the most scholarly and refined
tastes. His collection of books and relics
was sight which those who have enjoyed
it can never forget He was naturally a
student and man of exclusive tastes.
His apparent hauteur was the result OF
that innate reserve which could not toler-
ate vulgarity. In the history of the
United States the name of Charles Sumner
will live rs one who represented it with
credit and gave it honor. He has fallen
ut an age when the statesmen and jurists
of England are merely stepping upon the
threshold of their third estate. Within
the comparatively short period of sixty
three years Charles Sumner has accom-
plished the work of two lifetimes. When
one thinks of the name and fame of this
man, VINO nut a lew years ago, IN the
hey day and the zenith of his fame, was
one to whom the American people point
ed as the statesman par erceLlence of the
time, he is tempted to use the words
which Thackeray applied to the greatest
humorist that ever lived: " SO great
man, he seems to me, that thinking OF
him is like thinking of an empire fail
ing"
The life of Charles Sumner affords an
f.ya NIL f,T ind
conscientious devotion to principle which
may be initiated by al the youth Of the
land. He has done his work, and over
the folios which now live to tell us Of g
great life may be Inscribed the motto OF
the Latin poet: " EIGgi mOnumentum ere