New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-03-12
Death of Charles sumner.

feeling OF sorrow will pervade the en-
tire country at the intelligence of the death
of this great and good man. Details of the
illness and death of Mr.. Sumner are meagre,
but such as they are will be found in our
telegraphic column.
Mr.. Sumner was born il Boston in 1911.
Born wealthy, ample means we're afforded
him to become the great scholar that he
was. Graduating at Harvard, he spent
some years aboard, and afterward became
law lecturer and editor. Early in life his
liberal instincts led him into the compan-
ionship of Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Par
ker and Wendell Phillips, the fathers of the
abolition movement; but, unlike them, he
saw his way clear to fight the giant evil Of
slavery at the polls and in the halls of leg
islation. While the radical Garrison pro-
claimed the constitution "a league with
death and covenant with hell" Mr.. Sum
ner was enabled to supper: that instrument
''as he understood it,"
With few daring spirits he organized
abolition into politics. and constituted
the third party in Observation-Disclosures
gradually accommodating such strength as
| made it an important element in politics
SO important that the famous coalition" of
the Freesoilers and Democrats broke the
back of the venerable Wing party in 1850,
electing George S. Boutwell, Governor and
Charles Sumner to the Senate of the United
States, in place Of Daniel Webster.
MIR. Sumner has held bis seat in the SEN
ate from that day to tho hour of his death
without ntermission, being reelected three
times. This is the only political office he
has ever held. The free soil party of his
early manhood became the national Repub-
lican party of to-day. There were, for
years, but three free soil Senators in Con
gress-Hale, of New Hampshire, was the
| first, and the other two were Chase, of Ohio,
and Sumner, of Massachusetts, all of whom
lived to see the principles they struggled
for become the law of the land, and, receiv-
ing the honors their great merits entitled
them to, by coincidence, all three of them
died within the last twelve months.
Sumner, like Hale and Chase, having
spent his best years in a struggle of the
weak minority against power and numbers,
became intractable when of the majority,
and although honored in the party to the
highest. he was boldly independent of its
discipline.
The colored people of the country have
lost their most devoted friend in Mr.. Sum-
ner, who was always more radical than his
Whi1o ha ctr Ia1 10 = 10
rude scars that civil war had left upon our
nation, he fought increasingly for the fullest
civil rights for the colored people. The
Massachusetts Legislature attempted to
rebuke him because he proposed to strike
the names of their well fought engagements
from the battle flags Of her volunteers but
never was a rebuke more deftly turned
against those who invoked it than in this
case, when Massachusetts took second
thought of the indignity offered the gray
headed old statesman, who was the most
loyal Of them all.
The assault committed upon Mr.. Sumner
in the Senate Chamber by South Carolina
Congressman at the close of his famous
speech on the "barbarism of slavery" sew.
enteen years ago, will be remembered now,
and it will be remember ed that that speech,
unanswerable save by the bully's bludgeon,
was about the opening scene in political
drama, the events of which were terrible,
but the results glorious.
Mr.. Summers remains will be taken to
his home for interment. The family tomb
at Mount Auburn will receive them in it's
holy keeping. Men of all parties and all
nations and races will mourn his taking off,
for his lifes labor was for all peoples, and
his memory is the herita ge of all nations.