Year: 1874

No remarks elected by the death oil MT.
Sumner have been more fOrcibly suggestive
than those spoken by Mr.. Robert c. Winthrop
before the Massachusetts, Historical Society.
They came from a gentleman who, after
short but brilliant public career, after presid-
ing in the House of Representatives and sit
ting for little while in the Senate, found
himself unable to stem the current of public
opinion, and entirely retired from that public
service to which Mr.. Sumner had been eagerly
welcomed. Mr.. Winthrop would have been
more than human if he had not felt
somewhat aggrieved. He thought the
methods employed to secure Mr.. Summers
election, and the coalition which gave
the Senatorship to the Free Soil party, and the
Office of Governor to the Democrats, were of
dubious morality; and to a certain extent we
shared i'll his opinion. 1t must be remembered
that the Wing party was then, and Tor some
time after in vigorous and occasionally in VIC
torious existence; and Mr.. Winthrop was a
Wing of the Wings. 1t is hardly worth while
for us to name the prominent men who
thought i'll Of the Massachusetts Coalition, but
who have long been in full amity with the
Republican party, of which that coalition
was the beginning. Such bargains" as
they were then cOntemptuously called, are
more common now than they were and
il was not then so easy to see the substantial
agreement upon certain points of hostile par
ties as the substantial results Of place and
nreferment which naturally followed the over
throw of a common enemy. The Coalition was
really the result of the Massachusetts, Anti
Slavery sentiment of which there was good
deal even in the Democratic party of that
State. Mr.. Winthrop thought it of bad i'm
port that he should be defeated by tie union
of men who agreed in nothing but in voting
against him. He had q right to feel so; but
he was mistaken in blaming Mr. Sumner. who
was never guilty of political trick in his life.
OF course it is unnecessary now to justify
the choice of Massachusetts, Nor is it neces-
sary to freshen the memory of these traDsac-
tions save by repeating a few of Mr.
Winthrop's words. at has been my fortune"
said he, cor, as others may think, my misfor-
"tune, often to differ from Mr.. Sumner widely;
sometimes as to conclusions and ends, but far
"more frequently as to the means of reaching
"these conclusions and of advancing these ends"
These are wise as well as generous words;
and coming from such source they carry
with them unusual weight 1t is well that as
men get older they should discard more
and moro the acrimony Of politics, and
should recall that exclamation which the
death of his competitor extorted from Mr..
Burke: "What shadows We are, and what
" shadows we pursue!n 1t is well that we
cannot always agree upon questions of public
policy, for universal acquiescence might be
followed by general corruption; but it is
well also to remember that difference of Opin-
ion, especially as to means, does not necessa-
rily imply moral obliquitY. 1t encourages our
faith in human nature to find that, as public
men grow older, they so often exhibit more of
the wisdom of the philosopher than of the


ardor of the soldier. 1t was thought to be re-


markable that Mr.. Greeley, after a lifetime


spent In contending against the Democratic


party, for the sake of the public good and to


secure the peace which. alas ! has not yet come,


should have been willing TO act with his con-


slant antagonists. But true to his old in


stincts, the illustrious Senator whose death all
are now lamehting, joined hands with the
! Liberal party, content with its aims, and. at


the risk of alternating numbeross friends, ad-


herring through obloquy and defeat to his


settled convictions of duty. His motives, a.


well as those OF Mr.. Greeley, were abundantly
| impeache6, but already the death of both these
noble men has draSn from tho lips Of their