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OCCASIONAL PAPERS NO. 14. 
 
 The American Negro Academy 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER 
 CENTENARY 
 
 HISTORICAL ADDRESS 
 BY ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE. 
 
 PRICE 15 CENTS. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE ACADEMY. 
 
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 3 — (a) Civilization the Primal Need of the Race ; (b) 
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 CHARLES C. COOK. 15 cents 
 
 5 — How the Black St. Domingo Legion Saved the Pa- 
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 ORISHATUKEH FADUMA. [out of print] 
 
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OCCASIONAL PAPERS NO. 14. 
 
 The American Negro Academy 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER 
 CENTENARY 
 
 HISTORICAL ADDRESS 
 BY ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE. 
 
 PRICE 15 CENTS. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE ACADEMY, 
 
 19 11 
 
 

 The American Negro Academy celebrated'the centenary of 
 Charles Sumner at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, 
 Washington, D. C, Friday evening, January 6, 1911. On 
 this occasion the program was as follows: "A Mightv 
 Fortress is our God," by the choir of the church ; In- 
 vocation, by Rev. L. Z. Johnson, []of Baltimore, Md.; the 
 Historical address was next delivered by Mr. Archibald H. 
 Grimke, President of the Academy, after which Justice 
 Wendell Phillips Stafford made a brief address. A solo, by 
 Dr. Charles Sumner Wormley, was sung ; Vice-President 
 Kelly Miller delivered an address. A Poem, "Summer," by 
 Mrs. F. J. Grimke, was read by Miss Mary P. Burrill. Hon. 
 Wm. li. Chandler made the closing address; after which 
 the Battle Hymn of the Republic was sung bj' the congrega- 
 tion, led by the choir. The benediction was pronounced by 
 Rev. W. V. Tuunell. 
 
 The oil painting of Mr. Sumneriwhich~occupied a place in 
 front of the pulpit, was loaned by Dr. C. S. W^ormley. 
 
CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 T^VERY time a great man comes on the stage of human 
 ■■-^ affairs, the fable of the Hercules repeats itself. He 
 gets a sword from Mercury, a bow from Apollo, a breast- 
 plate from Vulcan, a robe from Minerva. Many streams from 
 many sources bring to him their united strength. How else 
 could the great man be equal to his time and task ? What 
 was true of the Greek Demigod was likewise true of Charles 
 Sumner. His study of the law for instance formed but a part 
 of his great preparation. The science of the law, not its 
 practice, excited his enthusiasm. He turned instinctively 
 from the technicalities, the tergiversations, the gladiatorial 
 display and contention of the legal profession. To him they 
 were but the ephemera of the long summertide of jurisprudnce. 
 He thirsted for the permanent, the ever living springs and 
 principles of the law. Grotius and Pothier and Mansfield 
 and Blackstone and Marshall and Story were the shining 
 heights to which he aspired. He had neither the tastes nor 
 the talents to emulate the Erskines and the Choates of the 
 Bar. 
 
 His vast readings in the field of history and literature 
 contributed in like manner toward his splendid outfit. So too 
 his wide contact and association with the leading spirits of 
 the times in Europe and America. All combined to teach 
 him to know himself and the universal verities of man and 
 society, to distinguish the invisible and enduring substance of 
 life from its merely accidental and transient phases and 
 phenoniena. 
 
 He was an apt pupil and laid up in his heart the great 
 lessons of the Book of Truth. His visit to Europe served to 
 complete his apprenticeship. It was like Hercules going in- 
 to the Nemean forest to cut himself a club. The same grand 
 object lesson he saw everywhere — man, human society, 
 human thoughts, human strivings, human wrong, human mis- 
 ery. Beneath differences of language, governments, religion, 
 
4 CHARLES SUMNEU 
 
 race, color, lie discerned the underlxin^ hnniaii principle and 
 passion, which make all race.s kin, all men brothers. In 
 strange and distant lands he f<^und the human heart with its 
 friendships, heroisms, beatitudes, the human intellect with its 
 never ending movement and jM'ogress. He found home, a 
 common destinj' wherever he found common ideas and aspi- 
 rations. And these he had but to look around to behold. He 
 felt himself a citizen of an immense over-nation, of a vast 
 world of federated hopes and interests. 
 
 When the ])lan for this visit had taken shape in his own 
 mind, he consulted his friends. Judge Story, I'rof. Greenleaf, 
 and President Quincy, who were not at all well affected to it. 
 The first two thought it would wean him from his profession. 
 the last one that Europe would spoil him, "send him back 
 with a mustache and a walking-stick." Ah ! how little did 
 they com]irehend him, how hard to understand that this 
 young and indefatigable scholar was only going abroad to cut 
 himself a club for the Herculean labors of his ripe manhood. 
 He went, saw, and conquered. He saw the promised land 
 of international fellowship and peace, and contjuered in his 
 own breast the evil genius of war. He came back proud that 
 he was an American, prouder still that he was a man. 
 
 The downfall of the Whigs of Massachusetts, brought 
 about by a coalition of the Free Soil and the Democratic par- 
 ties, resulted after a contest in the Legislature lasting four- 
 teen weeks, in the election on April 24, 1S51, of Charles 
 Sumner to the Senate of the United States. He was just 
 forty, was at the meridian of the intellectual life, in the 
 zenith of bodily vigor and manly beauty. He attained the 
 splendid position by sheer worth, unrivalled ])ublic service. 
 Never has ])olitical office, I venture to assert, been so utterly 
 unsolicited. He did not lift a finger, scorned to budge an 
 inch, refused to write a line to influence his election. The 
 great office came to him by the laws of gravitation and char- 
 acter — to him the clean ot'liand, and l)rave of heart It was 
 the hour finding the man. 
 
 As Sumner entered the Senate the last of its early giants 
 was leaving it forever. Calhoun had alieady passed away. 
 
CHARLES Sl^MNKR , 5 
 
 Webster was in Millard Fillmore's cabinet, and Clay was es- 
 caping in his own picturesque and pathetic words, "scarred 
 by spears and worried by wounds to drag his mutilated body 
 to his lair and lie down and die." The venerable represent- 
 ative of compromise was making his exit from one door of 
 the stage, the masterful representative of conscience, his 
 entrance through the other. Was the coincidence accident or 
 prophecy? Were the bells of destiny at the moment "ringing 
 in the valiant man and free, the larger heart, the kindlier 
 hand, and ringing out the darkness of the land? Whether 
 accident or prophecy, Sumner's entrance into the Senate was 
 into the midst of a hostile camp. On either side of the 
 chamber enemies confronted him. Southern Whigs and 
 southern Democrats hated him. Northern Whigs and north- 
 ern democrats likewise hated him. He was without party 
 affiliation, well nigh friendless. But thanks to the revolution 
 which was working in the free states, he was not wholly so. 
 For William H. Seward was already there, and Salmon P. 
 Chase, and John P. Hale, and Hannibal Hamlin. Under 
 such circumstances it behooved the new champion of freedom 
 to take no precipitate step. 
 
 A smaller man, a leader less wise and less fully equipped 
 might have blundered at this stage by leaping too hastily 
 with his cause into the arena of debate. Sumner did nothing 
 of the kind. His self-poise and self-control for nine months 
 was simply admirable. "Endurance is the crowning quali- 
 ty," says Lowell, "And patience all the passion of great 
 hearts." Certainly during those trying months they were 
 Sumner's, the endurance and the patience. First the blade, 
 he had to familiarize himself with the routine and rules of 
 the Senate ; then the ear, he had to study the personnel of 
 the Senate— and lastly the full corn in the ear, he had to 
 master himself and the situation. Four times he essayed his 
 strength on subjects inferior to the one which he was carry- 
 ing in his heart as mothers carry their unborn babes. Each 
 trial of his parlimentary wings raised him in the estimation 
 of friends and foes. His welcome to Kossuth, and his tribute 
 to Jlobert Rantoul proved him to be an accomplished orator. 
 
6 CHARLES SUMNER 
 
 His speech on the Public Laud Question eviuced him besides 
 strong in history, argument and law. 
 
 No vehemence of anti-slavery pressure, no shock of 
 angry criticism coming from home \vas able to jostle him out 
 of his fixed purpose to speak only when he was ready. Wint- 
 er had gone, and spring, and still his silence remained. 
 Summer too was almost gone before he determined to begin. 
 Then like an Auguat storm he burst on the Senate and the 
 Country. "Freedom national : slavery sectional" was his 
 theme. Like all of Mr. Sumner's speeches, this speech was 
 carefully written out and largely memorized. He was de- 
 ficient in the qualities of the great debater, was not able us- 
 ually and easily to think quickly and effectively on his feet, 
 to give and take hard blows within the short range of extem- 
 poraneous and hand to hand encounters. Henry Clay and 
 John Quincy Adams were pre-eminent in this species of parli- 
 amentary combat. Webster and Calhoun were powerful oppo- 
 nents whom it was dangerous to meet. Sflmner perhaps never 
 experienced that electric sympathy and marvellous interplay 
 of emotion and intelligence between himself and an audience 
 which made Wendell Phillips the unrivalled monarch of the 
 anti-slavery platform. Sumner's was the eloquence of indus- 
 try rather than the eloquence of inspiration. What he did 
 gave an impression of size, of length, breadth, thoroughness. 
 He required space and he re<iuired time. These granted, he 
 was tremendous, in many respects the most tremendous ora- 
 tor of the Senate and of his times. 
 
 He was tremendous on this occasion. His subject furn- 
 ished the keynote and the keystone of his opposition to 
 slavery. Garrison, Phillijjs, Frederick Dougla.ss and Theo- 
 dore D. Weld appealed against slavery to a common human- 
 ity, to the primary moral instincts of mankind in condemna- 
 tion of its villanies. The appeal carried them above and 
 beyond constitutions and codes to the unwritten and eternal 
 right. Sumner appealed against it to the self-evident truths 
 of the Declaration of Independence, to the si)irit and letter of 
 the Constitution, to the sentiments and hopes of the fathers, 
 and to the early history and policy of the Country which they 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 7 
 
 had founded. All were for freedom and against slavery. 
 The reverse of all this, he contended, was error. Public 
 opinion- was error-bound, the North was error-bound, so was 
 the South, parties and politicians were error-bound. Free- 
 dom is the heritage of the nation. Slavery had robbed it of 
 its birthright. Slavery must be dispossessed, its extension 
 must be resisted. 
 
 As it was in the beginning so it hath ever been, the 
 world needs light. The great want of the times was light. 
 So Sumner believed. This speech of his was but a repetition 
 in a world of wrong of the fiat : "Let there be light." With 
 it light did indeed break on the national darkness, such light 
 as a thunderbolt flashes, shrivelling and shivering the deep- 
 rooted and ramified lie of the century. That speech struck a 
 new note and a new hour on the slavery agitation in America. 
 Never before in the Government had freedom touched so high 
 a level. Heretofore the slave power had been arrogant and 
 exacting. A keen observer might have then foreseen that 
 freedom would also some day become exacting and aggres- 
 sive. For its advancing billows had broken in the resound- 
 ing periods and passion of its eloquent champion. 
 
 The manner of the orator on this occasion, a manner 
 which marked all of his utterances, was that of a man who 
 defers to no one, prefers no one to himself — the imperious 
 manner of a man, conscious of the possession of great powers 
 and of ability to use them. Such a man the crisis demanded. 
 God made one American statesman without moral joints 
 when he made Charles Sumner. He could not bend the sup- 
 ple hinges of the knee to the slave power, for he had none to 
 bend. He must needs stand erect, inflexible, uncompromis- 
 ing, an image of Puritan intolerance and Puritan grandeur. 
 Against his granite-like character and convictions the inso- 
 lence of the South flung itself in vain. 
 
 Orator and oration revealed as in a magic mirror some 
 things to the South, which before had seemed to it like 
 "Birnam Wood" moving toward "high Dunsinane." But 
 lo, a miracle had been performed, the unexpected had sud- 
 denly happened. The insurgent moral sense of a mudsill and 
 
8 CHARLES Sl'MNKR 
 
 shopkeepiiig North had at last found \(jice and vent. With 
 what awakening terror must the South have listened to this 
 formidable prophecy of Sumner: "The mo\cment against 
 slavery is from the Everlasting Arm. Kven now it is gather- 
 ing its forces to be confe.ssed evervwhere. It may not vet be 
 felt in the high places of office and power ; but all who can 
 put their ears humbly to the ground will hear and comprehend 
 its incessant and advancing tread." 
 
 This awakening terror of the South was not allayed by 
 the admission of California and the mutinous execution of the 
 Fugitive Slave T.aw. The temper of that section the while 
 grew in conse([uence more unreasonable and arrogant. Worst- 
 ed as the South clearly was in the contest with her rival for 
 political supremacy, she refused nevertheless to modify her 
 pretentions to political supremacy. And as she had no long" 
 er anything to lose by giving- loose reins to her arrogance and 
 pretentions, her words and actions took on thenceforth an 
 ominously defiant and reckless character. If finally driven 
 to the wall there lay within easy reach, she calculated, seces- 
 sion and a southern confederacy. 
 
 The national situation was still further complicated l)y 
 the disintegration and chaos into which the two old parties 
 were then tumbling, and by the fierce rivalries and jealousies 
 within them of party leaders at the North. All the conditioiis 
 seemed to favor southern aggression — the commission of 
 some monstrous crime against liberty. Webster had gone to 
 his long account, dishonored and broken-hearted. The last 
 of the three sujjreme voices of the early senatorial splendor of 
 the republic was now hushed in the grave. As tho.se master 
 lights, Calhoun, Webster and Clay, vanished one after anoth- 
 er into the void, darkness and uproar increased apace. 
 
 About this time the most striking and sinister figure in 
 American Party history loomed into greatness. Stephen A. 
 Douglas was a curious and grim example of the survival of 
 viking instincts in the moiU-rn office seeker. On the sea of 
 jjolitics he was a veritable water-dog, daring, unscrui)ulous, 
 lawless, transcendently able, and transcendently heartless, 
 'i'he sight of the presidency moved him in much the samtj 
 
CHARLES SUMNER 9 
 
 way as did the sight of the elTete and wealthy lands ol' Latin 
 Europe moved his roving, robber prototypes eleven centuries 
 before. It stirred every drop of his sea-wolf's blood to get 
 possession of it. 
 
 His "Squatter Sovereignty Dogma" was in truth a pi- 
 rate boat which carried consternation to many an anxious com- 
 munity in the free states. 
 
 It was with such anally that the slave power undertook 
 the task of repealing the Missouri Compromise. The organ- 
 ization of the northern section of the Louisiana Purchase into 
 the territories of Kansas and Nebraska was made the occa- 
 sion for abolishing the old slave line of 1820. That line had 
 devoted all of that land to freedom. Calhoun, bold as he 
 was, had never ventured to counsel the abrogation of that 
 solemn covenant between the sections. The South, to his 
 way of thinking, had got the worst of the bargain, had in fact 
 been overreached, but a bargain was a bargain, and therefore 
 he concluded that the slave states should stand by their 
 plighted faith until released by the free. That which the 
 great Nullifier hesitated to counsel, his disciples and succes- 
 sors dared to do. The execution of the plot was adroitly 
 committed to the hands of Douglas, under whose leadership 
 the movement for repeal would appear to have been started 
 by the section which was to be injured by it. Thus the 
 South would be rescued from the moral and political conse- 
 quences of an act of bad faith in dealing with her sister 
 section. 
 
 The Repeal fought its way thiongh Congress during tour 
 stormy months of the winter and spring ot 1S54. Blows fell 
 upon it and its authors fast and furious from Seward, Chase, 
 Wade. Fessenden, Giddings and GenitSniiih. But Sumner 
 was the colossus of the hour, the fiaming swoid of his section. 
 It was he who swung its po.ulerous broadsword and smote 
 plot and plotters with the terrible strength of the northern 
 giant. Such a speech, as was his "Landmarks of Freedom," 
 only great national crises breed. It was a volcanic upheaval 
 of the moral throes of the times, a lavatide of argument, ap- 
 peal, history and ehxiuence. The august rights and wrath of 
 
lo CHARLES SUMNER 
 
 the northern people flashed and thundered along its rolling 
 
 jieriods. 
 
 "Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself," is the cry 
 of humanity ringing forever in the soul of the reformer. He 
 must needs bestir himself in obedience to the high behest. 
 The performance of this task is the special mission of great 
 men. It was without doubt Sumner's, for he stood for the 
 manhood of the North, of the slave, of the Republic. For 
 this he toiled strenuously all his life long. It shines in every 
 paragraph of that memorable speech, and of the shorter one 
 in defence of the New England clergy made at midnight on 
 that l)lack Thursday of May, which closed the bitter struggle 
 and consummated the demolition of the old slave wall. 
 
 From that time Sumner's position became one of con- 
 stantly increasing peril. Insulted, denounced, menaced by 
 mob violence, his life was every day in jeopardy. Hut he did 
 not flinch nor falter. Freedom was his master, humanity his 
 guide. He climbed the hazardous steps to duty, heedless of 
 the dangers in his way. 
 
 His collisions with the slave leaders and their northern 
 allies grew thenceforth more frequent and ever fiercer. 
 Kvery motion of his to gain the floor, he found anticipated 
 and oppo.seed by a tyrannous combination and majority, bent 
 on depriving him of his rights as a senator. \Vherever he 
 turned he faced growing intolerance and malignity. It was 
 only by exercising the utmost vigilance and firmness 
 that he was able to snatch for himself and cause a hearing. 
 Under these circumstances all the powers of the man became 
 braced, eager, alert, determined. It was many against one, 
 but that one was a host in himself, aroused as he then was, 
 not only by the grandeur of his cause, but also by a keen 
 sense of i)ersonal indignity and persecution. Whoever else 
 did, he would not submit to senatorial insult and bondage. 
 His rising temper began to thrust like a rapier. Scorn he 
 matched with scorn, and pride he pitted ag^Iinst jiride. Asa 
 regiment bristles with bayonets, so bristled his speech with 
 facts, which thrust through and through with the merciless 
 truth of history the arrogance and jiretentions of the South. 
 
CHARLES SUMNKR li 
 
 His sarcasm was terrific. His invective had tlie ferocity of 
 a panther. He upon whom it sprang had his quivering flesh 
 torn away. It was not in human nature to sufter such lacer- 
 ations of the feelings and forgive and forget the author of 
 them. The slave leaders did not forgive Sumner, nor for- 
 get their scars. 
 
 Meanwhile the plot of the national tragedy fast thickened, 
 for as the Government at Washington had adopted the "Squat- 
 ter Sovereignty" scheme of Douglas in settling the territo- 
 rial question, the two sections precipitated their forces at 
 once upon the debatable land. It was then for the first time 
 that the two antagonistic social systems of the union came 
 into physical collision. Showers of bullets and blood dashed 
 from the darkening sky. Civil War had actually begun. 
 The history of Kansas during this period is a history of fraud, 
 violence and anarchy. Popular sovereignty, private rights 
 and public order were all outraged by the Border Ruffians of 
 Missouri and the slave power. 
 
 At this juncture Sumner delivered in the senate a phi- 
 lipic, the like of which had not before been heard in that 
 chamber. His "Crime against Kansas" was another one of his 
 speeches crisis born. It was an outbreak of the explosive 
 forces of the long gathering tempest, its sharp and terrible 
 lightning flash and stroke, the sulphurous vent of the hot 
 surcharged heart of the North. More than one slave champ- 
 ion encountered during its delivery his attention, and must 
 have recoiled from the panther-like glare and spring of his in- 
 vective and_^rejoinder. Senator Arthur'?. Butler of South 
 Carolina was, on the whole, the most fiercely assaulted 
 of the senatorial group. His punishment was indeed mer- 
 ciless. Impartial history must, however, under all the cir- 
 cumstances of the case, I think, adjudge it just. In that 
 memorable struggle the Massachusetts chieftain used upon 
 his foes not only his tomakawk, but also his scalping knife. 
 No quarter he had received from the slave power, and none 
 now he gave to it or its representatives. 
 
 Such a terrible arraignment of the slave power in general, 
 and of Senator Butler in particular demanded an answer. To 
 
12 CHARLES ST'MNER 
 
 It, that power liael but one replw \iolcnce, llie reply which 
 wrong ever makes to right. And this Preston S. Brooks made 
 two days after its delivery. Mr. Sumner pursuatit to an earlv 
 adjournment of the Senate on an announcement of the death 
 of a meml^er of the lower house, was busy at his desk i)repar- 
 ing his afternoon mail, when Brooks, (who by the way was a 
 ue])hew of Senator Butler) stepping in front of him and with 
 hardly a word of warning, struck him on the head a succes- 
 sion of quick murderous blows with a stout walking-stick. 
 Da/.ed and stunned, but impelled by the instinct of self-defense, 
 Mr. Sumner tried to rise to grap])le with his assailant, but the 
 seat under which his long legs were thrust held him prisoner. 
 Although fastened to the floor with iron clamps, it was finall\' 
 wrenched up by the agoni/.ed struggles of Sumner. Thus re- 
 leased, his body bent forward and arms thrown up to protect 
 his bleeding head, he staggered toward Brooks who continued 
 the shower of blows until his victim fell fainting to the no(jr. 
 Not then did the southern brute stay his hand, but struck 
 again and again the prostrate and now insensible form of Mr. 
 Sumner with a fragment of the stick. 
 
 In the midst of this frightful .scene where were the over- 
 turned desk, pieces of the broken .stick, scattered writing 
 materials, and the bloodstained car]K-t, lav that noble figure 
 unconscious alike of pain and of his enemies, and of the aw- 
 ful horror of it all. There he lay in the senate chamber of 
 the Re])ublic with l)lood on his head and face ami clothing, 
 with blood, now martxr's bhxxl, running from many wounds 
 and sinking into the floor. Ohl the i)it\- of it, Init the sacri- 
 ficial grandeur of it also I He was presently succoreii by 
 Henry Wilson and other faithful friends, and borne to a sola 
 in the lobby of the Senate where doctors dressed his wounds, 
 and thence l:e was carrie<l to his lodgings. Theie suffering, 
 bewildered, almost speechless, he spent the first night of the 
 tragedy and of his long yeais of martyrdom. 
 
 <)n the wings of that traged\- Sumner rose to an enduring 
 ])lace in Ihe jjanllieon of the nation. His life became thence- 
 forth .associated with the Weal of Slates, his fate with the ft)r- 
 
CHARLEvS vSUMNER i^ 
 
 tunes of a great people. The toast of the A\itocrat ot the 
 Breakfast Table at the banquet of the Massachusetts Medical 
 Society about this time gave eloquent expression to the gen- 
 eral concern : "To the Surgeons of the City of Washington : 
 God grant them wisdom! for they are dressing the wounds of 
 a mighty empire, and of uncounted generations." The mad 
 act of Brooks had done for Sumner what similar madness had 
 done for similar victims — magnified immensely his influence, 
 secured forever his position as an imposing, historic figure. 
 Ah! it was indeed the old, wonderful story. The miracle of 
 miracles was again performed, the good man's blood had 
 turned into the seed-corn of his cause. 
 
 No need to retell the tale of his long and harrowing fight 
 for health. There were two sprains of the spine, besides the 
 terrible blows on the head. From land to land, during four 
 years, he passed, pursuing "the phantom of a cup that comes 
 and goes." As a last resort he submitted himself to the treat- 
 ment by fire, to the torture of the Moxa, which Dr. Brown- 
 Sequard pronounced "the greatest suffering that can be in 
 flicted on mortal nian.^' His empty chair, Massachusett-s, 
 great mother and nurse of heroes (God give her ever in her 
 need and the Country's such another son) would not fill. 
 Vacant it glared, voicing as no lips could utter her elo([uenl 
 protest and her mighty purpose. 
 
 The tide of history and the tide of mortality were running 
 meanwhile their inexorable courses. Two powerful parties, 
 the Whig and the American, had foundered on the tumultu- 
 ous sea of public opinion. A new political organization, the 
 Republican, had arisen instead to resist the extension of slave- 
 ry to national territory. Death too was busy. Preston S. 
 Brooks and his uncle had vanished in the grave. Harper's 
 Ferry had become freedom's Balaklava, and John Brown had 
 mounted from a Virginia gallows to the throne and the glory of 
 martyrdom. Sumner was not able to take up the task which 
 his hands had dropped until the troublous winter of 1859-60. 
 Those four fateful years of suffering had not abated his hatred 
 of slavery. That hatred and the Puritanical sternness and 
 
14 CHARLES SUMNER 
 
 intolerance oi" his nature liad on the contrary intensified his 
 temper and purpose as an anti-slavery leader. He was then 
 in personal appearance the incarnation of iron will and iron 
 convictions. His body nobly planned and proportioned was 
 a fit servant of his lofty and indomitable mind. All the 
 strength and resources of both he needed in the national em- 
 ergency which then confronted the Republic. For the su- 
 preme crisis of a seventy years' conflict of ideas and institu- 
 tions was at hand. At every door and on every brow sat 
 gloom and apprehension. 
 
 There was light on but one difficult way, the way 
 of national righteousness. In this storm-path of the 
 Nation Sumner planted his feet. Thick fogs were before and 
 above him, a wild chaotic sea of doubt and dread raged around 
 him, but he hesitated not, neither swerved to the right 
 hand nor to the left. Straight on and up he moved, calling 
 through the rising tumult and the fast falling darkness to his 
 groping and terrified countrymen to follow him. 
 
 Nothing is settled which is not settled right, I hear him say- 
 ing, high above the breaking storm of civil strife. Peace, ever 
 enduring peace, comes only to that nation which puts down sin^ 
 and lifts up righteousness. Kansas he found still denied admis- 
 sion to the Union, he presented her case and arraigned her 
 oppressors, in one of the great speeches of his life. Where- 
 ever liberty needed him, there he was, the knight without 
 fear or reproach. From platform and press and Senate he 
 flung himself, during those final decisive months of i860, into 
 the thickest of the battle. No uncertainty vexed his mind 
 and conscience. Whatever other questions admitted of con- 
 ciliatory treatment he was sure that the slavery (juestion ad- 
 mitted of none. With him there was to be no further com- 
 promise with the evil, not an inch more of concessions would 
 he grant it. Here he took his stand, and from it nothing and 
 no one were able to budge him. If disunion and civil war 
 were crouching in the rough way of the Nation's duty, the 
 Republic was not to turn aside into easier ways to avoid them. 
 It should on the contrary, regardless of consequences, seek to 
 re-establish itself in justice and liberty. * 
 
CHARLBS SUMNKR 15 
 
 He recognized, however, amid the excitement of the 
 times with all his old-time clarity of vision the constitutional 
 limitations of the Reform. He did not propose at this stage 
 of the struggle to touch slavery within the states, because 
 Congress had not the power. To the utmost verge of the 
 Constitution be pushed his uncompromising opposition to 
 it. Here he drew up his forces, ready to cross the Rubicon 
 of the slave-power whenever justificatory cause arose. Such 
 he considered to be the uprising of the South in rebellion. 
 Rebellion with him cancelled the slave covenants of the Con- 
 stitution and discharged the North from their further ob- 
 servance. 
 
 He was at last untrammelled by constitutional conditions 
 and limitations, was free to carry the War into Africa. "Car- 
 thago est delenda" was thenceforth ever on his lips. Mr. 
 Lincoln and the Republican party started out to save the Union 
 withslavery. It is the rage now, I know, to extol hismarvel- 
 lous sagacity and statesmanship. And I too will join in the 
 panegyric of his great qualities. But here he was not infallible. 
 For when he issued his Emancipation Proclamation, the 
 South too was weighing the military necessity of a similar 
 measure. Justice was Sumner's .solitary expedient, right his 
 unfailing sagacity. Of no other American statesman can 
 they be so unqualifiedly affirmed. They are indeed his peculiar 
 distinction and glory. Here he is the transcendent figure in 
 our political history. And yet, he was no fanatical visionary, 
 Utopian dreamer, but a practical moralist in the domain of 
 politics. When president and party turned a deaf ear to him 
 and his simple straightforward remedy to try their own, he 
 did not break with them. On the contrary foot to foot and 
 shoulder to shoulder he kept step with both as far as they 
 'went. Where they halted he would not stop. Stuck as the 
 wheels of State were> during those dreadful years in the mire 
 and clay of political expediency and pro-slavery Huukerism, 
 he appealed confidently to that large, unknown quantity of 
 courage and righteousness, dormant in the North, to set the 
 balked wheels again moving. 
 
i6 CHARLKS SUMNER 
 
 An ardent Peace advocate, he nevertlieless threw liiniself 
 enthusiastically into the uprisins^ against the Disunionist. 
 Xot to fight then he saw was but to jirovoke more horrible 
 woes, to prevent which the man of Peace j^reached war, un- 
 relenting war. He was Anglo-Saxon enough, Puritan and 
 student of history enough to be sensible of the efficacy of 
 blood and iron, at times, in the cure of intolerable ills. But 
 liis was no vulgar war for the mere ascetidancy of his section 
 in the Union. It was rather a holy crusade against wrong 
 and for the supremacy and perpetuity of liberty in America. 
 
 As elephants shy and shuffle before a bridge which they 
 are about to cross, so performed our saviors before emanci- 
 pation and colored troops. Emancipation and colored troops 
 were the powder and ball which Providence had laid by the 
 side of our guns. Sumner urged incessantly upon the admin- 
 istration the necessity of pouring this providential l^roadside 
 into the ranks of the foe. This was done at last and treason 
 staggered and fell mortally hurt. 
 
 The gravest problem remained, howexer, to be solved. 
 The riddle of the southern sphinx awaited its Oedipus. How 
 ought local self-government to be reconstituted in the old 
 slave states was the momentous question to be answered at 
 close of the war. Sumner had his answer, others had their 
 answer. His answer he framed on the simple basis of 
 right. No party considerations entered into his straightfor- 
 ward purpose. He was not careful to enfold within it any 
 scheme or suggestion looking to the ascendancy of his section. 
 It was freedom alone that he was solicitious of establishing, 
 the supremacy of democratic ideas and institutions in the 
 new-born nation. He desired the ascendancy of his section 
 and party so far only as they were the real custodians o 
 Jiational justice and progress, (iod knows whether his plan 
 was better than tlie plans of others except in simpleness and 
 l)urity of aim. Lincoln had hisplan, John.son his, Congress its 
 (Avn. Sumner's had what appears to me nii^ht have evinced 
 it, on trial, of superior virtue and wisdom, namely, the 
 clement of time, indefinite time as a factor in the work of re- 
 construction. But it is impossible to si)eak jiositively on this 
 
CriARLES SUMNltR 17 
 
 point. His scheme was rejected and all discussion of it l)e- 
 comes therefore nugator3^ 
 
 Negro citizenship and suffrage he championed not to save 
 the political power of his party and section, but as a duty 
 which the republic owes to the weakest of her children because 
 of their weakness. Equality before the law is, in fact, the 
 only adequate defense which poverty has against property in 
 modern civilized society. Well did Mr. Sumner understand 
 this truth, that wrong has a fatal gift of metamorphosis, its 
 ability to change its form without losing its identity. It had 
 shed in America, Negro slavery. It would reappear as 
 Negro serfdom unless placed in the way of utter extinction. 
 He had the sagacity to perceive that equality before the law 
 could alone avert a revival under a new name of the old slave 
 power and system. He toiled therefore in the Senate and on 
 the platform to make equality before the law the master prin- 
 ciple in the social and political life of America. 
 
 As his years increased so increased his passion for justice 
 and equality. He was never weary of sowing and resowing 
 in the laws of the Nation and in the mind of the people the 
 grand ideas of the Declaration of Independence. This entire 
 absorption in one loftly purpose lent to him a singular aloof- 
 ness and isolation in the politics of the times. He was not 
 like other political leaders. He laid stress on the ethical side 
 of statesmanship, they emphasized the economical. He was 
 chiefly concerned about the rights of persons, they about the 
 rights of property. Such a great soul could not be a partisan. 
 Party with him was an instrument to advance his ideas, and 
 nothing more. x\s long as it proved efficient, subservient to 
 right, he gave to it his hearty support. 
 
 It was therefore a foregone conclusion that Sumner and 
 his party should quarrel. The military and personal charac- 
 tor of General Grant's first administration furnished the casus 
 belli. These great men had no reciprocal appreciation the 
 one for the other. Sumner was honest in the belief that 
 Grant knew nothing but war, and quite as honest was Grant 
 in supposing that Sumner had done nothing but talk. The 
 breach, in consequence, widened between the latter and his 
 
iS CHARLES SUMNER 
 
 pari)- for it naluially enough espoused the cause of the Pres- 
 ident. 
 
 Sumner's im])osing figure grew more distant and com- 
 panionless. Domestic unhappiness" too was eating into his 
 proud heart. His health began to decline. The immedica- 
 ble injury which his constitution had sustained from the as- 
 sault of Brooks developed fresh complications, and renewed aU 
 of the old bodily suffering. A temper always austere and im- 
 perious was not mended by this harassing combination of ills. 
 Alone in this extremity he trod the wine-press of sickness and 
 sorrow. He no longer had a party to lean on, nor a state to 
 support him, nor did any woman's hand minister to him in 
 this hour of his need. He had left to him nothing but his 
 cause, and to this he clung with the pathos and passion of a 
 grand and solitary spirit. Presently the grass-hopper became 
 a burden, and the once stalwart limbs could not carry him 
 with their old time ease and regularity to his seat in the 
 Senate, which accordingly became frequently vacant. An 
 overpowering weariness and weakness was settling onthedv- 
 ing statesman. Still his thoughts hovered anxiously about 
 their one paramount object. I^ike as the eyes of a mother 
 about to die are turned and fixed on a darling child, so turn- 
 ed his thoughts to the struggling- cause of human brother- 
 hood and equality, l-or it the great soul would toil yet a 
 little longer. But it was otherwise decried, and the illustri- 
 ous Defender of Humanity passed away in this city March 
 I I, 1874, leaving to his country and to mankind, as a glori- 
 ous heritage, the mortal grandeur of his character and 
 achievements. 
 
CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 [On seeing some pictures of the interior of his home.] 
 
 Only the casket left, the jewel gone 
 Whose noble presence filled these stately rooms, 
 And made this spot a shrine where pilgrims came — 
 Stranger and friend — to bend in reverence 
 Before the great, pure soul that knew no guile ; 
 To listen to the wise and gracious words 
 That fell from lips whose rare, exquisite smile 
 Gave tender beauty to the grand grave face. 
 
 Upon these pictured walls we see thy peers, — 
 Poet and saint and sage, painter and king, — 
 A glorious band ; — they shine upon us still ; 
 Still gleam in marble the enchanting forms 
 Whereon thy artist eye delighted dwelt ; 
 Thy fav'rite Psyche droops her matchless face. 
 Listening, methinks, for the beloved voice 
 Which nevermore on earth shall sound her praise. 
 
 All these remain, — the beautiful, the brave. 
 The gifted, silent ones; but thou art gone ! 
 Fair is the world that smiles upon us now ; 
 Blue are the skies of June, balmy the air 
 That soothes with touches soft the weary brow ; 
 And perfect days glide into perfect nights,— 
 Moonlit and calm ; but still our grateful hearts 
 Are sad, and faint with fear,— for thou art gone ! 
 
 Oh friend beloved, with longing, tear-filled eyes 
 We look up, up to the unclouded blue. 
 And seek in vain some answering sign from thee. 
 Look down upon us, guide and cheer us still 
 Frbm the serene height where thou dwellest now ; 
 Dark is the way without the beacon light 
 Which long and steadfastly thy hand upheld. 
 Oh, nerve with courage new the stricken hearts 
 Whose dearest hopes seem lost in losing thee ! 
 
 Chari,ottk Forten Grimke. 
 
THE AMERICAN NEGRO ACADEMY. 
 
 Organized Inarch 3th, 1897. 
 
 Rev. ALEXANDER CRUMMELL, Founder. 
 
 OBJECTS: 
 
 The Promotion of Literatqre, vScience axd Art, 
 
 The CUI.TURE of a Form of Inteli^ectual Taste, 
 
 The Fostering of Higher Education, 
 
 The Publication of Scholarly Works, 
 
 The Defense of the Negro Against Vicious Assaults. 
 
 PRESIDENT 
 
 ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE. 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENTS, 
 
 Kelly Miller, J. R. Clifford 
 
 Rev. J. Albert Johnson Rev. Matthew Anderson 
 
 TREASURER, 
 
 REV. F. J. GRIMKE. 
 
 RECORDING SECRETARY, 
 
 ARTHUR U. CRAIG. 
 
 CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, 
 
 John W, Cromwell, 
 1815 13th St. N. W. Washington, D. C. 
 
 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, 
 
 KELLY MILLER, EDWARD C. WILLIAMS, J. E. MOORLAND, 
 REV. F. J. GRIMKE, EX-OFFicio, J. W. CROMWELL, ex-officio 
 
 R. L. Pendleton, Printer. 609 F St., N. W. 
 
W46 
 
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