Xix.
On this occasion
Mr. Lincoln was present.
He entered the
Senate Chamber, supported by the
Senators from
Illinois, and was presented to the
Vice-President, who invited him to a seat by his side on the dais appropriated to the
President of the Senate.
Mr. Sumner uttered the following words:
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Mr. President: The Senator to whom we now say farewell, was generous in funeral homage to others.
More than once he held great companies in rapt attention while doing honor to the dead.
Over the coffin of Broderick he proclaimed the dying utterance of that early victim, and gave to it the fiery wings of his own eloquence: ‘They have killed me because I was opposed to the extension of slavery, and a corrupt administration;’ and as the impassioned orator repeated these words, his own soul was knit in sympathy with the departed; and thus at once did he win to himself the friends of Freedom, though distant. * * Baker was Orator and Soldier.
To him belongs the rare renown of this double character.
Perhaps he carried into war something of the confidence inspired by the conscious sway of great multitudes, as he surely brought into speech something of the ardor of war. Call him, if you will, the Rupert of Battle; he was also the Rupert of Debate. * * Child of Poverty; he was brought, while yet in tender years, to Philadelphia, where he began life, an exile, having being born on a foreign soil.
His earliest days were passed at the loom, rather than at school; and yet, from this lowliness he achieved the highest posts of trust and honor, being at the same time Senator and General.
It was the boast of Pericles, in his funeral oration in the Ceramicus, over the dead who had fallen in battle, that the Athenians readily communicated to all, the advantages which they themselves enjoyed; that they did not exclude the strangers from their walls, and that Athens was a city open to the Human Family.
The same boast may be repeated by us, with better reason, as we commemorate our dead fallen in battle. * *
In the Senate, he took at once the part of Orator.
His voice was not full and sonorous, but sharp and clear; it was penetrating rather than commanding; and yet, when touched by his ardent nature, became sympathetic, and even musical.
Countenance, body and gesture all shared the unconscious inspiration of his voice, and he went on, master of his audience, and master also of himself.
All his faculties were completely at command; ideas, illustrations, words, seemed to come unbidden, and range in harmonious forms—as in the walls of ancient Thebes each stone took its proper place of its own accord, moved only by the music of a lyre. * * His oratory was graceful, sharp, and flashing, like a cimeter; but his argument was powerful and sweeping like a battery.
Not content with the brilliant opportunities of this chamber, he accepted a commission in the army, vaulting from the Senate to the saddle, as he had already leaped from Illinois to California. * * His career as a
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general was short, though shining. * * He died with his face to the foe—and he died so instantly that he passed from the service of his country to the service of his God.
It is sweet and becoming to die for country: such a death, sudden, but not unprepared for, is the crown of the patriot soldier.
But the question is painfully asked, who was the author of this tragedy, now filling the Senate Chamber, as it has already filled the country, with mourning?
There is a strong desire to hold somebody responsible, where so many perish so unprofitably.
But we need not appoint committees or study testimony, to know precisely who took this precious life.
That great criminal is easily detected, still erect and defiant, without concealment or disguise.
The guns, the balls, the men that fired them, are of little importance.
It is the Power behind all, saying, ‘The State; it is I,’ that took this precious life: and this power is Slavery.
The nine balls that slew our departed brother, came from Slavery.
Every gaping wound of his slashed bosom, testifies against Slavery.
Every drop of his generous blood cries out from the ground against Slavery.
The brain so rudely shattered, has its own voice; and the tongue so suddenly silenced in death, speaks now, with more than living eloquence.
To hold others responsible is to hold the dwarf agent, and dismiss the giant principal.
Nor shall we do great service, if, merely criticising some local blunder, we leave untouched that fatal forbearance through which the weakness of the Rebellion is changed into strength, and the strength of our armies is changed into weakness.
May our grief to-day be no hollow pageant, nor expend itself in this funeral pomp!
It must become a motive, an impulse to patriot action.
But patriotism itself, that commanding charity, embracing so many other charities, is only a name, and nothing else, unless we resolve calmly, plainly, solemnly, that Slavery, the barbarous enemy of our country, the irreconcilable foe of our Union, the violator of our Constitution, the disturber of our peace, the vampire of our national life, the assassin of our children, and the murderer of our dead Senator, shall be struck down.
And the way is easy.
The just avenger is at hand, with weapon of celestial temper: let it be drawn.
Until this is done, the patriot, discerning clearly the secret of our weakness, can only say, sorrowfully—
Bleed, bleed, poor country!
Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
For goodness dares not check thee!
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Mr. Sumner was bitterly assailed by all the Pro-Slavery journals of the
North, for having, as was alleged, ‘even in the burial-service of the dead, mingled his sectional hate and personal wrath.’
But
William Lloyd Garrison, in alluding to this, well said: ‘When there is howling in the pit, there is special rejoicing in heaven.’
