Ii.
In this oration,
Mr. Sumner uttered the memorable declaration which went through the world:—‘In our
[
12]
age, there can be no peace that is not honorable; there can be no war that is not dishonorable.’
We shall give no space here to any part of that oration, since other speeches on the same subject were elicited by subsequent occasions, when his prophecies were fast becoming history, by the anticipations of war with
Mexico being turned into the most active hostilities.
But a careful reading of that oration, which marked
Mr. Sumner's first appearance before the country as a public man, will satisfy any student of his Speeches, that on this Fourth of July, 1844, he gave clear indications of the policy he was to pursue in future life.
Nor could a prophet have marked out with greater clearness, than the historian could afterwards, the course
Mr. Sumner would take in whatever crisis might arise, involving the fortunes of freedom, or of peace, in the coming struggles of parties.
Another point should here be observed, for it gave an index to his character which distinguished him ever afterwards from nearly all the prominent men who were to flourish during the approaching times of excitement and trouble.
We speak of his inflexibility of purpose; his steady persistence in opposing at any and at all hazards, whatever he believed to be morally, socially, or politically wrong,—his absolute insensibility to opposition or criticism, come from what quarter they might; and the admirable and absolutely unparalleled steadiness with which he pursued the great objects of his life.
He then began to experience, what he had so many occasions to encounter—the criticisms of his friends, as well as the assaults of his enemies; the one scarcely exceeding in bitterness the cold reproofs, or only halfconcealed
[
13]
satire of the others.
Without a single exception, no man in our history has had to pass through such ordeals as
Charles Sumner.
Whenever a new crisis rose in the country, he was found marching way ahead of the friends who had so reluctantly just come up to the last position he had taken; and thus they were continually falling off from him, one by one, all the time; and sometimes whole battalions of them together.
But with the single exception of the
Supplemental Civil Rights Bill, which caused him almost the only lingering regret he had in dying so soon, he lived to see every public measure he had proposed involving a great principle of liberty, either fully incorporated into the
Amended Constitution, or fairly expressed in some statute that was never afterwards to be repealed.
And yet he seldom rose on the floor of the Senate to announce for the first time a new step in advance, without finding himself nearly alone; generally without supporters; sometimes without one:—and all through this protracted struggle for principle, he was not only subject to the violent persecution of the public press, and the desertion of personal friends, but the object of official insults, and even attempts at Senatorial degradation.
Thus in tracing his career, we shall mark these points as we pass by them, only indicating them now in brief, that the reader may bear in mind these strong attributes of
Mr. Sumner's character, to enable him more fully to comprehend how arduous was his warfare, how immovable was his integrity, how sublime was his faith; how he, more than any other man in our history, illustrated what was so well applied to
Burke, that ‘he never gave up to party what was meant for mankind.’
