Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 4

Chapter 57: attempts to reconcile the President and the senator.—ineligibility of the President for a second term.—the Civil-rights Bill.—sale of arms to France.—the liberal Republican party: Horace Greeley its candidate adopted by the Democrats.—Sumner's reserve.—his relations with Republican friends and his colleague.—speech against the President.—support of Greeley.—last journey to Europe.—a meeting with Motley.—a night with John Bright.—the President's re-election.—1871-1872.

With another type of public men the President was more easily reconciled. General Butler having been relieved (unjustly as he thought) by General Grant from command after the affair at Fort Fisher issued a farewell address to his troops which was almost mutinous; and in that address, and also in one made at Lowell shortly after, he charged, by certain implication, on his chief a wanton or wasteful sacrifice of human life. His conversations, guarded with no privacy, abounded in still more offensive imputations; and he went so far as to prepare a bulky manuscript [498] to exhibit the incapacity of the head of the army.² He carried his resentment still further; and having intimated to Judge D. K. Cartter, a friend of General Grant, that an invitation to the general's party in Washington would be agreeable to him, after having received one he returned it to the sender. Nevertheless the two generals, now both in public life as civilians, were brought into friendly relations by the mediation of George Wilkes, the editor; and General Butler came to have an influence with the President, at least in appointments to office, greater than that of any public man, or indeed of all public men, in Massachusetts.³

Sumner renewed at this session his proposition, made in 1867,⁴ for an amendment to the Constitution, establishing the ineligibility of the President for a second term, expressly excepting, however, the next election.⁵ The President's special friends saw fit to regard the measure as aimed at him, and opposed it in a body. Conkling, calling it up while advocating the President's re-election, attempted some sarcasms on Sumner. The latter in a brief reply declined to follow ‘the insinuations and innuendoes which the senator had so freely strown in his path.’ Carpenter, in an elaborate speech against civil service reform⁶ (this speech showing to what class of public men he belonged), took occasion to dissent from the proposition. Later in the session Sumner introduced a resolution for substituting a popular vote for President in place of the electoral colleges.⁷ [499]

Sumner made at this session an earnest and determined effort to carry his civil-rights bill,—a measure securing equality of civil rights to the colored people, and prohibiting discriminations against them by common carriers of passengers, by proprietors of theatres and inns, managers of schools, of cemeteries, and of churches, or as to service as jurors in any courts, State or national. His association with the Democrats in opposing the San Domingo scheme-had not, as was observed, affected his loyalty to the colored people. He continued to present from the beginning of the session petitions for the bill, usually pressing them in brief remarks; and he endeavored to make action on the bill a condition of final adjournment.⁸ He sought to make the pressure for reconciliation serve his purpose. He moved his bill as an amendment to the amnesty bill which had come from the House, maintaining it at some length; but he encountered the objection that his bill, which required only a majority vote, could not be moved as an amendment to a bill which required a two-thirds vote.⁹ The Vice-President, however, sustained by the Senate, overruled the objection. Sumner doubtless obtained some votes for his proposition from senators who were opposed to the amnesty bill, and who were sure that the adoption of the amendment, by repelling the Democratic senators, would defeat it. He thought the two measures should be associated in history,—the one an act of justice, and the other an act, of generosity; and it was his opinion, not, however, justified by the result, that the desire for amnesty was so strong that when once his civil-rights measure had been incorporated in it the bill thus amended would pass by a two-thirds vote. His amendment was lost in committee of the whole by a single vote;¹⁰ and moving it again after the bill was reported, [500] he said: ‘I entreat senators over the way [the Democrats] who really seek reconciliation now to unite in this honest effort. Give me an opportunity to vote for this bill; I long to do it. Gladly would 1 reach out the olive branch; but I know no way in which that can be done unless you begin by justice to the colored race.’¹¹ No further action was taken till after the holiday recess. The colored people held meetings to advance the measure; but beyond them and old Abolitionists there was no great popular interest in it.¹²

After the recess Sumner made his most elaborate speech on the subject, in which he reviewed the arguments against caste distinctions, and traversed ground already familiar to him.¹³ His final appeal was characteristic in style:—

I make this appeal also for the sake of peace, so that at last there shall be an end of slavery, and the rights of the citizen shall be everywhere under the equal safeguard of national law. There is beauty in art, in literature, in science, and in every triumph of intelligence, all of which I covet for my country; but there is a higher beauty still,—in relieving the poor, in elevating the down-trodden, and being a succor to the oppressed. There is true grandeur in an example of justice, making the rights of all the same as our own, and beating down prejudice, like Satan, under our feet. Humbly do I pray that the republic may not lose this great prize, or postpone its enjoyment.

When the debate was resumed, two days later, the senator read at length documents, letters, and extracts from newspapers, showing the necessity of his bill.¹⁴ The galleries were filled on the first day,—mostly with colored people,—but the subject did not interest the public generally. Letters of congratulation came from Gerrit Smith, Garrison, S. E. Sewall, Whittier, and D. H. Chamberlain, then attorney-general of South Carolina; but political leaders were silent. Whittier wrote: ‘Thanks for thy noble speech. Some of our politicians are half afraid to commend it, but depend upon it the heart of Massachusetts is with thee. Amnesty for rebels and a guaranty of safety to the freedmen should go together.’ Morrill of Maine and Ferry of Connecticut opposed Sumner's measure as attempting to deal [501] with matters which were purely of State concern. Schurz did not sympathize with his friend's pressure for national legislation imposing civil equality. He kept out of the debate, and his name rarely appeared in the votes. Sumner pushed his measure during the entire session, with all the persistency which was a part of his nature.¹⁵ Some senators became weary of the subject, and one of them (Hamlin) forgot his sense of propriety by rising, when Sumner was insisting on action before final adjournment, and asking, with a serious air, ‘if it would be in order to sing Old Hundred before voting.’¹⁶ Sumner rebuked him for his trifling.

The former controversy as to the force to be given to the Declaration of Independence in interpreting the Constitution was revived, and here Morrill was as far apart from Sumner as Carpenter had been. He refused to treat it as a source of power, although allowing it to be ‘an inspiration’ and ‘a pervading and all-powerful influence.’ He was a clear-sighted lawyer, and indeed anticipated in his positions the judgment of the Supreme Court. He complained, and had reason to complain, of Sumner's mode of handling a constitutional question,—his drawing on sublime doctrines of human rights rather than looking sharply at the written text. Sumner was disappointed at finding some Southern Republican senators who had been chosen by colored votes opposed to coupling his civil-rights bill with amnesty, and worried them by his remarks, which called the attention of their colored constituents to their action. Naturally they resented this mode of ‘cracking a whip over them.’ Carpenter nominally supported the measure, though in a way to leave a doubt whether he was really in favor of any part; but he objected strenuously to its interference with churches and juries as of doubtful constitutionality.¹⁷ The two senators renewed their contention over the Declaration, and Sumner went so far as to place the authority of that document higher than that of the Constitution itself, as ‘earlier in time, loftier, more majestic, more sublime in character and principle.’¹⁸ Sherman and [502] Frelinghuysen were on the whole with Sumner, though disagreeing on one or two points; and the Senate, on the latter's motion, exempted the churches. The Chinaman again appeared, as one section struck out the word ‘white’ from all statutes of the United States. Sherman was unwilling to open the gates to ‘the heathen races;’ but Sumner declined to modify the section, justifying its scope, and the Senate voted to retain it. There was a tie vote on Sumner's amendment¹⁹ which attached his civil-rights measure to the amnesty bill, and it was carried by the Vice-President's casting vote,²⁰ which was received with cheers from the galleries. This sealed the fate of the amnesty bill, as the Democratic senators withdrew from its support, and left it considerably short of a two-thirds vote. Sumner cordially sustained the bill, now ‘consecrated and elevated,’ as he said, by the amendment.

Sumner wrote to Longfellow, February 25:—

Your handwriting, dear Longfellow, is like sunshine from my large pile of letters, and is next to seeing you. To-day is charming; but I am at home, working always. There is no end to it. I am weary, and often say, How much longer must this last? I have been gratified by the success of the civil-rights bill. I begin to believe it will become a law; then will there be joy. Very few measures of equal importance have ever been presented. It will be the capstone of my work. Then, perhaps, I had better withdraw, and leave to others this laborious life.

Three months after the defeat of the first bill, another amnesty bill from the House came up in the Senate, and Sumner renewed his effort. There was the same point of order, overruled again by the Vice-President and the Senate; the same threshing over of former contentions and the revival of personal questions; a motion by Ferry to exempt schools, and another by Carpenter to exempt juries,—both voted down. Trumbull's motion to strike out the first five sections was defeated by the Vice-President's casting vote, which was greeted with applause from the galleries; but Sumner's bill, moved as a substitute, was lost by a single vote. Nothing daunted by this defeat, he moved [503] it a few minutes later as an addition to the amnesty bill,—and now he succeeded, again by the casting vote of the Vice-President; but the amnesty bill, thus enlarged, again failed to receive a two-thirds vote. Unwearied, Sumner placed at once on the calendar another civil-rights bill, with some changes suggested in the recent debates. Within a week he moved his bill as an amendment to an Act to enforce the right of citizens to vote, but withdrew it on an appeal from Sherman in behalf of the pending bill, which it would imperil.²¹ A week later, when the Senate was holding a night session for the purpose of reaching a final vote on the supplementary enforcement bill, Sumner, who was ill, remained at home observing medical directions, and not supposing any other bill would be taken up. The bill passed at 5.45 the next morning. Then Carpenter, resorting to an artifice which most of his associates would have deemed unbecoming in a senator, carried a motion to take up Sumner's bill in his absence, a bare majority of the senators being present. After moving an amendment which dropped out schools, churches, cemeteries, and juries, he insisted on an immediate vote; and notwithstanding a protest from a senator against the unfairness of the proceeding, pushed the bill thus amended to a final vote at 8 A. M. The Senate then took up another House amnesty bill, when Sumner, who had been sent for, appeared. He protested against the emasculated civil-rights bill, which had been passed, and moved his own bill as an amendment to the pending bill. This motion being now defeated by a large majority, he declined to vote for the amnesty bill when not associated with equal civil rights; but it passed with only two votes against it,—his own and Nye's. He again renewed his appeal, and ‘sounded the cry’ for the rights of the colored man, which had been sacrificed.²² The Senate adjourned at 10.20 A. M., less than two hours before another day's session was to begin. Again, three days before the session closed, Sumner moved his bill as an amendment to the civil appropriation bill, but it was ruled out of order. So the amnesty bill became a law; but the civil-rights bill as curtailed by Carpenter was not acted on in the House.²³ It will be hard to find [504] in our history parallels to such pertinacity as Sumner's repeated efforts to carry his civil-rights bill at this session.²⁴

Sumner's distinction as the tribune of the colored people deserves emphasis in this connection. Others saw the evil of slavery, and did their best to extirpate it; others saw in the enfranchised slaves a political force, possibly a decisive one in national elections, and then, as later, they devised means to promote and protect their rights as voters; but Sumner alone and at all times insisted on their equal title to all civil rights and privileges, and all the consideration enjoyed by white men,— and this irrespective of any political necessity or advantage. He carried many measures for their benefit, and failed in others and the comprehensive one on which he set his heart—though after his death placed on the statute book—was declared null and void by the highest authority. But whether succeeding or failing, he established a sentiment and promulgated doctrines of duty and right which for all time will be the hope and protection of the African race.

A resolution of inquiry into the sale of United States arms to France by the war department during the Franco-Prussian war brought on a sharp and somewhat prolonged contest between Sumner and Schurz on the one hand and the partisans of the Administration on the other. Our government had on hand in 1865 a large amount of materials of war,—some unserviceable by reason of new inventions, and others superfluous in time of peace. The statutes of 1825 and 1868 authorized the sale of arms, ammunition, and stores which were ‘damaged or otherwise unsuitable,’ and the war department extended these terms to cover arms which were in excess of the needs of a peace establishment. The Secretary of War (Belknap) proceeded to reduce the stock on hand, and was doing so at the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian war,—a war which our government promptly recognized by a proclamation of neutrality. The well known firm of Remington & Son, of Ilion, New York, manufacturers of arms, who were among the largest purchasers, were discovered, Oct. 13, 1870, to be acting as agents of France; and [505] the same day the secretary, with the view of observing forms of neutrality between the belligerents, directed that no further sales should be made to them. While recognizing by this order that a sale of arms to either belligerent would be a breach of neutrality, his department nevertheless treated the order from the beginning as only formal, and made no effort to make the neutrality actual and genuine. The day the order was issued, the war department had agreed orally on the terms of a contract for the sale of arms to Remington's firm before their agency was disclosed; and although there was no binding contract and no deposit had been made by the purchaser, the arms were, when the agency was well known, delivered six weeks later. When the Remingtons withdrew as open competitors, one Richardson, described in the debate as a ‘little country lawyer,’ stepped in. He was not in the arms business, was a neighbor of the Remingtons at Ilion, and known to be in close relations with them; and the arms sold to him went at once into their possession, and were thereupon shipped to France.²⁵ It appeared from Remington's letter—written two months after the secretary's order to the French officer at Tours, who was charged with the duty of buying such materials—that he was still negotiating with our government for the purchase of arms and the manufacture of cartridges. Further, it appeared that Remington still continued to be in business relations with the officers of the ordnance bureau, at whose agency in New York the negotiations were carried on. Finally, on pressure from Schurz, the secretary (Jan. 24, 1871) stopped the sale of arms altogether.²⁶

Meantime, however, the ordnance bureau manufactured for Richardson a large quantity of ammunition suitable for the guns sold, although the Acts of Congress authorized only a sale of unserviceable ammunition, not a manufacture of such material.²⁷ [506] There was also a departure from the law in the matter of inspection and notice, which were conditions of a private sale. The only excuse for this illegality was that it was committed with good intent and beneficial results, and under ‘rather a soldier's than a lawyer's construction of the statute.’ Some discrepancies in accounts of sales between the accounts of the war and treasury departments, and between the accounts of our departments and those of the French government, which at first invited suspicion, were satisfactorily explained; so also a reported resolution of inquiry in the French Assembly was found to have been forged.

There were suspicions at the time that officials of the war department or persons of political influence outside who were urging the sales had profited by the transactions. Sumner was thoroughly convinced that there was wrong-doing somewhere. It was difficult on any other theory to explain why the show of neutrality was kept up without its substance; why, after a formal refusal to sell to the Remingtons, business relations were still kept up with them through ‘a man of straw.’ A telegraphic despatch in French cipher sent to Remington, then in France, by his son-in-law and agent in New York, a few days before the sales to his firm were stopped, was in these words: ‘We have the strongest influences working for us, which will use all their efforts to succeed.’ The promoters of the inquiry remained always of the conviction that there was illegitimate money-making at the bottom of the business; but they were unable to penetrate the veil with which astute men know how to cover such transactions. The character of Belknap himself, as subsequently developed in later evidence, is confirmatory of their view.

The person at Washington who first drew attention to the sale of arms to France was the Marquis de Chambrun,²⁸ then legal counsel of the French embassy at Washington, who took an interest in the trial of one Place, formerly French consul at New York, and accused after his return to his country of misconduct in connection with the purchase of arms. The French government was at the time inquiring how it was that it had paid more for the arms than our government had received. The marquis in the spring of 1871 brought the subject to the attention of Senator Patterson, asking that his committee on retrenchment investigate the subject, and saying that ‘undoubtedly [507] certain Americans, and possibly subordinate officials in the war department, would be found mixed up with these transactions;’ and further, that ‘parties in the ordnance bureau must have been in collusion with other parties named in these transactions.’ Mr. Patterson called Schurz's attention to the subject at the next session, 1871-1872, just before Christmas, and named the marquis in a later interview as one who was informed upon it. About the same time Patterson mentioned some of the circumstances to Sumner, telling him that ‘it was a bad case, and that it must be looked into.’ A month later, Schurz, whom the marquis had seen, reported what he had heard to Sumner, referring him to the marquis; and Sumner the communicated with the marquis (their first conversation in relation to it), who stated to the senator the facts within his knowledge.

Sumner was always keen on the point of keeping our government strictly to its duty of observing the obligations of neutrality, and all the more so at this time when our case was pending against Great Britain. Accordingly he moved, February 12, resolutions of inquiry into the sale of arms to France, introduced by a preamble alleging the grounds of suspicion as they appeared. Two days later, without incriminating any one, he stated the reasons which called for an investigation.²⁹ The inquiry was a surprise to most of the senators, and it arrested at once the attention of Conkling, Morton, and Edmunds. Sumner's opening was not thought equal to the occasion, lacking definiteness and force.³⁰ An acrimonious debate, lasting over two weeks, followed. Sumner was not well at the time, and on the second day pressed Schurz to speak; and from that time the latter, who was more master of the details than Sumner, was a constant combatant, making four speeches, and engaged often in the running debate. No other senators spoke on the same side; and the Democratic senators remained spectators only, watching with satisfaction a division in the Republican ranks. Carpenter, Conkling, Morton, Harlan, Frelinghuysen, and Edmunds threw themselves into the debate with their utmost vigor, and nearly all of them were unsparing in personal epithets. They charged Sumner and Schurz [508] with being false to the obligations of patriotism, because without complaint from Prussia they had volunteered to confess a breach of neutrality on our part, and had thereby invited a claim for damages. They branded the two senators as ‘emissaries’ or ‘spies’ of foreign governments for doing what senators by habit and of right do,—that is, for conversing with foreigners, official or private, who are resident at Washington, both senators having talked with the Marquis de Chambrun, and Schurz having inquired as to certain facts at the Prussian embassy. Puerile as the charge was, Conkling moved an amendment for an inquiry whether any senator or citizen had been in communication or collusion with any foreign power or any ‘emissary’ or ‘spy’ thereof, but was obliged to substitute the terms ‘agent or officer,’ being reminded that those of ‘spy’ and ‘emissary’ were applicable only to a condition of war.³¹ On the main question, the international one, the senators who justified the Administration (except one) admitted the rule that a neutral power was not allowed to sell arms and war materials to either belligerent;³² but they reduced it to, a formal and purely technical one, denying any duty of the seller to make inquiry as to their destination, and making even knowledge that the purchaser intended an immediate transfer to the belligerent altogether immaterial. Carpenter went even further, contending in his speech and in the committee's report drawn by him that the rule itself did not exist; that the war department in discontinuing the sales to Remington had acted under unnecessary scruples; and that, at least where the sales had begun before the breaking out of hostilities, our government as a neutral had a right to sell arms and war material to either belligerent, even directly to its head, Louis Napoleon or the king of Prussia. While Sumner disclaimed that his resolution was an attack on the President, his opponents insisted that it was ‘a political move,’³³ specially intended to excite the German vote against the Administration; and the debate was at times diverted into a political and personal discussion as to affairs in Missouri, and particularly as to Schurz's connection with them.

The debate reached its highest point of interest on February [509] 19 and 20,—Conkling having the former day, and Schurz the latter. On the first day the friends of the President crowded the galleries,—among whom were conspicuous the ladies from the White House. Conkling's speech was characteristic in manner, gesture, and style. The next day, when Schurz was to reply, ladies were admitted into the Senate chamber, where they filled the sofas and the standing-room. Inspired by the controversy and by his audience, he never spoke in the Senate with such nervous energy, fire, and immediate effect.³⁴ The galleries were with him, and their outbursts of applause were with difficulty repressed by the chair. Sumner thanked him warmly, and said to others as well as to him that it was the greatest speech he had heard in the Senate for twenty years. Morton led in the debate that followed, and was called to order by the chair for saying that he had ‘extreme contempt for the senator's extreme insolence.’ The next day Schurz and Conkling had another encounter, in which the former described the latter's manner in language recalling a similar description of the New York senator by Mr. Blaine some years before in the House.³⁵ After this the two senators did not speak to each other. Schurz on a later day repelled Carpenter's charge that it is unpatriotic to expose a breach of neutrality on the part of the Administration, saying, ‘The senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, “My country, right or wrong!” In one sense I say so too. My country,—and my country is the great American Republic, —my country, right or wrong: if right to be kept right, and if wrong to be set right!’³⁶ a retort which drew applause from the galleries.

Sumner made his principal speech February 28, in which he was more effective than when he opened the debate.³⁷ It was a calm and dignified statement, without personality towards his opponents; and it won the favor of his audience, which was large and inspiring.³⁸ The next day he spoke briefly.³⁹ He defended [510] himself against the charge of having taken an unpatriotic position, contending that it was his supreme duty to keep his country right, and pointing for examples under like circumstances to Cobden and Bright at the time of our Civil War, and to Fox and Burke at the time of our Revolution.⁴⁰ His preamble with his consent was laid on the table, and the resolution itself was passed by a large majority, only five votes being given in the negative.

To the partisan bitterness of the Administration senators there were some exceptions. Harlan said of Sumner that he was ‘as patriotic as any member of the Senate;’ and Cameron paid a tribute to his magnanimity, justice, and intelligence. Conkling had found other victims of his worrying propensity, and now, as also in later debates, treated him with civility,— almost with consideration.

The strain of the contest on the arms question was too much for Sumner, and brought on another attack of the angina pectoris. The mention of his name, the day after the resolution passed, as chairman or a member of the committee of investigation, drew from him a declination, with a statement of his inability to serve; and he was absent from his seat most of the time for two weeks. The committee was constituted in a manner unfriendly to inquiry, with the studied exclusion of its promoters. Hamlin, who had denounced them, was made chairman, while Schurz was refused any place on the committee, although Trumbull and Sumner asked that he should serve on it. The committee, chosen by ballot, consisted of Hamlin, Carpenter, Sawyer, Logan, Ames, Harlan, and Stevenson,—each receiving from fifty-two to thirty-six votes. Schurz received twenty-three, only eleven of which were given by Republican senators, and Trumbull nineteen. The Senate refused the request of Stevenson, the only Democrat chosen, to have Schurz take his place. Sumner was absent at the time, or, as he afterwards stated in the Senate, he would have entered at once his protest against the composition of the committee.⁴¹ His illness drew tender expressions from friends. Heber wrote, March 2:

Let your secretary write us how you are, if you are too much occupied. Take care of your health, and remember that it was in 1828 or 1829 that I [511] became acquainted with you. We are not young, and your country wants you,—living, I mean, for it will always have you or keep you in some sense.

Wendell Phillips wrote, March 3:—

Sorry to hear you are not so well, but glad they have caged you and forced you to rest. Now submit gracefully; consent to play sick for our sakes, who want to lean on you, and so need a strong man. Best wishes for quick recovery, but earnest prayers that you will wait and rest patiently for it.

The committee began its sessions March 6, and closed them April 23,—holding thirty-one meetings, and making a report which, with the evidence, fills a stout volume of eight hundred and forty-nine pages.⁴² Schurz, by its invitation,—an invitation which was a confession that he should have been a member,— attended the sessions, examined and cross-examined witnesses, and the committee summoned any whose names he gave. Both he and Sumner testified, though refusing to reveal communications made to them in confidence.

Sumner was requested by the committee in writing to appear as a witness. He came before it and read a protest;⁴³ and the committee, on Carpenter's motion, then ordered his appearance by a subpoena.⁴⁴ He came the next day, and after reading another protest, waived his right, and submitted⁴⁵ himself for examination.⁴⁶ His protests, while declaring that he had nothing to conceal either in the present case or in all his public life, whether act, letter, or conversation at any time, asserted the right of a senator to confidential intercourse with all who gave him information; but his main insistence was that the committee, assorted as it was, had no right to sit at all. He contended that by parliamentary law the committee should be made up of senators friendly to the inquiry, excluding those who, according to the ancient phrase, were ‘against the thing,’ or who took ground that there were no facts or reasons justifying an inquiry,—quoting Jefferson, that a member who is against the bill ‘ought to ask to be excused;’ as well as R. M. T. Hunter, [512] a former speaker of the House, that ‘in committees of investigation it is equally clear that the opposition who hold the affirmative should have the majority and the power.’⁴⁷ He objected particularly to Hamlin, calling him ‘the acting chairman,’ and naming him as one who had shown himself in open speech ‘against the tiling.’⁴⁸ Carpenter moved that the protests be returned to Sumner as disrespectful to the committee, saying then, and repeating the same point in the report, that ‘it was the first time in the history of the world that a witness has assumed to impeach the capacity of the judge on the bench to examine him.’ In the course of his examination Sumner replied to Carpenter, who was questioning him in relation to the rule of parliamentary law as to the appointment of committees, that he too was disqualified to sit upon the committee after vindicating the whole transaction in an elaborate speech to show that there was no necessity for an inquiry. While Carpenter was pursuing the examination, Hamlin interposed that Sumner's position was ‘absolutely insulting to the committee.’ Further on, when Sumner answered affirmatively a question whether on a rule of neutrality others might be right and he wrong, Hamlin interjected, ‘That is an admission I did not expect to hear you make.’ When questioned by Carpenter as to the duty of a senator on hearing a rumor that his own government had wronged a foreign power, Sumner answered, ‘That again is a broad and abstract question.’ Carpenter retorted, ‘But you are a broad and abstract man, and therefore I put the question to you.’

The modern practice may not be, as Sumner contended it once was, to make up a committee of investigation wholly of members who recognize suspicions or reasons which justify an inquiry; but the present committee was open to the exception which he took,—in that while it had among its members the stoutest defenders in debate of the transactions in question, all who had in debate maintained the opposite view were studiously excluded from it. The defence was made in the Senate and in [513] the report for such an irregular and unusual proceeding, that all the members had voted to institute the committee; but that was purely a technical answer.

The report drawn by Carpenter, and signed by all the members except one, fully exculpated the war department and all its subordinate bureaus and officials. It reviewed the relations of Sumner and Schurz with the Marquis de Chambrun, but carefully avoided any declaration as to whether any senator had been in collusion with an officer or agent of a foreign government. Stevenson stated a dissenting view on the main conclusions of the majority. The motion, May 11, to print the report brought on another heated debate, in which Sumner renewed his protest against the composition of the committee, and condemned ‘the abnormal ultraism’ of its new version of international law.⁴⁹ He made another effort to have a day assigned for the consideration of the report; but the session was near its end, and the assignment was not made. On the last day of the month, as he began his speech on the Presidential election, he renewed his familiar protest against the committee itself, and pronounced its report ‘one of the most extraordinary in parliamentary history; unworthy of the Senate in every respect; wanting in ordinary fairness, unbecoming in tone, unjust to senators who had deemed it their duty to move the inquiry, and ridiculous in its attempt to expound international law.’ Schurz the same day reviewed at length the report, replying to its personal insinuations, as well as controverting its substantial positions. A reply from Carpenter closed the discussion.

The controversy attracted little attention in the country. It was chiefly of interest at Washington, where it drew a crowd to the Capitol, always on hand to witness a display of forensic antagonism;⁵⁰ and even with them the debate was wearisome, except when Schurz, Sumner, Carpenter, or Conkling was on the floor. Sumner was, as his manner showed, profoundly convinced of the truth of his position that there had been a breach of international duty, and that there was dishonesty somewhere; but he was in a contest where he was almost sure to be baffled and outwitted by men shrewder than himself, both in the Senate and outside of it. Personal friends felt that he was in no condition [514] of health to undergo the strain of such antagonisms; and politicians well disposed towards him, and at the same time supporters of the President, saw with regret the widening breach between him and the Administration. Some thought that he made too much of irregularities which, even if existing to the extent he suspected, are incident to public affairs, and that it was not for him to lead in an exposure which would weaken his own party. To such indifferentism Sumner was at all times proof.

Early in 1872 it became evident that a considerable body, calling themselves ‘Liberal Republicans,’ would refuse to support General Grant for re-election. Their objections were largely to his personal characteristics, which were alleged to be unbecoming in a chief magistrate, and to the abuses which he allowed to prevail in the public service. His close alliance with certain leaders in Congress,—Conkling, Cameron, Chandler, and Carpenter in the Senate, and Butler in the House,—whom he allowed to use the public patronage in their respective States in contests with their rivals, stimulated the opposition not only of those who felt the adverse weight of Executive influence, but of others who believed in an entire separation of politics from patronage.⁵¹ His arbitrary methods in attempting to acquire San Domingo and the removal of Sumner from the foreign relations committee as the sequel of his failure, entered largely into the discussion. One of the points made against him was his interference through the army with the governments and elections of the restored rebel States; but in this respect he had only done what Republicans generally had approved, and even demanded.⁵² This point was certainly not open to those who had pressed nationalism in the interest of loyal people at the South, of both races, to the limit of constitutional law. Amnesty to the rebels was put by Greeley in the foreground; but the President could not be charged with having been obstructive to this measure, as [515] he had signed without hesitation all bills of the kind which Congress passed.

But whatever of justice there was in the objections to the President's policy or conduct, it was clear that the Republican masses, grateful for his military services, were unshaken in their devotion to him, and that he would be the Republican candidate in 1872. The Democratic party had been since the Civil War gaining strength at the North, and was gradually resuming control of the reconstructed States, so that the result of the election could not be predicted with any certainty, and the success of the Republicans would be seriously imperilled by any considerable secession from their ranks. To prevent that danger, Wilson, with a zeal for party unity quickened by his ambition for the vice-presidency, had made the visits to the President which have been referred to.

Schurz early in the year 1872 announced his sympathy with the Republican opposition to the President's renomination which had taken form in Missouri, and his purpose to oppose his election in case he was again selected as candidate. A month or two later Trumbull took the same position. The New York Tribune, with Horace Greeley and Whitelaw Reid editors, the Chicago Tribune, the Cincinnati Commercial, and the Springfield (Mass.) ‘Republican,’ each important centres of influence, were moving in the same direction. A national convention, to meet at Cincinnati May 1, was called in January by the Liberal Republicans of Missouri. Sumner, while in relations of confidence with Schurz and Trumbull, kept himself in reserve, avowing his opposition to the President's renomination, but hoping that the Republican convention which was to meet at Philadelphia in June would for the sake of harmony name another candidate. No one but himself, however, counted at all on such a solution of the difficulty; and indeed his own faith must have been slight.⁵³

The Liberal Republican movement was from the start in some danger of falling into the hands of enthusiasts or irresponsible malcontents. Its promoters, particularly the editors of the journals already mentioned, who to a great extent took the initiative, did what they could to avert the catastrophe, and to that end invoked Sumner's open and active co-operation. There [516] was a moral power in his name which the other leaders did not have; and he had the confidence of the colored people, whose solid Republican column at the South it was important to break. Accordingly, for six weeks before the meeting of the convention its promoters plied the senator with appeals for a public statement of his position, which were so near in date and so alike in substance as to suggest concert among the writers. Among them were Whitelaw Reid of the New York Tribune, Horace White of the Chicago Tribune, Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican, Francis W. Bird, Edward Atkinson, David A. Wells, Hiram Barney, George Wilkes, and J. R. Doolittle; and they were reinforced by others who joined in a similar pressure at Washington. They set forth with great urgency the necessity of his taking a stand openly in order to save the new movement at its birth; and they added the personal appeal that one of its inspirations was the indignation felt at the outrage inflicted on him by the President and his partisans in his removal from his committee. Mr. Reid wrote with much concern, March 28, on belalf of himself and Mr. Greeley, as to conflicting reports concerning the senator's position, and pleaded against further delay, saying:—

It is needful that you should know at once the grave anxiety that has been inspired, and the light in which Mr. Greeley would regard any prolonged delay in an authoritative expression from you with reference to the combination against Grant. When urging me to go over and see you, he asked me to say that in case you were not going to support us explicitly and with your whole force, it was due to us to know at once, and that it might then become necessary for the “Tribune” to take a different tack.⁵⁴

The promoters of the movement were perplexed from the beginning as to the choice of a candidate,—it being essential to their success to nominate one strong in public confidence, likely to attract Republican voters and at the same time invite Democratic co-operation. There was an early mention of Greeley; but to sober-thinking people his candidacy seemed preposterous. Trumbull had many points in his favor as an able statesman; but unfortunately just then a charge—doubtless an unfounded one—that he had as a lawyer taken a fee in a matter connected with his public duties stood in the way [517] of his selection. Sumner's name was one of those proposed. Wilkes presented it in his newspaper,⁵⁵ and James M. Ashley was active in bringing it forward, making a visit to New England in the spring for the purpose. Bowles, Bird, and others thought that an open and distinct declaration of sympathy with the movement at an early stage would have placed him at its head. It is not likely—though an opinion on such a matter can be little better than conjecture—that he would have proved the best candidate. His character and fame would surely have attracted a large body of voters hitherto Republican; he might, and probably would, have carried Massachusetts; but his name would not, as was to be expected, have found favor with Southern Democrats, whose undivided support was essential.⁵⁶ Though always friendly at heart to that section, he had seemed otherwise in his policy of reconstruction; and he was at the time pushing the civil equality of negroes in a way not at all agreeable to Southern people. Northern Democrats of the ‘Bourbon’ type could not easily accept as leader one with whom they had been long in controversy. He himself did not seek the nomination, or express a desire for it. The Liberal Republican leaders in Massachusetts, who were in close relations with him, did not (presumably following his counsels) present his name, and even discouraged its use. If, however, it had been decided as the wisest course to place him at the head of the ticket, he would doubtless have accepted the place,— as it would have been his duty to do in view of his relations to the movement.

The natural candidate of the new party, and one with whom it would have made its best canvass and perhaps have succeeded, was Charles Francis Adams, minister to England for nearly eight years,—a period including the Civil War,—and at this time (1872) a member of the Tribunal of Arbitration at Geneva. He would have held the Democratic vote, and divided conservative Republicans. At one time his nomination seemed altogether likely;⁵⁷ but a peculiar letter from him, made public at the time, in which he spoke of the Liberal Republicans as ‘that crowd,’ repelled delegates from his support. Mr. Bird [518] of the Massachusetts delegation was opposed to his nomination, and was thought, though erroneously, to represent in this respect the senator.⁵⁸ Horace Greeley was, however, nominated by the Liberal Republicans at Cincinnati, and afterwards by the Democrats at Baltimore. His nomination, as soon as made, settled the final result. No one in the country among its distinguished men was so unfitted by natural qualities for a high administrative trust. He stood then, as he is always likely to stand, as first of American journalists, and in that career he had done good work for mankind; but he had no aptitude for eminent responsibility. His character has been often drawn, and the portrait need not be reproduced here. The Civil War was still fresh in memory, during which he had appeared strangely at exigent times,—yielding at the outset to dismemberment when heroic resistance was required, interfering later with military movements by clamor of ‘On to Richmond,’ and assuming at untimely moments the part of a volunteer negotiator of peace. His personal ways provoked mirth and caricature; and such a man is never a good candidate with a sensible people. His name repelled at once conservative citizens, particularly capitalists, whose frequent comment upon his candidacy was, ‘There is no knowing what he would do.’ Altogether it was one of the most singular freaks of politics that such a man should be called to lead a political body like the Liberal Republicans; and what influences effected the selection have not been clearly explained.⁵⁹ The members of the convention who had started the movement did not .conceal their chagrin and disappointment. Some withdrew from it at once,⁶⁰ while others, hoping for the substitution of another candidate, called a conference which was held in New York in June; but nothing came of it. No political sagacity was required to foresee what the decision of the American people, who lean to safe and tried men, would be between Mr. Greeley and General Grant. [519]

Sumner took no part and gave no counsels as to the selection of a candidate. When Greeley's nomination was announced in Washington, and others were commenting on his eccentricities, the senator admitted them, but interposed on the other hand that his success as a journalist and his devotion to good causes were likely to be an attractive force with the American people.

The platform of the Cincinnati convention, which was afterwards adopted without change by the Democratic convention at Baltimore, was in one respect Sumner's handiwork, the draft being received by Mr. Bird at Washington and taken to Cincinnati. The part which came from Sumner, modified perhaps in phraseology, declared the equality of all men before the law; the right of all to equal and exact justice, irrespective of nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political; and affirmed as a finality emancipation and enfranchisement and the three new amendments to the Constitution. Certainly an advance was made when the Southern people accepted even in form such a result.⁶¹

Sumner, however, maintained reserve as to his definite course in the election till long after the Cincinnati convention, answering inquiries simply by saying that he desired the defeat of Grant, and hoped the Republicans would nominate another candidate. Late in May he wrote to F. W. Bird:—

Nor have I ever given a hint to a human being as to my future course. My right hand has never spoken it to my left. Of this I shall not speak until I can see the whole field, and especially the bearing on the colored race. I mean to fail in nothing by which they may be helped; therefore all stories as to what I shall do or shall not are inventions. Nobody will know my purpose sooner than yourself, for I honor you constantly. But I seek two things: (1) The protection of the colored race, and (2) The defeat of Grant.

All the while Sumner's position was watched with interest, and by none more than by his old coadjutors. It was given out in March that he was to attend the convention at Cincinnati, and probably take the chair; but this report was promptly contradicted by his authority. Republicans were loath to lose a name which had long been a charm with the moral sentiment of the country, and their journals, in leaders intended for his eye, deplored the possibility of its being lost to them in the election [520] at hand. They reminded him that the only alternative of continued allegiance to his party was an alliance with the Democratic party, weighted with its rebellion record and inviting distrust by its hostility to the civil equality of the colored people, which he had so much at heart. They admitted and deplored ‘the undeserved and gross injury’ he had received, but adjured him, for the sake of patriotism and humanity, not to imitate in the coining contest ‘Achilles sitting aloof in his tent.’⁶² Friendly appeals of like purport came to him from many correspondents,—from J. W. Forney, Alexander H. Rice, Wendell Phillips, and Rev. William G. Eliot. In his own State a large body of Republicans, probably a majority of those who had decided to vote for the President's re-election, bated not a jot of devotion to their senator. Notwithstanding their own decision, they felt that he could not himself with honor support the President. Some of them, whose sympathies were altogether with him in his position, thought it wiser for themselves to remain with their party so as to be in a better position to support his re-election to the Senate two years later. Generally among Republicans there was no abatement of confidence in him; and in their public meetings his divergence from the party was not mentioned, or if mentioned, he was spoken of with respect and even tenderness. At the State convention in April, which formally presented Grant for President and Wilson for Vice-President, John H. Clifford (former governor) made some thrusts at the President's critics, which were intended for the senator, but they found no favor with the mass of delegates.⁶³ Republican speakers, both at this time and in their meetings in the autumn, referred to him in terms of respect, and abstained in their resolutions from any formal censure.⁶⁴ Some of them, like Charles Francis Adams, Jr., at Quincy, openly declared their purpose to support his re-election; and his declaration represented the spirit of the Republican masses. [521]

Sumner was kindly to old friends who did not follow him at this time; but it was a grief to him that he could not draw George William Curtis to his side. One evening in the spring of 1872, when Curtis was at his house and was about leaving, Sumner said to him, as if pleading for his support: ‘When Brooks struck me down, Douglas stood by; now when Grant strikes, you stand by.’ The tears fell as he spoke these friendly but reproachful words.⁶⁵ Henderson, former senator from Missouri, was witness of the scene.⁶⁶

Sumner's relations with his colleague Wilson were strained at this time, though with no open breach. He felt the need of the latter's sympathy and support, and knew well enough how much he was weakened in his position by the divided representation of the State. Wilson was at heart no believer in General Grant as a civilian, but he was anxious for party unity, and was at the time aspiring to the second place in the national service. Though not sympathetic with all of Sumner's ideas, he had profound faith in the rectitude of his purposes and a genuine affection for him. He had done more than any man in 1851 to place Sumner in the Senate, and four years later the senior senator welcomed the junior to his side. Though greatly unlike each other in training, manners, and ways of living, they had been in general accord on public measures, and their relations had been singularly free from personal questions. Their different courses at this time, though embarrassing, were not likely to lead to any permanent estrangement. Shortly after the close of the French arms debate they had a free conversation with each other, in which Sumner told his colleague that their political paths would shortly diverge, but he hoped they would still remain friends; and he begged him to intercede with Grant to withdraw as a candidate for the sake of harmony. Two days later Wilson wrote Sumner a pathetic letter, reciprocating the hope for continued relations of friendship, and expressing pain at Sumner's separation from the party,—an event which he had feared for months, and done his best to avert. He referred to his own many hours of sadness as he contemplated the calamity, during which he had almost wished himself out of public life, and added that there had been no time for twenty years when he [522] would not have done anything in his power for Sumner,—a profession which was in every way sincere.

The managers of Harper's Weekly, while treating in the editorial department (Mr. Curtis's) Sumner, Schurz, and Trumbull with fairness, went beyond the limits of decency in its pictorial exhibitions. Nast, whose caricatures mingled coarseness with artistic talent, lad recently been holding up Tweed and other plunderers of the city of New York to public indignation; but those having been disposed of, he turned upon the three senators with the same weapons. His pictures of them had the venom without the wit of caricature; and treating thieves and senators alike, he confounded moral distinctions. His representations of Schurz were the most open to censure,⁶⁷ though those of Sumner were hardly less reprehensible.⁶⁸ In his support of the French arms investigation he was made one of ‘The Senatorial Cabal.’ In another—and this was perhaps a fair hit—he was ‘Robinson Crusoe’ turning his back on his man ‘Friday.’ In another, he was kneeling at and placing flowers on the grave of Preston S. Brooks, his assailant in 1856. This brought out a manly outburst from Sumner, who said when told of it, ‘What have I to do with that poor creature? It was slavery, not he, who struck the blow!’ After his speech against the President, May 31, he was represented as holding a broken bow, ‘bent once too often,’ or as serving ‘the old hash’ from a dish.⁶⁹ The artist delighted greatly in picturing Whitelaw Reid, or ‘White-lie Reid,’ as he called him, in various unseemly attitudes. He placed Greeley, whose personal honesty was never questioned, again and again in close embrace with Tweed, known only as a thief who had fattened on public funds. At length journalists as well as moralists saw the impropriety of associating in like ignominy statesmen and editors, even if misguided, with felons, and rebukes were administered to the proprietors of this celebrated weekly.⁷⁰ It is a curious fact that twelve years later the managers, the editor, and the artist were all arrayed against Mr. Blaine, the Republican candidate, taking then Sumner's position of dissent from their own party.⁷¹ [523]

Sumner had been preparing for some weeks a speech against the re-election of President Grant,⁷² and Congress had appointed June 3 as the end of the session. The report on the sale of arms to France had come in so late that no time could be set apart for its consideration. Sumner was obliged to take advantage of some opportunity, and moving (May 31) the indefinite postponement of the appropriation bill, he began, unexpectedly to the public, his speech, and held the floor for three hours.⁷³ He wore on that day the appearance of deep-seated conviction. He knew well enough what he would have to encounter, but there was no hesitation in his manner or voice. Many seats were vacant when he began, as the senators had not been released from the previous session till 3 A. M., and a general listlessness prevailed.⁷⁴ In the galleries were a few delegates on their way to the Republican convention, which was to meet at Philadelphia six days later. After a few words on the sale of arms to France, he reached his real subject, and then the scene changed. The Vice-President called a senator to the chair. The telegraph announced that Sumner was speaking, and the galleries filled rapidly; members of the House (among whom were observed Garfield, Shellabarger, Kelley, Butler, Banks, Hoar, and Dawes) came one after another on the floor, leaving their hall almost deserted. Among privileged spectators were Creswell, Belknap, and Robeson of the Cabinet, and the military secretaries Porter and Babcock. The diplomatic and ladies' galleries were filled with distinguished visitors. On the floor Conkling, Carpenter, and Morton gathered in a group, sometimes seeking the lobby for freer conference. Conkling affected at the beginning the indifference habitual with him at such times, but this soon disappeared. He and Carpenter, early in the speech, stood conversing loudly, almost within reach of Sumner, who paused and looked sharply at them till they retired to their seats.⁷⁵ One of the senators sitting in front of him called several times for order, and the gavel of the chair was frequently used to quiet the uneasy senators. [524]

Shortly after Sumner finished his speech, Schurz took the floor to review the report on the sale of arms to France. The Senate was exhausted, and there was a motion for a recess, on which Sumner proposed to make a single remark; but Conkling raising a point of order that the motion was not debatable, and Sumner claiming that the indulgence was usually allowed, he was given to understand that he had put himself outside the pale of senatorial civilities. ‘The senator must know,’ said Conkling, ‘after what has occurred, that courtesy is not applicable here; we are dealing with sterner things now.’ The Administration senators yielded to a recess from 6 to 8 P. M., and Schurz finished his speech in the evening. Flanagan, now remembered only for his antipathy to civil service reform, was the first to reply to Sumner; but the day of adjournment being extended for a week, the principal replies were made three days later by Carpenter and Logan.⁷⁶

Carpenter's reply was not wanting in vigor, but it was wanting in decorum of speech. He always found it difficult to rise above the atmosphere of local courts, and this me he fell below even his habitual plane. He said that the senator from Massachusetts had ‘identified himself so completely with the universe that he is not at all certain whether he is part of the universe or the universe a part of him;’ that his presumption was such that he was likely to issue an enlarged edition of the Sermon on the Mount; and with an irreverence natural to the Wisconsin senator, he described the senator from Massachusetts as one of the things seen by the Apostle in conjunction ‘with the great red dragon’ and ‘the whore of Babylon.’ Later in the debate Chandler revelled in his native coarseness. Sumner was in a sense at a disadvantage in dealing, as he often had to deal, with associates of Carpenter's and Chandler's class, who were exempt from the restraints which govern gentlemen. Logan, though less trained than the Wisconsin senator, was of a better type. He was personal in his treatment of Sumner, but not more than from his point of view the occasion justified, or than Sumner might well expect.⁷⁷ One passage was quite effective, in which he said that the speech ‘would find an answer in every crutch that helps and aids the wounded soldier, . . . in every wooden arm, . . . in the bereaved heart of every widowed mother,’ speaking ‘in defence of one of the most gallant soldiers that [525] ever led a gallant band for the preservation of a nation.’ The sentiment which was here invoked was the one against which Sumner's argument was to beat in vain.

Sumner's speech was a philippic of the classic type, such as had been pronounced against Antony and Verres and Hastings. Modern life furnishes few occasions for such efforts,—perhaps none. His was pitched in too high a key. The President had foibles, and had in notable instances disregarded the limitations and legalities of his office. He had given relatives places in the public service,—among them a brother-in-law made minister to Denmark;⁷⁸ and others, a dozen or so, of kin to him, whose appointments were mostly of humble grade,—conventional improprieties which Washington and Jefferson would have avoided. He had taken large gifts which circumspect statesmen are accustomed to refuse, but which after the Civil War other officers (Farragut, Sherman, and Sheridan) accepted from a grateful people; and he had committed the indiscretion of naming two of the givers⁷⁹ for his Cabinet who had no special fitness for their places. He was less careful than he should have been in appointments to important offices,—as in the case of Murphy, Collector at New York, whom he was obliged afterwards to displace; but in this respect he had among Presidents examples before, as he has had imitators since. He may have enjoyed, as alleged, the good times which the highest office in the government brings to its incumbent; and this may have led him, contrary to the example and self-denying ordinance of his predecessors, to seek a third term, when after a tour round the world he found private life monotonous. He was unfortunate in bringing to the White House staff-officers—‘the military ring’⁸⁰ as it was called—who had been his familiars in camp, but whose influence was from the first and continuously injurious. His acts most deserving censure were the use of the navy in the waters of Hayti and San Domingo, his methods adopted or proposed for effecting the annexation, and his interposition for the senator's displacement from the foreign relations committee. These points, or some of them, were freely admitted in private by his [526] candid supporters; but they were thought to be altogether outweighed by his services in war. On the other side of the account, too, were his interest in the protection of the Indians,—the starting-point of a movement which has been of great advantage to that race,—and the decisive declaration of his inaugural message that to protect the national honor the public debt should be paid in gold unless otherwise expressly stipulated in the contract. He came to the Presidency with no undue ambition; and if wanting in comprehension of his duties and responsibilities, it might be said in his behalf that it was the fault of the people who thrust the office upon him rather than his in accepting it. But with due allowance for his limitations and shortcomings, He was not what Sumner described him to be, —a Borgia, a Farnese, or a Barberini, founding a family by offices and endowments; least of all was he a Caesar plotting against the pence and life of the republic. Schurz's description was thought to come nearer the original, when he said in an address that he did not find in the President one who was pondering for the destruction of the State, but rather one who did not ponder at all, or sufficiently, on his duties. Sumner's speech lost by certain omissions,—that of any tribute to Grant's services in the Civil War, and that of approval of his conservative decision on finance. He made also one serious mistake in bringing Stanton (not now living) to the stand as a witness against Grant, adding also that when he inquired of Stanton why he had not borne this testimony in 1868, the latter replied that while in his speeches in the canvass of that year he defended the party, he omitted personal praise of the candidate. It turned out, however, on recurring to the newspapers of that year, that Stanton had in fact commended General Grant in a speech at Steubenville, Ohio. This discovery put Sumner at a disadvantage. There is no doubt that Stanton had said to Sumner and to others, among then Mr. Hooper and Horace White, just what the senator stated he had said;⁸¹ and there is also no doubt that he said the contrary in the speech cited. It is not the first time, [527] as it will not be the last, that politicians give one character to a candidate of their own party in private, and quite another on the stump. Truthful though he was in his statement, Sumner was not justified, as no one is justified, in making a dead man's conversation a support in controversy.

Sumner's speech was met the day after its delivery with a leader in every Republican journal.⁸² Rarely was any attempt made to reply to it in detail; and often its specifications, instead of being met with a denial, were summarily dismissed as unimportant in themselves, or relatively so at a time when the President's re-election was deemed essential to the best interests of the country; and above all, when it was the alternative of the accession of the Democratic party to power, which was the dread of great numbers of patriotic people. The speech was described as ‘highly-wrought, . . . exaggerated, . . .pedantic, a distorted picture,’ a magnifying of small points, and an overlooking of great services,—with an open or implied admission from the critics that there was a measure of truth in the charges. Some who even agreed with its conclusion admitted it to be ‘overdone.’

The Republican opponents of the President's re-election expressed great satisfaction at Sumner's public avowal of his position;⁸³ but the wise leaders among them did not conceal their regret that it had not come earlier, so as to have exerted a wholesome influence on the Cincinnati convention, enlarged its constituency, given a sober turn to its deliberations, and placed a different candidate than Greeley—perhaps the senator himself—at the head of the movement.⁸⁴ Sumner's personal friends, who supported the President's re-election,—as the greater number of his friends did,—credited him with rectitude of intention, and mitigated as far as they could the political resentment against him. Forney in his newspaper made an earnest but kindly protest against his decision.⁸⁵ Curtis wrote to the senator [528] that he should be compelled to reply to a speech which he deemed terribly unjust to the President, but should do justice to its author's sincerity, and be ever grateful for his services, entertaining the same sincere affection as before. Lydia Maria Child saw much of justice in his ‘strictures on the President,’ but dissented from the arraignment as a whole, objecting that he did not look at ‘both sides of the shield,’ and that his picture was too dark. Whittier thought him ‘unduly severe in the tone and temper’ of his speech,—a feature which in his judgment diminished its effect; but he as well as Mrs. Child and James Freeman Clarke vindicated in letters to public journals his sincerity and right to be heard.⁸⁶ Wendell Phillips wrote: ‘I have been saying that your speech was all true, only it was not all the truth. You omit Grant's claims; some he can fairly make.’ Phillips distrusted as well as personally disliked Greeley; and he added this appeal: ‘Come home and change the air before you follow Greeley's lead. You know no one is more tender of your good fame than I,—almost tempted sometimes to sacrifice principle as I see it in defence of what you do.’ He said to the writer at this time: ‘Sumner is right if you judge Grant by men of the antique type; but the difficulty is that Sumner is the only one of that type among public men who is left to us.’ Longfellow wrote to his friend: ‘This is a terrible speech of yours; but the terror of it is in its truth. It is not the exposure which is fearful, but the facts. The feeble attempts at reply must convince every one that no reply is possible.’ Robert Purvis, of Philadelphia, though supporting the President's re-election, wrote, with friendly expressions: ‘I am free to express my indignation at the onslaught which it has pleased Mr. Lloyd Garrison to make on you.’ James Freeman Clarke wrote: ‘I do not know that I agree with you about Grant, but I admire your courage in expressing your opinions openly, and in spite of the partisan clamor of the President's terriers, “the little dogs and all,—Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart,— see, they bark at you!” But you who so long stood the fierce assaults of Southern bloodhounds, clamorous for your life, may easily bear the snarls of lapdogs!’ Gerrit Smith, a supporter of the President, admitting his own error of statement as to the cause of Sumner's estrangement from Grant, and accepting the senator's version, testified undiminished regard, and [529] wrote, July 21: ‘God forbid, my noble friend, that I should wrong you who have suffered more in the cause of freedom than any other living American!’ Later, pressing Sumner to be his guest at Peterborough, he wrote:—

I never wanted to see you more than I do now. How glad I should be to have you spend a week with me on our healthy hills! Here are many Greeley Republicans. My only son is one of them; and here is a beautiful hall which I have just built for my town, and in it we should all love to listen to your happiest speech in favor of our friend Greeley.⁸⁷

These extracts give the temper of mind of Sumner's friends who did not accept his practical conclusion. There was, however, one exception to this fair treatment of his position. Mr. Garrison had written him in recent years, as these pages show, the most earnest tributes to his fidelity, particularly in the San Domingo controversy. He had gone so far as to justify a proceeding for the President's impeachment, and in his letters had given a harsher estimate of Grant's personal qualities than that which the senator gave in his speech. He now turned upon Sumner, and followed him in successive newspaper articles with the same bitterness which he had formerly shown in his newspaper against renowned patriots and philanthropists, Channing, Birney, Father Mathew, Louis Kossuth, and Frederick Douglass,—being by habit always more bitter towards those who believed in his aims but not in his methods. Though in recent years he had been lauding Sumner beyond any public man for his devotion to the Antislavery cause, he now presented him in an opposite light,—as tardy in its espousal; and this although the first paper for which Sumner subscribed was the ‘Liberator,’ and the first time when he appeared in politics was at the age of thirty-four in an Antislavery meeting in company with Garrison himself.⁸⁸ Of a different temper was Sumner in dealing with old coadjutors. He thus wrote to Whittier:—

I have not read Mr. Garrison's letter. Some one said it was unkind, and I made up my mind at once not'to read it,—of course, never to answer it. I [530] never allowed myself to have controversy with him in other days when we differed on methods, because I knew he was earnest against slavery. I shall join in no controversy now.

Again, August 11:—

Never have I acted more absolutely under the mandate of duty, not to be disobeyed, than in my present course. Profoundly convinced of Grant's unfitness, and feeling that a man like Greeley, President, would mark an epoch for .humanity, I could not resist the opportunity, especially when Democrats took him as their candidate, and pledged themselves to all that is contained in the Cincinnati platform. From the beginning, while insisting upon all possible securities and safeguards, I have pleaded for “reconciliation.” This is the word which recurs constantly in my speeches. The South insisted that I was revengeful. Never! And now the time has come for me to show the mood in which I acted. This is a painful experience; but we are not choosers in this world. Certainly, I did not choose this.

To Longfellow, June 7:—

You are always my friend, dear Longfellow, and I felt so tenderly when I read your note. This is a crisis; and never was I more impelled by irresistible duty than in the speech I have made. I hoped to arrest a demoralizing example; and whatever the immediate consequence, I am satisfied that my effort will make it more difficult for a President to backslide. The Presidential office will be elevated, at least in its requirements. Meanwhile, I am answered by abuse. So it was when I spoke against slavery. The misrule which I now expose is exacting, pertinacious, tyrannical.

Again, June 10:—

I observe the storm, but I could not have done otherwise; it was my duty to speak. Some generous voices reach me,—some most touching in their trust.

Again, July 31:—

The present election is the most remarkable in our political history. The Democrats have accepted absolutely a Republican platform, with a lifetime Abolitionist as candidate. This is a revolution; and my hope is to obtain from it the final settlement of all the issues of the war. There will be difficulties and trials; but the object is worthy of any effort.

As the San Domingo scheme was without favor among the people, Republican speakers were disposed to attribute the estrangement of the President and the senator to other and earlier matters on which they may have differed, but at the time without feeling. Whenever this was attempted by persons at all responsible, with whom Sumner was in personal relations,—as Sherman, Boutwell, William Whiting, and Gerrit Smith,—he [531] was prompt with denial, and usually brought a withdrawal or explanation of the statement.

Sumner's speech in the Senate was made primarily to prevent Grant's nomination, which, however, was a foregone conclusion. He was nominated without dissent, and Wilson's name was put on the ticket with his for the Vice-Presidency. But the senator withheld any declaration as to his purpose in supporting candidates; and he was still plied on both sides,—by Republican leaders to maintain his reserve, and by the supporters of Greeley to declare openly his connection with them. At first he thought of abstaining from taking any part; but with serious reflection he saw his duty in a different light. On July 29, in an open letter to colored citizens, he announced formally his support of Greeley.⁸⁹ This brought approving letters from Chief-Justice Chase, N. P. Banks, and R. E. Fenton, and a grateful letter from Greeley himself, who had hitherto refrained from any direct communication with the senator.⁹⁰ It brought also reproaches from old comrades. Mr. Blaine, Speaker of the House, addressed at once an open letter to Sumner, animadverting on his advice to colored citizens, and reminding him of the unnatural company he was keeping with former secessionists and confederates of Preston S. Brooks. Sumner promptly replied⁹¹ in a caustic vein, saying to Mr. Blaine at the outset, that, serving in the fellowship of men devoted to the Antislavery cause, he had not missed the Speaker until he ‘hastened to report absence;’ and commenting on the reference to his old assailant, said:—

What has Preston Brooks to do with the Presidential election? Never while a sufferer did anybody ever hear me speak of him in unkindness; and now after the lapse of more than half a generation I will not unite with you in dragging him from the grave where he sleeps, to aggravate the passions of a political conflict and arrest the longing for concord.⁹²

Sumner remained at Washington till well on into the heats of August, busy with correspondence and controversy. One evening he addressed the colored people from his doorstep, when they waited on him to bid him good-by, speaking to them for equal civil rights.⁹³ To one of the San Domingo commissioners he wrote an open letter concerning the discrimination against Frederick Douglass on account of his race while associated with them, which brought out a reply.⁹⁴ Appeals were made to him from political leaders (Samuel J. Randall among them), and by Southern men, to make addresses in different States; but he was obliged by ill health to decline the service. While still at Washington he received a note from Longfellow, dated July 27:

I wish you could have been at the Club to-day. None of the young members came. There were a dozen of us, all over sixty. It was like a dinner at some Old Man's Home or Hotel des Invalides. Emerson sat next to me. He was emphatic in his praise of you. Such elegant and easy hospitality; such a worker; such agreeable company; and so on to the end of the chapter.⁹⁵

On reaching home he at once, as was his custom at this season, sought Longfellow at Nahant, where he found as a guest his old companion George W. Greene. One day he drove from the city to Mr. Winthrop's at Brookline. Another day he entertained R. Schleiden, who was on a visit to this country.

Sumner overworked himself at this session, as indeed he was almost always doing. In addition to the controversies in the Senate, which taxed severely his nervous system, he was engaged in the preparation of notes to his Works, of which four volumes had been issued and three more printed; and he was beginning to prepare the eighth and ninth. Twelve or fifteen hours a day were thus given to sedentary work. He had broken down after the debate on the sale of arms to France, and had serious reminders after other excitements. His system lacked strength to withstand such a strain much longer. He experienced a sensitiveness about the heart, and a difficulty of breathing. The day after the session closed he consulted his physician, Dr. J. Taber Johnson, who found that the heart, though [533] not enlarged, was beating weakly and irregularly for one of his fine physical organization. The warning symptoms continued after his return home, and abnormal signs were observed in his eyes and face; and he himself was conscious of diminished vitality. His friends and medical advisers decided that he must separate himself from excitement by a journey to Europe; and he yielded reluctantly to their decision, induced to do so in part by the desire to consult Dr. Brown-Sequard, who was then supposed to be in Paris.

A journalist, Charles T. Congdon, who as an editor in New Bedford and Boston had from a Whig standpoint often criticised Sumner sharply, gave at this time the following description of his appearance and estimate of his character:⁹⁶—

The last time I saw him was in the “Tribune” office during the canvass of 1872. As he sat waiting for the editor, whom he wished to see, I glanced at him from my desk with a feeling of pain, such as I have seldom experienced respecting a public man. The day was warm, and he had evidently been exhausted by the toil of mounting the stairs. “Eheu! Quantum mutatus ab illo!” I said to myself as I saw how hard fortune had broken that noble form, and bitter experience, public and private, stolen its muscular elasticity. I remembered him standing sturdily upon our old platforms, almost arrogant in the consciousness of intellectual and physical strength, full of early vigor, and dilating with the courage of opinion,—the Ajax about whom the young men of Massachusetts rallied for many a moral contest, and followed in the onset of many a forlorn political hope. This then was what they had brought him to,—the murderous, man-stealing oligarchy! This was the martyr made so by the “institution” in that last death-throe, when it could argue no longer, but could only wildly and ferociously strike! All criticism of the man and of his methods, however much I might be disposed to indulge in it, was silenced by that spectacle. I might doubt much else; I might question whether Mr. Sumner had always been wise in debate; whether his passion for justice had not led him to say things better left unsaid; whether he had not just a trace of the dilettante in his great nature; whether he was not somewhat predisposed to personal complaint; but I should as soon question the sunrise, or the ebb and flow of the tide, or the Copernican system, as his entire and perfect integrity.⁹⁷ . . . If I have dwelt too long upon the character and conduct of this great man, it has been because, of all the public persons whom it has been my good or ill fortune to know, he seems to me, after the lapse of all these years, one of the brightest and purest. Scholar, orator, philanthropist, reformer, jurist, lawyer, and law-maker, he was never a mere politician,—for which let us thank God and take courage!

It was Sumner's earnest wish to meet his fellow-citizens once before the election in Faneuil Hall, the place where he had so often met them, and declare to them face to face his convictions as to their duty. He afterwards said to his physician that he was deterred from the effort, not by fear of death, but by fear of paralysis or mental disability as the consequence. Instead thereof he passed the manuscript of his intended speech to his friend Mr. Bird, who had it published in the newspapers on the morning after his departure.⁹⁸ In his proposed address he touched briefly on the objections to the President, growing out of his qualities and acts; but in this respect it was less highly wrought than his speech in the Senate. He reviewed his own record on the reconstruction of the South, maintaining that during his support of a thorough policy he had kept in view the time of reconciliation, which he now believed at hand; and he regarded any present outbreaks in that section against the colored people as ‘sporadic cases, . . . local incidents, . . . sallies of local disaffection or of personal brutality.’ He accepted the approval by the Democratic party of the Cincinnati candidate and platform as the promise of a new era, as the tender of an olive branch, which for the sake of the country should be accepted.

The third of September was his day of sailing, less than three weeks after his arrival in Massachusetts. Only a few friends knew of his proposed journey. At 11 A. M. he drove with his colored friend J. B. Smith to T. wharf, where a party of friends had gathered to bid him good-by, as he went on board the tender,—among whom were Hillard, Bird, E. P. Whipple, G. H. Monroe, Martin Milmore, and E. L. Pierce. Most of them parted with him at the wharf, but Hillard, Pierce, and one or two others accompanied him to the steamship Malta, then lying below the lower lighthouse. While the tender was on its way, Sumner and Hillard sat for an hour or more together in the pilot-house. The senator seemed to be in good spirits, and his talk was of the improved facilities for at Atlantic voyage, the galleries be intended to visit, the rest from work before him, and the expectation of meeting his physician, Dr. Brown-Sequard, in Paris. His first anxiety as he reached the ship was, as always in his voyages, to see if his berth was long enough, and the carpenter was sent for to make a new one. Mr. Smith handed him a large [535] bouquet, and his friends left him at 1 P. M., giving him hearty hand-shakes, and waving their handkerchiefs from the tender.⁹⁹

For the time there was much party bitterness towards Sumner, which he sorely felt; but the better sort, even among Republican leaders, recognized the rectitude of his purpose. G. W. Curtis, in Harper's Weekly,¹⁰⁰ assured him that ‘the prayers of thousands of true hearts go with him, invoking for him the health which is here denied;’ and speaking from the platform, the same editor said: ‘I shall never mention Mr. Sumner's name without the utmost affection, respect, and gratitude. ... May the soft air of the Mediterranean renew that strength spent in our service! May he return—the election over — to find that we have all been true to Charles Sumner!’ Agassiz, just returned from a voyage, wrote from Cambridge:—

My dear old friend,—Here I am again and miss you, for you are among those I cared to see first on my return; and as you are far away, I send a few words of greeting. I write on Longfellow's desk. I am very sorry to hear that you are far from well. As I believe I understand something of your illness, let me beseech you to rest. Rest from the agitations of the day is what you need, to enjoy a happy old age. Stand above the contentions of the day; do not allow indiscreet friends to draw you out of your own course. Your record gives you a right to go where your inclinations lead you, and if your contemporaries don't like it, history will do you justice. Remember that a heart's trouble cannot be cured if every day you allow yourself to be exposed to the palpitations which excitement of necessity brings about. Ever truly your friend.

Sumner, when off the Irish coast, wrote to E. L. Pierce, September 13:—

The sea is to me always a nuisance. I shall not he content until it is all filled up, so that I can always travel on dry ground. Though in constant peril of nausea and with very little comfort, I have had relief in my heart-pains and the cerebral pressure, and am looking forward to delight in pictures at London and Paris; but the thought of the return voyage in November haunts me. I am haunted more by the thought of the wrong¹⁰¹ which I have received from individuals. I strike out the word “ingratitude,” for I have always acted on a sense of duty, and I deserve no gratitude on that account; but I do deserve justice. And never in anything in my life did I act more under an irresistible sense of duty than in that opposition to the San Domingo business, which brought on me the anger of the Presidential rings, with the strange cooperation of Massachusetts men calling themselves my friends.¹⁰² [536]

The slippers have been a comfort and a pride during this voyage. I have worn them in the cabin and on deck. Thank your wife again for this kind souvenir. Good-by!

On Saturday, the eleventh day of the voyage, suffering during most of it as he always suffered from the sea, he arrived at Liverpool. Here he was met by Mr. Felt, the secretary of the American Club, and taken to the club-house; also to St. George's Hall and the Free Library, where he recognized in the portraits the faces of old friends. Immediately on his arrival he was greatly disturbed to learn that he had been nominated by acclamation for governor of Massachusetts by the Democratic and Liberal Republican parties at conventions which were held while he was on the ocean; and he sent the same day a cable despatch and a letter declining absolutely the nomination. In the letter He recognized the good — will and desire for peace and reconciliation implied in the action of the Democratic convention, representing fellow-citizens to whom he had been for a long time opposed on important public questions. He also wrote Mr. Bird a private letter insisting that his wishes must be respected. Tills use of his name was a great surprise to him, and indeed was not contemplated by any one when he sailed from Boston. The nomination was made, not with the view of withdrawing him from the Senate, but for the purpose of attracting voters to Mr. Greeley's support. It was promoted by the younger leaders of the Democratic party and by N. P. Banks, president of the convention of Liberal Republicans. Mr. Bird, as Sumner's confidential friend, only yielded to it after earnest resistance. Sumner's name was, after the receipt of his letter, withdrawn, and Mr. Bird's substituted in its place.

The day after landing, Sumner went on to London, where cordial letters from three Americans sojourning in England awaited him,—from Henry M. Stanley,¹⁰³ recently returned from his first African exploration; Hugh MeCulloch, who testified his uniform respect for the senator, notwithstanding their differences under Johnson's Administration; and William W. Story, who was passing the summer with his family near Carlisle. In London he ‘fatigued himself daily with sights, streets, and galleries, and seeing no American papers.’ Two days were given to the British Museum, and one to the Bethnal Green Museum. His lodgings were at Maurigy's, 1 Regent Street, soon after converted [537] into a club-house. His admission to the Athenaeum Club, always his favorite resort in London, was arranged by G. Shaw Lefevre. The Duchess of Argyll welcomed him to England and invited him to Inverary. ‘You could not go back,’ she wrote, ‘without seeing your old friends again.’ Other invitations came from Robert Ingham at Newcastle, Mrs. Adair (nee Wadsworth) near Dublin, General Sickles at Madrid, and Baron Gerolt at Bonn. After a week in London, during which his weak condition had been aggravated by the tidings of his nomination for governor, he crossed to Paris, where he took lodgings at Hotel Walther, Rue Castiglione. Here, where he remained a month, enjoying various diversions and afar from home politics, he seemed to gain strength. To his great regret he missed Dr. Brown-Sequard, who had suddenly gone to the United States to take up his residence there. He rigidly abstained from the slightest glance at American newspapers. He found American friends in Paris, who gave him a hearty welcome, Elliot C. Cowdin,¹⁰⁴ A. H. Bullock, Mr. Seligman, Samuel Johnson, J. Watson Webb, James Phalen, and G. W. Smalley. Mr. Cowdin, then representing his New York house in Paris, who had been his friend from early days in Boston, was most kind, giving Sumner the freedom of his bureau for the packing and transporting of his books and works of art. He had always a seat for the senator at his family table in 152 Avenue des Champs Elysees, and brought together to meet him at a dinner distinguished guests,— among whom were Edouard Laboulaye, A. Laugel, A. H. Bullock, Mr. Waite, afterwards chief-justice, and E. B. Washburne, then American minister to Paris.¹⁰⁵ ‘He was,’ says Mrs. Cowdin, ‘very fond of our children, and particularly of our little Alice, who had “so sweet a name,” he said. He often congratulated me that we were able to give them the privilege of learning to speak more than one language,—thereby, as he expressed it, multiplying their individuality,—while with him it had been only by brute force that he had learned to speak French.’ He was often with Governor Bullock, once at a breakfast party given for him by the latter at 99 Avenue des Champs Elysees, and made grateful mention of the governor's tenderness after his return home. The governor urged him to remain abroad, in order to [538] restore health and even to preserve life.¹⁰⁶ Sumner was also the guest of Mr. Johnson, Mr. Seligman, and of his faithful friends Mr. and Mrs. Laugel;¹⁰⁷ and on all these occasions he was ‘the acknowledged head of a large company.’¹⁰⁸ His intimate friends remarked not only his physical weakness, but also his depression of spirits, which seemed, however, to pass away when he became absorbed in his search for curious books and manuscripts. He took a keen relish now as always in association with intelligent foreigners. M. de Corcelle, father-in-law of the Marquis de Chambrun, gave him a dinner at the Cafe Voisin, where Remusat, minister of foreign affairs, and Gouland, minister of finance, were among the guests. He went one evening, with the escort of M. Remusat, to the salon of Madame Thiers, and there met her husband the President, with whom he afterwards dined at the Palais de laElysee.¹⁰⁹ One day he passed at Chantilly, where the Due d'aumale, whom he had known in England, drove him in the grounds, and showed him in the chateau the gallery of the battles of Conde. Here he met again the Count of Paris, his visitor at Washington in the Civil War, and since then his correspondent. He received invitations to dine from M. de Caubert, dean of the civil tribunal of Rouen, and from his old friend Madame Mohl.¹¹⁰ He had an interesting conversation with Gambetta;¹¹¹ but while admiring the patriotism of that French leader, Sumner discerned his limitations. Gambetta said, ‘What France most needs at the present tine is a Jefferson;’ and the senator replied, ‘You want first a Washington, and your Jefferson will come afterwards.’¹¹² Laboulaye, who expressed his satisfaction at meeting again ‘the illustrious senator’ as he called him, gave his recollections written in 1878 from the College de France¹¹³:— [539]

On his last trip to Paris, Mr. Sumner had a strong desire to see M. Gambetta, and he did not find it difficult to obtain an introduction to him through common friends. I dined with Mr. Sumner the day after this interview, and asked him what impression M. Gambetta had made on him. He replied as follows: ‘I found an amiable, intelligent man, who appeared animated by the best motives; but it seemed to me that his political education was very incomplete, and that he had much to experience before he would be capable of regulating such a country as France. On leaving, I said to him: ‘I am not French, and I know your country too little to be justified in pronouncing judgment on her political principles; but you wish to found a republic without religion. In America we should consider such an undertaking chimerical, and doomed to certain defeat.’’ I knew Mr. Sumner on his first visit to this country, after the Brooks assault. We were very quickly bound together by a common weakness,—the love of books. I remember the pleasure he experienced upon finding in my library a book which bore the following title: “Voyage De Newport à Philadephie, Albany, etc. A Newport De L'lmprimerie Royale De L'Escadre.” ¹¹⁴ This was the first sketch of the visit to America of the Marquis of Chastellux, brigadier-general in the French army, under the orders of Rochambeau. It was published in France later (about 1870), in two volumes. But what gave this particular volume its value was the fact that it was printed on board the French fleet, which had carried the army of Rochambeau to Rhode Island. I speedily presented the book to Mr. Sumner, who carried it with him to America. Such are my reminiscences. I need not say that Mr. Sumner was received everywhere as he merited, and that every one did justice to his noble manners, his eminent intellect, and his lofty character. I do not believe that an American has ever made so great an impression in France, and I know he well appreciated the welcome he received in fashionable circles. Sensibility of the kindness which everywhere surrounded him gave new life to his intellect; and whether he spoke English or French (and the latter he spoke fluently), he expressed himself with an ardor and with a gayety which sat off still more his superior intelligence. And he left many friends in France, where his untimely death has caused deepest regret.

Sumner observed during this visit a more serious vein in the French people than he had found before, which in his view promised well for the stability of the Republic. Now as always he had faith in the future of democracy in Europe. He felt that it was to be his last visit to Paris, and he made the most of his time, haunting the shops and the quais, and storing up old books, missals, manuscripts, bronzes, and china, which Mr. Cowdin assisted in forwarding. He wrote from Paris, October 17, to E. L. Pierce:—

I have had much occasion latterly to meditate on the justice and friendship of this world, especially when crossed by the mandate of political power. I [540] know the integrity of my conduct and the motives of my life. Never were they more clear or absolutely blameless than now. But never in the worst days of slavery have I been more vindictively pursued or more falsely misrepresented.

Leaving Paris October 19, Sumner stopped at Brussels and Antwerp, and passed two days with Motley at the Hague,— missing the queen of Holland, then in England, who had wished much to make his acquaintance.¹¹⁵ Henry Reeve, meeting him at the station there, was ‘much struck by the change which time and illness had wrought upon his manly form and lofty stature.’ On the 26th he was again in London, lodging this time at Fenton's, in St. James's Street. His friends were generally absent, not having returned from the country or the continent; but those who happened to be in town—E. Lyulph Stanley, Sir Henry Holland, C. W. Dilke, and Thomas Baring—were prompt to recognize him.¹¹⁶ Lord Granville came from Walmer Castle to receive him at dinner in his city house. Abraham Hayward invited him with other friends to dine at the Athenaeum Club, ‘where his conversation,’ as Mr. Hayward wrote, ‘happening to turn on orators, He poured forth a rich store of examples and illustrations with aptness and effect. He had obviously—as may indeed be collected from his speeches-carefully studied the masterpieces of Pitt, Sheridan, Curran, Grattan, and most especially Burke.’ One Englishman, departing from his natural catholicity of temper, who thought—very foolishly in each case —that both he and Motley had become enemies of England, though a friend of thirty-four years, refused to answer the senator's card. That was Lord Houghton.¹¹⁷

Sumner made a visit to Mr. Sheridan's, Frampton Court, Dorchester, where, the queen of Holland and other notable persons being among the guests, he assisted in the christening of Mr. Motley's granddaughter. While in London he visited the private libraries of Henry Huth, H. G. Bohn, Lord Exmouth, Robert S. Turner, and Edmund E. Benzon; also Cesnola's antiquities of Cyprus and Lord Exmouth's collection of porcelain, and was admitted to a private view of the porcelain and Dutch pictures of Buckingham Palace. Henry Stevens, of Trafalgar Square, [541] arranged his visits to the libraries. W. W. Story, whom he plied with many questions of a technical character, was his companion on the visit to the Cesnola collection. Two American friends from Boston,—G. W. Smalley of the New York Tribune, and Henry T. Parker, a co-tenant of a suite of offices at No. 4 Court Street, twenty-five years before,—were assiduous in their attentions to him. He was very busy in the purchase of autographs and rare books, and frequented the shops of Pickering, Quaritch, and Ellis, buying here as in Paris rather lavishly than wisely, and only regretting when he left each place that he had not bought more, even at prices which repelled connoisseurs.¹¹⁸ His purchases of this kind in London and Paris involved an outlay of $6,000.¹¹⁹

Mr. Story writes of him in these days of their last meeting with each other:—

Again I was enthralled by the old charm. I had now begun to think I was growing old, but to see Sumner again renewed my youth. He treated me as he did when I was twenty, and to his mind and thought I was still a youth. He so pleasantly patronized me that I was delighted and laughed into thorough good-will, and began to think I had still the world before me. He had the same pleased astonishment at all he saw that he had in his early manhood, the same stern and unflinching adherence to his friends.¹²⁰ On one occasion when I was breakfasting with him at a friend's house, some bitter remarks were made against a common friend by an unthinking person at the table; at this Sumner fired up at once with a mixture of astonishment and indignation, denied the possibility of the facets stated, and appealed to me to support him, as I did with all my heart. On leaving the table and returning home with me, he expressed himself with great warmth, and declared that he would not let a day pass without informing himself at headquarters in respect to the whole case, so as to be able authoritatively to contradict such assertions; and this he did. He left; town when his time was crowded with engagements, sought out all the facts, and returned to me in triumph with a full refutation. That is what I call being a friend.

Every day of this visit gave him health and strength. Relieved from the toils of politics and the anxieties of public life, he bathed himself in literature, and grew stronger visibly. I urged him with all the arguments I could command to remain for the winter in England, or to go with me to Rome and wander over the old places. At one time I thought I had made an impression on him, but it was for a moment only. “I should like nothing better,” he said, “but I cannot, I ought not; tempt me no further.” I pressed the considerations [542] of restored vigor and prolonged life as the reward of a six months or year's absence. He agreed to my view, but said, “It is useless; I must go. My duty requires it.”

On his last morning in London he breakfasted at the Westminster deanery, the guest of Dean and Lady Augusta Stanley. It was Monday, November 11, when the tidings of the great fire in Boston had just come. Lady Augusta inquired about Trinity Church, then on Summer Street, where the funeral rites of her brother, Sir Frederick Bruce, had been performed, and Sumner said, ‘We know not whether Trinity Church now exists.’ It was indeed a ruin.

Mr. Story adds his recollections of this breakfast at the deanery:—

The last time I saw Sumner was at the breakfast-table of Dean Stanley. It was a delightful company, and Sumner was in great force, enjoying it thoroughly. We were all gay together, and tried to forget that our parting was so near; but at last the cab was announced which was to carry Sumner to the station on his way to America, and we were to say farewell. We gathered about him; he tried to smile, but the tears were in his eyes. A grasp of the hand, an earnest “God bless you!” —and he was gone, never again to be seen by any of us. Sumner was a great loss to me, and a great loss to his country; a braver, more high-minded, purer character never informed this mortal clay.

Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus
Tam cari capitis?. . .

cui pudor, et justitiae soror
Incorrupta fides, nudaque veritas,
Quando ullum inveniet parem?
Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit:
Nulli flebilior, quam mihi.

A few moments after parting with friends at the deanery, he was on the train to visit the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, leaving the great city for the last time. It had been his purpose to visit the Argylls at Inverary, but he had not the time to go so far north. The duchess had written him several letters, expressing the most earnest desire that he should not fail to come. When she found that he was unable to visit Scotland even for a day, she wrote: ‘I cannot wish you to spoil your time of rest by a fatiguing journey, but I assure you it is a great disappointment to me.’ At last, as he sailed, she replied to his farewell letter in a note of plaintive tone: ‘If the time has done you good, perhaps you will come again. I should not like to think I am [543] not to meet you in this life again. God knows, and one is thankful. He alone knows the solemn future.’ From Chatsworth he went to Rochdale. Mr. Bright described, in 1875, his visit, thus:—

His last night in England was spent at my house at Rochdale; we sat up till after midnight. The conversation, which I remember, was on many topics. Two of them I remember particularly. He spoke of the President and of the estrangement between them; of the San Domingo scheme, and of the offer to him of the mission to England as a proposition to shut his mouth on that question; and he gave me a printed paper with, I think, an unspoken speech or unpublished writing, defending himself and condemning the conduct of the President. I have not kept this paper.

A more interesting subject of conversation was his visit to England and the quiet time he had spent in London. He wished to see London, and he spent, I think, about a fortnight in making himself better acquainted with it. He spoke of its magnitude, of the excellence of much of its architecture as seen in buildings scattered about in various and distant parts of it, and of its ancient and historic buildings and places.¹²¹ He spoke too of our government and of the working of our constitution. He referred especially to Mr. Gladstone as prime minister, and to Lord Selborne, recently made lord chancellor,—men so distinguished and so admirable. He thought a country was to be envied which could have in its highest positions men so eminent, of such great capacity, of such lofty purpose, and so conscientious. He spoke of the virtue of a people who could call such men to the highest positions among them. He mentioned Mr. Harcourt, now Sir William V. Harcourt, whom he had met and conversed with at some evening party in London, but without knowing him. He spoke of his writings on international law, under the signature of Historicus in the ‘Times’ newspaper, as not surpassed in manner or matter by any of the great writers and authorities on that branch of learning and of law. He spoke of England with much feeling, how many friends he had in this country; how sorry he was to leave it under a sad sense that he should visit it no more. His friends advised him to stay longer here, but his duty in the Senate seemed to force him home. He spoke of his illness, and in the morning said he had not been well during the night; he put his hand upon his heart, indicating where was the seat of his malady. There was a great gentleness in all he said, with a sadness and a melancholy which left upon us the impression that he felt himself seriously ill, and that his life of work was nearly ended. My wife remembers that when our little dog would have made friends with him, he remarked that he “had never had time to play with dogs.”

He left us for Liverpool; the day was not a pleasant one,—weather unsettled and rough. I was not well enough to go with him to Liverpool, which I much regretted. I was anxious about his voyage (luring the winter season. I give you these few particulars of his visit; it was a visit most pleasant to me and to my family.

Sumner left Liverpool by the ‘Baltic,’ of the White Star line, November 14, and arrived in New York the 26th, refusing the offer from the company of a free passage. From Queenstown he wrote to Mr. Bright: ‘I leave England with regret, wishing I could see more and mingle more with English people, who are for me most agreeable and interesting. Especially do I regret Inverary, which I should have visited, my last day with you was very pleasant, but too brief. Good-by.’ The vessel encountered a violent gale for two days, and afterwards boats manned from her rescued the crew of a disabled ship. Sumner was chairman of a meeting of the passengers, at which a contribution was raised for the benefit of the shipwrecked seamen and their rescuers. After a day or two in New York to consult Dr. Brown— Sequard, and a night with Mr. Furness in Philadelphia, he went to Washington on the 29th. It was the day that Mr. Greeley died, of whose illness he heard when he arrived in New York. He was much affected by the event, and it was his purpose to commemorate it in the Senate.¹²²

The election in North Carolina in August had indicated the drift towards the President's re-election, and the elections in September and October¹²³ made the result in his favor quite sure. The President received a popular majority of three quarters of a million of votes, and the result in the electoral colleges was still more decisive. He carried all the Northern and a majority of the Southern States. A large body of Democrats would not support Greeley, and either voted against him or abstained from voting. In Massachusetts the President received two to one in the popular vote, and his majority was seventy-five thousand. The result did not, however, express the popular feeling as to the course of the Administration. There was a wide discontent, but it was quieted by various causes,—such as the patent unfitness of Greeley, the distrust of him by capitalists and sober-thinking people; the probability of the President's election, which kept politicians in line; and, above all, the dread of race conflicts at the South, and financial disturbance likely to come from the [545] success of a party whose strength lay in the Southern States, and among Northern men who were largely Southern in sentiment. It was but seven years since the Civil War, and the uppermost thought was to maintain what had been won by it. The President's critics found that they could not obtain with the masses a clearing of their charges of maladministration, and their voices were drowned by the mention of Vicksburg and Appomattox. When Sumner in his undelivered address said that ‘the time for the soldier had passed,’ meaning as a claimant of civil distinctions solely on the score of services in war, he mistook the temper of a people who have always regarded distinguished military services, not always with discrimination, as the best title to civil honors. Reconciliation was put in the foreground by Greeley's supporters; but the President had not been backward in that movement, and the last Congress, both parties uniting, had passed a liberal measure of amnesty.

The President's second term was marked by one most beneficent act,—his veto of the inflation bill in 1874, against the counsels of Morton and Logan, and after he had once decided to approve it;¹²⁴ but in civil administration it was not an improvement on the first, and it brought his party to the brink of defeat in 1876. It was the period of the ‘Whiskey Ring’ conspiracy, in which he manifested more sympathy with Babcock, an indicted party, than with the prosecutors, Secretary Bristow and Solicitor Wilson;¹²⁵ and of the impeachment of Belknap, [546] Secretary of War, for corruption in office, from whom the President parted with a too friendly acceptance of his resignation. Later Administrations,—those of Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, and Harrison,—have happily escaped the succession of scandals which distinguished the civil service from 1869 to 1877. The demoralization of that period is chargeable in some degree to war, which always brings vices in its train; but it was also due largely to the President's too good opinion of men of easy virtue and his lax treatment of them when they were found out. This came to be the opinion of the American people, who, ever grateful for his service in the army and ready to confer on him any military rank or emolument, were determined in the purpose not to prolong his civil administration by a third election, either at the end of his second term or after the intervening term of his immediate successor. The Republican State convention of Pennsylvania, nearly a year before his second term expired, took a definite position against a third term for the President in a resolution which called out a reply from him, May 29, 1875.¹²⁶ He declined a re-election, but there was in his letter an underlying tone of regret that such an announcement from him had been expected.¹²⁷ There being still a popular conviction that, notwithstanding his withdrawal, the general might yet be a candidate, the House of Representatives, Dec. 15, 1875, passed a resolution, by a vote of two hundred and thirty-three to eighteen, declaring that ‘a departure from the time-honored custom [that of a President retiring after a second term] would be unwise, unpatriotic, and fraught with peril to our free institutions.’ This ended the question of a third term in 1876; but it was revived again in 1880, when the scheme was supported by Conkling, Cameron, Logan, and Fish. The better sentiment of the country was aroused against it, and it again failed, though this time materially aided by the idea that ‘a strong man’ or ‘savior of society’ was needed to maintain order in the Southern States.¹²⁸ No State was so fixed against a [547] third term for General Grant as Massachusetts, where, in 1880, the Republican State convention by a large majority chose delegates to the national convention who were elected because of their avowed opposition to his nomination, and who resisted it during all the ballots, which finally ended in the nomination of James A. Garfield of Ohio. The people of the State, cherishing the memory of their senator, still remembered the indignity which had been visited upon him nine years before at the instance of Executive power.

The patriotism of the Republican seceders of 1872 as a body, whether leaders or undistinguished citizens, cannot be questioned. They were largely men of superior intelligence, keenly sensitive to the low standards of character in public officials then prevalent, and to the demoralization ensuing on the Civil War, manifest particularly in the service at Washington and in the federal offices in the city of New York. It is curious to note how cordially leaders and masses alike were welcomed back to the old fold, and how many of them became again in high favor with the party which they then left. Among them, in New York, were Frank Hiscock, senator in Congress, Chauncey M. Depew, whose nomination was supported in 1888 by the Republicans of his State as a candidate for the Presidency, and who was afterwards offered the post of Secretary of State,¹²⁹ and Whitelaw Reid, minister to France, and Republican candidate for the Vice-Presidency in 1892; in Massachusetts, N. P. Banks, member of Congress, United States marshal and presidential elector, John D. Long, governor, and Albert E. Pillsbury, attorney-general; in Missouri, Carl Schurz, Secretary of the Interior; in Ohio, James M. Ashley, twice Republican candidate for Congress, Murat Halstead, nominated minister to Germany, and Stanley Matthews, Republican senator and justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.¹³⁰ The New York Tribune, the Chicago Tribune, and the Cincinnati Commercial, which joined in the [548] revolt, became again the leading Republican journals. On the other hand many of those who in 1872 were the sharpest critics of dissent and separatism became themselves twelve years later dissenters and separatists,¹³¹—as the managers of Harper's Weekly, the New York Times, the ‘Nation,’ and Henry Ward Beecher. Even Conkling, who had treated the Republican opponents of President Grant as if they were no better than rebels in arms, was in 1884 a potent influence in the defeat of Mr. Blaine.

Grant is not reported to have spoken unkindly of Sumner after the latter's death, except, when under promptings from the state department, he stated what was untrue, but what he believed to be true,—that the senator had not done his duty concerning treaties. What Sumner's final estimate of Grant would have been if he had lived to be the survivor, it is not possible to say; but it is easy to suppose that he would at the last have colored the picture differently. He would have seen the Ex-President a modest citizen in retirement, with his nature softened and his will subdued; finding out slowly the quality of the creatures he had trusted, like Belknap, Babcock, and Badeau; cheated in business as he had been often cheated in politics, but ever wishing well to his country, ready to reverse his judgments adverse to his military contemporaries when new evidence was brought to him,¹³² reconciled to men whom he came to realize had been honest critics of himself and his acts, rebuking agitators who sought to keep alive the passions of civil war, counselling confidence in the Southern people, bearing misfortune with more than a soldier's fortitude, and dying at peace with all men. Whatever President and senator may have thought of each other, the final judgment will be that both, one in military and the other in civil affairs, deserved well of his country.