SUMNER 



SUMPTUARY LAWS 



801 



of Nations,' was simply a vehement denunciation 

 of war, as ' utterly and irreconcilably inconsistent 

 with true greatness.' 



It was because the current of events was then 

 bringing to the front a subject involving the 

 deepest moral considerations that Charles Sumner 

 was drawn into the vortex of political life. A 

 member of the Whig party by descent and associa- 

 tions, he took but a languid interest in politics 

 until the threatened extensions of negro slavery 

 over newly-acquired territory awakened a spirit 

 of resistance in the free states. Despite the 

 efforts to stifle agitation by party leaders and 

 all who feared for the results, the growth and 

 preponderance of the slave power, with the 

 foundations on which it rested, became the absorb- 

 ing question of the day, entering like a wedge 

 into established political combinations and thrust- 

 ing aside all other issues. Sumner was at one 

 with the Abolitionists in asserting the inherent 

 and total sinfulness of slavery ; but unlike them 

 he maintained that the constitution did not recog- 

 nise property in man, and that slavery, a purely 

 sectional institution, could be combated in the 

 political arena, and so crippled by legislation that 

 it would necessarily dwindle and become extinct. 

 In 1848 he joined with others holding similar views 

 in the formation of the Free Soil (q.v.) party, in 

 which his abilities, learning, high character, and 

 social standing gave him a prominence which he can- 

 not be said to have sought by any purely ambitious 

 efforts. Nominated for congress in the same year, 

 he was easily defeated by the Whig candidate, R. 

 C. Winthrop ; but in April 1851, after a protracted 

 contest, he was elected to the national senate as 

 the successor of Daniel Webster, by the combined 

 Free Soil and Democratic votes of the Massa- 

 chusetts legislature. The post thus gained he 

 continued to hold during the remainder of his life, 

 being re-elected in 1857, 1863, and 1869. At the 

 outset he stood alone in the senate as the uncom- 

 promising opponent of slavery, and his elaborately 

 prepared speeches, characterised alike by their 

 studied array of facts and arguments and their 

 bold denunciatory tone, excited universal attention, 

 and were perhaps equally effective in winning 

 support in one section and inflaming hostility in 

 the other. The latter spirit found vent in an act 

 which produced a more startling and profound im- 

 pression throughout the northern states than any 

 speech could have made. On the 22d May 1856, 

 while sitting at his desk in the senate chamber after 

 an adjournment, Sumner was suddenly assaulted 

 by Preston S. Brooks, a member of congress from 

 South Carolina, and by repeated blows on the head 

 with a heavy cane prostrated on the floor in a 

 state of insensibility. His injuries were in fact so 

 severe as to incapacitate him for public life during 

 nearly four years, while his vacant chair was 

 pointed to as the most eloquent reminder of the 

 violent and lawless animosity against which the 

 advocates of freedom must prepare to contend. 

 He resumed his seat at the close of 1859, and in 

 June 1860 delivered a speech on the question of the 

 admission of Kansas as a free state, which he pub- 

 lished under the title of The Barbarism of Slavery. 



But the predestined course of events no longer 

 needed any impulse from oratory, and the attempts 

 to arrest it by conciliatory offers, in which Sumner 

 naturally took no part, only pointed more plainly 

 to the inevitable collision. The secession of the 

 southern states left the Republican party in full 

 control of both houses of congress, and m March 

 1861 Sumner was elected chairman of the senate 

 committee on foreign affairs. His interest in 

 domestic affairs was still centred on those : in re- 

 gard to which moral principles could be adduced 

 is the proper basis of political action. He was 

 467 



urgent for the emancipation of the slaves, and 

 not less strenuous, after this had been secured, in 

 obtaining for the coloured race the fullest civil and 

 political equality with the whites. He supported 

 the impeachment of President Johnson, regarding 

 it as a continuation of the struggle for the over- 

 throw of slavery, and he was foremost in opposing 

 President Grant's project for the acquisition of 

 San Domingo, on tne ground that the assent of 

 Baez, the presidentof that republic, had been given 

 in opposition to the wish of the inhabitants. His 

 conduct on this occasion led to his exclusion in 1871 

 from the chairmanship of the committee on foreign 

 relations, and his continuous and acrimonious cen- 

 sures on Grant's administration brought about a 

 rupture with the leading politicians of the Republi- 

 can party which was rendered complete by his 

 support of Greeley as candidate for the presidency 

 in 1872. But, although the result of tne election 

 left him in the ranks of a discontented minority, 

 his course had been too evidently dictated by 

 principle to allow of his sinking in esteem with 

 the mass of the party, and the breach was gradually 

 closing when his death, at Washington, on the 

 llth March 1874, obliterated all asperities, and left 

 only the remembrance of his great services and 

 distinguished career. 



Sumner's position in the field of politics was in 

 some respects unique. From first to last he was 

 an independent rather than a partisan. Nature 

 had given him neither the submissive temper of 

 the follower nor the tact, the shrewdness, the per- 

 suasive eloquence, and the skill in the management 

 of men and of affairs which are the requisites 

 of leadership. Expediency had no place in his 

 thoughts, flexibility in his disposition, or suavity 

 in his methods or language. Had it been other- 

 wise he might, on the death of Lincoln, have 

 succeeded to the highest place in tha national con- 

 fidence and regard. For his position was a com- 

 manding one, owing to his unimpeachable integrity, 

 his unflinching courage, his singleness of purpose 

 and consistency of action, his freedom from every 

 suspicion of intrigue or self-seeking, and his identi- 

 fication both as a victim and a victor with the cause 

 to which he had devoted all his energy and talents. 

 In person he was tall and well proportioned, and, 

 though his features were rugged, the expression 

 of his countenance was engaging. His speeches 

 lacked the charm of spontaneous eloquence, but 

 they were effective as essays or lectures, and 

 furnished his supporters with an arsenal of argu- 

 ments and illustrations. That his frequent viru- 

 lence in public debate sprang from no bitterness 

 of spirit is attested by his freedom from vindictive- 

 ness, his cordiality in private intercourse, and the 

 warmth and fidelity of nis friendships. His nature 

 was too open to admit of misconstruction, and the 

 poet Longfellow, with whom he lived in intimacy, 

 described him as the whitest soul he had ever 

 known. 



See his Works ( 15 vols. 1870-79 ) ; his Memoirs and 

 Letters by Pierce ( 4 vols. 1877-93 ) ; and shorter Lives by 

 Lester ( 1874 ), Chaplin (1874), and Anna L. Dawes (1892). 



Simmer, JOHN BIRD, Archbishop of Canter- 

 bury, was born in 1780, and educated at Eton and 

 Cambridge. Successively rector of Mapledurham 

 (1818), Bishop of Chester (1828), and Primate of 

 all England (1848), he was distinguished for his 

 conciliatory disposition and moderate views, and 

 wrote works on Apostolical Preaching, The Moral 

 Attributes of the Creator, and Evidences of Christi- 

 anity. He died 6th September 1862. His brother, 

 CHARLES RICHARD (1790-1874), was Bi hop of 

 Winchester, and his Life was published in 1876. 



Sumptuary Laws (Lat. sumtus, 'expense'), 

 laws passed to prevent extravagance in banquets, 



