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EULOGY ON CHARLES SUMNER 1

CARL SCHURZ

(1874)

CARL SCHURZ (1829-1906), diplomat, was born in Prussia, and was educated at the University of Bonn. He was an active Revolutionist, and for this reason he was forced to leave his native city. He joined the Revolutionary army, and later fled to Switzerland. He returned to Germany, and afterwards moved to London, where for a time he taught school. Upon coming to the United States,

he engaged in the practice of law. He was appointed United States Minister to Spain, but resigned to enter the volunteer army, at the outbreak of the Civil War. He was senator from Missouri, Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President Hayes, and editor of the New York Evening Post.

Honor to the people of Massachusetts, who for twenty-three years kept in the Senate, and would have kept him there ever so long, had he lived, a man who never, even to them, conceded a single iota of his convictions in order to remain there! And what a life was his ! a life so wholly devoted to what was good and pure. There he stood in the midst of the grasping materialism of our times, around him the eager chase for the almighty dollar, no thought of opportunity ever entering the smallest corner of his mind, and disturbing his

1 From a eulogy delivered in Music Hall, Boston, in 1874. Cf. biographical note on Charles Sumner, p. 115; also the selection, "The Assault on Sumner," p. 118.

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high endeavors; with a virtue which the possession of power could not even tempt, much less debauch; from whose presence the very thought of corruption instinctively shrunk back; a life so spotless, an integrity so intact, a character so high, that the most daring eagerness of calumny, the most wanton audacity of insinuation, standing on tiptoe, could not touch the soles of his shoes.

They say that he indulged in overweening selfappreciation. Aye, he did have a magnificent pride, a lofty self-esteem. Why should he not? Let wretches despise themselves, for they have good reason to do so; not he. But in his self-esteem there was nothing small and mean; no man lived to whose nature envy and petty jealousy were more foreign. Conscious of his own merit, he never depreciated the merit of others; nay, he not only recognized it, but he expressed that recognition with that cordial spontaneity which can only flow from a sincere and generous heart. His pride of self was like his pride of country. He was the proudest American; he was the proudest New Englander; and yet he was the most cosmopolitan American I have ever seen. There was in him not the faintest shadow of that narrow prejudice which looks askance at what has grown in foreign lands. His generous heart and his enlightened mind were too generous and too enlightened not to give the fullest measure of appreciation to all that was good and worthy, from whatever quarter of the globe it came.

And now his home. There are those around me who have breathed the air of his house in Washington, that atmosphere of refinement, taste, scholarship, art,

friendship, and warm-hearted hospitality; who have seen those rooms covered and filled with his pictures, his engravings, his statues, his bronzes, his books and rare manuscripts, the collections of a lifetime, the image of the richness of his mind, the comfort and consolation of his solitude. They have beheld his childlike smile of satisfaction when he unlocked the most precious of his treasures and told their stories.

They remember the conversation at his hospitable board, genially inspired and directed by him, on arts and books and inventions and great times and great men, when suddenly, sometimes by accident, a new mine of curious knowledge disclosed itself in him, which his friends had never known he possessed; or when a sunburst of the affectionate gentleness of his soul warmed all hearts around him. They remembered his craving for friendship, as it spoke through the far outstretched hand when you arrived, and the glad exclamations, “I am so happy you came ! " and the beseeching, almost despondent tone when you departed, "Do not leave me yet; do stay awhile longer, I want so much to speak with you!" It is all gone now. He could not stay himself; and he has left his friends behind, feeling more deeply than ever that no man could know him well but to love him.

Now we have laid him into his grave in the motherly soil of Massachusetts, which was so dear to him. He is at rest now — the stalwart, brave old champion, whose face and bearing were so austere, and whose heart was so full of tenderness; who began his career with a pathetic plea for universal peace and charity, and whose whole life was an arduous, incessant, never resting

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struggle which left him all covered with scars. we can do nothing for him but commemorate his lofty ideals of liberty and equality and justice and reconciliation and purity, and the earnestness and courage and touching fidelity with which he fought for them, so genuine in his sincerity, so single-minded in his zeal, so heroic in his devotion.

People of Massachusetts, he was the son of your soil, in which he now sleeps; but he is not all your own. He belongs to all of us in the North and in the South to the blacks whom he helped to make free, and to the whites whom he strove to make brothers again. On the grave of him whom so many thought to be their enemy, and found to be their friend, let the hands be clasped which so bitterly warred against each other. Upon that grave let the youth of America be taught, by the story of his life, that not only genius, power, and success, but more than these, patriotic devotion and virtue, make the greatness of the citizen. If this lesson be understood and followed, more than Charles Sumner's living word could have done for the glory of America will then be done by the inspiration of his great example. And it will truly be said that, although his body lies moldering in the earth, yet in the assured rights of all, in the brotherhood of a reunited people, and in the purified republic, he still lives, and will live forever.

AM. ORATORY - 12

GREAT SONS OF MASSACHUSETTS

GEORGE F. HOAR

(1876)

GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR (1826-1904), statesman, was born at Concord, Massachusetts. He was educated at Harvard College, and admitted to the Bar in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was elected

a representative to Congress and served four terms. He succeeded George S. Boutelle as United States senator, serving eight years. He was Regent of the Smithsonian Institute, and an Overseer of Harvard University. He declined the ambassadorship to England, offered him by President McKinley.

The names of great soldiers, founders of nations, jurists, ministers of state, men of science, inventors, historians, poets, orators, philanthropists, reformers, teachers, are found in turn on the columns by which the gratitude of nations seeks to give immortality to their benefactors.

In deciding which of these classes should be represented, or who of her children in each is worthiest of this honor, Massachusetts has not been driven to choose of her poverty. Is the choice to fall upon a soldier? Sturdy Miles Standish, earliest of the famous captains

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1 An extract from a speech in the House of Representatives at Washington, on the occasion of the presentation of statues of John Winthrop and Samuel Adams to the United States, 1876.

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