An instinct of nature prompts us to make some account and sum up the significance of any one's career, privately, on the domestic stage, or before the people, if he has challenged attention in a larger sphere.
It may be useful to make some discriminating estimate of Mr. Sumner's contributions to the public good, the legislature of a free State in a great Union being the monarch that for so long a period continued to elect him to his high office.
However opinions may differ of his prudence or ability, the weight of his word or importance of his position none will doubt.
Our messenger of the lightning had no greater task this last week in the world than to wait at his threshold and run with news every hour over the wires of his estate.
His principal peers at his bedside and his colored clients flocking for inquiry at his door showed a feeling of love and sympathy reaching from the highest to the lowest class.
In culture he was a match for nobles, in temper he was a champion of the oppressed and friend to the poor.
I suppose no American name is more widely known and celebrated in all civilized lands.
Great Britain and France will feel the shock of his decease.
That one of our political pillars has fallen will be known at the Court of St. Petersburg and among the counsellors of Berlin.
Italy and Spain, with their Republican struggles and aims, will miss an advocate on this side the sea.