He was a man of absolute singleness of purpose and directness of aim. He went straight to his mark. His public life was devoted to one object, which absorbed his whole soul; that was to make righteousness and freedom controlling forces in the government of the country. He had no other ambition. He desired public office only as he could make it an instrument to that end. He cared for history only as its lessons were lessons of justice and freedom. He cared for literature only as he could draw from it persuasion, argument, or illustration which would advance that lofty purpose. He cared for art only when it taught a moral lesson.
He had a marvellous capacity for work. From the beginning to the end, his life was a life of incessant labor. He had no idle moments. Even conversation, in which he delighted, was an intellectual exercise. In college, the lonely light shone out from his study window, where he
"outwatched the Bear"
long after the gayest of youthful revellers had gone to bed. Even in the heat of summer, in Washington, his life was crowded with hard work. I have known him more than once to fix the hour of midnight for a meeting with delegations with whom he could find no time in the busy day.
The results of this incessant toil were retained in a memory from which nothing seemed to escape. As it was impossible for him to be idle, so it seemed impossible for him to forget. His mind was an encyclopædia of the literature and history of constitutional liberty.
He had an indomitable courage. He never flinched or hesitated. He was never troubled with doubts. He saw everything clearly, and could never understand the state of mind of a man who could not see things as he did.
His was the most hopeful nature it was ever my fortune to know. The great virtue of hope, the central figure in the mighty group which the apostle tells us are forever to abide, possessed the very depths of his soul. He came into public life when slavery controlled every department of the government; legislated through Congress; administered the law through the Executive; sat on the bench of the Supreme Court. The first years of his public service were years of signal victories of the slaveholding power. To common men the day seemed constantly growing darker and darker, and the cause of freedom more and more hopeless. Sumner never abated one jot or tittle of his sublime confidence. The close of some of his speeches in those days is a trumpet note of triumph.
When he was stricken down in the Senate-chamber by the bludgeon of an assassin, his first conscious utterance as he recovered from the stupor caused by the terrible blows upon his head was that he would renew the conflict with slavery in the Senate as soon as he could return there. In his first public speech, a few weeks afterward, he said: "You have already made allusion to the suffering which I have undergone. This is not small, but it has been incurred in the performance of duty; and how small is it compared with that tale of woe which is perpetually coming to us from the house of bondage! With you I hail the omens of final triumph. I ask no prophet to confirm this assurance. The future is not less secure than the past."
He prefixed to his own edition of his works the motto from Leibnitz:—
"Veniet fortasse aliud tempus, dignius nostro,