It remains to be seen whether the Hartford Courant and other newspapers of the same proclivities, will ever again wave the "bloody shirt" in the field of politics. This paper, viewing the events of the past month, has repeatedly thanked God (in print) that, "now we have neither North nor South, but one united country." Few events in ceremonial history, we confess, have been more significant than the presence of two Confederate generals as pall-bearers at the funeral of General Grant. This ought, if indeed it does not, to mark the close of the Civil War and of all the divisions and combinations which have had their roots and their justifications in it. The "bloody shirt" can be waved no more, except as an insult to the memory of the late first citizen of the Republic. On what basis, then, are political parties henceforth to rest? What, in the future, will give a meaning to the names Republican and Democrat, or make it national and patriotic for an American citizen to enlist in one of the two organizations and wage political war against the other?
We can detect only three great questions now before the American people. One is the Tariff, the other the reform of the Civil Service, and the last is the problem of labor. It is noticeable that the division of opinion regarding either of these questions does not correspond with the lines of the established parties. There are Protectionists, as also Free Traders, in both parties; both parties are equally puzzled by the labor question; and though the Democratic Party has hitherto been re-actionary on the subject of the Civil Service, a Democratic President is to-day the champion and the hope of Reform. On the whole, it begins to look as if each of the two great parties was in a state of incipient disintegration. On the one hand, the Independent Republicans, whose votes elected Grover Cleveland, although still professing allegiance to the Republican party, will never again ally themselves with those who supported Mr. Blaine. On the other side the Bourbon Democrats, who helped to elect Mr. Cleveland, are now in arms against him. The presidency of Cleveland is to say, the least the triumph of national over party government; and should he continue to go forward bravely in his present course, he may rest assured that the hearts of all good citizens will go with him, and that his triumph will be complete. The day is here when thinking men will have to brush conventionalism aside, and confront with open minds the problem which the course of events has now distinctly set before them for solution.
The records of our own time are being gradually embalmed in a permanent form. Mr. Blaine has given us his first volume of what perhaps are better classed as impressions rather than as memoirs pour servir; we are promised the Personal Memoirs of General Grant; and now at last, after many years' waiting, we have the completed works of Charles Sumner, the incorruptible son of Massachusetts, from the press of Messrs. Lee and Shepard, who have spared no expense as publishers.
People who have not yet examined these volumes, or at least have not yet looked through the volume containing the Index, have but a faint idea of their invaluable worth and character. It would be impossible to write the history of the early life of this people under the constitution without borrowing material from the papers of Hamilton and of Madison. Equally impossible will it be for the future historian to narrate, in just and equable proportion, the events from 1845 to 1874, without consulting the fifteen volumes which Mr. Sumner has left behind him.
But the distinguished senator from Massachusetts was not himself an historian; he was a close and painstaking student of history, as well as a rigid and critical observer of current events. He kept himself thoroughly posted in the progress of his generation, and possessed the happy faculty of seeing things not alone as one within the circle of events but as one standing outside and afar off. Consequently, his orations, senatorial speeches, miscellaneous addresses, letters and papers on current themes are not fraught with the transitory or ephemeral character, so common to heated discussions in legislative halls, but are singularly and as a whole among the grandest contributions to national history and growth.
These volumes cover, as we have already remarked, the period extending from 1845 to 1874, and they furnish a compendium of all the great questions which occupied the attention of the nation during that time, and which were discussed by him with an ability equalled by few and excelled by none of the great statesmen who were his contemporaries. The high position which Mr. Sumner so long and so honorably held as one of the giant minds of the nation,—his intimate connection with and leadership in the great measure of the abolition of slavery, and all the great questions of the civil war and those involved in a just settlement of the same, rendered it a desideratum that these volumes should be published.
Aside from their value as contributions to political history, the works, particularly the orations, of Mr. Sumner belong to the literature of America. They are as far superior to the endless number of orations and speeches which are delivered throughout the country as the works of a polished, talented and accomplished author surpass the ephemeral productions of a day. In one respect these orations surpass almost all others, namely, in the elevation of sentiment, the high and lofty moral tone and grandeur of thought which they possess. The one on the "True Grandeur of Nations" stands forth of itself like a serene and majestic image, cut from the purest Parian marble. There has been no orator in our time, whose addresses approach nearer the models of antiquity, unless it be Webster, whom Sumner greatly surpasses in moral tone and dignity of thought.
The works of a statesman, so variously endowed, and who has treated so many subjects with such a masterly command of knowledge, reasoning, and eloquence, cannot fail to be widely circulated. These elegantly-printed volumes,—which in their typographical appearance seem to rival anything of similar character that have come to our notice,—carefully edited and fully rounded by a copious analytical index of subjects discussed, topics referred to, and facts adduced, will prove an invaluable treasury to the scholar, the historian and the general seeker after truth. The librarians of every city and town library in this country should insist upon having the works of Charles Sumner upon their shelves.