The True Citizen: How to Become One - William Fisher Markwick; William Alexander Smith

His progress in life was almost entirely due to his conscientious, persistent, untiring application to the acquisition of knowledge and the development of all his powers. He was in the highest sense a cultivated man. His mind became, through conscientious and laborious study, a great storehouse, filled with the richest materials and the power to use them.

But he did not seek these treasures of learning and power for the simple end of glorifying himself. His one great object in life was to benefit mankind. He said in an address, delivered just after he had begun the practice of law, speaking of conscience and charity: "They must become a part of us and of our existence, as present, in season and out of season, in all the amenities of life, in those daily offices of conduct and manner which add so much to its charm, as also in those grander duties whose performance evinces an ennobling self-sacrifice." It was his own determined and unfaltering devotion to this lofty ideal, that led directly to the success of his great public career.

Charles Sumner was first elected to the Senate in 1851. Throughout his brilliant life his lofty character never forsook him; and if we will carefully examine the measures which he advocated, voted for, or opposed, from time to time, the discovery will be made that his conscience was his inevitable guide.

While he dearly loved peace, he was always in the midst of warfare. He constantly incurred the censure which arises from advocating unpopular measures. Childlike in his personal friendships, he often spoke about himself as he would speak of others,—revealing what others would have concealed. Frank, sincere, and pledged from youth to principles, rather than to persons, he was obliged to struggle against great obstacles. To him the slave was a human being with a soul, entitled to every right and privilege accorded to any American citizen. He devoted his energies to the cause of freedom down to the very last, and died in Washington, on March 11, 1874, exclaiming, "Don't let my Civil Rights Bill fail!"

[Footnote: See "Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner," by Edward L.
Pierce, (Boston, 1877), and many articles in the magazines, especially
noting the sketch in Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol.
V., page 744.]

XXI.

ENTHUSIASM.

MEMOBY GEMS.