Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 07 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
History
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 07 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
It was my fortune to see him during several days in Paris, some time
after he parted from you. He had recently arrived from the West Indies.
I feel that I cannot err in offering a slight reminiscence of that
meeting. I found him the same in purpose and aspiration as I had always
known him,--earnest, thoughtful, and intent on all that helped the good
of man, with the same completeness of intelligence, and the same large,
loving heart. We visited together ancient by-ways and historic scenes
of that wonderful metropolis, which no person was more forward to
appreciate and to enjoy; but, turning from these fascinating objects,
his conversation took the wings of the morning, and, traversing the
Atlantic, rested on our own country, on friends at home, on his
relations to his parishioners, on his unfinished labors, and on that
great cause of Liberty, which contains all other causes, as the greater
contains the less; for where Liberty is not, what is man, whether
slave or master? Observing him carefully, with the fellow-feeling of a
convalescent, I was glad and surprised to find in him so many signs of
health. At that time he was stronger than I was; but he has been taken,
and I am spared. Indeed, it was only in the husky whisper of his voice
that he seemed weak. I envied him much his active step and his power
to walk. But he had measured his forces, and calmly revealed to me his
doubt whether he should live to see home again. If this were permitted,
he did not expect to resume his old activities, but thought that in
some quiet retreat, away from paved streets, surrounded by books, he
might perhaps have strength to continue some of his labors, to bind up
some of his sheaves, and occasionally to speak with his pen. But it was
ordered otherwise. Not even this moderate anticipation was gratified.
The fatal disease had fastened too surely upon him, and was slowly
mastering all resistance. The devotion of friends, travel, change of
scene, the charms of Switzerland, the classic breath of Italy, all were
in vain. It was his wish that he should be buried where he fell, and
this child of New England, the well-ripened product of her peculiar
life, now sleeps in Tuscan earth, on the banks of the Arno, near the
sepulchres of Michel Angelo and Galileo. But I know not if even this
exalted association can make us content to renounce the pious privilege
of laying him in one of our own tombs, among the people that he loved
so well.
Pardon me for thus renewing your grief. But I felt that I could not
address you on any other subject until I had mingled my feelings with
yours, and our hearts had met in sympathy for our great bereavement.
THREAT OF DISUNION BY THE SLAVE STATES, AND ITS ABSURDITY.
SPEECH AT A MASS MEETING OF REPUBLICANS, IN THE OPEN AIR, AT
FRAMINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS, OCTOBER 11, 1860.
A Mass Meeting of Republicans was held in Harmony Grove at
Framingham, October 11, 1860, with the following officers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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