Statesmen -- United States; United States -- Biography
In 1869, Mr. Sumner made his remarkable speech on the "Alabama" claims,
which for a time caused some bitter feeling in England. This vessel,
built at Liverpool, and manned by a British crew, was sent out by the
Confederate government, and destroyed sixty-six of our vessels, with a
loss of ten million dollars. In 1864, she was overtaken in the harbor of
Cherbourg, France, by Captain Winslow, commander of the steamer
Kearsarge, and sunk, after an hour's desperate fighting. Her commander,
Captain Raphael Semmes, was picked up by the English Deerhound, and
taken to Southampton. In the summer of 1872, a board of arbitration met
at Geneva, Switzerland, and awarded the United States over fifteen
million dollars as damages, which Great Britain paid.
On May 12, 1870, Mr. Sumner introduced his supplementary Civil-Rights
Bill, declaring that all persons, without regard to race or color, are
entitled to equal privileges afforded by railroads, steamboats, hotels,
places of amusement, institutions of learning, religion, and courts of
law. His maxim was, "Equality of rights is the first of rights."
He supported Horace Greeley for President, thus separating himself from
the Republican party, and carrying out his life-long opinion that
principle is above party. After another visit to Europe, in 1872, when
he was sixty-one years old, feeling that, the war being over and slavery
abolished, the two portions of the country should forget all animosity
and live together in harmony, he introduced a resolution in the Senate,
"That the names of battles with fellow-citizens shall not be continued
in the army register or placed on the regimental colors of the United
States."
Massachusetts hastily passed a vote of censure upon her idolized
statesman, which she was wise enough to rescind soon after. This latter
action gave Mr. Sumner great comfort. He said, "The dear old
commonwealth has spoken for me, and that is enough."
In his freestone house, full of pictures and books, overlooking
Lafayette Square in Washington, on March 11, 1874, Charles Sumner lay
dying. The day previous, in the Senate, he had complained to a friend of
pain in the left side. On the morning of the eleventh he was cold and
well nigh insensible. At ten o'clock he said to Judge Hoar, "Don't
forget my Civil-Rights Bill." Later, he said, "My book! my book is not
finished.... I am so tired! I am so tired!"
He had worked long and hard. He passed into the rest of the hereafter at
three o'clock in the afternoon. Grand, heroic soul! whose life will be
an inspiration for all coming time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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