Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/30

4 clouding their brows. I understood their grief, for nobody could share it more than I.

In such a presence, the temptation is great to seek that consolation for our loss which bereaved friendship finds in the exaltation of its bereavement. But not to you or me belonged this man while he lived; not to you or me belongs his memory now that he is gone. His deeds, his example and his fame, he left as a legacy to the American people and to mankind; and it is my office to speak of this inheritance. I cannot speak of it without affection. I shall endeavor to do it with justice.

Among the public characters of America, Charles Sumner stands peculiar and unique. His senatorial career is a conspicuous part of our political history. But in order to appreciate the man in the career, we must look at the story of his life.

The American people take pride in saying that almost all their great historic characters were self-made men, who, without the advantages of wealth and early opportunities, won their education, raised themselves to use fulness and distinction, and achieved their greatness through a rugged hand-to-hand struggle with adverse fortune. It is indeed so. A log cabin; a ragged little boy walking barefooted to a lowly country school-house, or sometimes no school-house at all;—a lad, after a day's hard toil on the farm, or in the workshop, poring greedily, sometimes stealthily, over a volume of poetry, or history, or travels;—a forlorn-looking youth, with elbows out, applying at a lawyer's office for an opportunity to study;—then the young man a successful practitioner attracting the notice of his neighbors;—then a member of a State legislature, a Representative in Congress, a Senator, may be a Cabinet Minister, or even President. Such are the pictures presented by many a proud American biography.

And it is natural that the American people should be