Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/50

24 Whatever their errors, their delusions and, perhaps, their misgivings may have been, this they had accomplished; and then they left the last compromise tottering behind them, and turned their faces to the wall and died.

And with them stepped into the background the statesmanship of organization, expedients and compromises; and to the front came, ready for action, the moral idea which was to fight out the great conflict, and to open a new epoch of American history.

That was the historic significance of the remarkable scene which showed us Henry Clay walking out of the Senate chamber never to return, when Charles Sumner sat down there as the successor of Daniel Webster.

No man could, in his whole being, have more strikingly portrayed that contrast. When Charles Sumner had been elected to the Senate, Theodore Parker said to him, in a letter of congratulation: “You told me once that you were in morals, not in politics. Now I hope you will show that you are still in morals, although in politics. I hope you will be the Senator with a conscience.” That hope was gratified. He always remained in morals while in politics. He never was anything else but the Senator with a conscience. Charles Sumner entered the Senate not as a mere advocate, but as the very embodiment of the moral idea. From this fountain flowed his highest aspirations. There had been great anti-slavery men in the Senate before him; they were there with him, men like Seward and Chase. But they had been trained in a different school. Their minds had ranged over other political fields. They understood politics. He did not. He knew but one political object,—to combat and overthrow the great wrong of slavery; to serve the ideal of the liberty and equality of men; and to establish the universal reign of “peace, justice and charity.” He brought to the Senate a studious mind, vast learning,