Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/53

Rh science, and which, once become a political force, could not fail to produce a great revolution.

Charles Sumner possessed all the instincts, the courage, the firmness and the faith of the devotee of a great idea. In the Senate he was a member of a feeble minority, so feeble, indeed, as to be to the ruling power a mere subject of derision; and for the first three years of his service without organized popular support. The slaveholders had been accustomed to put the metal of their Northern opponents to a variety of tests. Many a hot anti-slavery zeal had cooled under the social blandishments with which the South knew so well how to impregnate the atmosphere of the National capital, and many a high courage had given way before the haughty assumption and fierce menace of Southern men in Congress. Mr. Sumner had to pass that ordeal. He was at first petted and flattered by Southern society, but, fond as he was of the charms of social intercourse, and accessible to demonstrative appreciation, no blandishments could touch his convictions of duty.

And when the advocates of slavery turned upon him with anger and menace, he hurled at them with prouder defiance his answer, repeating itself in endless variations: “You must yield, for you are wrong.”

The slave-power had so frequently succeeded in making the North yield to its demands, even after the most formidable demonstrations of reluctance, that it had become a serious question whether there existed any such thing as Northern firmness. But it did exist, and in Charles Sumner it had developed its severest political type. The stronger the assault, the higher rose in him the power of resistance. In him lived that spirit which not only would not yield, but would turn upon the assailant. The Southern force, which believed itself irresistible, found itself striking against a body which was immovable. To think