Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/66

40 Still, Charles Sumner thought his work far from accomplished. During the three years of war that followed, so full of vicissitudes, alarms and anxieties, he stood in the Senate and in the President's closet as the ever-watchful sentinel of freedom and equal rights. No occasion eluded his grasp to push on the destruction of slavery, not only by sweeping decrees, but in detail, by pursuing it, as with a probing-iron, into every nook and corner of its existence. It was his sleepless care that every blow struck at the rebellion should surely and heavily tell against slavery, and that every drop of American blood that was shed should surely be consecrated to human freedom. He could not rest until assurance was made doubly sure, and I doubt whether our legislative history shows an example of equal watchfulness, fidelity and devotion to a great object. Such was the character of Mr. Sumner's legislative activity during the war.

As the rebellion succumbed, new problems arose. To set upon their feet again States disorganized by insurrection and civil war; to remodel a society which had been lifted out of its ancient hinges by the sudden change of its system of labor; to protect the emancipated slaves against the old pretension of absolute control on the part of their former masters; to guard society against the possible transgressions of a large multitude long held in slavery and ignorance and now suddenly set free; so to lodge political power in this inflammable state of things as to prevent violent reactions and hostile collisions; to lead social forces so discordant into orderly and fruitful coöperation, and to infuse into communities, but recently rent by the most violent passions, a new spirit of loyal attachment to a common nationality,—this was certainly one of the most perplexing tasks ever imposed upon the statesmanship of any time and any country.

But to Mr. Sumner's mind the problem of reconstruc-