Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/68

42 soon realized. Slavery was forever blotted out in this Republic by the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution. By the fourteenth the emancipated slaves were secured in their rights of citizenship before the law, and the fifteenth guaranteed to them the right to vote.

It was, indeed, a most astonishing, a marvelous consummation. What ten years before not even the most sanguine would have ventured to anticipate, what only the profound faith of the devotee could believe possible, was done. And no man had a better right than Charles Sumner to claim for himself a preëminent share in that great consummation. He had, indeed, not been the originator of most of the practical measures of legislation by which such results were reached. He had even combated some of them as in conflict with his theories. He did not possess the peculiar ability of constructing policies in detail, of taking account of existing circumstances and advantage of opportunities. But he had resolutely marched ahead of public opinion in marking the ends to be reached. Nobody had done more to inspire and strengthen the moral spirit of the anti-slavery cause. He stood foremost among the propelling, driving forces which pushed on the great work with undaunted courage, untiring effort, irresistible energy and religious devotion. No man's singleness of purpose, fidelity and faith surpassed his, and when by future generations the names are called which are inseparably united with the deliverance of the American Republic from slavery, no name will be called before his own.

While the championship of human rights is his first title to fame, I should be unjust to his merit did I omit to mention the services he rendered on another field of action. When, in 1861, the secession of the Southern States left the anti-slavery party in the majority in the Senate of the United States, Charles Sumner was placed