Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/69

Rh as chairman at the head of the Committee on Foreign Relations. It was a high distinction, and no selection could have been more fortunate. Without belittling others, it may be said that of the many able men then and since in the Senate, Mr. Sumner was by far the fittest for that responsible position. He had ever since his college days made international law a special and favorite study, and was perfectly familiar with its principles, the history of its development and its literature. Nothing of importance had ever been published on that subject in any language that had escaped his attention. His knowledge of history was uncommonly extensive and accurate; all the leading international law cases, with their incidents in detail, their theories and settlements, he had at his fingers' ends; and to his last day he remained indefatigable in inquiry. Moreover, he had seen the world; he had studied the institutions and policies of foreign countries, on their own soil, aided by his personal intercourse with many of their leading statesmen, not a few of whom remained in friendly correspondence with him ever since their first acquaintance.

No public man had a higher appreciation of the position, dignity and interests of his own country, and no one was less liable than he to be carried away or driven to hasty and ill-considered steps by excited popular clamor. He was ever strenuous in asserting our own rights, while his sense of justice did not permit him to be regardless of the rights of other nations. His abhorrence of the barbarities of war, and his ardent love of peace, led him earnestly to seek for every international difference a peaceable solution; and where no settlement could be reached by the direct negotiations of diplomacy, the idea of arbitration was always uppermost in his mind. He desired to raise the Republic to the high office of a missionary of peace and civilization in the world. He was, therefore,