Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/87

Rh had stung him so deeply,—and when returning vigor lifted him up, and a new sunburst of hope illumined his life! How thankful we all are that he lived that one year longer!

And yet, have you thought of it? if he had died in those dark days, when so many clouds hung over him,—would not then the much vilified man have been the same Charles Sumner, whose death but one year later afflicted millions of hearts with a pang of bereavement, whose praise is now on every lip for the purity of his life, for his fidelity to great principles, and for the loftiness of his patriotism? Was he not a year ago the same, the same in purpose, the same in principle, the same in character? What had he done then that so many who praise him to-day should have then disowned him? See what he had done. He had simply been true to his convictions of duty. He had approved and urged what he thought right, he had attacked and opposed what he thought wrong. To his convictions of duty he had sacrificed political associations most dear to him, the security of his position of which he was proud. For his convictions of duty he had stood up against those more powerful than he; he had exposed himself to reproach, obloquy and persecution. Had he not done so, he would not have been the man you praise to-day; and yet for doing so he was cried down but yesterday. He had lived up to the great word he spoke when he entered the Senate: “The slave of principle, I call no party master.” That declaration was greeted with applause, and when, true to his word, he refused to call a party master, the act was covered with reproach.

The spirit impelling him to do so was the same conscience which urged him to break away from the powerful party which controlled his State in the days of Daniel Webster, and to join a feeble minority, which stood up for freedom; to throw away the favor and defy the power of the wealthy and refined, in order to plead the cause of