THE LATE SENATOR SUMNER.

Evening Star, Issue 3460, 25 March 1874, Page 2

THE LATE SENATOR SUMNER.

The European telegrams to day aunonnae the death of Charles Sumner, the celebrated American statesman and jurist. He is best known as a politician, and his political career >s thus sketched in *' M«nof the Time “In 1850, Mr Webster having resigned hts scat in the Senate, to enter Mr Fellmore’i C abinet, Mr Sumner was, after a severe con- : lest, elected his successor by a coalition of Freesoilers and Democrats. His first important speech was an attack upon the fugitive-slave law then pending, which he denounced with potent logic. In 1856, after a protracted fight against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the wrongs done to Kansas, he made an eloquent speech of two days, subsequently published under the title of “The Crime against Kansas,” in which he severely denounced the . action of some of the Southern members of Congress. For this he was attacked, two days later, while sitting at his desk, by Preston 8. Brooks, a member of Congress from Booth Carolina, and most brutally beaten over tbs head and shoulders with a heavy cane. The : result of the injuries thus received was n ' long and serious disability, from which he was three or four years in recovering. He was re-elected to the >enatq in 1857; but though he resumed his seat for a few months iu 1858, he was unable to perform any active duties till December, 1859. His speech on * 4 *Barbarista of Slavery,” ia the session of IBod-60, was elaborate snd eloquent, but exceedingly bitter. He took an active part m the Presidential contest of 1860, opposing all concession to a compromise with slavery, and during the war that followed early proposed emancipation &s the speediest mode of bringing the war to a close. Prom March, 1861. to March, 1871, he was Chairman bf the Committee on Foreign Relations in the henate. He made an elaborate argument in the Mason and Slidell case, Jan. 9, 1862, ih which he took the ground that their seizure was unjustifiable on the principles of international law, which the United States had always maintained. During th§ w*F, aji'd since, Mr Sumner pas bppn conspicuous fop the statesman-like views he has advanced on » t ° e B reat questions of state, and though offence was taken at the positions he supposed to have maintained in regard to the Alabama claims, it has since become'evident that his views were mis-stated, and that he was not averse to any settlement of this vexed question Which should be honorable to both nations.” His position in the Senate during the last few years was very peculiar. While *, decided and radical Republican, he became alienated, not wholly by his own fault, from the President and some of his friends in the Senate, and was removed from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations.