Memorial Services. Tribute to the Hon. Charles Sumner, held in St. Phillip's A. M. E. Church, Savannah, Georgia. March 18th, 1874.

Front matter

MEMORIAL SERVICES.

TRIBUTE TO THE

Hon. Charles Sumner,

Preface

PREFACE.

The death of Mr. Sumner having cast such a gloom over the colored citizens of Savannah, they resolved to meet in one of the largest edifices in the city for the purpose of commingling their grief and sorrow with each other.

A notice appeared in the paper for a meeting of the citizens to take preliminary steps to consummate the same. The Lyceum Hall was crowded as per notice, and to facilitate the measure, a committee of ten of the leading citizens were appointed to fix the time and make all necessary arrangements; the committee consisted of J H Deveaux, chairman; Avery Smith, Rev. L L Houston, Rev. H L Simpson, L B Toomer, H M Turner, Capt. R D Goodman, William Pollard, J M Simms, K S Thomas, Capt. John Gardner, H L Giles.

Having discharged the duties assigned, the, services took place at St. Philip's Church, (Dr. Turner's,) at three o'clock, P.M., on the 18th inst. The house was beautifully draped in mourning; consisting of flags, mottoes Mr. Sumner's photograph, wreaths, arches, &c, all in full emblems of mourning.

The number of persons present, including those who could not get into the house, has been variously estimated at from 4,000 to 5,000, among whom were several white persons. The occasion was the most imposing, as well as the most magnificent of any which the colored people ever conducted in this city. All the colored churches are draped in mourning, and the houses of the colored people are almost without exception, draped either on the out or inside.

AVERY SMITH, Secretary.

THE ORDER OF EXERCISES WAS AS FOLLOWS:

1st. Introductory remarks by the Chairman, J. H. Deveaux.

2d. Funeral Dirge chanted by the choir, which consisted of the best singers selected from the various choirs of the city, under the management of Prof. James Porter.

3d. Prayer by Rev. H. L. Simpson, Pastor of the Second Baptist Church.

4th. Solo.—"I know that my Redeemer Liveth," by Miss Elizabeth Greenfield, (celebrated "Black Swan.")

5th. Reading of the Holy Scriptures, by Rev. U. L. Houston, Pastor of First Bryan Baptist Church.

6th. Solo and Quartette, by Miss Spencer and the choir, "Jesus, Saviour of my Soul."

7th. Address by Hon. H. M. Turner, LL.D.

8th. Solo—"Flee as a Bird to the Mountain," by Mrs. R. H. Bourke.

9th. Address by Hon. J. M. Simms.

10th. Adoption of the resolutions.

11th. Doxology by the Choir.

12th. Benediction by Rev. J. S. Atwell, Pastor of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church.

Preamble and Resolutions

PREAMBLE AND RESOLUTIONS.

Chas. Sumner is dead. What a terrible blow to them to whose welfare he devoted a brilliant and useful life. A great expounder of the constitution, he became indeed the champion of our race. In his death the United States Senate has lost its brightest gem, Massachussetts a noble and honorable son, and the country its greatest statesman. Let the people mourn—for their loss is great.

Mr. Sumner may well be considered as having reached the apex of American statesmanship, and will be deservedly enshrined in the true American heart for his honesty and purity of character; his wisdom and sense of justice, his love of truth and virtue, the sublimity of his eloquence and the greatness of his knowledge. His name will always be proudly remembered and cherished in the palaces of the wealthy, and the homes of the poor and the lowly. Yet there are some who will not praise him now, but their children's children will be taught to emulate the knowledge and principles of the American statesman whose demise we now so sadly mourn.

Charles Sumner devoted his life—one that was full of hope and brightness in the future, to the purification of the government of his country. From the commencement of his public career, the noble determination to make the declaration of independence a living fact instead of a brazen mockery, has occupied his closest attention and called forth his most powerful efforts; how he succeeded cannot be better illustrated than in our action to-day. Standing in the senate of the United States, he was a terror to evil doers and to tyrants, who faltered and cowered before his withering denunciations of the crime of slavery, and his vivid picture of universal freedom, pictured with all the earnestness and eloquence of which he was master. And this, too, at a time when it was dangerous even for a congressman of the United States to express his honest convictions based upon the first principles of the government, that all men were created equal and endowed by their Creator, with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as we have seen in the brutal and terrible assault committed upon Mr. Sumner by the South Carolina representatives in 1856, within the sacred walls of the senate for exercising the dearest rights of citizenship—the rights of freedom of speech. From the walls of the senate, bleeding and unconscious, the victim of the fanatical party was born to linger for months, suffering from the effects of the blows received in the cause of freedom; but his blood and sufferings served only to enrich the soil of liberty, and to cause the plant of freedom to grow stronger and stronger until seven years later, after many bitter strifes in the forum and legislative halls, and upon the battle fields,it culminated in emancipation—the shackles fell from the limbs of the slave and in the rich panoply of freedom, the former bondman proudly stood.

After the emancipation proclamation issued by our martyred President, Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Sumner having witnessed the first great aim of his life in the extinction of slavery, turned his mighty intellect to the bestowal of the full rights of citizenship, and the recognition of the equality of all men before the law, with the fullest guarantee of civil and political rights upon the emancipated colored men of the country. In this he was compelled to meet and combat all the powerful influences brought about by Andrew Johnson's treachery to principle. But with Wilson in the senate, Thaddeus Stevens and others in the house, and General Grant at the head of the army, Mr. Sumner's cause succeeded. Throughout this struggle Mr. Sumner displayed a statesmanship seldom equalled, and never excelled. In his demands for justice and equal rights for all he displayed the persistency of the immortal Wilberforce, the dogmatism of the famous Calhoun, the eloquence of Clay and

"Brougham's scathing power, with Canning's grace combined."

With such a powerful champion declaiming in our favor, one by one the iron barriers of prejudice were overcome and equality before the law, and full political rights were made secure for all citizens, for all time to come. Mr. Sumner now gave the largest portion of his time to the enactment of a law to protect all citizens in their civil rights, and for that purpose prepared the celebrated Civil Eights Bill now pending before the Senate of the United States, and which is now occupying a great share of the country's attention. It is at this time, while hard at work in the noble cause, bending his mighty energies to its enactment into a law of the land, his spirit yielded to the fell destroyer death, and took its flight to Him who gave it.

"Such are the pictures, which the thought of thee, O friend, awakeneth—charming the keen pain Of thy departure, and our sense of loss Requiting with the fulness of thy gain."

The above being in substance our thoughts on this sad occasion, we do resolve:

1. That, while we bow with reverence and submission to the mandates of our all-wise and Heavenly Ruler, we can but feel and be deeply sensible of the great loss the country has sustained in the death of its great statesman, Charles Sumner.

2. That the best years of his life, distinguished alike for wisdom and patriotism, were devoted to the cause of freedom and the amelioration of our people, and that we are deeply sadden-ed at the loss of so great and dear a friend, whose place it will be hard to fill, but his name shall live forever and remain sanctified upon our memories.

3. That we offer our sincere condolence to the sister and relatives of the deceased, and to the citizens of Massachussets in their bereavement in the death of their illustrious son.

J.H. DEVEAUX,

L. B. TOOMER, | Committee on Resolutions.

K. S. THOMAS,

Address of Dr. Turner

ADDRESS OF DR. TURNER.

My friends, we meet to-day to commemorate and mourn the loss of one of the greatest Americans ever born and nurtured upon our world-famed soil, our grief at the loss of Hon. Charles Sumner finds no expression in words, no relief in tears, and no comfort in the sighs of millions.

A statesman who stood head and shoulders above any of his day and generation. A scholar who had no superior in legal lore or moral ethics. A philanthropist whose capacious affections and great heart encircled the children of every race, clime, and nationality. A citizen whose character was untarnished, a reformer who stood as a watch tower in the van-guard of a revolutionary host. A gentleman whose culture, refinement and urbanity blended with an aristocratic demeanor, singularly constituting him a model among equals. An orator whose chaste diction and flowery eloquence will be the emmulation of coming generations.

A hero whose war weapons were bloodless missiles, but terribly invincible, and fearfully destructive on the field of combat.

A philosopher whose analytical acumen comprehended every phase of human character, and sifted the deeds of kingdoms.

A beacon whose flambeau lit up the path of progress and civilization.

A cosmopolitan who had no bounds to his generosity, and would have rather been the benefactor of a hottentot than the companion of a prince—but to be short, one of the noblest specimens of humanity of any age, in the history of the world, fell in death from the apex of glory when all that was mortal of Chas. Sumner died.

About twenty-three years ago, a tall, spare looking man crowned with a majestic brow, and presenting the aspects of great natural ability and the highest acquirable attainments, walked into the senate of the United States, possibly to the consternation of many, and after taking the oath of office, sat down in the midst of those he was destined to eclipse both in glory and renown in a few years. In close proximity sat Samuel P. Chase and John P Hale. This trio then constituted the only free soil exponents in the Senate. They were the nucleotic forces of of those fearful issues which were in a short time to change the land-marks of our country, and baptise the nation with freedom. Up to this time the right of petition was partially denied if it involved the subject of human rights, and those in the Senate who dared to present them were classed among fanatics, agitators, and the most inimical foes the country had.

But for one to so far forget his calling as to attack the wrongs of slavery, was to make himself such an unnatural piece of hybrid monstrosity, that no vocabulary could furnish a name with which to entitle him.

The reputation of Mr Sumner, though small at that time, had nevertheless, acquired sufficient celebrity to indicate his future course in the Senate; therefore, to thwart any mischievous designs on his part to the special institution whose advocates were always exceedingly sensitive, the pro-slavery senators resorted to every conceivable parliamentary strategy to prevent him getting the floor; but in due time he obtained it, and from the day he delivered his maiden speech to the day of his death he was the grand master of the Senate Chamber.

In a conversation with Chief-Justice Chase in Washington city in 1869, he told me when only three of them were in the Senate (meaning three Abolitionists) they were pointed out and looked at as wild beasts in a cage, but, said he, "Sumner kept them all busy,"

For three quarters of a century the Congress of the United States had never had a fearless champion of liberty. True there had been men there who had assumed timid positions favoring free speech, colonization, &c, but there had never been a man there who took bold grounds in favor of a free country.

Mr Sumner came on the stage of political action, just as Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were passing off. I think he came in the same day Mr. Clay went out. never to return. This was a trio of great men who had long been the bulwarks of what was fast becoming an obsolescent era in the history of our country. For over a quarter of a century their expositons of the Constitution of the United States, ranked equal to a decision from the supreme court of the nation. But the Missouri compromise, admission of Texas, and the Wilmot proviso, blended with the doctrine of squatter-sovereignty, which were to grow out of the Kansas-Nebraska struggle, was destined, under an over-ruling Providence, to embolden the advocates of liberty, and usher in a brighter dispensation, and thus the cause of liberty required a Sumner—a man like Bonaparte with iron nerves, and a will as defiant as the Word of God—a man whose erudition none could gainsay, but whoso gigantic intellect towered above them all. God always raises up great heroes when there is great work to be done, for duty and responsibility must correspond. One of the best evidences of human affairs remaining in statue quo, at least for a time, is to see little men coming to the surface. God never places third rate officers to man his vessels when a fearful gale and angry billows are just ahead.

When Mr Sumner was called from the ranks of the private citizen to the Senate without having to serve an apprenticeship in the lower house of Congress, or in the executive chair of his State, any one familiar with the history of nations and kingdoms might have known it was portentous of a gathering storm.

True, the friends of liberty had able representatives in the persons of Mr. Hale and the late Chief Justice of the United States, but they lacked the dash, the vim, the snap, the dare, the popular defiance, and sledge hammer and battle axe ability, and power, commensurate to the emergency of the times, though great men as they undoubtedly were. But in Mr. Sumner all these characteristics and qualities happily blended, and made him the match of all the learned sophists, of all the time serving political weather-cocks, of all the blatten mouth braggarts and bombastic blusterers, of all the wiry tongue rhetoricians and pseudo-logicians, that this or any other country could produce, of all the fabricated fiction, or labyrinthine mazes with which the sharpers of tyranny could festoon their theories. Too noble to do wrong, too great to be mean, too wise to make a blunder too high to contenance a low act, too solid to be a trickster too pure to be a politican, too just to be partial, too brave to cower before men or devils, too spotless to be slandered in the most calumnious age the world ever witnessed, armed with the helmet of right, and panoplied with a code of principles, as irreversible as the flowing current of the Mississippi river, he stood out as grand and as majestic before the world as thundering Sinai did, when the shuddering hosts of Israel trembled at its base. A vital amazement, an intellectual human prodigy, a creature with super-human traits, such was Sumner, the man of destiny, molded oat of the matrix of heaven by the command of God, to front the reformatory measures borned in the middle of the nineteenth century, and well did he do the work assigned. What staggered Hale and disheartened Chase, only fired the soul of the great Sumner.

The Southern statesmen for years had swayed a sceptre of political power over this country, till in many respects they regarded themselves as lords of the manor, but in Mr. Sumner they had an antagonist they were unable to cope with in learning or baffle in argument. But South Carolina the pestiferous State of my nativity, was so bent upon silencing his otherwise impregnable batteries, that she resorted to the bludgeon in the hands of Preston S. Brooks. The sequence was, that in May, 1856, Mr Sumner was knocked down in the Senate Chamber, drenched in his own blood, and the skull that enclosed the finest brain in the world was fractured for life, but this was only the harbinger of greater results. While Mr. Sumner was for a short time silent from the brutal effects of a cowardly assault upon his person, the silence was counter-ballanced by the thunders of a hundred volcanoes, which spit forth angry fire, smoke, and seething lava in terrible ebulitions to the consternation of every like ruffian, for the whole North was mad, and even the South was mantled in shame and had to censure her own hero.

But the blood of the saints are said to be the seed of the Church, and so it was in this case, the blood of Mr. Sumner proved to be the seed of liberty, for although he so far recovered as to be able to resume his seat in that body, when he returned, he went with a feeble constitution, but a stronger will and a greater soul, where both he and the blood he shed so profusely, plead the cause of the oppressed. From that time till the overthrow of slavery, Mr. Sumner spoke to man but his blood spoke to God, Mr. Sumner cried to earth but his blood cried to Heaven, Mr. Sumner plead in the Senate but his blood plead in the skies.

Mr. Sumner with his solid reason and thrilling eloquence touched the hearts of millions, but his blood touched the heart of God, Mr. Sumner marshalled the armies of the nation against the institution of slavery, but his blood marshalled the armies of heaven.

The trio of so-called fanatics above referred to, Sumner, Chase and Hale, could not have made the impression in years with the most learned and elaborate arguments that was made in a day after Sumner fell by the fatal-aimed blow of a ruffian, and wallowed in his own blood.

Mr. Sumner was no politician, he was every whit a statesman; like Webster, he was an orator, but unlike Webster he was inflexible; like Everit he was a philosopher, learned and sagacious; but unlike Everit, he was an impartial philanthropist, with a heart as wide as immensity. Like Clay, he knew what would serve the people as a temporary panacea, but unlike Clay he made no compromises. Like Calhoun he ransacked the dusty records of ages to glean the assembled wisdom of the world; but unlike Calhoun, he used his knowledge to help the poor, needy, and oppressed, and not to perpetuate a vicious aristocracy at the expense of others of the same blood, and none the better by race. Like Bacon, he reasoned on transcendental theories, to aid the cause of justice and refute the wild heresies of his day; but unlike Bacon, he carried a spotless record to the tomb. Like Fox, he was censured for his course by the same power that gave him elevation; but unlike Fox, Massachussetts bowed at his feet and begged pardon.

He was too great to be a politician, for he had no policy, he was as far above political wire-pulling and intrigue, as the heavens are above the earth. And yet he was the master politician of the age, because his policy was even handed right. Yes, square right between man and man, founded on the golden rule which was manufactured in heaven,

"Do unto to others, as ye would them do to you."

Nor would I have you to understand Mr. Sumner to be some later day, spawn or plastic fungus, who like a mushroom, sprang up, and under the afflatus of a constituency, adopted a popular course merely for the sake of office; to the contrary, I have the most masterly argument ever delivered in this country; made by him long before he ever thought of the Senate, which he made in favor of mixed schools. It was really he who opened the schools of Massachussetts to the indiscriminate use of the colored, and broke down the walls of distinction. At that time, too, lie was in the flush vigor of a young man, and no position assumed could have been more odious and unprospective. Thus showing, beyond doubt, that he never did calmer to public sentiment, if that sentiment was vitiated and contrary to the rule of right.

And while he was a friend of all men, a world-wide benefactor, a cosmopolitan in the fullest sense of the term, with inclinations and predilections as impartial as the sun-beams, which fall indiscriminately upon all races and climes. He would, nevertheless, seem to be the special friend of the colored race; yet, he was no more our friend than he would have been o£ the Jew, the Irishman, the German, the Italian, or the Frenchman, had they been in our condition. Jesus said when he was on earth, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." And again he said, the whole need not a physician but they that are sick. Mr. Sumner did not feel that white men needed his help like the poor negro whose mouths were locked and whose hands were tied, yet, his great abilities were not by any means restricted to our race, for when the nation stood in need of one to champion her cause, measure arms with the diplomats of the world, and vindicate her honor with foreign powers, to whom did she look but to Charles Sumner? the man who could read and translate the languages of all the civilized nations on the globe, the man who understood all the treaties, all the international laws and the man above all others in America, who was respected by the great men of every civilized nation in the world.

The truth is, Mr. Sumner hated slavery, because he thought it was wrong per se, and subversive of the end, for which his country had been released from British tyranny. White slavery or black slavery were equally obnoxious to him, and on the other hand he believed as both revelation and reason teaches, that the negro was the image of God set in ebony, and in a fair race would win distinction as well as other people. He did not believe in crippling a man and condemning him for being lame, therefore he said give the negro fair play and then if he fails condemn him, but not hamstring you and then ridicule your inactivity.

Such is an epitome of the creed of that great statesman, however, as he saw the colored race the most needy, he gave us the most assistance, for he was in deed and in truth our hero—our champion.

And while we can name a host of true friends—friends who have been tried and found steadfast and immovable, none more so than his colleague for many years, Vice-President Wilson, I do not know of any who could measure arms with Mr. Sumner. He began at home in Massachussetts, and although he found no actual slaves there when he mounted the arena of manhood; he found the cold hand of discrimination, and fought till he had driven it out.

When he went to Washington he found it the abode of slaves and the den of oppression; he mustered the armies of Jehovah and flayed the monster, for like Herecules he held the poison-fanged viper by the neck till the horrid reptile twitched in death.

He fired the hearts of the North on the one side, and of the South on the other, and opened a chasm which could never close till the negro passed through it on his way to Canaan. He,in conjunction with Thadeus Stevens, Horace Greely and others, held the rod over the great Lincoln, and whipped him step by step and from corner to corner during the late bloody war, till he issued his world-renowned proclamation of emancipation.

At the end of the war he with Chief Justice Chase and Thadeus Stevens at his side, led the crusade against the admission of the South to representation, till the negro had his oath in the court house, and was clothed with the ballot. These being obtained, he turned his attention to the district of Columbia, and crushed out all distinctions between races and colors so completely that any one visiting the national capitol to-day, would be astonished to learn that such a hydra-headed monster ever stalked at large in that beautiful city.

When President Johnson sent General Grant, who was no statesman or politician at the time, through the South on a tour of inspection, and he (General Grant) returned and reported things all quiet and peaceable between the whites and blacks, it was Mr. Sumner who rose up in the Senate and told the country that the report was white-washed, and so counterbalanced or counteracted the effects of the report as to turn the tide of popular sentiment in favor of those who stood in need of the protection of the general Government. But on no subject did Mr. Sumner display the majesty of a statesman, and dwell in such convincing power as he did on giving the negro the ballot. Here he showed the resources of his exhaustless intellect as no other statesman living did or could. He challenged the world—he met our foes from every clime and of every dialect, he rebutted their objections by quotations from the reformers of all nations, he made the moralists, the poets, the theologians, the jurists, the scientialists, and the axiomatics of every age and clime contribute to this object. He could spare blood to wash the Senate of the United States, and brain-force to deluge the world with ideas. True, he never led a party, but he led the nation—he was greater than a party, besides he lived too far in advance of his contemporaries to lead a party, however noble its aims and commendable its cause; but like a pilot boat he found the channel for the ship of State, and dragged her after him with a slow but a sure glide.

Mr. Sumner had no personal relations he could not sever when they stood in the way of duty, for he would fight his personal friends as hard when he thought them wrong as he would his bitterest foes. Nor did he couch before either power or popularity, he cared no more for a President than for a peasant, if he thought them wrong, duty first and friendship second was his motto. He pinched President Johnson so during his treacherous administration that on one occasion the President got tight, and named him personally in a drunken carousal from the steps of the White House. He even frightened President Grant so about San Domingo that he has been afraid to mention the name since.

Mr. Sumner was not only a man of the finest theories, but he gave practicalization to all his professions. He professed to be a humanitarian, and he carried it out to the very letter. While he lived in the most superb splendor, in a mansion in which there was nothing wanting in the range of human conception, yet that mansion was as free to the blackest negro as to an English lord.

While his high polish and great refinement made him an aristocrat in the eyes of the masses, yet he felt as much gratification in taking a black man by the arm and perambulating the streets, as he would to be in the train of royal pomp. A few years ago, when on a visit to Washington with Mr. Simms, from whom you will hear in a few moments, we had an occasion to visit one of the public buildings in company with Mr. Sumner; and to my astonishment the greatest statesman the sun ever shone upon, walked up between us and locked our arms, and proceeded through the streets and buildings as unconcernedly as if had been in company with his senatorial collegues; he thought no more of asking a black man to dine at his table, than he did of the whitest man on earth.

Mr. Sumner did not live for himself either, he lived to be a blessing to the poor and needy. The last time I saw his majestic brow and stately person was last spring in Washington, at which time I called upon him to pay my respects as I usually did; our conversation soon turned upon the tight, he waged against the President. I told him, that I like thousands of other colored men in the country; loved him, but could not endorse his rabid fight on the President, though I did not doubt, but the President had faults. Well, he said, "that was natural; but if my attack upon the President does no other good, it will drive him to stand by the colored people more firmly, to prove that my predictions were false. But said he, a great many of his pap-fed supporters think they have killed me off, but I am perfectly willing to go down, if the colored people can go up, for I am only living for them now; and I can only hope to see the labors of my life crowned with the passage of the civil rights' bill, then and not till then, can I feel that the cause for which so much blood have been shed is complete." (Great applause.)

How Christ-like these words, how full of righteousness Mr. Sumner felt years ago, that he was to be one of the chief instruments in the hands of God, of crowning this nation with the diadem of justice. In a conversation between him and myself and several others, who called upon him in 1863, he remarked, "that my blood kindled this fire, (meaning the war,) and when it needed recruiting, John Brown gave his to rekindle it, and it will be utterly impossible now to extinguish it with compromises." A great many northern papers at that time was advocating the policy of offering some overtures to the South, and ending further destruction of life on the battle field. But the last humanitarian act, for which the distinguished Senator labored with such indefatigable devotion, as to merit the praise, the love the honor and admiration of our race forever, was in trying to secure the passage of the Civil Rights' Bill, and thus abolish all distinctions between races, colors and nationalities, as well as to give to his country what few, if any, upon the face of the globe can claim, a code of cosmopolitan laws. In this the great senator rises to a grandeur that will enshrine his name in the affections of men of every clime. Generations now sleeping in the womb of the future, will come forth with richer words and swifter pens to fringe his name with glittering gems.