o law. For that only he desired to live. To his
colleague and faithful friend, Henry Wilson, who followed him so soon,
he said mournfully: "If the publication of my works were completed
and my Civil Rights Bill passed, no visitor could enter the door that
would be more welcome than Death." He was weary of life. He was
solitary, without kindred, without domestic ties. He had been
subjected at intervals for eighteen years to great suffering, which
with the anxieties of public life and the solitude which had become
burdensome wore away his energy. However much his wisdom may be
questioned by those who were not his political friends, whatever
criticism may be made of the zeal which not infrequently was assumed
to be ill-timed and mis-judged, Mr. Sumner must ever be regarded as a
scholar, an orator, a philanthropist, a philosopher, a statesman whose
splendid and unsullied fame will always form part of the true glory of
the Nation.

An incident related by Mr. Dawes in his eulogy of Mr. Sumner strikingly
illustrates the shortsightedness and miscalculation of the Southern
statesmen preceding the Rebellion. Mr. Sumner's first term in the
Senate began just as the last term of Colonel Benton closed. Soon
after his arrival in Washington the Massachusetts senator met the
illustrious Missourian. They became well acquainted and friendly. In
the ensuing year the two eminent men had a conversation on public
affairs. The Compromise of 1850 had been approved by both the great
parties in their National Conventions, and Franklin Pierce had just
been chosen President. The power of the South seemed fixed, its
control of public events irresistible. To the apprehension of the
political historian the Slave power had not been so strong since the
day of the Missouri Compromise, and its statesmen looked forward to
policies which would still further enhance its strength. Colonel
Benton said to Mr. Sumner: "You have come upon the stage too late,
sir. All our great men have passed away. Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay
and Mr. Webster are gone. Not only have the great men passed away,
but the great issues, too, raised from our form of government and of
deepest interest to its founders and their immediate descendants,
have been settled, sir. The last of these was the National Bank, and
that has been overthrown forever. Nothing is left you, sir, but puny
sectional questions and petty strifes about slavery and fugitive-slave
laws, involving n