s
from the outset a difficult one. His election had displaced a popular
idol. His views regarding the heated question of the time, the extension
of slavery to the territories, were far in advance of those held by the
majority of the senatorial body or by the community at large. His
uncompromising method of attack, his fiery utterances, contrasting
strangely with the unusual mildness of his disposition, exasperated the
defenders of slavery. These, perhaps, seeing that he was no fighting
man, may have supposed him deficient in personal courage. He, however,
knew very well the risks to which he exposed himself. His friends
advised him to carry arms, and my husband once told old Mrs. Sumner, his
mother, that Charles ought to be provided with a pistol. "Oh, doctor,"
said the old lady, "he would only shoot himself with it."

In the most trying days of the civil war, this same old lady came to Dr.
Howe's office, anxious to learn his opinion concerning the progress of
the contest. Dr. Howe in reply referred her to her own son for the
desired information, saying, "Dear Madam Sumner, Charles knows more
about public affairs than I do. Why don't you ask him about them?"

"Oh, doctor, if I ask Charles, he only says, 'Mother, don't trouble
yourself about such things.'"

I was in Washington with Dr. Howe early in the spring of 1856. I
remember being present in the senate chamber when a rather stormy debate
took place between Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, and Henry Wilson, of
Massachusetts. Charles Sumner looked up and, seeing me in the gallery,
greeted me with a smile of recognition. I shall never forget the beauty
of that smile. It seemed to me to illuminate the whole precinct with a
silvery radiance. There was in it all the innocence of his sweet and
noble nature.

I asked my husband to invite Sumner to dine with us at Willard's Hotel,
where we were staying. "No, no," he said, "Sumner would consider it
_infra dig._ to dine with us at the hotel." He did, however, call upon
us. In the course of conversation he said to me, "I shall soon deliver a
speech in the Senate which will occasion a good deal of excitement. It
will not surprise me if people leave their seats and show signs of
unusual disturbance."

The speech was delivered soon after this time. It was a direct and
forcible arraignment of the slave power, which was then endeavoring to
change the free Territory of Kansas into a slave State. The disturbance
which Mr. Sumner