Charles Sumner Author:Moorfield Storey Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI FIRST YEARS IN THE SENATE The anti-slavery cause had two unfaltering supporters in the Senate before Sumner entered it, John P. Hale of New Hamp... more »shire and Salmon P. Chase of Ohio. Hale had great ability and courage, firm principles, and a caustic wit which made him a power in debate, but as compared with Sumner he was critical, not aggressive. The character of Chase is well known. He had far more skill as a politician than Sumner, and, though he was an earnest and uncompromising Free-Soiler, the contest was to him more like a game. William H. Seward was still identified with the Whigs, though his speeches showed a clear grasp of the situation and did much to create and develop anti-slavery feeling. Sumner brought into the Senate a new force. In the language of Von Hoist, " The rigid fidelity to principle and the fiery-spirited moral earnestness of abolitionism, united to the will and capacity to pursue political ends with the given political means, received in him their first representative in the Senate." He was no politician in the ordinary sense. He saw clearly what was right, and he devoted his life with absolute singleness of purposeand unwavering courage to the pursuit of the ends which his conscience approved. To intense conviction he added a certain lightness of heart, a serene confidence of ultimate success. It was not so much that he weighed and disregarded the obstacles and the personal consequences which daunted other men, as that they did not present themselves to him. His gaze was fixed on a distant goal, and he did not stoop to look at what lay in the path. When Congress met in December, 1851, more than a year had elapsed since the passage of the compromise measures, and meanwhile the Administration and the leaders of both parties — Clay and Webst...« less