rch, 1874, Charles Sumner was in the
Senate chamber for the last time. He took active part in the
proceedings of the day, debating at some length the bill proposing
an appropriation for the Centennial celebration at Philadelphia. On
Monday, the 9th, to which day the Senate adjourned, his absence was
noticed, but not commented on further than that one member remembered
Mr. Sumner's complaining of a sense of great fatigue after his speech
of Friday. The session of Monday lasted but a few minutes, as the
Senate adjourned from respect to the memory of Ex-President Fillmore,
who had died the day before at his home in Buffalo. On Tuesday there
were rumors withing the circle of Mr. Sumner's intimate friends that
he was ill, but no special anxiety was felt until near nightfall,
when it was known that he was suffering from a sudden and violent
attack of _angina pectoris_, and grave apprehensions were felt by his
physicians. By a coincidence which did not escape observation, it was
the anniversary of the day on which three years before he was removed
from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations. He died
in the afternoon of the next day, Wednesday, March 11 (1874). On
Thursday the funeral services were held in the Senate chamber, and were
marked with a manifestation of personal sorrow on the part of
multitudes of people, more profound than had attended the last rites
of any statesman of the generation,--Abraham Lincoln alone excepted.
Formal eulogies were pronounced upon his life and character on the 27th
of April, his colleague Mr. Boutwell presenting the appropriate
resolutions in the Senate, and his intimate friend of many years, E.
Rockwood Hoar, in the House. The eulogies in both branches were
numerous and touching. They were not confined to party, to section,
or to race.

Whoever was first in other fields of statesmanship, the pre-eminence
of Mr. Sumner on the slavery question must always be conceded.
Profoundly conversant with all subject of legislation, he yet devoted
himself absorbingly to the one issue which appealed to his judgment
and his conscience. He held the Republican party to a high
standard,--a standard which but for his courage and determination might
have been lowered at several crises in the history of the struggle for
Liberty. He did not live to see the accomplishment of all the measures
to which he had dedicated his powers. He died without seeing his Civil
Rights Bill enacted int