When, on an
occasion, he had made an elaborate speech, his father-in-law, Mr. Isaac
Livermore, said he was glad it was delivered, as Anson had trodden down
all the roses in the garden while reciting it to himself. His speeches
were committed, and delivered without notes.
Mr. Sumner was a conspicuous figure in the Convention of 1853, but his
influence upon its business was very limited. Indeed, he seemed not to
aspire to leadership. His faculties were not adapted to legislative
business. He was not only not practical, he was unpractical and
impracticable. Nor did experience in affairs give him an education in
that particular. Of his long career in the Senate only his speeches
remain. During the period of my acquaintance with him there, he
introduced a large number of bills, several of them upon matters of
finance, but none, as far as I can recall them, stood the test either
of logic or experience. From his seat in the Senate he was able to
affect and perhaps even to control the opinions of the country upon the
slavery question, and thus indirectly he helped to shape the policy of
the Republican Party. His knowledge of European diplomacy was far
greater than that of any other Senator and greater, probably than that
of any other American, excepting only Mr. Bancroft Davis. It was his
good fortune to live and act in a revolutionary period.
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