Now if Sheridan, as most men would have done, had waited for orders from me, Lee would have got off." I listened with wonder at the generous modesty which, before that brilliant company, could remove one of the brightest laurels from his…

I have always lamented, in common with all the friends and lovers of both these great men, that they should have so misunderstood each other; yet it was not unnatural.

Yet never were two honest, fearless, patriotic, and brave men more unlike each other.

The training, the mental characteristics, the field of service, the capacities, the virtues, the foibles of each tended to make him underestimate and misunderstand the other.

It sometimes seemed as if Sumner thought the Rebellion itself was put down by speeches in the Senate, and that the war was an unfortunate and most annoying, though trifling disturbance, as if a fire- engine had passed by.

Sumner did injustice to Grant; Grant did injustice to Sumner.

The judgment of each was warped and clouded, until each looked with a blood-shotten eye at the conduct of the other.

When I took my seat on the 4th of March, 1869, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had a position of power in both Houses of Congress never held by any other State before or since, unless we except that held for a short time in early days by…

Charles Sumner was beyond all question the foremost figure on the National stage, save Grant alone.

But he was its dominant member and in a later Congress introduced the Bill for Reforming the Currency, a wise and salutary measure.

He subjected every measure to the inexorable test of the moral law.

Where duty seemed to him to utter its high commands he could see no obstacle in hostile majorities, and no restraint in the limitations of a written Constitution.

We should be deaf and blind to all the lessons of history, if we were to declare it to be safe that men trusted with Executive or even with Legislative power should act on that principle.

Unfortunately, humanity is so constituted that the benevolent despot is likely to work more mischief even than a malevolent despot.

His example of absolute disregard of constitutional restraints will be followed by men of very different motives.

Yet the influence of one such man pressing and urging his companions forward in a Legislative body like the Senate of the United States, keeping ever before the people the highest ideals, inspired by the love of liberty, and ever speaking…

He caused sound principles of action to take effect in the Government of the State in great emergencies.

He accomplished wise public ends by wise means.

He believed that the conscience of the people was a better guide than individual ambitions.

He did the thing that most needed to be done, the thing most effective at the time, the thing that no other man did or could do.

He contributed largely to the Government of his country, in the most trying period of our history, its motive and its direction.

It will go down to immortality with its foot upon the dragon of Slavery, and with the sword of the spirit in its hand, but with a tender light in its eye, and a human love in its smile.

But they were always subordinate in him to the love of liberty and the love of country.

He espoused the unpopular side when he started in life, and he stuck to it through all its unpopularity.

He has fallen at the very gate of an honorable and eminent career, and a thousand hopes are buried in his grave.