In those days the atmosphere of Boston was charged with enthusiasm for education and the humanities. Among young Sumner's friends were Prescott, who was writing the history of Spain and Mexico; Bancroft, who was outlining his history of the United States; Story, the jurist; Horace Mann, the educator; Dr. Howe, the father of the movement for the education of the deaf and dumb; Emerson, Longfellow, Channing and Whittier--all were not simply friends but correspondents of Charles Sumner.
Nor must we forget the Boston of earlier days, the Boston of Adams, and Otis, of Warren and Quincy. In such a city, surrounded by the noblest traditions of patriotism, stimulated by the greatest group of scholars that the Republic has produced, Charles Sumner passed his early manhood. Then, remembering that Edward Everett had fitted himself for his work in Harvard University by four years abroad, Sumner, in his twenty-seventh year, went to Europe. He spent five months in Germany, where the spirits of Goethe, Richter and Luther lingered upon the scene. In Paris he studied French, French art, French literature, French philosophy, and finally attended the debates in the French Parliament, examining the problems with all the care of a member. He lingered long in England, where he was welcomed and lionized by the foremost men of letters, science, philosophy, as well as by the leading clergymen and statesmen of London. He was an honoured guest not at some, but "at most of the country seats of England and Scotland." He travelled the circuits as the companion of the greatest English judges, Vaughan, Parke and Alderson. He met on a familiar footing Macaulay and Grote, Carlyle and Jeffrey, Sidney Smith and Wordsworth. But his great year was in Italy, in the Eternal City, the city of Cæsar and Cicero, the city of Horace and Virgil. In all, Sumner spent thirty years in preparation for his labour. Few men in American politics have had a wider horizon, a better equipment in history and literature, or have known so intimately all the great men in the world of his own generation who were worth knowing. He went away to Europe an American; he returned a universal man, a citizen of the world.
Not until 1845, when he was thirty-four years of age, did a really great opportunity come to Sumner. Boston at that far-off day made much of the Fourth of July, and looked forward to the holiday as the great event of the year. During the previous autumn the mayor and aldermen of the city invited Sumner to deliver the oration. Webster made John Adams say, "When we are in our graves, our children will celebrate the day with song and story, with oration and pageant, and the explosion of cannon, and greet it with tears of joy and exultation." But unfortunately the speeches of that time had degenerated into false rhetoric, full of insincerity. In his oration, Sumner left the beaten track and plunged into an unknown way. His theme was the crime of war. He attacked his city and his country for spending millions upon fortifications in the harbour. He affirmed that the best protection of a nation was not dead stones but living patriots and heroes. He called the roll of the great wars of history, and found only one or two, like our Revolution, that were really justifiable. He defined war as the temporary repeal of all the ten commandments, and an enthronement of all the crimes.