Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 1

There is a name that was of great note between one and two hundred years ago, which does not seem to be remembered in this part of our country with sufficient respect. I mean the name of Calvert, Lord Baltimore, the founder of Maryland. He was a worthy son of Ireland, and an ornament of the age in which he lived. He was a Catholic and a statesman. As governor of Maryland, he received with open arms all who came to him suffering from the hand of religious intolerance. He studied the things that made for peace, and used his authority to inspire his followers with the love of it, always acting upon that maxim of political wisdom,— “By agreement a colony may rise to greatness; while by dissension an empire must come to nothing.” Sir, I offer a sentiment dear to my heart,—Respect to the name of Calvert.

He observed with scrupulous exactness the rules of good breeding, and taught them to his children. His thought on this subject was embodied in a sentiment which he gave, in August, 1827, at the customary public-school festival, in Faneuil Hall,— ‘Good learning and good manners; two good companions. Happy when they meet, they ought never to part.’

Sheriff Sumner was a scholarly man for his time. He read history like a student, using charts and writing out in memorandum-books tables of events in English and American history. He had a fancy for collating those which had occurred in different periods on the same day. He also noted down current events in war and diplomacy, and applied to them historical precedents. He transcribed choice extracts from English and Latin authors. His diligence in these respects was remarkable. His public addresses and newspaper articles, and also his letters to friends and his conversation—though in no respect brilliant or epigrammatic—were carefully worded, every sentence well weighed and spoken, or written out in his fair, clerkly hand. He took pains to lead his son Charles and his other children to the studies which he had himself pursued, teaching them, as their minds developed, to love history and all knowledge. Other homes enjoyed more of luxury; but his was enriched at least with the atmosphere of culture.

He was rigidly conscientious in his dealings with his fellowmen. His fidelity to trust, even in the smallest items, was never doubted. It was easy for him to procure, among his neighbors, the best sureties on his official bond, although his known integrity, rather than his acquired property, was the guarantee of