Mr. SUMNER. Mr. President, there is a truce in this Chamber. The antagonism of debate is hushed. The echoes of conflict have died away. The white flag is flying. From Opposite camps we come together to bury the dead. It is a Senator that we bury, not a soldier. This is the 2nd time during the present session that we have been calle to mourn a distinguished Senfrom Vermont. It was much to bear such a loss once. Its renewal now after so brief a period is a calamity without precedent in the history of the Senate. No State before has ever lost 2 Senators so near together. Mr. FO0TE at his death was the oldest Senator in continuous service. He entered the Senate in the same Congress with the Senfrom Ohio [Mr. Wave] and myself; but he was sworn in at the called session in March while the 2 others were not sworn in till the succeeding December. During this considerable space of time I have been the constant witness to his life and conversation. It is with a sentiment of gratitude that I look back upon our relations, never from the beginning impaired or darkened by any difference. For one brief moment he seemed disturbed by somethingthat fell from me in the unconscious intensity of my convictions, but it was for a brief moment only, and he took my hand with a genial grasp. make haste also to declare my sense of his wer sonal purity and his incorruptible nature. uch elements of character, exhibited and proved throughout a loh service, render him an example for all. e is gone, but these virtues “smell sweet and blossom in the dust.” He was excellent in judgment. He was excellent also in speech, so that whenever he spoke the wonder was that he who spoke so well should speak so rarely. He was full clear, direct, emphatic, and never was diverted from the thread of his argument. Had he been moved to mingle actively in debate, he must have exerted a commanding influence over opinion in the Senate and in the countr. How often we have watched him tranquil in is seat while others without his experience or weight occupied attention. The reticence which was a part of his nature formed a contrast to that prevailing effusion where sometimes the facility of speech is less remarkable than the inability to keep silent; and again, it formed a contrast to that controversial spirit which too often, like an unwelcome wind, puts out the lights while it fans a flame and yet in his treatment of questions he was never incbmplete or erfunctory. If he did not say with the orator and arliamen tarian of France, the famous founder of the Doctrinaire school of politics, M. Royer collard, that he had too much respect for his au dience ever to ask attention to anything which he had not 1st reduced to writing, it was evident that he never spoke in the Senate without careful preparation. You do not forget his commemoration of his late colleague, only a few short weeks ago, when he delivered a Funeral Oration notunworthy of the French school from which this form of eloquence is derived. Alas! as we listened to that most elaborate eulo, shaped by study and penetrated by feeling, how little did we think that it was so soon to be echOed back from his own tomb. It was not in our debates only that this self abnegation showed itself. He quietly with drew from places of importance on committees to which he was entitled, and which he would have filled with honor. More than once I have known him to insist that another should take the position assigned to himself. He was far from that nature which Lord Bacon exposes in pun gent humor, when he speaks of “ extreme self lovers, who would burn a house in order to roast their eggs.” and yet, it must not be disguised that he was happy in the office of Senator. It was to him as much as his “ dukedom” to Prospero. He felt its honors and confessed its duties. But he was content. He desired nothing more. Perhaps no person apreciated so thoroughl what it was to heart e commission of a State in this Chamber. Surely no person appreciated so thoroughly all the dignities which belong to the Senate. Of its ceremonial he was the admitted arbiter. There was no jealousy, envy or uncharita bleness in him. He enjoed what others did and praised generously. e knew that his own just position could not be disturbed by the success of another. Whatever another may be, whether more or less, a man must always he himself. A true man is a positive, and not a relative quantity. Properly inspired, he will know that in a just sense nobody can stand in the way of another and here let me add that, in proportion as this truth enters into prac tical life, we shall all become associates and coadjutors rather than rivals. How plain that, in the infinite diversity of character and talent, there is a place for eve one. This world is wide enough for all its inhabitants; this republic is grand enough for all its people. Let ever one serve in his place according to the facu ties that have been given to him. In the long warfare With sluver Mr. FOOT was from the beginning firmly an constantly on the side of Freedom. He was a inst the dead] compromises of 1850. He inked his shieliin the small but solid phalanx of the Senate whiclibgpofled the Nebraska Bill. He was faithful in the defense OfKansas menaced by slaver and when at last this barbarous rebel too up arms he accepted the issue and did all that he could for his country. But even the cause which for years he had so much at heart did not lead him into debate, except very rarely. His opinions appeared in votes rather than in speec es. But his sympathies were easily known. I do hot forget that when I 1st came into the Senate, and was not et personally familiar with him, I was assure by Mr. Gid dings, who knew him well, that he belonged to the small circle who would stand by Freedom, and the antislavery patriarch a ded pleas antly that Mr. Foor, on his earliest viit, to the HoRep after he became senator, drew attention by coming directly to his seat and sitting by his side in friendly conver sation. Mr. FO01? by the side of Joshua Mr. Giddin s, in those days when slavery still tyr annize, is a picture not to be forgotten. If our departed ffiend is not to be named among those who have borne the burden of this great controversy, he must not be forvotten among those whose sympathies with Liberty never failed. Would that he had done more. Let us be thankful that he did so much. There is a part on the stage known as the “walking gentleman, ” who has very little to say but who always appears well. Mr. Foor might seem, at times, to have adopted this part, ifwe were not constantly reminded ofhis watch fulness in everything concerning the course of business and the administration of Parliamen tary Law. Here he excelled and was the inaster of us all. The division of labor, which is the lesson of political economy, is also the lee son of public life. All cannot do all things. Some do one thing, others do another thing; each accordingto his gifts. This diversity produces harmony. The office of President protempore among us grows out of the anomalous relations of the VEEP to the Senate. There is no such officer in the other House, nor was therein the House of Commons until very recently, when we read of a “ Deputy Speaker, ” which is the term by which he is addressed when in the chair. No ordinary talent can guide and control a legislative assembl, especially if it be numerous orifitbe excite by party differences. A good presiding Officer is like Alexander mounting Bucephalus. The assembly knows its master “as a horse knows its rider.” This was preeminently the case of Mr. Foo r, who was often in the chair, and was fora consider able period our President protempore. Here he showed a special adaptation and power. He was in person “every inch” a President; so also was he in every sound of the voice. He carried into the chair the most marked individuality that has been seen there during this generation. He was unlike any other presiding officer. None buthimselfcould be his arallel. His presence was felt instantly. It fi led this Chamber from floor to gallery. It attached itself to everything that was done. Vigor and dispatch prevailed. Questions were stated so as to challenge attention. Impartial justice was manifest at once. Business in every form was handled with equal ease. Order was enforced with no timorous authority. If disturbance came from the gallery how promptly he launched his fulmination. If it came from the floor you have often seen him throw himself back, and then with voice of lordship, as if all the Senate was in him, insist that debate sh Juld be suspended until order was restored. “ The Senate must come to order.” he exclaimed; and meanwhile, like the god Thor, hebeat with his ivoy hammer in unison with his voice, until the reverberations rattled like thunder in the mountains. The late Duke do Morny, who was the accomplished President of the Legislative Assembly of France, in a sitting shortly before his death, after sounding his eriers bell, which is the substitute for the hammer among us, exclaimed from the chair, “I shall be obliged to mention by name the members whom I find conversing. I declare to you that I shall do so, and I shall have it put in the Moniteur. You are here to discuss and to listen, not to converse. I promiseyou that I will do what I say to the very 1st I catch talking.” Possibly our President might have found occasion for a similar speech, but his energy in the enforcement of order stopped short of this menace. Certainly he did everything consistent with the temperof the Senate, and he showed always what Sir William Scott, on one occasion in the House of Commons, placed among the essential qualities of a Speaker, when he said that “to a jealous affection for the trivileges of the House must be added an awful sense of its duties.” Accustomed as we have become to the rules which govern legislative proceedings, we are hardly aware of tieir importance in the devel opment of liberal institutions. They were unknown in antiquity, and they were unknown also on the European continent until latterly introduced from England, which was their original home. Tbev are among the precious contributions which England has made to modern civilization and yet they did not assume at once their present perfect form. Mr. Hallam tells us that even as late as Queen Elizabeth members called confusedl for the business they wished brought forwar. But now, at last, these rules have become a beautiful machine by which business is conducted, legislation is molded, and debate is secured in all possible freedom. From the presentation of a etition or the introduction of a bill all rocee s by fixed processes until without disorder the fins result is reached and a new law takes its place in the statute book. Hoes printing press, or Aldeus type setter is not more perfect in its operations. But the rules are more even than a beautiful machine; they are the very temple of constitutional liberty. In this temple our de parted friend served to the end with pious care. Iis associates, as they recall his stately form, silvered by time but beaming with goodness, will not cease to cherish the memory of this service. His image will rise before them as the faithful presiding officer by whom the dignity of the Senate was maintained its business was advanced, and Parliamentar Law was upheld. He had always looked with delight upon this Capitol one of the most remarkable edifices of the world beautiful in itself, but more beau tiful still as the emblem of that national unity which he loved so well. He enjoyed its enlargement and improvement. He watched with pride its marble columns as they moved into place, and its dome as it ase ended to the skies. ven the trials of the war did not make him forget it. His care secured those apreprintions by which the work was carrie to its close, and the statue of Liberty was installed on its sublime pedestal. It was natural that, in his last moments, as life was failing fast, he should long to rest. his eyes upon an object which was to him so dear. The early light of morning had come, and he was lifted in his bed that he might once more behold this Cap itol with mortal sight; but there was another capitol which already began to fill his vision, fairer than your marble columns, sublimer than your dome, where Liberty without an statue is lorified in that service which is perect Freedom.