Yet even
among Senators there were degrees in dogmatism, from the frank
South Carolinian brutality, to that of Webster, Benton, Clay, or
Sumner himself, until in extreme cases, like Conkling, it became
Shakespearian and bouffe -- as Godkin used to call it -- like
Malvolio. Sumner had become dogmatic like the rest, but he had at
least the merit of qualities that warranted dogmatism. He justly
thought, as Webster had thought before him, that his great
services and sacrifices, his superiority in education, his
oratorical power, his political experience, his representative
character at the head of the whole New England contingent, and,
above all, his knowledge of the world, made him the most
important member of the Senate; and no Senator had ever saturated
himself more thoroughly with the spirit and temper of the body.
Although the Senate is much given to admiring in its members a
superiority less obvious or quite invisible to outsiders, one
Senator seldom proclaims his own inferiority to another, and
still more seldom likes to be told of it. Even the greatest
Senators seemed to inspire little personal affection in each
other, and betrayed none at all. Sumner had a number of rivals
who held his judgment in no high esteem, and one of these was
Senator Seward. The two men would have disliked each other by
instinct had they lived in different planets.
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