WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 1850.
S. DOWNER, Esq.
MY DEAR SIR,—Is it true that you say, or that you have been
informed, that I have written any apologetic or any explanatory or deprecatory
letter to the editor of the "Boston Bee," which he is privately
showing?
It certainly shows native genius when men can build so large
a superstructure of falsehood on so small a foundation of truth. I will tell
you the whole story, so that you may see how big a bird can be hatched out of a
small egg.
Some time during the present session, I think, last winter,
one of the editors of the "Bee," Mr. R—— called on me here. I saw him
several times, and he appeared friendly, and our interviews were agreeable;
that is, to me. He asked some favor of me, which I gladly rendered. He then
expressed his thanks, quite as warmly as I could have desired; told me that his
paper had done me injustice formerly (during my controversy with the Boston
schoolmasters); said he resisted it at the time, but was overcome by his partners;
and then expressed to me, in strong terms, his regret for the injury that had
been done me. I gave him to understand, that, at the time, I had felt the
injustice, but that the occasion had passed away, and with it almost all
recollection of it; and that I should be none the less ready to do him a favor
when occasion should offer.
In July or August last, when the "Bee" published
that gross falsehood, that I (with others) had visited Mr. Fillmore, and had
interfered to persuade him not to appoint Mr. Webster as a member of his
Cabinet, the interviews which I had had with Mr. R———, his apology for the
wrong done me by the " Bee," &c., came to my mind. At that
period, the "Bee" had, for some time, been assailing me through what was
called a "Washington correspondent." Under these circumstances, I
thought I would write a letter to Mr. R———, remind him of our former
intercourse, and put him upon his bearings as a man of honor and truth. I did
not know his partners, and did not wish to write to them, or put myself in
their hands in any way. I thought, if I had not entirely mistaken the character
of Mr. R———, I would prevent further abuse and falsification by appealing to
him. I therefore wrote him the letter marked private, or confidential, in which
I referred to our former interview, reminded him of his apology, and
remonstrated with him for the course taken in charging me with what I had not
done. There was not a word in the letter which a gentleman might not write or
receive; nothing clandestine, nothing partisan; no threats for anger, no
intercessions for favor. Not knowing Mr. R's partners, and at the same time
knowing how such things get distorted and misrepresented and falsified when
they pass through a partisan medium, I wrote to him alone; and I can hardly conceive
that he should show the letter, even to his partners. Certainly, if I did not
entirely mistake his character as a man of honor, he cannot have been showing
that letter to the public or to individuals, or suggesting that there is one
idea in it unworthy of me, as a man of truth and sincerity, to feel or to
express.
I desire, therefore, that you would go to Mr. R, and, if the
letter is in being, ask him to show it to you (for which this is my
permission), and learn for yourself whether it contains any thing which I might
not write, or any thing which would authorize him to break the seal of silence
by showing it.
Yours very truly,
HORACE MANN.
SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann,
p. 327-8