Boston, June 27, 1862.
My Dear Mr. Sumner,
— The inclosed1 will explain itself. If you don't object, you may
think it worth sending to the “Evening Post,” with our names struck out! I do
not see how the Senate can sit with a member who acknowledges such operations,
unless a majority of the senators are rotten. Even then I should think the
honest ones could stuff it down their throats. If you don't do something, the
public verdict will be that you dare not denounce what has been a senatorial
custom. . . . Whoever it hits,
Republican, Hunker, or pro-slavery Democrat, the knife ought to be applied, and
all the sooner because the immediate sinner is a soidisant Republican.
_______________
1 A squib in the form of a supposed letter from a
business firm to Senator Sumner, referring to the acknowledged acceptance of a bribe
by a United States senator, and frankly proposing to bribe Mr. Sumner into
obtaining government contracts for them. — Ed.
SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and
Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 318-9
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