Saturday, August 8, 2015

John M. Forbes to Senator Charles Sumner, June 27, 1862

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.
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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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