Senator Salmon P. Chase to Charles Sumner, June 22, 1850

Northampton, June 22, 1850.

My Dear Sumner: I came here on Thursday evening, having left the Federal City the evening before at 5 P. M. I thought of notifying you of my coming but fearing my expectation might be disappointed and having the slenderest possible hope that you could meet here if I did, I omitted it.

This is a beautiful place and the Round Hill establishment is a delightful retreat for invalids. Mrs. Chase's health, however, I am grieved to say is not improved. She has been worse since she came than she was when she left Washington, though she is now mending again.

I was glad to hear from C. F. Adams that you intend having in Boston an earnest, efficient and well-established Democratic paper. I do hope you will. The cause of freedom in Massachusetts suffers greatly from the want of it, and the heart of the cause in this State is felt over the whole country. It seems to me that with a paper of the right stamp in Boston not only might Palfrey's re-election be secured but such a revolution wrought as would secure the election of the right sort of a Senator in place of Webster. How glad I should be to greet you as a Senator of Massachusetts!

I wish someone of your poets would give us a ballad of the Omnibus.¹ John Gilpin would serve as a model in part. Clay might be coachman, whip in hand — Webster on the box with him — Cass, footman or doortender; Bright, Whitcomb, Foote, Downs etc. etc. the team of twenty-four horses; — the passengers, California, New Mexico, Texas, Deseret. Could not a very effective piece be got up, on this idea by Hosea Bigelow, and well illustrated. Would it not have a run? I incline to wish so.

After the most careful scrutiny those of us who are opposed to the Omnibus Bill believe that it will be defeated by a majority of four votes at least. But those who favor it seem equally sanguine that it will pass by the same majority. Who is right will not be seen for several weeks, I fear — as the discussion moves on slowly.

I return to Washington on Monday, and hope to be in my seat on Tuesday morning.

Faithfully your friend,

[SALMON P. CHASE.]

Did you notice the strange blunder in Webster's Maine letter in regard to the geography of New Mexico? He says New Mexico extends from the mouth of the Rio Grande to El Paso and northwards etc. There is not a foot of New Mexico below the Paso; but there is an extensive district, 70,000 square miles as stated by Col. Preston now occupied by Mexicans, where no Texan ever was until this last winter. Strangely enough not one of Mr. Webster's authorities for desolation and barrenness cover this vast district at all. Maj. Gaines and the rest only traversed the State of Tamaulipas from the Nueces to the Rio Grande. How strangely Webster shifts and wavers and into what remarkable blunders he perpetually falls!

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¹ The "Omnibus" Bill, the name popularly given to Clay's proposed measures of Compromise in 1850.

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 213-4