I send some papers by this mail.
Columbus, June 20, 1859.
I mark last Saturday with a white stone, for it brought me,
dear Sumner, the most welcome intelligence of your almost assured recovery. God
grant that the happy auguries of the present may be fulfilled and that
completely. What a terrible experience has been yours! How fiery the ordeal you
have been summoned to pass! Let us be thankful that memory cannot renew the
suffering, and that the retrospect, while it makes one shudder, also brings a
sort of sense of present triumph. How strange it seems that the assassin was so
soon & so fearfully summoned to his account; and that he in whose behalf,
or rather in whose pretended behalf, the outrage was perpetrated, was compelled
so speedily to follow, while God in his wisdom, after allowing you to suffer so
fearfully, seems about to restore you to the theatre of your usefulness &
fame. Do not think however that I imagine your sense of triumph has in it any
touch of exultation over the melancholy fates of your assailant and his uncle.
I am sure it has not. I am sure that had it been in your power to reverse the
decrees of Heaven's Chancery against them your magnanimity would have prompted
the reversal. Your triumph is higher & purer: it is over suffering, over
wrong, over misrepresentation— and it is for the cause as well as for yourself.
We have, here in Ohio, engaged in a new battle. Our state
election takes place next October, and the tickets of both parties are
nominated and the platforms of both have been promulgated. Our Republican
Platform takes distinct ground for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act &
against the extention of the five years term of naturalization. The occasion of
the first was supplied by the recent trials at Cleveland — prosecutions against
some of our best citizens for the alleged rescue of a Fugitive Slave, and the
refusal of our own Supreme Court to set them free on Habeas Corpus, on the
ground that the act is unwarranted by the Constitution — the occasion of the
second was furnished by the two years amendment in Massachusetts which raised
such a clamor among the naturalized citizens, and gave rise to such a torrent
of accusations against the Republican Party that our Convention found itself
obliged to speak out plainly & decidedly. I am glad of it, though great
offence is given for the present to some whom I would gladly conciliate at any
expense short of the sacrifice of our principles.
Of course I am not a candidate for reelection as Governor.
It is generally supposed that if we carry the State Legislature — a result not
quite certain — that I shall be reelected to the Senate; and there is a very
general disposition in Ohio and several other States to press my nomination for
the Presidency as a Western man & on the whole the most available
candidate. Our friend Seward will also be urged strongly from New York, and I
presume that my friends, if they find that my nomination cannot be carried,
will generally go for him as a second choice. His friends will probably make
me, also, their second choice if he cannot be nominated. Of course I
cannot claim to be indifferent when a position which will afford so grand an
opportunity for renovation of admn [administration?] at home & of policy
abroad, is thus brought within the possibility of attainment, but I am certain
that I would not imperil the triumph of our cause for the sake of securing the
opportunity to myself rather than to another.
I presume you will see our friend Bailey. The prayers of
thousands follow him abroad. I earnestly pray that he may find the great
blessings of health & strength which he seeks. We are now — he & I — both
turned of fifty & no longer young. My general health yet remains apparently
unbroken but I feel & observe symptoms which admonish me that my hold on
life is not so strong as it was. Kate thinks she must send a few lines.
Good bye—May God bless you.
Affectionately,
[SALMON P. CHASE.]
SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual
Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol.
2, p. 280-1
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