Boston, Feb'y 6th, 1851.
My Dear Mann:
— The telegraph will tell you the result of to-morrow's fight before this
reaches you.
Adams, and the shrewdest men I meet, say it is impossible to
foretell what will be the result. The knowing Whigs say they will be beaten;
whether they say so to gammon us, I know not. For myself I have little
hope. It looks to me as if the Democrats meant to let Sumner get within one or
two votes, and yet not get in; it is however a dangerous game.
This I know, things look better than they ever have
before. The Coalition has certainly gained three votes, the Whigs have
certainly lost two; and unless some of the Democrats who voted for Sumner
before bolt the track, he goes in. I fear they will.
There has certainly been much hard work done, and much
drilling and coaxing resorted to to bring the waverers into line. I have done
what I could in conscience, — but oh! Mann! it goes against the grain. I have a
right to boost Sumner all I can, and I will do so, but not as a Coalitionist,
not by working with pro-slavery men. Think of Free-soilers voting to put
Rantoul into the Senate; he is no more a Free-soil man than R. C. Winthrop, not
a whit! the Free-soilers should have declined all State offices, and claimed
the long and short term.
However, let that go.
Mr. W— is a very pig-headed, impracticable man, all the more
so because he means to be liberal and thinks he is so. Others have yielded to
the great outside pressure upon them.
We have one more card, and that we must play if Sumner fails
to-morrow: we must bring pressure enough to bear on Wilson and every
Free-soiler in office, to make them go to Boutwell and tell him to put Sumner
straight through, or they will all throw up office, leave the responsibility
with the Democrats, and go before the people and make war with them. Boutwell
is a timid, cunning, time-serving trimmer. He can elect Sumner if
bullied into it: he has only to send for half a dozen men to his closet and
tell them that Sumner must and shall be elected, and he will be. He won't do it
unless he is forced to do so, and Wilson will not force him unless he is forced
by outside pressure. We can manufacture that pressure, and by the Jingoes we'll
squeeze him tight but he shall do it.
You complain of the paper; bless you, Mann, you do not know
under what difficulties we have laboured: I say we have done well to start a
new daily paper at four days' notice, commence it without an editor, and carry
it on thus far as well as it has been carried on. A daily paper is no joke —
you know well enough. . . .
I have been hoping for something from you that we could
publish — but in vain. I am going to Albany as soon as this fight is over to
address the Legislature on the subject of idiocy.
Our friends are in high spirits here — I am not, but am
Ever yours,
S. G. Howe.
I have used your letter, but it has not been out of
my hands.
SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and
Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 337-9
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