Samuel Gridley Howe to Senator Charles Sumner, December 26, 1851

Boston, Dec. 26, 1851.

Dear Sumner: — . . . I told you I should give you my views touching that part of your beautiful speech from which I dissent entirely.

You are quite right in saying Kossuth is demanding more than is reasonable, if by reasonable you mean practical and feasible. If however you plant yourself upon the ground of human brotherhood, and demand of your brother man, or brother nation, all that the sacred tie of brotherhood warrants, and suppose others will do their duty — then you have a right to demand nearly, if not all, that he does.

I am not at all moved by what you (and still more others) say about a war costing us five hundred millions — of course we must first settle if it be right, and then meet the cost as we best may.

Depend upon it, Sumner, God has not yet finished his work with his instrument of combativeness and destructiveness; and though wars are as bad as you have ever depicted them; though the ordeal, the fight, is absurd and all that, still, — still, — when the lower propensities are so active in the race they must occasionally be knocked down with clubbed muskets.

It is not at all probable, still it is possible that, taking advantage of reaction, and of Louis Napoleon's treason,¹ and of the intense desire of the bourgeois class all over Europe for peaceful pursuit of business, let who may govern, and despairing of anything better, the Russians and the Prussians and the Austrians may combine to establish despotism and avert all progress in western Europe; and it is possible that England may be forced to engage single-handed with them: if so shall we be neutral? Shall we merely send a “God speed!” — and not back it up by hearty blows at the enemies of the race?

I say no! a thousand times no! and be it five hundred or five thousand millions that it will cost, let us go into the fight.

Kossuth is doing a great and glorious work; and though like all enthusiasts he overdoes his task, — and attempts more than it is possible to perform — still he will do much for us. God keep him and give him a chance to work for five years more, when he will have a chance to try a struggle with Russia.

What does George² write you? I take it Louis Nap. will have it all his own way for some time to come; not long as Nature views things, but long for us impatient mortals.

Ever thine,

s. G. H.

_______________

¹ The Coup d’Etat.

² George Sumner.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 353-5