Charles Sumner to William Jay, March 18, 1850

In this moment of discomfiture I turn to you. I am sick at heart as I think of the treason of our public men. Freedom is forgotten in the miserable competition of party and in the schemes of an ignorant ambition. Webster has placed himself in the dark list of apostates. He reminds me very much of Strafford, or of the archangel ruined. In other moods, I might call him Judas Iscariot, or Benedict Arnold. John Quincy Adams, as he lay in his bed in Boston after he was struck with that paralysis which closed his days at Washington, expressed to me a longing to make one more speech in Congress in order to give his final opinions on slavery, and particularly (I now give his own words) “to expose the great fallacy of Mr. Daniel Webster, who is perpetually talking about the Constitution, while he is indifferent to freedom and those great interests which the Constitution was established to preserve.” Alas! that speech was never made. But the work ought to be done. Blow seems to follow blow. There was Clay's barbarous effort, then Winthrop's malignant attack,¹ and now comes Webster's elaborate treason. What shall we do? But I have unbounded faith in God and in the future. I know we shall succeed. But what shall we do?

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¹ Speech in the House, Feb. 21, 1850.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 213