Sunday, July 23, 2023

Charles Sumner to John Jay, May 13, 1850

I am sick at heart when I observe the apostasies to freedom. There is one thing needful in our public men—backbone.1 In this is comprised that moral firmness, without which they yield to the pressure of interests of party, of fashion, of public opinion. . . . In reading the life of Wilberforce, I was pleased to follow the references to your grandfather, who seems to have seen much of the great abolitionist.
_______________

1 Governor Briggs was without courage, and took no public position against Webster.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 214

No comments: