Sunday, July 23, 2023

Charles Sumner to William Jay, September 5, 1850

I take advantage of the leisure of this retreat [Newport, R. I.] to acknowledge the kindness of your note of sympathy.1 I should have done it earlier. Be assured that it was most acceptable as a present consolation and as a token of your friendship. There would be a hardness of heart which I will not charge upon our opponents if they were otherwise than touched by a domestic bereavement befalling us But they forbear to testify the sympathy which at other times would have been profusely offered. There are not a few now who avert their faces from me. You were right, therefore, in supposing that your words would come with a welcome increased by the coldness of others. I owe you thanks also for your letter in reply to Moses Stuart. It was a complete refutation of the reverend defender of Mr. Webster's new faith.

All the dogs of the pack are now let loose upon Mr. Mann. His thorough exposure of Mr. Webster has maddened the “retainers,” and they are diverting attention from the substance of his criticisms by comments on the manner, and some of our weak brethren have been carried away by this cry. If he has erred in tone, he caught the infection from Webster himself, who dealt at him some bitter personalities. You saw doubtless that I was a candidate at our last election. With infinite reluctance I consented; for I dislike to see my name connected with any office, even as a candidate; but I hoped to serve our cause by taking that position in the forlorn hope. A leading and popular Whig said to me on the morning of the election: “I must go and vote against you, though I will say I should rather at this moment see you in Congress than any person in Boston; but I stick to my party.” There is the secret, party, party, party! Would that this could be broken down!
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1 On Horace Sumner's death. Ante, vol. i. pp. 33. 34.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 217-8

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