WASHINGTON, May 18, 1850.
My letter is approved or disapproved a thousand times more for its
bearing on party attachments than for its merits: so, though I do not accept as
just all the criticisms made upon it, or the condemnations bestowed upon it, neither
do I suffer myself to be elated by the extravagant praises which it receives in
certain quarters. I hope there is nothing in it that I shall be sorry for or
ashamed of hereafter that is the greatest thing, after all. It pleases all
people with whom antislavery is the first object. This is because antislavery
is my first object. As you shade off with less and less antislavery, or more
and more proslavery, and into attachment to party as a paramount motive of
action, it is liked less and less, or disliked more and more: so that it has a
perfect test. I suppose Mr. Webster is in a very anxious state of mind. He has
never known what it was to encounter general opposition before. I have most
urgent letters from the North that I shall answer his Newburyport letter.
SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 301
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