Friday, September 15, 2023

Senator Daniel Webster to Professor Stuart, Monday Morning, June 3, 1850

Washington, Monday morning, June 3, 1850, six o'clock.

MY DEAR SIR,—The "book," has arrived in parcels, the last coming to hand yesterday. Your kindness to me is so overwhelming, that I dare not trust myself to speak of its merits; nor have I been able to keep it in my hands long enough to read the whole of it. Your old pupil, Mr. Edward Curtis, now here, seized it as soon as the second part arrived, read it all, and speaks of it with unqualified approbation, indeed, with admiration. From his hands Mr. Ashmun got it last evening, and has it now. I shall have it again, I suppose, in an hour or two. I remember, my dear Sir, that as I stepped into the carriage to leave you, at your own door, you said, putting your hands together, and looking up to the sun, "I see the scriptural argument like a path of light." This path, you have shown to others. The attitude of slavery, in the Old Testament, is the part I have read, and it appears to me absolutely conclusive. How much error have you dissipated; how much shallow reasoning exposed!

Of the book itself, I shall write you again in a few days; but now, to matters of business.

D. WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 370-1

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