Thursday, January 25, 2024

Congressman Horace Mann to Samuel Downer, August 11 & 12, 1850

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 1850.
S. DOWNER, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR,—Nothing is more agreeable to me than your letters. I feel, on seeing them, that the whole world has not abandoned me, which many other things that I see would almost make me believe.

In yours of the 8th inst., you suggest that I should present myself before the public again, and, as I understand you, without delay. But, in the first place, have I any chance to be heard in such a storm? I fear not. . . .

And again the new leaves of the history of the country are turning over so fast, that comments upon the text on one leaf are almost superseded by what the next suggests. It is impossible to say what is to be the result of the session which must now be drawing to a close. Suppose, which is not impossible, that California should not be admitted: in that fact, there would be thunder enough to frighten Jupiter. Suppose, if California should be admitted, Territorial Governments should be formed without the proviso that single fact would put more weapons of war into one's hands than Vulcan could forge in a twelvemonth. When the session closes, however, things will have, at least for a time, more of a fixed character.

Aug. 12. Since writing the above, I have seen the "Dedham Gazette" of Saturday, which has a very strong article against Webster and his body-guard, and therefore indirectly in my favor. There is one peculiarity about that editor's articles on this subject. He never approves my course or defends me, unless when, by so doing, he can put the Whigs in the wrong. Such defence is almost as bad as a direct condemnation; for when any Whig finds his own party placed in the wrong, and me in the right, for no other reason than because I differ from them, it prejudices him against me more than any thing else could. It turns out, therefore, that my standing on independent ground, and not pledged to any party, leaves me without any support whatever arising from partisan feeling, and exposed to all the violence of opposition which can arise from that source. This is the political misfortune of my position; but conscience got me into the scrape, and conscience must sustain me through it.

The “Norfolk-County Journal" of Saturday contains a very pointed article on me. It says nothing about the future; but I should not be surprised if it meant as much as the "Courier" has expressed. . . . But this thing occupies my thoughts too much, and I am afraid it does yours. . . .

Very truly, as ever, yours,
H. MANN.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 313-4

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