The post of
assistant secretary of state was offered to my brother; but I
write, not for any public correction of your paper, but merely for your private
information. More than ten days ago Mr. Marcy communicated to me personally his
desire to have my brother in the place, his sense of his fitness beyond that of
any other person in the country, and also the extent to which he was
plagued by applications from persons who would make the office only a
clerkship. My brother was absent from Washington at the time. At the request of
Mr. Marcy I sent for him; and on his arrival, at Mr. Marcy's request, he
reported himself at the state department, was most cordially welcomed, was
assured that not only the secretary but the President desired him to be
assistant secretary, that his knowledge of European affairs was needed, that it
was the intention to raise the salary of the office and to make it a desirable
position. At three different stages of a protracted interview the matter was
thus pressed upon my brother. But in the course of the interview Mr. Marcy
expressed a desire for some confession on the subject of slavery by which my
brother should be distinguished from me, some acceptance of the Baltimore
platform, - all of which he peremptorily declined to do, in a manner that made
Mr. Marcy say to me afterwards that he had behaved in an honorable manner.'
After my brother had fully declared his determination, and his abnegation of
all desire for office, of which I do not speak in detail, the Secretary still
expressed a desire for his services. Subsequently my brother addressed him a
brief note absolutely declining, and in another note recommended the
appointment of Dudley Mann. This affair has got into the newspapers, but by no
suggestion of mine or of my brother.
SOURCE: Edward L.
Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, pp. 279-80
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