Monday, October 13, 2025

Senator Charles Sumner to John Bigelow, February 8, 1852

Pardon me if I say frankly you have done injustice to Story.1 I admire him as a jurist, but with a discrimination between his titles to regard for his judgments and his books. The former I have always thought unique in variety, learning, point, usefulness, and amount. I love his memory, but I cannot sympathize with much of his politics. Even you will find much to praise in the accumulated expression of his Northern sentiments against doughfaces and the aggressions of the slave-power. I have known many judges and jurists, but I have never known one so completely imbued with jurisprudence as Story.
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1 Mr. Bigelow had in a review of Judge Story's "Life and Letters," in the New York "Evening Post," Jan. 29 and Feb. 4, 1852, disparaged the judge's character as a jurist and author.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, pp. 278-9

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