I thank you for your
watchful friendship. Had I imagined the impatience of friends, I would have
anticipated their most sanguine desires. But, with the absolute mens conscia recti,
knowing the completeness of my devotion to the cause, I have let time proceed
in the full conviction that at last I shall be understood. I fear nothing. I am
under no influences which can interfere with this great duty. From the time I
first came here I determined to speak on slavery some time at the end of June
or in July, and not before, unless pressed by some practical question. No such
question has occurred, and I have been left to my original purposes. My time
has now come. I wish I could speak this week; but I cannot. For some time I
have not been well; I have lost strength, and owing to this circumstance I have
not made the preparation necessary. I am now at work, and to this devote myself
whenever out of the Senate. Amidst these heats I am doing as well as I can.
Your appeal and the interest expressed by others in my speech fill me with a
painful conviction of my utter inability to do what is expected. But I shall
try to do my duty. As to the responsibilities of standing alone, and as to any
answers to me, to all these I am absolutely indifferent, — of this be assured.
But when I speak, I wish to speak completely.
SOURCE: Edward L.
Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 289
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