I have never, my
dear friend, ceased one moment to trust you. Passing over the whole State this
winter, lecturing sometimes four nights in the week, I have been asked scores
of times by Free Soilers as well as our folks, “Do you put entire trust in C.
S.?” Theodore Parker tells me he has met the same questioning many times. My
answer has always been the expression, the frank, cordial expression, of most
entire confidence in you. I have then dwelt on the expediency of getting
acquainted with your audience before speaking; obtaining a point d'appui by
showing a knowledge of, and interest in, other questions, etc., — adding that I
knew you were acting in concert with, and by advice of, all the prominent
friends of antislavery in Washington. This I learned from your letters, but did
not say so, as they were marked “confidential,” and I did not wish to
compromise you. Last week there was a resolution offered at the Dedham
meeting declaring your course inexplicable. I opposed it; went over your whole
reform life. “A man of more rightful expectations than any of his age in New
England spoke what peace address July 4. Perhaps he did not know then all he
was sacrificing; the proof of his true devotion was, that, finding the
sacrifice possibly greater than he anticipated, he stood by his position, — never
retreated an inch; on the contrary, advanced to the prison discipline struggle,
and to a more prominent and radical position on antislavery, etc. Such a man
has earned the right to be trusted, even while we do not understand his whole
ground or all his reasons. Some men the more radical among his party, I think —
expect more from him than he has ever promised; but I believe Charles Sumner
will fulfil every promise he has ever made, every expectation he has ever given
any one ground for entertaining. I think his course at Washington impolitic and
wrong;1 but that matters not. He has used, I doubt not, his best
discretion, and the best advice at hand. He has his way of doing things; he did
not suit us wholly while here; it's no surprise to me that his course should
not wholly suit us now. I shall trust him at least till the end of the session,
and listen then to his explanations.” If you shall always have ten such friends
as I have been, your political life will be a happy one, and your fame (were it
Sodom) as a fulfiller of all your pledges will be saved."2
_______________
1 Sumner felt hurt at this phrase in the
speech; but Phillips claimed that being addressed to dissatisfied persons it
was in the connection judicious, and not open to objection as unfriendly.
2 Theodore Parker, though deeply regretting
that Sumner delayed his speech so long, nevertheless expressed publicly no
distrust of him, and made an apology for his silence at a meeting, July 5,
[1852] in Abington. His very cordial and frank letters to Sumner himself rather
imply a fear that his fibre was not quite so strong as it should be, and needed
to be stiffened.
SOURCE: Edward L.
Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 285-6
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