Whittier
is here on a short visit. I go to-night with Miss Bremer to hear Wendell
Phillips, and to-morrow evening dine out, or I should insist upon taking him
[Whittier] to you. He is staying at the Quincy Hotel, in Brattle Street.
I regret the
sentiments of John Van Buren about mobs, but rejoice that he is right on slavery.
I do not know that I should differ very much from him in saying that we have
more to fear from the corruption of wealth than from mobs. Edmund Dwight once
gave, within my knowledge, two thousand dollars to influence a single election.
Other men whom we know very well are reputed to have given much larger sums. It
is in this way, in part, that the natural antislavery sentiment of
Massachusetts has been kept down; it is money, money, money, that keeps Palfrey
from being elected. Knowing these things, it was natural that John Van Buren
should say that we had more to fear from wealth than from mobs. He is a
politician,—not a philanthropist or moralist, but a politician, like Clay,
Winthrop, Abbott Lawrence; and he has this advantage, that he has dedicated his
rare powers to the cause of human freedom. In this I would welcome any person
from any quarter.
