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.
_______________
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
