Charles Sumner to William Jay, February 19, 1850

I have just read your admirable letter on Clay's resolutions [of compromise].¹ You have done a good work. . . . There is a great advantage which our cause now possesses in the full reports of antislavery speeches in Congress, which are made by the Washington papers. At last we can reach the country, and the slaveholders themselves. The Senate chamber is a mighty pulpit from which the truth can be preached. I think that Mr. Hale and Mr. Chase should in the course of the session present a complete review of slavery, using freely all the materials afforded by the various writings on the subject. In this way, through the “Globe,” “Union,” and “Intelligencer,” a knowledge of our cause may be widely diffused. But we need more men there; we cannot expect everything from two only. We are about to be betrayed by our political leaders. Cannot the people be aroused to earnest, generous action for freedom? I remember with pleasure my visit to your country home, and hope not to be forgotten by your kind family, to whom I offer my best regards.

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² New York "Evening Post," Feb. 20, 1850

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 212

Charles Sumner to William Jay, March 18, 1850

In this moment of discomfiture I turn to you. I am sick at heart as I think of the treason of our public men. Freedom is forgotten in the miserable competition of party and in the schemes of an ignorant ambition. Webster has placed himself in the dark list of apostates. He reminds me very much of Strafford, or of the archangel ruined. In other moods, I might call him Judas Iscariot, or Benedict Arnold. John Quincy Adams, as he lay in his bed in Boston after he was struck with that paralysis which closed his days at Washington, expressed to me a longing to make one more speech in Congress in order to give his final opinions on slavery, and particularly (I now give his own words) “to expose the great fallacy of Mr. Daniel Webster, who is perpetually talking about the Constitution, while he is indifferent to freedom and those great interests which the Constitution was established to preserve.” Alas! that speech was never made. But the work ought to be done. Blow seems to follow blow. There was Clay's barbarous effort, then Winthrop's malignant attack,¹ and now comes Webster's elaborate treason. What shall we do? But I have unbounded faith in God and in the future. I know we shall succeed. But what shall we do?

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¹ Speech in the House, Feb. 21, 1850.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 213

Charles Sumner to William Jay, March 23, 1850

I thank you very much for writing that letter on Mr. Webster's speech. It will be read extensively, and will do great good. You expose his inconsistency and turpitude in a manner that must sink into the souls of all who read what you have written. It must sink into the soul of the great apostate. Horace Mann writes that all the Northern Whigs out of the three great cities are against the speech, and will speak against it.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 213

Charles Sumner to William Jay, April 9, 1850

Your letter to the “Advertiser” appeared in that paper last Saturday, the 6th.¹ The paper is sometimes known as “the respectable,” affecting as it does the respectability of Boston.

I am glad to perceive that there is a real hearty difference among the Whigs here with regard to Mr. Webster. The Governor and a large number of prominent gentlemen some of them in Boston, but more in the country—are earnest against his speech, and in private express their opinions.² That long list of names attached to the letter to Mr. Webster shows some remarkable absences, particularly noticeable by all familiar with Massachusetts politics. Our Supreme Court gave judgment yesterday the colored school case against my argument made last November. I lament this very much. Is everything going against us?

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¹ In reply to the Boston "Advertiser's" criticisms on Jay's previous paper on Webster.

² Governor Briggs was without courage, and took no public position against Webster.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 213-4

William Jay to Gerrit Smith, November 9, 1852

Bedford, November 9, 1852.

My Dear Sir — Rarely have I been so delightfully astonished as by the intelligence of your election. What a rebuke of the vile pledge given by the Baltimore convention to resist all anti-slavery discussions in Congress or out of it, wherever, whenever, however, and under whatever shape or color it may be attempted! What a scorn is it on the atrocious effort of Fillmore and his Cabinet to convict of the capital crime of levying war against the United States, a peaceful, conscientious man, merely because he refused to aid in the villainy of catching slaves, that you, an undoubted traitor according to Webster's exposition of the constitution, should be sent, not to the gallows, but to Congress!

How must our Cotton Parsons mourn over the irreligion of Madison and Oswego, represented in the councils of the nation by a man who openly avows a higher law than the constitution, and who preaches that obedience to an accursed Act of Congress is rebellion against God!

You and I, my dear sir, very honestly differ in opinion on some points, but we cordially agree as to the diabolism of American slavery and the fugitive slave act; and most sincerely do I rejoice in your election.

May the blessings of the Almighty rest upon you, and may He give you wisdom from on high, to direct you in the discharge of your new duties; and may he deliver you from that fear of man which is at once the snare and the curse of almost all our public men.

Your friend,

William Jay.

SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p. 214