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the army only; your highest care should have been that its good name, its moral and Christian character, received no detriment. You might have said, in the spirit of virtuous Andrew Fletcher, that "you would lose your life to serve your country, but would not do a base thing to save it." You might have adopted the words of Sheridan, in the British Parliament, during our Revolution, that you "could not assent to a vote that seemed to imply a recognition or approbation of the war."1

Another apology is, that the majority of the Whig party joined with you,-or, as it has been expressed, that "Mr. Winthrop voted with all the rest of the weight of moral character in Congress, from the Free States, belonging to the Whig party, not included in the Massachusetts delegation"; and suggestions are made in disparagement of the fourteen who remained unshaken in loyalty to Truth and Peace. In the question of Right or Wrong, it is of little importance that a few fallible men, constituting what is called a majority, are all of one mind. Supple or insane majorities are found in every age to sanction injustice. It was a majority which passed the Stamp Act and Tea Tax,—which smiled upon the persecution of Galileo, which stood about the stake of Servetus, which administered the hemlock to Socrates, which called for the crucifixion of our. Lord. These majorities cannot make us hesitate to condemn such acts and their authors. Aloft on the throne of God, and not below in the footprints of a trampling multitude, are the sacred rules of Right, which no majorities can displace or overturn. And the question recurs, Was it right to declare unjust and cowardly war, with superadded falsehood, in the cause of Slavery?

1 Speech, Nov. 27, 1780: Hansard, Parl. Hist., XXI. 905.

Thus do I set forth the character of your act, and the apologies by which it is shielded. I hoped that you would see the wrong, and with true magnanimity repair it. I hoped that your friends would all join in assisting you to recover the attitude of uprightness which becomes a Representative from Boston. But I am disappointed.

I add, that your course in other respects has been in disagreeable harmony with the vote on the Mexican War Bill. I cannot forget for I sat by your side at the time -that on the Fourth of July, 1845, in Faneuil Hall, you extended the hand of fellowship to Texas, although this slaveholding community was not yet received among the States of the Union. I cannot forget the toast,1 on the same occasion, by which you were willing to connect your name with an epigram of dishonest patriotism. I cannot forget your apathy at a later day, when many of your constituents engaged in constitutional efforts to oppose the admission of Texas with a slaveholding constitution, so strangely inconsistent with your recent avowal of "uncompromising hostility to all measures for introducing new Slave States and new Slave Territories into our Union."2 Nor can I forget the ardor with which you devoted yourself to the less important question of the Tariff, indicating the relative value of the two in your mind. The vote on the Mexican War Bill seems to be the dark consummation of your course.

Pardon me, if I ask you, on resuming your seat in Congress, to testify at once, without hesitation or delay, against the further prosecution of this war. Forget

1 "Our country, - however bounded, still our country, to be defended by all our hands."

2 Speech at the Whig Convention in Faneuil Hall, Sept. 23, 1846.

for a while Sub-Treasury, Veto, even Tariff, and remember this wicked war. With the eloquence which you command so easily, and which is your pride, call for the instant cessation of hostilities. Let your cry be that of Falkland in the Civil Wars: "Peace! Peace!" Think not of what you call in your speeches "an honorable peace." There can be no peace with Mexico which will not be more honorable than this war. Every fresh victory is a fresh dishonor. "Unquestionably," you have strangely said, "we are not to forget that Mexico must be willing to negotiate."1 No! no! Mr. Winthrop! We are not to wait for Mexico. Her consent is not needed; nor is it to be asked, while our armies are defiling her soil by their aggressive footsteps. She is passive. We alone are active. Stop the war. Withdraw our forces. In the words of Colonel Washington, RETREAT! RETREAT! So doing, we shall cease from further wrong, and peace will ensue.

Let me ask you to remember in your public course the rules of Right which you obey in private life. The principles of morals are the same for nations as for individuals. Pardon me, if I suggest that you have not acted invariably according to this truth. You would not in your private capacity set your name to a falsehood; but you have done so as Representative in Congress. You would not in your private capacity countenance wrong, even in friend or child; but as Representative you have pledged yourself "not to withhold your vote from any reasonable supplies which may be called for "2 in the prosecution of a wicked war. Do by

1 Speech at the Whig Convention, Sept. 23, 1846.

2 Speech on the Tariff, June 25, 1846: Congressional Globe, Twenty-ninth Congress, First Session, p. 970.

your country as by friend or child. To neither of these would you furnish means of offence against a neighbor; do not furnish to your country any such means. Again, you would not hold slaves. I doubt not you would join with Mr. Palfrey in emancipating any who should become yours by inheritance or otherwise. But I do not hear of your effort or sympathy with those who seek to carry into our institutions that practical conscience which declares it to be as wrong in States as in individuals to sanction slavery.

Let me ask you still further- and you will know if there is reason for this request-to bear testimony against the Mexican War, and all supplies for its prosecution, regardless of the minority in which you are placed. Think, Sir, of the cause, and not of your associates. Forget for a while the tactics of party, and all its subtle combinations. Emancipate yourself from its close-woven web, spun as from a spider's belly, and move in the pathway of Right. Remember that you represent the conscience of Boston, the churches of the Puritans, the city of Channing.

Meanwhile a fresh election is at hand, and you are again a candidate for the suffrages of your fellow-citizens. I shall not anticipate their verdict. Your blameless private life and well-known attainments will receive the approbation of all; but more than one of your neighbors will be obliged to say,

"Cassio, I love thee,

But nevermore be officer of mine!"

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

CHARLES SUMNER.

OCTOBER 26, 1846.

REFUSAL TO BE A CANDIDATE FOR

CONGRESS.

NOTICE IN THE BOSTON PAPERS, OCTOBER 31, 1846.

AFTER the appearance of Mr. Sumner's letter to Mr. Winthrop, there was a disposition with certain persons feeling strongly on Slavery and the Mexican War to seek a candidate against the latter. Mr. Sumner again and again refused to accept a nomination. Besides his constant unwillingness to enter into public life, he would not consent that his criticism of Mr. Winthrop should be weakened by the imputation of an unworthy desire for his place. In his absence from Boston, lecturing before Lyceums in Maine, a meeting of citizens was convened at the Tremont Temple on the evening of October 29, 1846, to make what was called an "independent nomination for Congress." The meeting was called to order by Dr. S. G. Howe, and organized by the choice of the following officers: Hon. Charles F. Adams, President, J. P. Blanchard, Samuel May, George Merrill, Dr. Walter Channing, Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, and R. I. Attwill, Vice-Presidents, - Charles G. Davis and J. H. Frevert, Secretaries. A committee was appointed to draft resolutions and nominate a candidate. This committee, by its chairman, John A. Andrew, afterwards Governor of Massachusetts, reported an elaborate series of resolutions, setting forth reasons for a separate nomination, and concluding with a resolution in the following terms.

"Resolved, That we recommend to the citizens of this District as a candidate for Representative in the National Congress a man raised by his pure character above reproach, whose firmness, intelligence, distinguished ability, rational patriotism, manly independence, and glowing love of liberty and truth entitle him to the unbought confidence of his fellow-citizens, -CHARLES SUMNER, of Boston,-fitted to adorn any station, always found on the side of the Right, and especially worthy at the present crisis to represent the interests of the city and the cardinal principles of Truth, Justice, Liberty, and Peace, which have not yet died out from the hearts of her citizens."

Mr. Andrew followed the reading of the resolutions with a speech, in which he vindicated the position of Mr. Sumner as follows.

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