SENATE CHAMBER,
March 5, 1866.
DEAR SIR,--I have been honored by your communication of March 2d,
covering a resolution of the Board of Aldermen of the city of
Boston, expressing in most flattering terms the good feelings of
the Board toward me.
I have read with pride and gratification this emphatic token
of confidence and regard. Coming as it does from the highest
functionaries of the city where I was born, educated, and have
always had my home, it has a value of its own. It is precious as
the approbation of friends and neighbors.
While disclaiming all title to the praise so generously accorded
for the services I have been able to render in the discharge
of public duties, I have no hesitation in claiming for myself
such credit as may come from early, faithful, and persistent
devotion to the principles of Republican Government, and
especially to those ideas which from the beginning have been the
glory of Massachusetts. For these principles and these ideas
I have labored, and I shall continue to labor so long as life
lasts. If at any moment I could hesitate, your words would be
an encouragement to constancy. And permit me to add, the result
cannot be doubtful. Even through the present darkness it is
plainly visible.
* * * * *
Please tender to the Board of Aldermen my best thanks for the
honor they have done me, and believe me, Mr. Mayor, with much
respect,
Your faithful fellow-citizen,