“You are entirely right relative to the signers of the
Crittenden Petition. Boys, non-voters, foreigners, anybody,
were taken, who could write a name. The city police
canvassed all the out-of-the-way places, and took the names
they could gather.… Glad that you spoke as you did. We
look to you to give the key-note. None knows Massachusetts
better than you, and none will be more faithful to her,
come weal or woe.”
Dr. William J. Dale, afterwards the Surgeon-General of
Massachusetts, wrote from Boston:--
“The other day a neighbor of ours, Mr. Brown, an
intelligent citizen, a provision dealer, corner of Derne
and Temple Streets, stopped me and said, ‘If you ever write
Mr. Sumner, tell him that I, with many others, signed that
Crittenden Petition under an entire misapprehension.’ Says
he, ‘I would cut off my right hand before it should sign
so infamous a proposition.’ That is the feeling among the
middling-interest people. The so-called Union men assume
the air and manner of slave-overseers. They have overdone
the thing here.”
J. Vincent Browne, afterwards Collector of Internal Revenue in
the Essex District of Massachusetts, wrote from Salem:--
“At least twenty persons who signed the paper in this city
have said to me, ‘Why, Mr. Crittenden’s propositions are
merely to restore the Missouri Compromise. I was told so,
when I signed.’ When the _truth_ was told them, as usual,
they were _astonished_. And so men trifle with their
rights, and are trifled with.”
John Tappan, a venerable citizen, loving peace, but hating
Slavery, and anxious that Massachusetts should be right, wrote
from Boston:--
“I thank you for it, and believe it speaks the sentiments
of a vast majority of _all parties_ in this and the other
New England States. The only reason assigned by some of the
signers is, that it was not expected that it would pass as
offered, but lead to some compromise.
“Be assured the heart of the Commonwealth is with you,
and that, if ever we were called upon for firmness in
maintaining our Constitutional rights, it is now; and
although I pray God no blood may be shed in the conflict,
yet submission to the demands of Slavery is not to be the
alternative.
“I rejoice the conflict has come in my day, although, on
the verge of four-score, I may not live to see harmony
restored.”[140]
Rev. John Weiss, the eloquent preacher and author, wrote from
Milton, Massachusetts:--
“Your little speech lies in the hand like an ingot,--dense
and precious, and of the color which charms my eyes at
least. Nothing can be truer than your statement, that
multitudes of people do not know what they sign, when they
indorse the Crittenden propositions. I, for one, had not
read them till quite lately. They have not been freely
ventilated in the newspapers. When, the other day, the
Boston papers undertook to print them formally, people were
shocked.… The 4th March will come with a fatal suddenness
for all the plotters and expecters and adjustment-mongers.
Just at the proper moment, not a moment too soon nor too
late, you spoke a word which will help to clear the air.”
Others wrote correcting the statement with regard to signatures
in different towns. Some in a few words exposed the petition.
Professor Convers Francis wrote from Cambridge: “The big
Boston petition, so far as I can learn, is regarded here as a
piece of gammon, except, perhaps, in certain quarters of the
business world.” Rev. R. S. Storrs, the venerable divine, wrote
from Braintree: “A great hoax, that famous petition for the
Crittenden Compromise!” This testimony, which might be extended
indefinitely, will relieve Massachusetts from a painful
complicity, and help keep her history bright.
The resolutions of the Boston Common Council did not fare
better than the petition. Among newspapers, the _Boston
Advertiser_ remarked:--
“It is hardly necessary for us to say that we do not
concur in all respects in the policy which Mr. Sumner is
understood to follow at this crisis; but in the matter of
this petition we certainly hold that he was plainly right.
And we are led to this belief by observing the industrious
efforts made by those who urged the signing of the petition
to conceal the true meaning of the scheme which is known as
Mr. Crittenden’s.… It appears to us also that Mr. Sumner
gave not only the most friendly, but also a most natural,
account of the manner in which a large number of these
petitioners must have been led to this singular mistake.”
The _New York Tribune_ stated the case.
“A great many dull people, and a few clever ones,
lately signed a petition asking Congress to adopt the
Crittenden Compromise. When this document was taken up in
the Senate, Mr. Sumner said, with much calmness and in
the most courteous spirit, that he believed the signers
had so high a regard for the name of Crittenden that they
had put their signatures to a paper which they could not
have fully understood in all its obligations, bearings,
and propositions. This was a very gentle letting-down
of the Bostonians, much more tender treatment than they
deserved. Nevertheless, the remark raised a breeze in the
respectable city, such as only a small thing can create in
that place. It would never do to say that any Boston man
or boy could sign a paper the whole of which he had not
read and digested. So the Common Council, of all bodies in
that town, took up the matter, and actually passed a vote
of censure on Senator Sumner for mildly hinting that the
signers aforesaid were rather hasty than wicked, stupid, or
weak.”
A sonnet by David A. Wasson, which appeared at this time,
expresses gratitude to Mr. Sumner, with small sympathy for
compromise in any form.
“TO CHARLES SUMNER.
“Thou and the stars, our Sumner, still shine on!
No dark will dim, no spending waste thy ray;
And we as soon could doubt the Milky Way,
Whether enduring were its silver zone,
As question of thy truth. Their light is gone
Whose beam was borrowed: ever will Accident,
Upon a day, the garment it hath lent
Strip off,--make beggars of its kings anon.
Thou and the stars eternal, inly fed
From God’s own bosom with celestial light,
Must needs emit the glory in ye bred;
Alike it is your nature to be bright:
And I, while thou art shining overhead,
Know God is with us in the gloomy night.”