Elias Nason, The Life and Times of Charles Sumner: His Boyhood, Education and Public Career.

[84] teach their children's children, to the latest generation, to call you blessed; while all shall award to you yet another title, which shall never be forgotten on earth or in heaven,--Defender of Humanity; by the side of which that earlier title shall fade into insignificance, as the constitution, which is the work of mortal hands, dwindles by the side of man, who is created in the image of God.

In a characteristic letter to Robert C. Winthrop, dated Oct. 25, 1846, Mr. Sumner sharply criticises that gentleman's course in respect to the Mexican War; charging him with want of sympathy “with those who seek to carry into our institutions that practical conscience which declares it to be equally wrong in individuals and in states to sanction slavery.” “Through you,” continues Mr. Sumner, “they [the Bostonians] have been made to declare an unjust and cowardly war with falsehood in the cause of slavery. Through you they have been made partakers in the blockade of Vera Cruz, in the seizure of California, in the capture of Santa Fe, in the bloodshed of Monterey. It were idle to suppose that the poor soldier or officer only, is stained by this guilt. It reaches far back, and incarnadines the halls of Congress; nay, more,--through you it reddens the hands of your constituents in Boston;” and he concludes the letter by the assertion that