C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

[571] call, the document signed by him had been communicated to the Senate, and the conscience-struck Secretary did not know how I should take it. Mr. Patterson asked me what he should report. I replied, that should the Secretary come to my house he would be received as an old friend, and that at any time I should be at his service for consultation on public business, but that I could not conceal my deep sense of personal wrong received from him absolutely without reason or excuse. That this message was communicated by Mr. Patterson I cannot doubt, for the Secretary came to my house and there was a free conference. How frankly I spoke on public questions without one word on other things, the Secretary knows. He will remember if any inquiry, remark, or allusion escaped from me except in reference to public business. The interview was of business and nothing else.

On careful reflection, it seemed to me plain, that, while meeting the Secretary officially, it would not be consistent with self-respect for me to continue personal relations with one who had put his name to a document, which, after protracted fury toward another, contained a studied insult to me, where the fury is intensified rather than tempered by too obvious premeditation. Public business must not suffer; but, in such a case, personal relations naturally cease; and this rule I have followed since. Is there any Senator who would have done less? Are there not many who would have done more? I am at a loss to understand how the Secretary could expect anything beyond those official relations which I declared my readiness at all times to maintain, and which, even after his assault on me, he was willing to seek at my own house. To expect more shows on his part grievous insensibility to the thing he had done. Whatever one signs he makes his own, and the Secretary, when he signed this document, adopted a libel upon his friend, and when he communicated it to the Senate he published the libel. Nothing like it can be shown in the history of our Government. It stands alone. The Secretary is alone. Like Jean Paul in German literature, his just title will be ‘the only one.’ For years I have known Secretaries of State, and often differed from them, but never before did I receive from one anything but kindness. Never before did a Secretary of State sign a document libelling an associate in the public service, and publish it to the world. Never before did a Secretary of State so entirely set at defiance every sentiment of friendship. It is impossible to explain this strange aberration except from the disturbing influences of Santo Domingo. But whatever its origin, its true character is beyond question.