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every page interested me as though it was all new. So lucid, so calm, so startling, so unquestionable, it must work mightily in this grand reformation.
I praise God for raising up such champions.
May you live many years to lift your voice for Peace!
Mrs. Lydia Maria Child wrote, March 3, 1846:—
How I did thank you for your noble and eloquent attack upon the absurd barbarism of war!
It was worth living for to have done that, if you never do any thing more.
But the soul that could do that will do more.
Rev. Theodore Parker wrote, Aug. 17, 1845, from
West Roxbury, his first letter to
Sumner,—the beginning of their friendship:—
I hope you will excuse one so nearly a stranger to you as myself for addressing you this note; but I cannot forbear writing.
I have just read your oration on “The true grandeur of nations,” for the second time, and write to express to you my sense of the great value of that work, and my gratitude to you for delivering it on such an occasion.
Boston is a queer little city; the Public is a desperate tyrant there, and it is seldom that one dares disobey the commands of public opinion.
I know the reproaches you have already received from your friends, who will now perhaps become your foes.
I have heard all sorts of ill motives attributed to you, and know that you must suffer attack from men of low morals, who can only swear by their party and live only in public opinion.
The Church and State are both ready to engage in war, however unjust, if a little territory can be added to the national domain thereby.
The great maxims of Christianity–the very words of Christ–are almost wholly forgotten.
Few dare move an inch in advance of public opinion.
I thank you with all my heart for so nobly exposing the evils of war, its worthlessness and its waste.
The noises made about you show plainly that you have hit the nail on the head.
I am glad the “Park1 of artillery” got let off against you. “Laudari a viro laudato” is thought of some value, and so it is no small praise to be censured by some men. I hope you will find a rich reward in the certainty that you have done a duty and a service to mankind.
I wish a cheap edition might be printed, for I want to scatter abroad fifty or one hundred copies.
Would it be possible to print a cheap edition like that of Mr. Mann's noble oration?
I beg you to excuse me for writing you this letter, and believe me, &c.
John A. Andrew, then a young lawyer of
Boston, afterwards
Governor of
Massachusetts during the
Civil War, wrote:–
You will allow me to say, I hope, that I have read the oration with a satisfaction only equalled by that with which I heard you on the 4th July.
And while I thank you a thousand times for the choice you made of a topic, as well as for the fidelity and brilliant ability which you brought to its
