Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 2

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Have I not answered your queries? I shall enlist you as a raw recruit in my army. I will inscribe your name when I visit you. I am here in durance professional, and cannot escape from Boston till after Commencement. I long for a breath of the mountains and a seat under your roof. When I can get away, and for how long, I know not. With my love to your wife,

Ever sincerely yours,

Charles Sumner.

To Henry K. Oliver, Adjutant-General, Boston.

Court Street, Aug. 20, 1845.

my dear Sir,—I should be very churlish not to be very sensible to your kind appreciation of the character of my remarks on the Fourth of July. Perhaps, if you were acquainted with all the circumstances leading to my appointment as orator,—my opinions on the topics naturally suggested by the day being known to several, if not all, of the Committee by whom I was appointed,—you might be induced to modify your judgment with regard to the propriety of the course I took. I have no ambition for public display. I have never sought any occasion for it. I wished most earnestly to decline the nomination as orator when it was communicated to me, and finally accepted it with great reluctance, and on the urgent solicitation of members of the City Government,—molliter manus imposuerunt.

For years I have entertained the convictions which I expressed on the National Anniversary. I consider that the age of physical force has passed, and that the weapons of revolution and of liberty are moral, not physical; that the happiness of nations would be best promoted by adopting those relations with each other that now prevail between individuals; that fortifications and armies and all military preparations show that nations still preserve the barbarous habits which we condemn in the dress, and armor, and castles of the Middle Ages; that war is an ordeal by battle, impious and monstrous as that of the Middle Ages. These convictions are bound up with my whole nature. All who know any thing of me know that I have entertained them for years. On important occasions, I have advanced them in Europe.

There is one common ground on which, I feel sure, we can meet,—the hatred of war and love of peace. On this common ground we may be fellow-laborers in one cause, which I am anxious to commend to our country,—the duty of taking immediate steps, by negotiation or otherwise, to induce the nations to adopt a system of Arbitration, or a Congress of Nations, and determine peacefully disputes between nations. I am anxious that our country, that the Whig party, should make this a part of its fundamental policy.

I remain, my dear sir, faithfully yours,

Charles Sumner.