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Of his own letter, written in 1845, discountenancing any further agitation of the
Texas question, he said that its purpose was ‘to win back, if possible, a young friend [Sumner] from the gulf of Abolitionism into which he was plunging.’
Of
Sumner he said:—
I have regretted your course the last two years, but more in sorrow than in anger.
I have regretted to see talents so brilliant as yours, and from which I had hoped so much for our country, take a course in which I consider them worse than thrown away.
But I have been inclined to consider you as acting under impulses which are a part of your nature rather than from selfish calculation.
A correspondence with an old friend,
Samuel Lawrence, occurred later in the canvass, which was even more unpleasant than that with
Mr. Appleton.
1 Sumner, in the political speech which he made at different places in the canvass, had cited, in support of his view that the tariff was not at the time a practical issue, a published letter of
Mr. Lawrence, which assigned causes for the depression in manufacturing business independent of the tariff, and omitted all reference to the existing low duties as one of them.
2 Other speakers—
S. C. Phillips, for instance—made the same use of the letter.
Mr. Lawrence authorized the ‘
Atlas’ to state that
Sumner had perverted the language of the letter; whereupon
Sumner applied to him for an explanation.
Mr. Lawrence, in his reply, did not attempt to specify in what the perversion consisted, but proceeded to assail
Sumner for his speech at
Worcester, in which he had brought into conjunction ‘the lords of the lash and the lords of the loom,’ and for his antislavery course in general.
He wrote:
No man regrets the part you are acting more than I do. You have taken hold of this one idea of slavery, and are in a fair way of becoming severed from a very large circle of friends who give dignity and honor to our common country.
I could name scores and scores of men whom you have honored your whole life who regret and condemn the course you have taken.
Sumner replied at length after the election, stating in what particulars
Mr. Lawrence had done him injustice, and appealing to their ancient friendship.
The latter rejoined with much bitterness:—
