[418] interested than in the other stock,—lingering long and asking many questions about them; for with these he was of course more familiar. That surprised me the more because at Dr. E . Warfield's, where we spent, a few hours, he seemed but little interested in race-horses, though many of them fine ones and of the Lexington strain. But I had taken him to my brother's purposely, where I could take the liberty of showing him how the slaves fared. Here the negro cabins were built of hewn logs and pointed with lime, generally one room below and one above, though some of them had made additions themselves in a rude way. Each cottage was fenced with posts and rails, a yard in front, and a stall garden in the rear. The winter wood was piled conveniently in Summer, and all things were very snug and comfortable,— at all of which Mr. Sumner seemed somewhat surprised. As he and I were alone, he asked freely many questions, which I frankly answered. He however made but little comment; but when a small boy ran ahead and opened the gates for us with a broad grin upon his face, Mr. Sumner remarked, “Poor boy!” and threw him a piece if silver coin; from which I inferred that his thoughts were, “What is all this physical comfort? The child and others are still slaves.” Mr. Sumner and I divided on the reconstruction measures, which were discussed as early as 1862-1863; but I cannot fail to do justice to a bold and philanthropic statestman, whom the followers on power failed to appreciate as he deserved.Sumner went by rail from Lexington to Frankfort and then to Louisville, where he renewed with Mr.Preston and Mrs. William Preston the pleasant relations he had begun with them in Washington. He was taken by Mr. Preston to drive on the Indiana as well as the Kentucky side of the Ohio River.1 He went from Louisville to the Mammoth Cave and to Nashville,—most, if not all, of the way by stage-coach. The hotel accommodations on this part of the route were very primitive. He was obliged to share his room with strangers, but he successfully resisted a landlord's pressure to put one into his bed. At Bowling Green he called on Judge Underwood, a public man of liberal views, with whom in the Senate he had maintained friendly intercourse. At Nashville he visited the home and grave of Andrew Jackson. From Mammoth Cave he wrote, June 18, to Albert G. Browne, Jr.,2 a youth studying in Berlin, son of an old friend:—
This text is part of:
1 Preston, who was then running for Congress against Humphrey Marshall, the Know Nothing candidate, stated to the writer that Sumner said during the drive that ‘the American people would never formulate such nonsense as Know Nothingism.’
2 1835-1891. Browne was a youth of fine promise. which was fulfilled by performance. He was private secretary of Governor Andrew during the Civil War, and aided greatly in the despatch of public business at that period. He became reporter of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, an was afterwards of the editorial corps of the New York Evening Post and New York Herald. He married Mattie Griffith of Kentucky,—a noble woman, who had emancipated her inherited slaves.
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.