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Republicans assumed a bolder front.
They had carried the
House, and were shortly to have twenty senators.
The South was astounded at
Fremont's enormous vote, and in Congress its representatives were less insolent and aggressive.
The hope of making
Kansas a slave State had gone, and gradually those who had sought the
Territory for that purpose slunk away.
At last there was a ‘North,’ and the end of Southern domination and Northern submission was not far off.
Sumner wrote to
E. L. Pierce, November 15, from
Longfellow's:
I am obliged by your Kind sympathy.
I am still an invalid, but during the last three or four days am conscious of improvement, so that I seem to be getting into a condition when I May do something, though I have a painful sense of a want of that final strength essential to intellectual effort.
my physician will not say when I shall be well.
But for the coming session of Congress, I should go at once to Europe, and look at pictures, monuments, and the Alps, and thus pass unconsciously into, health and ancient vigor.
But I cannot renounce the idea of being in my seat, if not at the beginning, at least very soon.
Our cause looks grandly; the future, at least, is ours.
Tell our friends to be of good cheer, and keep in line for action.
Our front must not be broken.
It is Bunker Hill that has been fought over again.
To
William P. Fessenden, December 11—
In my bed I have read your speech, and its many interjections and your felicitous responses, and have been happy that you are there, so ready and able.
I wish that I were with you. You are the best debater on the floor of the Senate, and you must make them all confess it. We shall be proud of you.
To
Whittier, December 20:—
Your letter charmed and soothed me. Every day I thought of it, and chided myself for letting it go unanswered.
Then came your beautiful poem of Peace,1 depicting a true conquest, which made my pulse beat quick and my eyes moisten with tears.
Truly do I thank you for that generous sympathy which you give to me and also to mankind.
At last we may see the beginning of the end of our great struggle.
The North seems to have assumed an attitude which it cannot abandon.
Meanwhile our duty is clear, to scatter everywhere the seeds of truth.
Never was the poet needed more than now; and the orator, too, for the audiences are now larger and more attentive than ever.
No opportunity should be lost for pressing upon the public mind the best and strongest statements of our cause, and the most earnest exhortations to support it.
My chief sorrow for seven months of seclusion has been that I have been shut out from the field of action.
I am sad now that I am discouraged by my physician from making any present effort.
I am permitted to take my
