[
590]
in the Senate by
Dr. George B. Loring, the president,
H. S. Washburn, and
Gen. N. P. Banks.
As its passage was assured from the outset, it encountered only a feeble resistance and created little excitement.
1 Gov. W. B. Washburn, who was heartily in sympathy with it, deputed
J. B. Smith, a member of the committee which reported it, and
Sumner's colored friend, to take it in person to
Washington.
Mr. Smith delivered the copies on March 6.
The next day
General Butler presented one in the
House; but
Mr. Boutwell being ill, its presentation in the Senate was delayed till the 10th.
Less than two years thus intervened between the swift censure and the sober recantation, making a passage of history which will remain a perpetual lesson for commonwealths and statesmen.
The revocation of the censure contributed largely to the senator's cheerful mood of mind during the last month of his life.
2 he received many letters and calls of congratulation.
Whittier wrote, February 17:—
The record of the Bay State is now clear.
The folly of the extra session of 1872 is wiped out thoroughly.
I am especially pleased, as like Senator Benton on a former occasion, “solitary and alone I set the ball in notion.”
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote after the senator's death:
How glad I am that the injustice was repaired in Mr. Sumner's lifetime!
The offence he gave was only a consistent carrying out of his peace principles and of the policy of amnesty and forgiveness now becoming general, but which in the first heat of wrath New England could not accept.
In a few years everybody will feel how grand and noble was the spirit of the very thing, especially from one whom the South had so deeply injured.
It was the forgiveness of the martyr and Christian.
Henry L. Pierce, recently mayor of
Boston, took his seat as a member of the
House at the beginning of the session in December, 1873.
He was a Free Soiler of 1848, and had been
Sumner's earnest supporter during his service in the Senate.
The senator welcomed to the capital one in whose friendship and discretion he confided absolutely, and had him frequently to dine
en famille. Early in February
Mr. Pierce gave a dinner at
Wormley's to the
Massachusetts delegation, at which
Sumner was present.
