[125] them. My hope was to do something to lift the tone of our foreign relations. I beg you to believe me grateful for the kind and good help which you gave me. It looked as if Clay1 would be rejected. He pressed his case, and interested the President, till at last on Saturday Seward came to me with a most urgent message from the President to let him pass. Other members of the committee were spoken to also. So I was authorized to report him; but I have not yet done it.A special session of the Senate, lasting ten days, was held as soon as the Congress expired. Sumner now entered on his third term. One of the treaties ratified at this session was with Belgium for the capitalization of the Scheldt dues. The king communicated through the Belgian minister at Washington his thanks to Sumner for his efforts in securing its ratification. Sumner's public action concerning individuals was never affected by former personal controversies, and he kept his balance well where under the influence of his antislavery sentiments he might be expected to lose it. His character in this respect is illustrated by a case which occurred at this time. Col. T. G. Stevenson, of Boston, when serving in South Carolina early in 1863, expressed a passionate opinion against the policy of arming negroes, and his own unwillingness to serve with them; and upon the outburst becoming known he was put under arrest, Feb. 10, 1863, by General Hunter, who deemed the expressions disloyal.2 At the time of the arrest his nomination as brigadiergeneral was pending in the Senate. He was the son of J. Thomas Stevenson, a conservative of the most rigid type, who will be remembered as a leader of the ‘Cotton Whigs’ in 1845-1847, and a participant in the prison-discipline dispute of the same period, —always bitterly opposed to Sumner;3 and his kinsfolk, as well as himself, had joined in the social exclusion practised against Sumner at that time. One evening as the senator was returning from dinner to his apartment, he saw by the dim light of the street lamp some one standing at his door whom he recognized as Colonel Stevenson's father, with whom he had not passed a word for many years. Stevenson requested an interview, and Sumner invited him to his room. The father pleaded an hour or more
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1 Cassius M. Clay, nominated for the Russian mission.
2 Boston Journal, Feb. 28, March 17, 1863; Boston Commonwealth, March 27, 1863; New York Tribune, March 17; D. W. Bartlett in New York Independent, June 11.
3 Ante, vol. III. pp. 91, 92, 124.
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
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