Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 3

[238] ‘degradation,’ ‘dishonorable,’ ‘disgraceful,’ ‘scandalous.’ Having exhausted epithets before the election, after it they resorted to absurdities. In a legislative address, drawn by B. R. Curtis and issued at the close of the session, they denounced the coalition as an ‘indictable offence,’ ‘a factious conspiracy,’ ‘criminal not only in morals, but in the law of the land.’¹ The election of John Quincy Adams as President by Clay's help,² the election of a Whig governor and of an anti-Texas Democratic senator in New Hampshire, and the recent election of Geyer as senator in Missouri by a Whig and Calhoun—Democratic coalition, were quite forgotten. The Whig journals assured Sumner of a cool reception in the Senate, which he would enter, if he entered it at all, without authority, and with the ignominy of the coalition branded upon him.³ Their chief effort was to keep firm in their position the Democratic dissenters, whose prejudices and fears were diligently plied with the reminder that they would by voting for Sumner exclude themselves from the national organization. The ‘Courier,’ exulting in his expected defeat, headed one of its leaders with ‘The Impossible Senator.’ The two Democratic journals of Boston, the ‘Post’ and the ‘Times,’ sustained ‘the indomitables,’ as they were now called, and challenged Sumner as an agitator, a promoter of strife, and an instigator of sectional animosity. The editor of the latter journal called on him, inviting him to modify his opinions as expressed in his speech just before the State election. He refused promptly to retract or qualify; and being asked how he would like to have it reprinted in the ‘Times,’ replied at once that nothing would give him more pleasure.⁴ The next day it appeared in full, with an appeal to members of the Legislature to vote against its author. The ‘Post,’ as well as the Whig journals, printed extracts from it in capitals, maintaining that they were treasonable, and that their author was a disunionist. Cushing, the leader of ‘the indomitables,’ called Sumner in debate ‘a one— ’