Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-10-30


Hon. Linus Child, president Of the Peoples
Contention, $c.
Sir:-Fresh from the convention at Wor-
cester, to which you had been sent by those
friendly to its action, you were found presid-
ing over convention whose real inspiring
motive and aim were to prevent the election
of the Hon. Charles Sumner to the senate of
the United States. OF the motive and opin-
ion of those whose opposition to him has been
as consistent as it has been bitter, | have
nothing to say; but, sir, did it not astonish
you, as well as those friends who have had
your confidence, to find yourself SO suddenly
presiding over and acting with a convention
bitterly opposed to Mr. Sumner politically,
and one of whose principal speakers, with
out interruption or reply from you, said =
81 tell you there are some practical things to
be accomplished. l tell you we have twelve
hundred and fifty thousand people in Massa-
chusetts who are more largely interested IN
manufactures, in commerce, in agriculture,
in fisheries, in every art that yields tribute to
civilized lite, than any other equal number & f
people on the face of the earth. And | tell
you, gentlemen, and every heart here re-
spends to it,-every heart out of this hall
would respond to it, if the lips would speak
the language of the heart,-I tell you, gem
in the house of representatives. and, above
and beyond all, in the senate chamber, who
will attend to those interests, and not be con-
tinually, as they have been, sir, attending to
mere will speculations and sentimental theo-
ries. (Applause.) Do not the people cry
out, ''For Gods sake, give us somebody who
believes there is something to be attended to
in the wants of a million and a quarter of
white men-women and children" (Great
applause.)
Judge Abbott, and the resolutions embody-
ing these remarks of his, merely echoed an
ignorant and malignant prejudice. You knew
the manufacturers. You knew the truth.
Can it be that the many persons to whom,
in Washington, during the last session of con-
gresS, and after your return home, you are
believed to have expressed your unexpected,
unsolicited, and most emphatic endorsement
of Mr.. Sumner as the hardest business worker
in the senate, to whose labors, more than
those of any other senator, the manufacturers
of New England were under the profoundest
obligations, have lost all memory; or has a
late political disappointment, of a personal ma
ture, made you forget, in foolish anger, your
own deliberate convictions
These expressions of admiration and appro-
baton of that senator, purporting to come
warm from your lips, have such a current cir
culatiOn among men of influence and integri-
ty, that, allow me to tell you, sir, you are
placed in position where you must publicly
deny them, and call for proof, or silently and
in disgrace, admit that, by an evolution con-
temptible whether in military or civil life,
you suddenly confront those whom you had
voluntarily and for an object promised, with
out promise in return, to aid.
Let me be a little more specific, that the
charges / make may be free from all am
biguity, both in the eye Of the public and of
yourself.
| Did you not, in Washington, during the
last session Of congress, say to one or more
republican members Of congress that Mr..
Sumner was the best senator Massachusetts
had had for many years-that he knew more
of what was going on in congress than any
other man in it-that he was the hardest
worker there-that his influence with the
president and the administration was most
potential-and that you should return to Bos-
ton and correct some of the wrong impress
sions of your friends there in relation to his
position and usefulness?
Did you not, in Washington, at nearly the
same time, and on several occasions, sub
stantially reiterate the above statements to
Mr.. Sumner himself in the presence of other
gentlemen, and say to him that if the tax on
cotton had passed the senate every cotton
manufacturer in Lawrence and Lowell would
have had to stop; that it was owing mainly
to his eXertions that it did not pass; that
the manufacturers of New England owed him
great debt of gratitude; that you should tell
them so when you reached home and disa-
buse their minds Of their surprising errors
regarding him as a man of business; that no
body could see him as you had done for six
in ba of no until ba
ing witness to his ability and assiduity on all
questions of public interest where Massachu-
sets was concerned; and that you were
friendly to him personally and politically, and
desired and should strive for his reelection?
Finally, sir, did you not make a direct APP
plication to Mr.. Sumner for his aid in procur-
ing your appointment as tax collector for the
third district? And now let me tell you that
neither the consistent friends nor the constant
enemies of Mr.. Sumner will allow you to es-
cape from the conspicuously dishonorable po-
sition where your own act has placed you by
distinguishing between Mr.. Sumner as a man
of business and Mr. Sumner as an opponent
of slavery. You know, as well as they do,
that his opinions on emancipation as a war
measure were just as pronounced when you
voluntarily and repeatedly promised to aid his
reelection as they were when he made the
speech Ill talleull nan, 10 WHICH your own
made futile allusOn!
If you choose to meet these questions,
which are put to you specifically, deliberately
and with offer of proof, by denial, you shall
have the proof. If you prefer the cowardy
wisdom OF silence, you will stand branded be-
fore the people of this commonwealth as a
friend without gratitude, politician without
principle-and as the man who, failing to OBJ
tain public office, almost instantly became
the opponent of the senator whose aid he had
sought in obtaining it, and whose own re-elec-
ton he had, without solicitation or promise,
volunteered energetcally to promote.
CONSISTENCY.