Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1872-08-08
William Lloyd Garrison
to Charles Sumner.
FAITHFUL REVIEW OF THE SEN
ATOR'S CAREER.
GREELEYISM EXPOSED.
The Bearings OF the Present
Campaign.
Boston. AUGUST 3, 1872.

BosToN, August 3, 1872.
Dear Mr.. Sumner Though | should
be strongly induced, by the friendship
subsisting between US, to avoid taking a
position aDtagonistical to your own, I'M
der ordinary circumstances, even if |
deemed il erroneous, yet all personal
considerations must be subOrdinated to
the public welfare when seriously imper-
lied. You do not believe in silence in a
crisis like the present, nor do l. In
your recent letter to certain colored cltl-
zens of Washington, you have spoken
plainly, vehemently, and with rhetorical
amplitication mot for the first time) in
utter condemnation of the President OF
the United States; and your advice to
the whole body of colored voters is,
that they concentrate their sutfrages
upon a rival candidate in the person of
Horace Greeley.
In reviewing your letter | propose to
speak with equal plainness, and as ear
nestly, to counsel my colOred country
men not to follow your lead in this mat
ter, but, as voters, to move unitedly for
the reelection Of President Grant, for
every consideration pertaining to their
safety and happiness, to the cause of
equal rights, and to the furtherance of
national peace and unity.
In apologizing for your delay in an
swering the letter of inquiry referred to-,
you state that you ''wished to be aided
by the information which time might
supply" The kind of information you
desired or expected to gain in the brief
space of seventeen days is left to conjec-
ture; but, in view of your long avowed
estrangement from the present Chief
Magistrate, it could not have been need
ed to intensity your hostility to his adj
ministration. Your reply is dated July
80, and it appears to have been as care
fully timed to influence the election in
North Carolina on the list of August, be-
fore anything could be done to neutral
ize its effect, as was your Grant indict-
ment speech in the Senate to determine
the action of the Philadelphia Conven-
ton. These condolences may have
been accidental, but you must not be
surprised if, owing to the well known
inflammable state of your mind, a gen.
eral belief obtains that you have unfairly
availed yourself of opportunities to work
fatal division in the Republican ranks.
1t affords you much qualification to be
singled out by your colored interrogators
as ''the special advocate of their rights. y
But this is an assumption which justice,
as well as becoming modesty, should
have led you to disclaim, even if it was
meant only to describe your Congress
sional career. Similar advocates have
from time to time stood bravely up,
both in the Senate and in the House of
Representatives Wilson, Hale, Wade,
Chase, Giddings, Mann, Lovejoy, Julian,
Palfrey, Thaddeus Stevens, Gerritt
Smith and others-who, if not as copi-
Gus and ornate in speech as yourself,
have been as unfinching, and in their
turn most bitterly denounced, to say
nothing of the thousands of anti-slavery
men and women whose lot it was to pass
through the heat and burden of the con-
fiict, pleading, in season and out of sea-
son, nearly a score OF years before your
voice was heard in support of their holy
cause. You have since rendered eminent
service to that cause your advocacy of
it has been great and meritorious; but
10 claim it as peculiar at this late day,
as though you stood alone and almost
single-handed, is a personal appropria-
ton very far removed from self-abnega-
ton, and quite unwarranted.
The Republican party (the product of
thirty years moral and religious agita-
ton for the overthrow of slavery has
crushed a vast sectional rebellion for the
erection of anindependent slave empire i;
has emancipated four millions of bond
men, and elevated them to the plane of
American citizenship; has reconstruct
ed the rebellious States on common
constitutional basis, with universal lib
erty; has brought order out OF chaos,
general tranquility out of widespread
disaffection, unexampled prosperity out
of frightful devastation and has adj
vanced the banner of liberty and equal