The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-09-24
THE CHANGE IN NEW ENGLAND
LIFE

Mr. Peirce's life Of Sumner describes
a social situation ia Boston in 1s45, when
Mr. Simmer was but 90 years Of age, that
has utterly disappeared not only from
Boston, but from al the great cities OF the
North and West. In those days. when
Boston had bat 5000 inhabitants, man
was subject 10 social ostracism II his
political opinions were at variance
with those Of Boston's best society.
Sumner. like Wendell Phillips. came
OF patrician Puritan stock: be was
a graduate Of Harvard: his father
vas an officer of the continental
army: a man OF wealth and civic dignity.
Sumner was the pet pupil Of Judge Story
at the Harvard Law school: he was hns
scholar: handsome man; OF pure life
and refined manners, and until he became
an anti-sIavsry orator he was welcome
visitor in the houses of Boston's best so
eiety. then led by the Ticknors, the Apple
tons. the Lawrenees. the otises. the Hill
iards. II was a community Of able. up
right Boston merchants who believed in
God and believed that Daniel Webster was
His prophet. OF this peculiar Boston.
which has gone never TO return, Mr..
PIERCE says:
"They reyerenced Alexander Hamilton,
hated jefferson. distrusted the Adamses.
were more or less in sympathy with the
Hartford conventions; aud as soon as
Daniel Webster showed his power and dis
position to serve them they rallied around
him as the conservative leader. and fol-
-. r. LII 10 "A xsf ~ - rae
Their typical man was Harrison Gray OTIS,
a silyer-tongued orator, who bore name
honored in the colony. and who was
popular favorite. elected often 10 state ana
national office, beginning life as Federal
ist and ending IL with a protest against the
anti-siavery cause: he sighed In his old
sge for a more aristocratic polity than ours
and liked thirty years as the limit OF our
republican system. Inere was
but one society at that period to which
admission was sought. and everyone In It
knew everyone else who was in II 1t was
close and hard, consolidated, with uni
form stamp on all, and opinion running in
groovesin politics Wing. in faith uni-
tartan aud Episcopslian.
Sumner was the child of this patrician
class as much as Phillips. Boston re-
jected Phillips as ''black drop" it could
not swallow as early as 1887, but Sumner.
q man of less genius. held on to Boston's
good society until the Mexican war of
ls46-4s, when his anti-slavery opinions
brought him into collision with Robert G.
Winthrop and Daniel Webster, and then
Summers social fate was sealed. Every
rich Boston Wing slammed his doors in
Summers face. and George Ticknor wrote
letter to George s. Hilliard defending
this social ostracism of men who were of
''unsound political faith.
How strange this sounds today when
all over the country, at the North at
least, political differences do not disturb
social relations. The Boston of those
days was repellant city. Its best So
ciety was narrow, formal. self-conscious,
pedantie, marked by that absurd kind of
gravity which stupid men of long purses
affect to divert attention from the short
ness OF their heads. 1t was a society
utterly ''despotic over individual thought,
insisting on uniformities Of belief in mat
tiers which were related to its interests,
and frowning at novelties which styuck at
had branded Wendell Phillips as a fanatic
in 1855; sent Emerson into social exile as
early rs 1888, and his great disciple, Par
ker. in is43, and Sumner had to 60 into
social Siberia the moment he dared to
differ politically with Daniel Webster and
Robert c. Winthrop.
1t 10 a curious fact that Mr.. Sumner
was general social favorite up to ISIS.
when he attended his first political meet
ing. The man was nearly IS years OF age
before he had any aggressive anti-slavery
convictions, but the moment he showed
his hand the best society of Boston "were
not at home" when he called. Richard
III. Dana, scion of an old patrician Boston
family, was treated with the same rude
ness. and when he a ,ked an explanation
was bluntiy told that his family, his char
acter and bis social breeding were excel
lent, but that his political opinions were
80 detestable. so vulgar as to warrant his
exclusion from good society.
Charles Francis Adams and Rufus
ChoAte. when they met socially, glared at
each other. like two ugly dogs. for Choate
was never tired of speaking of John Quincy
Adams rs 1.-The last Adams" The power
OF this social tyranny, which sought to
balidoze a man In both religion and pol
itics, may be gathered from the fact that
j; was able to send a man like Sumner into
social exile in Boston forty-hvs years
ago. when men like Longfellow, Agassiz.
Prescott. Prof. Fulton, of Harvard; DR..
Howe and even Edward Everett treated
him with entire friendlness.
50 stern was the social ossrseism OF Ro,-
ton thst Summer lost the friendship of his
law palmer HuIiard OF Ticknor aud Al
pleton. The ostracisfn that fell on Wen
dell Phillips In is3j felt upon Sumner in
isl1, and he wss So Slmrle-hearsed that he
could not understand Il. FOR he at one
tins asked friend what coaid he ;he
matter with mutual acquaintance who
had refused 60 recognize him that dav.
His friend replied: My dear fellow, dom,
you know that - has not spoken to you
Tor ycaTg"
The fact that Boston's best society he.
tween iSS5 and Isis sen, the most il,us,ri-
Gus citizens of Boston IN social exile. in
shape of Emerson, Parker, Phillips aud
Summer. - not 20 the credit OF Boston. but
Boston then was she hos-sed OF New Eng.
laad Toryism; for Webster Wing sas
nothing better than transplanted English
Tory,
4 good deal 81 satire has hecn lavished