Volume 13 — THE CITY OF BOSTON AND MR. SUMNER.

Letter to the Mayor of Boston, in Acknowledgment of a Resolution of the Board of Aldermen, March 5, 1866.

March 2d, the Board of Aldermen of Boston adopted unanimously the following resolution, which was communicated to Mr. Sumner by the Mayor.

“Resolved, That we deem it fitting time to express our profound sense of the eminent loyalty, patriotism, and statesmanship of our distinguished Senator, Charles Sumner,—to acknowledge the measureless debt of gratitude which the Commonwealth and the nation owe him for his wise counsels and constant and efficient services in this great struggle to establish justice and to secure the prosperity of the Union,—and our indignant conviction of the utter falsehood of any accusation, no matter by whom made, which likens him, either in theory or practice, to the traitor chiefs of the Rebellion, or which charges him with any lack of devotion or loyalty to that great cause of Freedom and Nationality which he has watched with such untiring vigilance and served with such masterly ability.

“Resolved, That a copy of this resolution be forwarded by his Honor the Mayor to Mr. Sumner.”

This resolution was plainly aimed at President Johnson on account of his speech of February 22d.[220]

In reply Mr. Sumner wrote:—

Senate Chamber, March 5, 1866.

DEAR SIR,—I have been honored by your communication of March 2d, covering a resolution of the Board of Aldermen of the city of Boston, expressing in most flattering terms the good feelings of the Board toward me.

I have read with pride and gratification this emphatic token of confidence and regard. Coming as it does from the highest functionaries of the city where I was born, educated, and have always had my home, it has a value of its own. It is precious as the approbation of friends and neighbors.

While disclaiming all title to the praise so generously accorded for the services I have been able to render in the discharge of public duties, I have no hesitation in claiming for myself such credit as may come from early, faithful, and persistent devotion to the principles of Republican Government, and especially to those ideas which from the beginning have been the glory of Massachusetts. For these principles and these ideas I have labored, and I shall continue to labor so long as life lasts. If at any moment I could hesitate, your words would be an encouragement to constancy. And permit me to add, the result cannot be doubtful. Even through the present darkness it is plainly visible.

Please tender to the Board of Aldermen my best thanks for the honor they have done me, and believe me, Mr. Mayor, with much respect,

Your faithful fellow-citizen,

Charles Sumner.

Hon. F. W. Lincoln, Jr., Mayor, &c.