Record Data
Transcription
Massachusetts Legislature.
LETTER FROM THE HON. CHAS. SUMNER, ACCEPTING THE U.S. SENATORSHIP.
BOSTON, Friday, Jan. 23.
In the House of Representatives this forenoon, a communication was read from HON. CHARLES SUMNER, accepting the office of United States Senator, to which he was recently elected. He does not indicate in the letter when he shall proceed to occupy his seat.
Mr. SUMNER, in accepting his election, says:
The duties of a public servant are not always conspicuous. Much of his time is absorbed in cases which, if not obscure, are little calculated to attract public attention. Massachusetts justly enjoins that no such interest shall be neglected, but by solemn resolutions of her Legislature, by the votes of her people, and by the voice of her history, Massachusetts especially enjoins upon her representatives to see that at all hazards, and whatever else may suffer, Freedom shall prevail. Let me not neglect this injunction. Alike by sympathy with the slave, and by a determination to free ourselves from the wretched thralldom, we are also summoned to the effort now organized for the emancipation of the National Government from the degrading influence. Hostile to civilization wherever it shows itself, even at a distance, it is brutal and mean, and constitutes an unnatural tyranny, calculated to arouse the generous indignation of good men. Of course, no person who is not ready to say in his heart that there is no God, can doubt the result, but this result, like every great good, can be accomplished only by well-directed effort. I know something of the labor and trial which such service imposes; I also know something of the satisfaction which it affords,--giving to all who truly espouse it a serener joy than anything in office or honor. In the weary prostration of months, from which I have so happily risen, my sharpest pang came out of my enforced separation from the cause which was so dear to me; and now my chief joy is the assurance that to this service I may dedicate the vigorous health which, through medical care and the kindly ministrations of nature, I am permitted to expect.