Letter from Caleb Cushing to John Greenleaf Whittier, November 8, 1834

Letter from Caleb Cushing to John Greenleaf Whittier, November 8, 1834

Caleb Cushing responds to John Greenleaf Whittier's concern that he may have misrepresented Cushing's views on the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. (For more on Cushing see Caleb Cushing to Whittier, December 24, 1835.)

The date of the letter above is an estimate, based on the November 3, 1834 letter Whittier sent to Cushing, which can be found in The Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, edited by John B. Pickard (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1975) Vol. 1, 158-59. Parts of the letter, including Cushing's signature, have been cut out.

Caleb Cushing

November 8, 1834

[November 8, 1834]

Saturday Afternoon

Newbury Port, Massachusetts

 

My dear sir:

Your letter dated the 3^rd inst. and post-marked the 5^th, did not reach me until this afternoon, on my return from Salem, where I have been most of the week attending the Supreme Court. I write a line of reply, in great haste, for the possibility of some private conveyance to Haverhill.

I profess that I think the situation of the District of Columbia, in respect of slavery and the slave-traffic, is wholly indefensible; that I should heartily rejoice in any change for the better; and that I should of course, wherever I might be, favor any feasible project for attaining so desirable an end. In so representing my opinions, therefore, you have but done me justice. At the same time, I should be unwilling to enter Congress pledged to institute a Legislative measure, either upon this or any subject of national policy and legislation, unless it were a point directly and publicly put in issue by my constituents, in which case I should feel bound either to obey their instructions, or to yield my place to some other Representative.

I write you this frankly, because between you and me there should be no reservation of views on my part. But I have not time to weigh my language sufficiently for publication; and therefore commit these few lines uncopied to your friendly discretion. It has repeatedly occurred to me that a judicious & temperate correspondence between you and me upon all this class of topics, written for the press, might be made interesting and useful in so modifying the views of the respective friends of either side of the question, as to produce a reasonable degree of harmony upon it among all New Englanders. But this is a grave enterprise; and requires consideration; and it is not a thing to be thrust into the bowels of a contested election at the present moment.

As for the balloting of Monday, while I hope for the best, and am assured that good feelings obtain throughout the District, yet I am ready for any result, and cannot be disappointed.

 

Newbury Port  Saturday afternoon.