existing circumstances, not to have any elections held in the Southern States previous to the meeting of Congress. This is a point of great importance, and it would be well for our friends to make a united effort in that direction. The President must be talked to as much as possible; he must not be left in the hands of his old associations that are more and more gathering around him. . . .[1]
FROM CHARLES SUMNER
Boston, July 11, 1865.
Send your second [newspaper] letter to Geo. L. Stearns, Esq., Boston. He will give it a final direction, and will inform you.
I send a copy of the Advertiser, from which you will see the type of correspondence.
Be of good cheer. We shall win this battle easier than any of the others. No State will be allowed a Representative in Congress unless under government founded on the consent of the governed and Equality before the law. On this we are resolved. And the disorganized States may make up their minds to the consequence.
Let them begin at once with complete justice to the negro. Preach this doctrine—talk it wherever you go. You will be sustained.
Morally and intellectually the country is already with us. So are most of the politicians. The rest must follow; and the Administration will not be allowed to lag behind.
But you know all this, and, I am sure, will proclaim it.
TO CHARLES SUMNER
Savannah, Aug. 2, 1865.
Confidential.
The convictions with which I came here are becoming strengthened every day. The military rule cannot be
- ↑ Several sentences before and several after this paragraph are omitted because they refer to unimportant details of the Southern trip, about to begin.
