Autograph letter signed by lawyer and abolitionist Charles Sumner (1811-1874), as Massachusetts state senator, to Jonathan Tarbell (1820-1880), future justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi. Senate Chamber [Washington, DC], 3 July 1868. 2 pages, 8vo, with a short poem written and signed by Sumner, Boston, Massachusetts, 17 December 1856.

Sumner writes Tarbell, a former Union officer, in answer to his request for a copy of a recent speech and expresses dismay at the current socio-political climate of Mississippi, where Tarbell had relocated after the Civil War: "I am very sorry to hear that there is such a reign of terror in Mississippi, but I am not surprised. I trust you may have succeeded in carrying the election in spite of this violent opposition."

The poem, written before the Civil War 1856, expresses his early fervor for the abolitionist cause: "Our cause is noble; nobler than that of our fathers, in as much as it is more exalted to struggle for the Freedom of others than for our own." The poem is signed and dated by notable figures including Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815-1882), politician and author of Two Yeas Before the Mast; Josiah Quincy, Jr. (1802-1856), Mayor of Boston; Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1858), Senator from Missouri; and Louis Agassiz (1807-1773), a Swiss-born American biologist who advocated for the liberation of enslaved individuals.

[Reconstruction, Thirteenth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, Fifteenth Amendment] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs]