rested on them.

In this connection it may be proper to state that, in the event of a
change in the War Department, the claims of General Wilson, to whose
services in the committee on military affairs the country is deeply
indebted, may be brought under consideration. In that case Massachusetts
would not, if it were in her power, discriminate between her senators.
Both have deserved well of her and of the country. In expressing thus
briefly my opinion, I do not forget that after all the choice and
responsibility rest with General Grant alone. There I am content to
leave them. I am very far from urging any sectional claim. Let the
country but have peace after its long discord, let its good faith and
financial credit be sustained, and all classes of its citizens everywhere
protected in person and estate, and it matters very little to me whether
Massachusetts is represented at the Executive Council board, or not.
Personally, Charles Sumner would gain nothing by a transfer from the
Senate Chamber to the State Department. He does not need a place in the
American cabinet any more than John Bright does in the British. The
highest ambition might well be satisfied with his present position, from
which, looking back upon an honorable record, he might be justified in
using Milton's language of lofty confidence in the reply to Salmasius: "I
am not one who has disgraced beauty of sentiment by deformity of conduct,
or the maxims of a freeman by the actions of a slave, but, by the grace
of God, I have kept my life unsullied."

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1872.

The following letter was written on receiving a request from a
committee of colored voters for advice as to their action at the
presidential election of 1872.

AMESBURY, 9th mo. 3d, 1872.

DEAR FRIENDS,--I have just received your letter of the 29th ult. asking
my opinion of your present duty as colored voters in the choice between
General Grant and Horace Greeley for the presidency. You state that you
have been confused by the contradictory advice given you by such friends
of your people as Charles Sumner on one hand, and William L. Garrison and
Wendell Phillips on the other; and you ask me, as one whom you are
pleased to think "free from all bias," to add my counsel to theirs.

I thank you for the very kind expression of your confidence and your
generous reference to my endeavors to serve the cause of freedom; b