[March 22, 1860]
DEAR SIR:
Please accept my thanks for the check, which came to hand yesterday, and also for the Globe. I will try to have your Speech published in our Republican papers.
It is the only one that hit the mark. Hale hit Fessenden, but overshot the question; all the rest are Republican and Democratic talk. In the meantime public opinion is slowly taking the right direction, one of the Judges of the S. J. C. declaring openly that the Senate is wrong, and another that the court would like to hear an argument on it, especially before any decision has been had elsewhere. They will be sure to have the opportunity.
GEORGE L. STEARNS.
SOURCE: Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 215
March 22, 1861
In Boston I was much interested in looking over Leigh Hunt's library which J. T. Fields bought and had for sale. It carried one nearer to a past era in English literature than anything else could do, to see his name and notes, all written in ink, in a delicate Italian hand and very abundant.
SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 102
In the letter from George Stearns to Senator Sumner in the reply above Stearns is referring to his Senate testimony about the Harper’s Ferry affair. Senator Fessenden of Maine must have been on the committee.I found a record of the testimony on this site =>
http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/stearnsmasontestimony.html