Boston Decr 15, 1847

Dear Bradburn,

     I rec’d yours of the 6^th inst., but yesterday, and today I see it announced with Chronotype that you “are engaged to edit the Pioneer for the coming winter,” and that “Glaff[?] is going to Washington as correspondent!”

     As I presume this announcement is premature, if not erroneous, I will answer your query, “whether I have anything to say about it”? Just as if the announcement had not appeared.

     1. It seems to me that Cleveland is a much more important point for such a paper as you would wish to make, than Lynn. It would, I think, have great influence and circulation in the west. And I cannot but think such a paper will yet be established for you. I should presume Smith would give as much towards such a paper, as he would for your lecturing. The Chronotype at Boston, the Patriot at Albany, and your paper at Cleveland, I think, might put to flight the traitors that are trying to sell the cause of Liberty and the constitution to the devil.

     2. I doubt if you could have such liberty in the management of the Pioneer, as you would insist upon. Robinson is non-resistance, as I understand, and if so, I see not how he could consistently allow you such liberty as you would want.

     3.  I should not think you would like to take the paper, with a view of giving it up to Glaff again, at the end of two or three years.

     4.  There does not seem much room here for another paper, that should take either side of the Liberty party question. If you go with the Emancipator and Era, you have those papers as competitors. If you take the other side, you have the Chronotype as competitor. But at Cleveland there is a paper wanted, such as you would make.

     These are objections that occur to me. As to the prospects of income, I can judge nothing of that.

     If nevertheless you make it a part of the contract that the Pioneer shall be removed to Boston—that you be at full liberty to make it such a paper as you please—that you then take hold of this constitutional matter and drive it hard. The Emancipator will either have to write with you, or give up the ghost. It could not sustain an opposition to you longer than until the next election. It hardly lives, as I understand. If you could then write the two subscription lists, you might perhaps make a permanent paper with good income.

     The Era took no further notice of my book than what you saw in the Patriot “Short and Sweet.”

     Smith’s letter to Chase is tolerable—actually he had no right to admit that the importation clause refers to slaves—that is, legally speaking—which is the only sense in which the constitution intends or admits anything. In my next part, I shall put that idea entirely and eternally to flight, that is, that the importation clause refers to slaves.

     It is near mail time, and I do not think of any thing more at this moment, though I probably shall after the letter is gone.

                                  Yours truly,

                                  L. Spooner