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Dear Bradburn, I am ashamed to think how long it is since
I have given you a letter—but I should have been much more ashamed but for the
excuse of which I can justly and truly avail myself, viz, that I have had
nothing to tell you that was worth writing—with the exception possibly of one
thing, which has interested me somewhat for near a year past, and which I will
probably tell you sometime, though I must not now. With that exception, nothing
has has [sic] interested me at all, in a degree worth speaking of, except my
book on the Trial by Jury. It has proved to be a very laborious book to write,
compared with what I anticipated when I commenced. But it is at last done, and
not only those who have read it, (Hildreth, Sewall, Wright, Apthrop[?], and
John W. Browne[?]), are satisfied with it, but I believe I am satisfied with it
myself. Hildreth says it is the best thing that I have ever written. We have as
yet only the proof sheets of it. It probably will not be published for some two
months—owing to the delay that will be occasioned in getting the copyright in You will wonder perhaps that I have not
written you, and will also wonder that I could not make up a letter out of
something. Yet it is literally true that I have not had enough to write you at
any one time to make a respectable letter. I wrote one for you two or three
months ago, but after it was written, it seemed so stale, flat, and
unprofitable that I did not send it. I have taken very little interest in
politics, and if I had I could have told you nothing that would have been new
to you. I am glad to see the free soilers so zealous, and hope that the
movement may sometime go beyond what the present leaders contemplate. The point
they are now laboring so hard, viz, that it is the duty of the states, and not
the general government, to give up fugitives, is all moonshine. The arguments
of Ramtoral[?] and Sumner on that point are certainly erroneous. I have not
time and space now to give you the proof, but you may be assured that their
positions are certainly untenable. And if the free soilers have not the courage
to meet the constitutional question point blank, and deny not only the “nationality,”
but the “sectionality” of slavery, they might as well keep their mouths
shut, for they are only uttering words that will sometime have to be eaten. Our friends here are all well I believe.
Dr. Hoyt is here yet—he gains practice slowly—but will finally succeed, if he
perseveres. Mrs. Hoyt is still at Athol, the doctor’s practice not being
sufficient to enable him to have her here. Sarah is at Mrs. Willard’s School, I see by Douglass’s paper today that Gerrit
Smith, and those who joined the free soilers with him, (with the exception of
Douglass himself), have backed out from the support of Hale, and called another
convention of the Liberty Party to nominate candidates for the Presidency and
so forth. What a farcical affair that party make of their cause and themselves.
Can hardly get a dozen men together, and yet now propose to hold their fourth
“convention” to nominate candidates. I hope they may live long enough to learn
that nominating candidates is not, (as they seem to imagine) “the sovereignest
thing on earth” for all the ills that man is heir to. Give my love to Mrs. Bradburn, and write me
if you think this letter worth answering. Yours truly, L. Spooner |