"The Auburn system of social labor is better, in my opinion, than that of Pennsylvania, in so far as it allows of a little more stimulus to the social faculties, and does not weaken the nervous system to so great an extent."[180]
The sentence in Combe is as follows:—
"The Auburn system of social labor is better, in my opinion, than that of Pennsylvania, in so far as it allows of a little more stimulus to the social faculties, and does not weaken the nervous system to so great an extent; but it has no superiority in regard to providing efficient means for invigorating and training the moral and intellectual faculties."[181]
Thus does our Report, while pretending to give Combe's "Opinion of the Pennsylvania System," stop at a semicolon, and omit the latter branch of a sentence, where the opinion is favorable to the system. And yet the Treasurer vouches for the accuracy of this quotation. "I think I can read English," he says, "and I think the extract from Combe properly made."
Mr. Eliot here rose and said, "I did not mean to vouch for the verbal accuracy of the quotation, but that it gave the substance of Mr. Combe's opinion, which was against the Pennsylvania System."
Mr. Sumner. The Treasurer, then, relies upon Mr. Combe's authority as adverse to the Pennsylvania System. I hold in my hand a letter from that gentleman, dated Edinburgh, March 24, 1847, addressed to the author of the Minority Report to this Society [Dr. Howe], since published as an essay, and which has been characterized in this debate as an uncompromising plea for that system. In this letter Mr. Combe says:—
"I have read every word of your Prison Essay with attention, and do not perceive any difference of principle between your views and mine. Your Essay is a special pleading in favor of the Pennsylvania System; but I do not object to it on this account. Such a pleading was called for in the circumstances mentioned in your preface; it was the thing needed to make an impression; and while it states strongly and eloquently the advantages of the Separate System, it does not conceal, although it does not dwell upon, its defects."