MY DEAR SIR,—Your invitation for to-night, after a journey to Newport and back, reached me only yesterday. It finds me already engaged, so that I cannot join my fellow-citizens in the proposed ratification at Faneuil Hall of the nominations lately made by the Republican Party of Massachusetts.
In my heart I have already ratified those nominations. On some other occasion I hope for an opportunity at Faneuil Hall to do the same by public speech.
Meanwhile accept my Godspeed for the good cause which we seek to promote, and for the Republican Party which is its organ. The cause is blessed alike in itself and in its influence on all who espouse it. No man can exert himself for Freedom without feeling better than before. The party is so entirely in harmony with prevailing opinion, it is such a natural and inevitable expression of the existing state of things, it is so clearly the offspring of the aroused conscience of the country, that it begins with auguries of success. Already it draws into its ranks good men from all sides, who, forgetting the things that are behind, press on to the things that are before.
Believe me, dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
William Brigham, Esq.
POLITICAL PARTIES AND OUR FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION.
Speech at a Republican Rally in Faneuil Hall, November 2, 1855.