APPEAL TO THE REPUBLICANS OF RHODE ISLAND.
Letter to a Committee, September 4, 1856.
Cresson, Alleghany Mountains, Pa.,
September 4, 1856.
DEAR SIR,—Were I well, I should regard your letter as a summons. But I am still in the hands of physicians, by whom I am carefully warned against all public effort. Most reluctantly, at this period of our country’s trial, do I submit.
Accept for the Convention which will assemble at Providence my best wishes. Let it apply itself with earnestness, diligence, and singleness of purpose to the rescue of our fair land from the tyranny which now degrades it. Here is room for all,—the aged and the young, the Conservative and the Reformer. Surely, Rhode Island, if not utterly disloyal to herself, if not utterly disloyal to New England civilization, if not utterly disloyal to the Republic of which she constitutes a part, will rise up as one man and insist that Kansas shall be secured to Liberty, and that the Slave Oligarchy shall be driven from its usurped foothold in the National Government. At all events, this State, first planted by the Author of Religious Freedom, will see that Human Rights do not suffer through the votes of her children.
Believe me, my dear Sir, faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.