The New York Tribune stated the case.
“A great many dull people, and a few clever ones, lately signed a petition asking Congress to adopt the Crittenden Compromise. When this document was taken up in the Senate, Mr. Sumner said, with much calmness and in the most courteous spirit, that he believed the signers had so high a regard for the name of Crittenden that they had put their signatures to a paper which they could not have fully understood in all its obligations, bearings, and propositions. This was a very gentle letting-down of the Bostonians, much more tender treatment than they deserved. Nevertheless, the remark raised a breeze in the respectable city, such as only a small thing can create in that place. It would never do to say that any Boston man or boy could sign a paper the whole of which he had not read and digested. So the Common Council, of all bodies in that town, took up the matter, and actually passed a vote of censure on Senator Sumner for mildly hinting that the signers aforesaid were rather hasty than wicked, stupid, or weak.”
A sonnet by David A. Wasson, which appeared at this time, expresses gratitude to Mr. Sumner, with small sympathy for compromise in any form.
“TO CHARLES SUMNER.
“Thou and the stars, our Sumner, still shine on!
No dark will dim, no spending waste thy ray;
And we as soon could doubt the Milky Way,
Whether enduring were its silver zone,
As question of thy truth. Their light is gone