Elias Nason, The Life and Times of Charles Sumner: His Boyhood, Education and Public Career.

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Now, I am not conscious of doing any thing to deserve “reward” nor am I conscious of receiving any “reward.” The office recently conferred upon me, and to which you probably refer, I regard as any thing but a reward. In my view, it is an imposition of new duties and labors, in a field which I never selected, and to which I do not in the least incline. . . .

Ever yours,

Charles Sumner.

Mr. Sumner entered the United-States Senate on Monday, the first day of December, 1851; and, in the absence of John Davis, Gen. Lewis Cass rose, and said, “I have been requested to present the credentials of Charles Sumner, a senator elect from the State of Massachusetts.” The credentials having been read, William R. King of Alabama administered the oath of office. On the same day Henry Clay, after a brief speech, made his final retirement from that hall in which his eloquent voice had so many times been heard in the defence of constitutional liberty. In his own language, used a few years previously, he departed as “a wounded stag, pursued by the hunters on a long chase, scarred by their spears, and worried by their wounds, who had at last escaped to drag his mutilated body to his lair, and lie down and die.” Mr. Sumner occupied the seat that had just been vacated by Jefferson Davis, and formerly occupied by John C. Calhoun, and which was