C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

[569] after a succession of flings and sneers, makes a kindred assault on me; and this is signed by one who so constantly called me ‘friend,’ and asked me for help. The Senator from Missouri (Mr. Schurz) has already directed attention to this assault, and has expressed his judgment upon it, confessing that he ‘should not have failed to feel the in suit,’ and then exclaiming with just indignation, ‘when such things are launched against any member of this body, it becomes the American Senate to stand by him and not to attempt to disgrace and degrade him because he shows the sensitiveness of a gentleman.’ （Congressional Globe Debate, of March 10, 1871.) It is easy to see how this Senator regarded the conduct of the Secretary. Nor is its true character open to doubt, especially when we consider the context, and how this full-blown personality naturally flowered out of the whole document.

Mr. Motley, in his valedictory to the State Department, had alluded to the rumor that he was removed on account of my opposition to the Santo Domingo Treaty. The document signed by the Secretary, while mingling most offensive terms with regard to his ‘friend’ in London, thus turns upon his ‘friend’ in Washington:

It remains only to notice Mr. Motley's adoption of a rumor, which had its origin in this city in a source bitterly, personally, and vindictively hostile to the President.

Mr. Motley says it has been rumored that he was ‘removed from the post of Minister to England’ on account of the opposition made by an ‘eminent Senator who honors me (him) with his friendship’ to the Santo Domingo Treaty.

Men are apt to attribute the causes of their own failures or their own misfortunes to others than themselves, and to claim association or seek a partnership with real or imaginary greatness with which to divide their sorrows or their mistakes. There can be no question as to the identity of the eminent Senator at whose door Mr. Motley is willing to deposit the cause of his removal. But he is entirely mistaken in seeking a vicarious cause of his loss in confidence and favor, and it is unworthy of Mr. Motley's real merit and ability, and injustice to the venerable Senator alluded to (to whose influence and urgency he was originally indebted for his nomination), to attribute to him any share in the cause of his removal.

Mr. Motley must know, or if he does not know it he stands alone in his ignorance of the fact, that many Senators opposed the Santo Domingo Treaty openly, generously, and with as much efficiency as did the distinguished Senator to whom he refers, and have nevertheless continued to enjoy the undiminished confidence and the friendship of the President, than whom no man living is more tolerant of honest and manly differences of opinion, is more single or sincere in his desire for the