Letter from Charles Sumner to John Z. Goodrich Written While in Recovery Weeks After His Beating, Discussing a Potential Return to Massachusetts and the State of His Health: “I am still very feeble, with such recurring ups and downs that my complete restoration seems sometimes far distant. My physician tells me I cannot be strong before September, and then only by entire absence of all excitement. Perhaps not then.”
Cape May, New Jersey: July 25, 1856. Folded sheet with letter on three of four pages, measuring 8 ½ x 7 ¼ inches. In May 1856, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts delivered his incendiary “Crime Against Kansas” speech condemning slavery’s expansion into the territories and attacking the architects of the.....