I told him
I did not believe they would be able to get twenty-five votes,
that Mr. Boutwell, then Senator, was an able man, and that
I did not think the fact even that he was understood to be
a strong friend and ally of General Butler would induce the
people to displace him. Mr. Thayer replied that at any rate
there should be a protest.
I had no communication from any other human being upon the
subject of my candidacy for the Senate, and made none to any
human being, with one exception, until my election by the
Legislature was announced. My oldest sister was fatally sick,
and I received a letter every day giving an account of her
condition. In a postscript to one letter from my brother,
he made some slight allusion to the election for Senator then
pending in the Massachusetts Legislature. But with that exception
I never heard about it and had nothing to do with it.
I can truly say that I was as indifferent to the result, so
far as it affected me personally, as to the question whether
I should walk on one side of the street or the other. I did
not undervalue the great honor of representing Massachusetts
in the Senate of the United States.
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