“It is hardly necessary for us to say that we do not concur in all respects in the policy which Mr. Sumner is understood to follow at this crisis; but in the matter of this petition we certainly hold that he was plainly right. And we are led to this belief by observing the industrious efforts made by those who urged the signing of the petition to conceal the true meaning of the scheme which is known as Mr. Crittenden’s.… It appears to us also that Mr. Sumner gave not only the most friendly, but also a most natural, account of the manner in which a large number of these petitioners must have been led to this singular mistake.” 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 Whose beam was borrowed: ever will Accident, Upon a day, the garment it hath lent Strip off,--make beggars of its kings anon. Thou and the stars eternal, inly fed From God’s own bosom with celestial light, Must needs emit the glory in ye bred; Alike it is your nature to be bright: And I, while thou art shining overhead, Know God is with us in the gloomy night.” DUTY AND STRENGTH OF THE COMING ADMINISTRATION. FROM NOTES OF UNDELIVERED SPEECH ON THE VARIOUS PROPOSITIONS OF COMPROMISE, FEBRUARY, 1861.