The coalition which Dr. Howe’s associates entered into was very famous at the time and thereafter. I will not attempt to define its immorality; but I will only say that it was, as Richard H. Dana Jr. notes in his diary, “an error in moral science.” Dr. Howe did not, in political matters, understand his own nature sufficiently to keep clear of this coalition. He plunged into it. He was never happy thereafter. It violated his conscience and plagued him for years. He could never forgive the leaders of the Freesoil party, nor forget the treason. He writes to Sumner in 1852: “I have always had an instinct in me which I have never been able to body forth clearly--which tells me that all this manœuvring and political expediency is all wrong, and that each man should go for the right regardless of others.” And again in 1853: “Now every element in my nature rises up indignantly at the thought of our principles being bartered for considerations of a personal and selfish nature; and all my feelings bid me do what my reason forbids--that is, make open war, cause a clean split, appeal to the Conscience Whigs who formed the nucleus of our party, and march out of the ranks with a banner of our own.” He makes moan throughout six years over this coalition. As late as 1857 he still grinds his teeth. “Not even Sumner’s election was worth the price paid by the coalition.” This is all admirable; but it is not enough. Had Howe understood reform politics as he understood philanthropy, had he had an early training in reform politics, he would have taken a sledge-hammer and battered the coalition in public. If the matter had occurred in philanthropy, Howe would have cleared the air. If, for instance, Dr. Howe had returned from Europe and found Charles Sumner giving Laura Bridgman dogmatic religious instruction, he would have stopped it; yes, even if he had been obliged to placard the town against the Sumner. But in politics he was helpless. As to the Whigs, he says: “I have done what I could, for where else can I go? Under what organization can I fight in this terrible emergency?”