DEAR HOWE--Do not be impatient with me. I am doing all that I can. This great wickedness disturbs my sleep, my rest, my appetite. Much is to be done, of which the world knows nothing, in rallying an opposition. It has been said by others, that but for Chase and Sumner this Bill would have been rushed through at once, even without debate. Douglas himself told me that our opposition was the only sincere opposition he had to encounter. But this is not true. There are others here who are in earnest. My longing is to rally the country against the Bill[4] and I desire to let others come forward and broaden our front. Our Legislature ought to speak _unanimously_. Our people should revive the old report and resolutions of 1820.[5] At present our first wish is delay, that the country may be aroused. “Would that night or Blücher had come!” God bless you always! C. S. In the fateful spring of 1856 Dr. and Mrs. Howe were in Washington. They saw both Charles Sumner and Preston Brooks. My mother has given us pictures of the two men as she then saw them: “Charles Sumner looked up and, seeing me in the gallery, greeted me with a smile of recognition. I shall never forget the beauty of that smile. It seemed to me to illuminate the whole precinct with a silvery radiance. There was in it all the innocence of his sweet and noble nature.”[6] “At Willard’s Hotel I observed at a table near our own a typical Southerner of that time, handsome, but with a reckless and defiant expression of countenance which struck me unpleasantly. This was Preston Brooks, of South Carolina.”[7] During one of his visits to the Howes, Sumner said: “I shall soon deliver a speech in the Senate which will occasion a good deal of excitement. It will not surprise me if people leave their seats and show signs of unusual disturbance.” My mother comments thus: