File:Letter to) My good friend Garrison (manuscript (IA lettertomygoodfr00mays).pdf

Holograph, signed

Title devised by cataloger

Samuel May, Jr. offers his gratitude for Garrison's "renewed & hearty" invitation to join their "travelling party" for a proposed summer journey to England. May states that he would be delighted to accompany Garrison and visit their English friends, but declares that he must abstain, stating that since the death of his father he has resolved to not travel far from home while his aged mother still lived. May adds that the "financial disaster" which has afflicted the "business firm of May and Co" prevents him from undertaking such a voyage, as his brother stands on the brink of ruin. May informs Garrison that he has seen his letter to W. G. Eliot, and labels as "preposterous & deceptive" the assertion found in the Boston Daily Advertiser that Eliot "ranked in former times with the antislavery men", declaring that Eliot possesed an "abundance of contempt" for the abolitionists. May expresses his disagreement with John Albion Andrew's proposal for the governing of the South during Reconstruction, and his accord with Sumner's proposal to govern the former Confederate states as Territories. May asserts that the readmission of the former Confederate states to the Union with "full political rights" was "the great mistake", and harshly rebukes the governing policy of the Republican party. May states his belief that Hayes ought to be supported by the abolitionists

Subjects: Garrison, William Lloyd, 1805-1879; May, Samuel, 1810-1899; Eliot, William Greenleaf, 1811-1887; Andrew, John A. (John Albion), 1818-1867; Sumner, Charles, 1811-1874; Hayes, Rutherford B., 1822-1893; Chamberlain, Daniel Henry, 1835-1907; Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- ); Ku Klux Klan (19th century); Antislavery movements; Abolitionists; Social reformers; Freedmen; Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877); African Americans; African Americans; Equality before the law; Terrorism