Greenleaf and Sumner--Letter Exchanges in Late 1833-early 1834

When I received a box in the mail about two weeks ago from one of the last surviving descendants of Harvard Law School Professor Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853), I had no idea what it would contain. As we have seen already from the preceding six essays, the material casts new light on an early period of Greenleaf's life and gives stunningly new insight into his personal life. As I was going through more of the content of the box, I discovered five letters from Charles Sumner to Simon Greenleaf, all written between August 1834 and January 1835, just when Sumner was setting up his legal practice in Boston. Sumner's script is not as easy to read as Greenleaf's elegant hand, and the letters don't necessarily give us great insight into the nature of the universe, but they witness to the thriving and intimate connection that the men felt for each other. The purpose of this and the next few essays is to give the text of as much of the letters as I can read, but first to set the context of the relationship between Sumner and Greenleaf in 1833-34.

1833

Harvard Law School seemed to have turned a corner in the late 1820s. Joseph Story, who had served on the US Supreme Court, was a teacher there when the Court wasn't in session and had, by the late 1820s, attained an eminence second only to John Marshall in American law. In 1828, thanks to the bequest by Isaac Royall, the Royall Professorship in law was established, and John Hooker Ashmun, formely head of the Northhampton law school, became its first occupant. The dynamic duo of Ashmun and Story complemented each other nicely, and it looked as if Harvard would be set on a good course for decades. But Ashmun, who was born in 1800, died unexpectedly on April 1 1833, and the law school was thrown into turmoil. James C. Alvord, another young lawyer, was appointed to take Ashmun's place as professor, but in the summer of 1833, he too was taken seriously ill. Rather than deciding to wait it out on Alvord's health, a call wa given to Greenleaf in Maine to become the Royall Professor, and he took on his duties in July 1833.

Sumner, a young man of broad learning (though he always hated and did poorly in physics and math, and thus did not make Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard, where he graduated in 1831), was especially well educated in the classics, in oratory, in political theory and history. He was known as the most brilliant and capable student at Harvard Law School in his day (1831-33). Originally he had planned to complete his course of study at HLS in Spring/Summer 1833, but Justice Story urged him to stay on for one more term. Through this final term, he and Greenleaf became fast friends. Sumner was "all business" in those days, and "business" was the study of law in all its ramifications. Greenleaf, who had cut his teeth on arguing and digesting hundreds of cases in Maine, felt that he could treat Sumner as a sort of junior colleague; indeed, within a year of completing his work, Sumner would be back at the law school lecturing.

Sumner, therefore, completed his course of study at HLS by Christmas 1833. Rather than immediately applying for bar membership, he took a trip to WA DC, from mid-February to early April 1834, visiting Story and countless others, both in DC as well as in a stop at Philadelphia on the return trip. Sumner, however, would be accepted to the Massachusetts Bar early in September 1834. The only information that I have seen in various biographies of Sumner (there is none of Greenleaf), have a sort of "gap" between May 1834 and November 1834, except for the mention of his joining the bar and then arguing his first case in Sept. 1834 (in a criminal defense capacity). Then, the story goes, a few weeks after his first case he became associated with George S. Hillard, who had been admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in April 1833. This partnership officially began in November 1834.

It is here that our first (hitherto unpublished) letter from Sumner to Greenleaf comes in. Oh, just to keep the record straight, Greenleaf was a regular correspondent of Sumner's, and so had received more than one letter when Sumner was in DC, etc.

Sumner's Letter To Greenleaf

The first of five letters from Sumner to Greenleaf in my possession was dated August 11, 1834. This would be in the "silent" time before Sumner was admitted to the bar, but after Hillard had been so admitted for 16 months. The letter reads as follows:

Boston 11th Aug.
Monday morn.
My Dear Mr. G,

Our friend Hllard is as capital a fellow as lived & somewhat melancholy from lack of business & ill-health--would like, above all things, to take an office with you--merely for the sake of easing the expenses of his office & of having your confidence & the recommendation to the public which that would be. If you take a room with a young man, take him, by all means. Excuse my boldness & believe me

As ever yours,
Charles Sumner
P.S. Ask the Judge (Story?) about Hillard.

How to interpret this letter? Sumner was looking out for his friend Hillard. It wasn't yet clear to Sumner what path he was going to choose. Nor does it seem clear that Greenleaf, who was still fairly new in Cambridge, would be clear about how to "staff" his own law office. As I will mention in another essay, I have Greenleaf's account books from the early 1830s until his death, and it seemed that he carried on his legal career of advising and representing clients during his time at Harvard. So, Sumner was looking out for his friend. The "tone" of this letter is interesting. Sumner, at 23, is asking a favor of his professor, age 50. What makes him think he can ask this? Perhaps a sort of natural boldness, or one assumed by virtue of knowing just how good he was at law.

It turns out that nothing came of this request, for the next thing we know is that Sumner and Hillard entered into a partnership in November 1834, in Boston. But Greenleaf was always a favorite "visitor" in their office. As Edward Pierce says in vol. 2 of his multi-volume life of Sumner, the duo set up shop at 4 Court Street (corner of Washington) in Boston. Greenleaf, he says, "deposited his 'writing-desk, table and chair' in the office, calling it 'our office.'"

Thus, we have the context of the early days of Sumner's law practice, and how he intersected very frequently, and favorably, with Greenleaf. The next essay describes one of the remaining four letters.

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