The whole conversation was exceedingly quiet and friendly on both sides until we turned the corner by Mr.
Sumner's house, when the President, with great emphasis, and shaking his closed fist toward Sumner's house, said: "I shall not withdraw the nomination.

That man who lives up there has abused me in a way which I never suffered from any other man living." I did not, of course, press the President further.
But I told him I regretted very much the misunderstanding between him and Mr.Sumner, and took my leave.

It was evident that in some way the President connected this nomination with the controversy between himself and Sumner.
I have always lamented, in common with all the friends and lovers of both these great men, that they should have so misunderstood each other; yet it was not unnatural.

They were both honest, fearless, patriotic, and brave.

Yet never were two honest, fearless, patriotic, and brave men more unlike each other.
The training, the mental characteristics, the field of service, the capacities, the virtues, the foibles of each tended to make him underestimate and misunderstand the other.