Sumner, who alternated between tears and rage over the Sims case, recognized that a shift was taking place—moderates found themselves agreeing with abolitionists about the unjustness of the Georgia slave’s fate. And that unlikely alliance was strengthened when Massachusetts received word on April 19, one week after Sims had left Boston, that upon his arrival in Savannah he’d been whipped in the public square for his “crime” of escaping the shackles of slavery. The punishment, thirty-nine lashes across his bare back, was followed by three months in prison. When the prison doctor told Potter
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