Recently, he had received a letter from Joshua Giddings, one of the few true abolitionists ever to have served in Congress. Almost seventy years old, Giddings was just a few months away from his death. He told Sumner that many years before, when John Quincy Adams thought he was dying after a terrible stroke, Adams imparted some final words to Giddings. Believing his own time was coming to an end, Giddings relayed those same last words to Sumner: “I have more hope from you than from any other man.”
