“His vanity, or modesty, or what you will, is sensitive as a woman’s,” Henry Adams said of Sumner. From here on, Sumner looked upon his own allies with mistrust and often aggressively accused them of lacking backbones. He became known for being vain and obstinate not only to opponents, but also to friends. Though he once admitted to Abigail that her husband, Charles Francis Sr., was “honest” in his mistaken course, he held a grudge against the entire Adams family for the rest of his life. The feeling was mutual; the Adamses no longer wanted anything to do with him.
