George Sumner to Alexis de Tocqueville

418 rue St. Honoré – Friday, June 20183

Dear Sir,

Permit me to recall myself to your recollection in order to present you the respectful compliments of my brother (who had the honor to meet you occasionally in Paris in 1840) and also to trouble you with a request on his part. You have seen, perhaps, from time to time the reports of the “Prison Discipline Society” of Boston, which reports have for several years past breathed a spirit of bitter hostility towards the system of Philadelphia. This has been owing in a great degree to the personal feeling of the Secretary of the Society; a feeling which has been allowed for too long a time to go on unchecked.

My brother writes me, under date Boston 1st June.

“At the last annual meeting of our Prison Discipline Society, a few days since, when the Secretary had made his Report, abusing as is his custom, the Philadelphia System, I came forward and endeavored to answer some of his charges, moving then the reference of his Report to a select Committee. Of that committee I am a member, and I hope that we shall be able to make a thorough report on the two systems;184 but for this we shall be much aided if you could obtain from Messieurs de Tocqueville and de Beaumont, copies of their different reports and speeches on the subject; and also if you could send any other documents that have lately appeared in Europe.