Sunday, August 10, 2014

Francis Lieber to George S. Hillard, May 11, 1861

New York, May 11, 1861.

I must write to you, my dear Hillard, although I have nothing to state, to give, or to ask, except, indeed, whether you are well, bodily of course — for who is mentally well nowadays? Behold in me the symbol of civil war: Oscar probably on his march to Virginia under that flag of shame, Hamilton in the Illinois militia at Cairo, Norman writing to-day to President Lincoln for a commission in the United States army, we two old ones alone in this whole house; but why write about individuals at a time like this!

Mr. Everett sent me for perusal a pamphlet written in 1821, by McDuflle, so hyper-national in tone and political concepts that it confuses even an old student of history and his own times, like myself.  . . . There are two things for which I ardently pray at this juncture: that there be soon a great and telling battle sufficient to make men think again, and somewhat to shake the Arrogantia autlralis out of the Southerners; and secondly that, if we must divide, we change our Constitution and shake the absurd State-sovereignty out of that. All, there are other things, too, for which I pray. I bite my lips, that Italy has stolen such a march over Germany. . . .

SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 318

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