Monday, October 6, 2014

Charles Russell Lowell to Anna Cabot Jackson Lowell, March 28, 1861

Mt. Savage, March 28, '61.

Dana's speech was excellently manly, — but events move so rapidly now, that the matters he most dwells on have lost their prominence. Who cares now about the slavery question? Secession, and the new Oligarchy built upon it, have crowded it out. Lincoln must act soon, or forfeit his claim to our regard: he should call Congress together at once and demand power to collect the revenue, or permission to acknowledge the Cotton Confederacy, — the alternative to be accompanied by a recommendation to so amend the Constitution as to make it clear that the Nation is one Nation, and the government a real government. It is absurd to talk of national deliberation with seven States in open revolution; but if attempted, not Slavery but Secession should be forever laid. Let the States that claim it as a right make a Confederacy, and the States that do not claim it a Union. I think Seward will soon begin to look foolish with his policy — its inevitable result seems to me a reaction and a war.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 196-7

No comments: