BURLINGTON, IOWA,
February 6, 1860.
James: I send you
a published letter of an aged gentleman, the sands of whose political life are
nearly run out. The style, as you cannot fail to notice, is copied from
Washington’s Farewell Address: some may think it superior to that outlawed
production. Mr. Dana is not to be permitted to read it unless his family
physician is present, with burnt brandy and smelling salts. Since Horace “saw
visions and dreamed dreams” out here in the land of divine inspiration, the
contents, perhaps, may be broken to him gently.
Do tell me, confidentially, if Fremont will probably be the
nominee. Mule-steaks can now be got cheap, and I wish to lay in a stock for the
campaign.
I see the Tribune “squawks” a little over the committees. It was a very glorious
victory, that election of Speaker. By the way, why don't you bring out Winter
Davis for President? After the action of the Maryland legislature I think there
is no doubt of his getting that electoral vote. Dana and Ripley appear to be
quite well thought of down in Mississippi. Will one of them consent to take the
nomination of Vice? That would take Mississippi, certain. With a pledge to make
Helper Secretary of State we could bag North Carolina. In that case I shall
insist on having Mr. Randall, of Philadelphia, Secretary of War; being in the “conservative
zone” that would be all right. But I weary you.
Adieu.
Fitz-henry Warren.
Is Henry C. Carey temporal or eternal — “a spirit of health
or a goblin damned?”
SOURCE: James Shepherd Pike, First Blows of the
Civil War: The Ten Years of Preliminary Conflict in the United States from 1850
to 1860, p. 485
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