New York, December 29, 1864.
I must write to you, my friend, even from my sick-bed. Some
time ago you wrote to me what topics were before you in the Committee of
Foreign Affairs, on all of which you invited my say. . . . I merely single out
the Reciprocity Treaty. I have not studied the details of the objections. You
know I am a free-trader, which means nothing more than a non-obstructionist,
one that considers it rebellion in the puny creature to dare interfering
with his Maker's material elementary law of civilization — that of exchange.
But apart from this, I see the very worst consequences which would naturally
result from establishing the harsh, and I think semi-barbarous, line of
prohibition between us and Canada; the harsher, the less feasible the thing
will be. All will suffer from it, except the smuggler — the armed smuggler en
gros, such as he was known under Napoleon. . . .
SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and
Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 354-5
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