Showing posts with label Daniel Webster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daniel Webster. Show all posts

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Congressman Horace Mann, September 2, 1850

SEPT. 2.

You may expect, notwithstanding what Miss ——— says, that Mr. E—— will vote with the Northern proslavery men, and help decide all the great questions now pending against us. He, like all the rest, will be artful; and, when he finds a chance to cast a vote against slavery which will do slavery no harm, he will be glad to improve it; but in the essentials he will go for them. . . . I have no doubt the time will come when Mr. Webster's course will be seen in the true light; but it will not be till after the mischief is done, and then only individuals will be vindicated, while the cause will be ruined.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 321

Congressman Horace Mann, September 6, 1850

SEPT. 6.

I had no letter from you last night, nor eke this morning. I am so sure that you never fail, that I always convict the railroads or postmasters, and condemn them.

I had a sad day yesterday. The day before, Mr. Boyd's amendment, giving a Territorial Government to New Mexico, not only without a proviso against slavery, but with an express provision, that, when States are erected, they may be slave States if they wish, was voted down; but yesterday that vote was reconsidered. Then Massachusetts members went for it, although our Legislature, the last of last April, expressed the most decided opinions to the contrary, and although, before this new Administration, in which Mr. Webster takes so conspicuous a part, the whole North, with the exception of a part of the cities, was against it. Mr. E—— has voted steadily and uniformly for slavery. It is getting to be a fixed law, in my mind, to have no faith in men who make money their god. It is amazing into what forms the human mind may be shaped. Here are twenty, perhaps thirty, men from the North in this House, who, before Gen. Taylor's death, would have sworn, like St. Paul, not to eat nor drink until they had voted the proviso, who now, in the face of the world, turn about, defy the instructions of their States, take back their own declarations a thousand times uttered, and vote against it. It is amazing; it is heart-sickening. What shall be done? I know no other way but through the cause in which I have so long worked. May God save our children from being, in their day, the cause of such comments by others!

P.S. It is two o'clock, and the infernal bill has just passed. Dough, if not infinite in quantity, is infinitely soft. The North is again disgracefully beaten, most disgracefully.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 322

Congressman Horace Mann, September 8, 1850

SEPT. 8, 1850.

Texas has not a particle of rightful claim to all the north-western region this bill contends for; but she has passed a law claiming it, and threatens to make war upon the Union if her claim is not allowed. An extra session of her legislature is now in being. Her governor recommends that she should raise and equipmen to march to Santa Fé, and subdue the people there to her control (who are Mexicans, and who hate her); and the legislature is now preparing means to carry, or rather to seem to carry, their threats into execution. Our great Presidency-seekers, Webster, Cass, Clay, &c., wish to succumb to her claims. They cannot afford to offend any party at the South, because they want the votes of the South. The South wants Texas to have all this territory, because Texas is one of the most atrocious proslavery States in the Union; and, if any part of the territory is set off to New Mexico, they say it may eventually be free. Those who think their party will gain something by yielding to this false claim of Texas go for it with their leaders. Texas would not relinquish an inch of it but for money: therefore it is proposed to give her ten millions of dollars to buy her off. It is the most outrageous piece of swindling ever practised. In reality, we give her, by this boundary, a hundred thousand more square miles than she owns, and ten millions of dollars besides. President Taylor meant to maintain the rights of the country; and, if he had lived, we should have tried strength with the miserable braggarts of Texas: but, since his death, the whole policy of the Administration is changed, and with that, owing to their power and patronage, Congress is demoralized, and the bill has passed, and the Territories have governments without any prohibition of slavery. California is admitted as a free State; and that is all the compensation we have.

I am sick at heart, and disgusted at the wickedness of men.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 322-3

Congressman Horace Mann, September 9, 1850

SEPT. 9.

Eureka! Eureka! or at least almost Eureka! The House has passed a resolution this morning to adjourn three weeks from to-day. It must be acted upon in the Senate; but I think they are tired enough to go home, and that it will not be postponed longer. This will bring it to the very last day of the month, and I shall almost count the hours till it comes.

Read Mr. Underwood's speech on the Texas Boundary Bill, and understand it, and you need read nothing else on the subject.

The politicians and the Texas bond-holders had a sort of public frolic on Saturday evening, after the bill for the admission of California, and for the establishment of a Territorial Government for Utah, was passed. Texas stock, which, on the 1st of January last, was not worth more than five or six cents on the dollar, will now be worth one dollar and five or six cents! This bill appropriates ten millions of dollars. Think, then, what immense and corrupt influences have been brought to bear upon the decision of this freedom-or-slavery question! . . . One of the most extreme antislavery men in all the North, who had given the strongest pledges, made the most emphatic declarations, and defied all consequences in the most unreserved manner, went over as soon as Mr. Webster was appointed Secretary of State, and has voted on the proslavery side ever since. He has been talking for some time about going to California, and, this morning, has notified the House of his resignation, and started for New York. See if, before six months have elapsed, he does not have an office. It wrings my heart to see such venality.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 323-4

Theodore Parker to Congressman Horace Mann, September 9, 1850

WEST ROXBURY, Sept. 9, 1850.

DEAR SIR, I suppose that any word of commendation which I could utter would seem to you as a very doubtful compliment; for, if it is a desirable thing laudari a viro laudato, it is undesirable to be praised by a viro odioso. Still, I cannot help saying to you how much I honor and esteem you for the services you have rendered to your country and mankind since you entered Congress. I thought, at the time you first went there, you would find more trouble there than with the Boston schoolmasters and such poor things as Matthew Hale Smith. It seems to me, not only that you have done a great service by your speeches on slavery, but by what you have done in opposition to Mr. Webster. Excuse me for saying so; but there are some things in your Notes which it grieved me to see there. They weakened your position; they gave your doubtful friends an opportunity to pass over to Webster's side; and to your real foes they gave an opportunity of making out a case before the public. Still, to candid men, it must be plain, from your Notes, that Mr. Webster is exceedingly base. In doing this, you have done a great service. Webster has often been attacked, but almost wholly by political rivals or mere partisans, neither of whom were sincere in the charges against him. You attack him on moral grounds. I think your attack must disturb him more than all ever written against him before now. But, in the mean time, you are continually or often attacked yourself, your language misinterpreted, your motives assailed. There is nobody to defend you. Some cannot; others dare not. Then some of the men you have relied upon were never worthy of your confidence, and will do nothing. You have crossed the path of some selfish men by your theories of benevolence, and mortified them by your own life; and they will pay you for both. Some men would gladly have written in your defence; but they would only bring you into trouble. You saw how “Codus Alexandricus,” in the “Advertiser,” tried to couple you with me; and you doubtless appreciated the benevolence of the attempt. I write to you chiefly to suggest to you, whether it would not be a good plan for you to write another letter to your constituents, on the state of the country, the conduct of public men (above all, of Webster), and your own relations to the wicked measures of the past Congress. It seems to me you might, in this way, orient yourself before the public, and give them a good deal of information which they need and want. I suppose, of course, you knew the attempt made in Boston (and by a few in New York) to defeat your election this autumn. Marshall P. Wilder is thought of by some men for your successor. Such a letter as you might write would settle that matter.

I beg you not to answer this letter, which will only occupy your time; but believe me truly your friend and servant,

THEO. PARKER.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 324-5

Congressman Horace Mann to Samuel Downer, September 13, 1850

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 1850.
S. DOWNER, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR,—Is it true that you say, or that you have been informed, that I have written any apologetic or any explanatory or deprecatory letter to the editor of the "Boston Bee," which he is privately showing?

It certainly shows native genius when men can build so large a superstructure of falsehood on so small a foundation of truth. I will tell you the whole story, so that you may see how big a bird can be hatched out of a small egg.

Some time during the present session, I think, last winter, one of the editors of the "Bee," Mr. R—— called on me here. I saw him several times, and he appeared friendly, and our interviews were agreeable; that is, to me. He asked some favor of me, which I gladly rendered. He then expressed his thanks, quite as warmly as I could have desired; told me that his paper had done me injustice formerly (during my controversy with the Boston schoolmasters); said he resisted it at the time, but was overcome by his partners; and then expressed to me, in strong terms, his regret for the injury that had been done me. I gave him to understand, that, at the time, I had felt the injustice, but that the occasion had passed away, and with it almost all recollection of it; and that I should be none the less ready to do him a favor when occasion should offer.

In July or August last, when the "Bee" published that gross falsehood, that I (with others) had visited Mr. Fillmore, and had interfered to persuade him not to appoint Mr. Webster as a member of his Cabinet, the interviews which I had had with Mr. R———, his apology for the wrong done me by the " Bee," &c., came to my mind. At that period, the "Bee" had, for some time, been assailing me through what was called a "Washington correspondent." Under these circumstances, I thought I would write a letter to Mr. R———, remind him of our former intercourse, and put him upon his bearings as a man of honor and truth. I did not know his partners, and did not wish to write to them, or put myself in their hands in any way. I thought, if I had not entirely mistaken the character of Mr. R———, I would prevent further abuse and falsification by appealing to him. I therefore wrote him the letter marked private, or confidential, in which I referred to our former interview, reminded him of his apology, and remonstrated with him for the course taken in charging me with what I had not done. There was not a word in the letter which a gentleman might not write or receive; nothing clandestine, nothing partisan; no threats for anger, no intercessions for favor. Not knowing Mr. R's partners, and at the same time knowing how such things get distorted and misrepresented and falsified when they pass through a partisan medium, I wrote to him alone; and I can hardly conceive that he should show the letter, even to his partners. Certainly, if I did not entirely mistake his character as a man of honor, he cannot have been showing that letter to the public or to individuals, or suggesting that there is one idea in it unworthy of me, as a man of truth and sincerity, to feel or to express.

I desire, therefore, that you would go to Mr. R, and, if the letter is in being, ask him to show it to you (for which this is my permission), and learn for yourself whether it contains any thing which I might not write, or any thing which would authorize him to break the seal of silence by showing it.

Yours very truly,
HORACE MANN.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 327-8

Congressman Horace Mann, September 14, 1850

Sept. 14. . . . I do not think Mr. Webster has any chance for the Presidency. The South, having used him, will fling him away. But that he neither does nor will see. My own opinion is, that, notwithstanding all this billing and cooing of the heads of the hostile parties, there will be a deadly fight between them ere long. They have united to settle this question satisfactorily to the South, so that they might challenge Southern votes. It has been a competition for political power, stimulated, in regard to some of them, by the venality growing out of the Texas ten millions.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 330

Friday, March 15, 2024

Charles Sumner to John Bigelow, January 11, 1851

Whatever may be the result of our proceedings, I am desirous that you should know my position. I have never directly or indirectly suggested a desire for the place, or even a willingness to take it. I shall not generally be believed if I say I do not desire it. My aims and visions are in other directions, in more quiet fields. To sundry committees of Hunker Democrats, who have approached me to obtain pledges and promises with regard to my future course in the State, or in the Senate if I should go there, I have replied that the office must seek me, and not I the office, and that it must find me an absolutely independent man. The Hunkers, Whigs, and Democrats are sweating blood to-day. You perceive that all the Hunker press, representing Cassism and Websterism, are using every effort to break up our combination.

SOURCES: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 239

Charles Sumner to John Bigelow, January 21, 1851

You are right in auguring ill from the Fabian strategy. When the balloting was postponed for three days, I thought our friends had lost the chances. My own opinion now is that they are lost beyond recovery; but others do not share this. The pressure from Washington has been prodigious. Webster and Cass have both done all they could. Of course, Boston Whiggery is aroused against me. There were for several days uneasy stomachs at the chances of my success. It is very evident that a slight word of promise or yielding to the Hunkers would have secured my election, it would now if I would give it; but this is impossible. The charge used with most effect against me is that I am a 'disunionist;' but the authors of this know its falsehood, — it is all a sham to influence votes. My principles are, in the words of Franklin, “to step to the verge of the Constitution to discourage every species of traffic in human flesh.” I am a constitutionalist and a unionist, and have always been.

SOURCES: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 239-40

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Daniel Webster to Richard M. Blatchford, Sunday, November 3, 1850—6 p.m.

Elms Farm, Sunday evening,
November 3, 1850, six o'clock.

MY DEAR SIR,—I expect to take my leave of Franklin tomorrow morning, and the last thing I propose to do, is to write to you. I have now been here a fortnight, having arrived on Monday, the 21st of October. It is the longest visit which I have paid to my native place for many years, and it has been quite agreeable. It is hard to say when I shall look on these hills and vales again, for so many successive days.

Your visit is a marked part of the occasion, and I like to repeat the expression of the pleasure it has afforded me. I sometimes wonder that you should take any interest in those scenes or these things; but that you do is so much the better and the happier for me. You left me on Friday, the 1st of this month. I did not leave home on that day, as I had a good deal of company. Yesterday I was quite alone till afternoon, when I went to Boscawen, to see and take leave of my relatives. To-day the weather has been damp, threatening rain, and I have been out no further than to the barn. The clouds seem now dispersing themselves, and I look for a good day tomorrow. I duly received your note of Friday from Boston. The Union meeting was a stirring and spirited occasion, but what may be the end, I do not know. I expressed to you, you know, three weeks ago, my fears of a decisive split in the Whig party, and I now strongly fear that result. Nevertheless, my dear Sir, I go to Washington to stay for a longer or a shorter time, but determined to do my duty while I do stay. Of personal consequences, I grow every day more and more careless.

To-morrow is Amin Bey's dinner. Then I go to Marshfield for a day, and then South. I have been quite well since you left, though I must confess all the time melancholy, at leaving a place which is dear to my recollection, and which I cannot expect to see often. But away with low spirits. Dum vivimus, vivamus.

P. S. The stars are all out, but it is too warm for them to be very bright. The night is so perfectly still that one may hear the trickling of the little brooks. Or else it is the fall in the Winnipiseogee, away up near “Tin Corner.”

I have got 'em.1

Yours,
D. W.
_______________

1 During Mr. Blatchford's visit at Franklin, to which this letter alludes, Mr. Webster expressed much anxiety to find a pair of steel spectacles which his father had worn the last ten years of his life; he feared they were lost, but said he should devote a day to hunting for them; he found them, and told Mr. Blatchford of it by the words "I have got 'em."

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 399-400

Daniel Webster to Millard Fillmore, November 5, 1850

Boston, November 5, 1850,

MY DEAR SIR—I left New Hampshire yesterday, having be come free of disease, and well, except so far as this protracted catarrh has reduced me. I am quite aware how inconvenient my long absence is to you, and to the government, and some times feel, that as this illness is of annual recurrence, I ought to regard it as unfitting me for an office, the duties of which require constant attention; I must now go to Marshfield for a few days. When there a fortnight ago, I was hardly able to go out doors, and could do nothing about arranging my little affairs.

On public subjects things are here becoming quiet. The excitement caused by the Fugitive Slave Law is fast subsiding, and it is thought that there is now no probability of any resistance, if a fugitive should be arrested. Thousands of young men have tendered their services to the marshal at a moment's warning. There is an evident and a vast change of public opinion in this quarter since the adjournment of Congress.

There is much talk of a Union meeting, and a great desire to hold one. Very many persons have spoken to me on the subject, since my arrival yesterday. My opinion is, that such a meeting should be held, but that I should not attend it. My opinions are all known, and they may perhaps be topics of comment, before the meeting. Besides it is, I think, expedient to bring out new men. Mr. Gray, Mr. B. R. Curtis, &c., &c., and the people are also anxious to hear Mr. Choate's voice once more.

To avoid misconstruction, I think the meeting will not be holden till after our election, on Monday next.

I look upon the result of our election, so far as respects governor, as very doubtful.

Yours always, truly,
DAN'L WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 400-1

Daniel Webster to Mr. Colby, November 11, 1850

Marshfield, November 11, 1850.

DEAR SIR, I have received your letter of the 7th of this month.

Experience has long since taught me how useless it is to attempt to stop the allegations of political adversaries by denials of their statements.

For your sake, however, I will say, that my public speeches show my opinion to have been decidedly in favor of a proper, efficient, and well-guarded law, for the recovery of fugitive slaves; that while I was in the Senate, I proposed a bill, as is well known, with provisions different from those contained in the present law; that I was not a member of that body, when the present law passed; and that, if I had been, I should have moved, as a substitute for it, the bill proposed by myself.

I feel bound to add that, in my judgment, the present law is constitutional; and that all good citizens are bound to respect and obey it, just as freely and readily as if they had voted for it themselves. If experience shall show that, in its operation, the law inflicts wrong, or endangers the liberty of any whose liberty is secured by the Constitution, then Congress ought to be called on to amend or modify it. But, as I think, agitation on the subject ought to cease. We have had enough of strife on a single question, and that in a great measure merely theoretical. It is our duty, in my opinion, to attend to other great and practical questions, in which all parts of the country have an interest.

Yours, very respectfully,
DANIEL WEBSTER

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 402

Daniel Webster to Millard Fillmore, November 13, 1850

(PRIVATE.)
Boston, November 13, 1850.

DEAR SIR,—I took leave of Marshfield yesterday, not with out regret. The trees were leafless, but the fields were green, and the sea was calm as summer.

Among the things which detained me, was the seeing to the completion of a vault or tomb, for the deposit of me and mine.

I have lost one wife and three children. Their remains are now under a church in this city, which the progress of change is very likely ere long to remove.

At Marshfield, by my own land, on the margin of the upland, is a spot on which a party of pilgrims from Plymouth, erected a church, in the very earliest period of the colony; and here is the ancient burial-ground. It is quiet, and secure against change, and not far from my house.

To this spot I shall be taken not many years hence, and those loved ones, whose spirits have gone before me to another world, will be gathered around me.

I dwell on these things without pain. I love to see a cheerful old age; but there is nothing I should dread more than a thoughtless, careless, obtuse mind, near the end of life. Of course, it makes no difference in our future state, on which spot we mingle again with our parent earth; but it sobers the mind, I think, and leads us to salutary reflections, to contemplate our last resting-place.

Yours truly,
DANIEL WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 402-3

Daniel Webster to Josiah Randall & Others, November 14, 1850

Boston, November 14, 1850.

GENTLEMEN,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 11th of this month, inviting me, in behalf of the friends of the Constitution and the Union, without distinction of party, resident in the city and county of Philadelphia, to attend a public meeting in that city on the 21st instant. I most sincerely wish that it was in my power to attend that meeting. That great central city is not only full of the friends of the Constitution, but full, also, of recollections connected with its adoption, and other great events in our history. In Philadelphia the first revolutionary Congress assembled. In Philadelphia the Declaration of Independence was made. In Philadelphia the Constitution was formed, and received the signatures of Washington and his associates; and now, when there is a spirit abroad evidently laboring to effect the separation of the Union, and the subversion of the Constitution, Philadelphia, of all places, seems the fittest for the assembling together of the friends of that Constitution, and that Union, to pledge themselves to one another and to the country to the last extremity.

My public duties, gentlemen, require my immediate presence in Washington; and for that reason, and that alone, I must deny myself the pleasure of accepting your invitation.

I have the honor, gentlemen, to be, with great regard, your fellow-citizen and humble servant,

DANIEL WEBSTER.

TO JOSIAH RANDALL, ISAAC HAZLEHURST, ROBERT M. LEE, C. INGERSOLL, JNO. W. FORNEY, JOHN S. RIDDLE.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 403-4

Daniel Webster to Mr. F. S. Lathrop & Others, November 14, 1850

Boston, November 14, 1850.

GENTLEMEN,—I am under great obligations for the letter received from you, expressing your approbation of the sentiments contained in my letter to the Union meeting at Castle Garden.

The longer I live, the more warmly am I attached to the happy form of government under which we live. It is certain that, at the present time, there is a spirit abroad which seeks industriously to undermine that government. This, of course, will be denied, and denied by those whose constant effort is to inspire the North with haterd towards the South, and the South with hatred toward the North; and it is time for all true patriots to make a united effort, in which I shall most cordially join, not only to resist open schemes of disunion, but to eradicate its spirit from the public mind.

I have the honor to be, gentlemen, with great regard, your obliged fellow-citizen and humble servant,

DAN'L WEBSTER.

TO MESSRS. F. S. LATHROP, CHAS. G. CARLETON, PETER S. DUNEE, GENARD HALLOCK, Committee, New York.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 404

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Congressman Horace Mann, August 23, 1850

I stay at home this morning to write to you. I long to be at home; but the time of our departure cannot be seen by any political astronomer. There is a probability that we shall come to some of the exciting questions this week. We are as ready now to meet them as we ever shall be. The great influence of Mr. Webster is brought with full force to bear against all security for freedom in the Territories. His name, his reputation for talent, and, above all, his power of patronage and influence in the Government, tell with prodigious force upon all measures. His going into the cabinet may be the salvation of Mr. Fillmore's administration; but it is even more likely that it will be fatal to the cause of freedom. See what comes of intellect without morality!

We had another furious storm last night. It reminded me of the last, the one in which Sumner's brother and Margaret Fuller were lost; and, when I hear the winds howl and sweep so at night, my mind always goes out to watch along the seashore, and then I cannot but see what the next papers relate of disaster and death. I always had a special horror for a shipwreck. It seems to me the most terrible form of death that is not ignominious. If, however, — and I often have a vivid intellectual perception of this, regarded death as we should, it would cease to be the dreadful spectre that it now is. How much of this, in all after-life, must depend upon education!

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 316-7

Congressman Horace Mann to Samuel Downer, August 25, 1850

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25, 1850.

I must say, my dear Downer, for the friendliness of your letters turns the esteem and regard which I have always had for you into affection.

Your view of the difficulty of my case corresponds exactly with mine. The sentiment of the old catch, "I cares for nobody, and nobody cares for me," is perfectly true when applied to parties. No party has felt that I was in full communion with it. The "communication," as the magnetizers say, has not been established. They may have believed, what always was and always will be true, that, while ready to do any thing for their principles, I would not sell myself to their partisan schemes. Hence, in a crisis like this, they feel that I am not the man for them.

From all that I learn, I am led to suppose, that, while every thing is done against me that can be done in the lower part of the county, there is a state of entire quiescence in the upper. From those parts of the district which are in Plymouth and Middlesex Counties, I hear almost nothing. I have letters from different parts of the State which are as complimentary as my most partial friends could desire. They speak of the universal disaffection there is towards Webster, and of the sympathy there is for me. But these are away from commercial and manufacturing localities. In such resorts, and among men engaged in business, who are susceptible on the Mammon side of their nature, I suppose Webster is all powerful. Never was a greater influence exerted than his friends are exerting now, here as well as at home; and I think that the Territories have as good a chance to come in without the proviso as California has to be admitted as a free State.

It is impossible for the friends of freedom at home to take any but the most general positions now.

Within the coming month, there will be developments which will have decisive influences upon parties and individuals. No conventions should be held till after the adjournment of Congress. We shall then see what foe we have to meet, and what weapons we have to fight with.

On the Texas Boundary Bill I may have an opportunity to say something, though not much at length. Texas has been allowed to slide or steal into possession of a great extent of territory to which she has no right,—all, or almost all, between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, from the Gulf up to New Mexico. The New-Mexicans, by fixing the boundary in their constitution at 32° on the east side of the Rio Grande, have cut their friends off from all attempt to give them any thing below. My impression is, that if the Texan Boundary Bill were amended so as to adopt the compromise line, -that is, starting from twenty miles above El Paso, and going north-east to the south-west corner of the Indian Territory,—and if the provision were stricken out which gives Texas a right to an additional slave State, it would be best to vote for it. Please to tell me what you think of this, as soon as convenient.

I do not know exactly on whom to rely in these times. . . . I will send you one or two letters, that you may see what people say to me. . . . Please return these letters to me. I receive any amount of this kind, —paper abuse, much more than the amount of the news

Yours ever,
HORACE MANN.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 317-9

Monday, February 19, 2024

Daniel Webster to Franklin Haven, Tuesday, September 27, 1850—7 a.m.

Tuesday morning, seven o'clock, September 27, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,—There is no chance of doing any thing for the tariff, this session, for want of time, and from the crowded state of business in Congress. If we had three or four of those precious weeks which were spent in making speeches on the Wilmot Proviso, the revenue of the country might be settled, I think, on a satisfactory foundation. There is a clear majority in the House of Representatives in favor of a reform in the tariff of duties, although some Southern Whigs feel very angry. Three of the North Carolina members, for instance, good men and good Whigs, were found hanging off. I was asked to speak to them, or cause them to be spoken to. They said that the Northern members, Whigs and all, had done little else for six months, than assail their rights, their property, and their feelings, as Southern men, and now those Northern men might take care of their own interests. These gentlemen, however, will come into their places in the ranks, after a little cooling and reflection.

I hope the important measures, such as the appropriation bills, may get through to-day and to-morrow, yet I am afraid of some mishap. Such a mass of unfinished things never existed before, at so late a moment of the session.

It is a great misfortune that Mr. Ashmun should leave Congress. The Whigs in the House of Representatives need a leader, and if he could stay, he would be that leader by general consent. He is sound, true, able, quick in his perceptions, and highly popular. I hardly know how his place could be filled.

At the other end of the avenue things go on very smoothly. There is entire confidence and good-will between the President and all those about him. Mistakes will be made, no doubt, but nothing will be done rashly, and no step is likely to be taken which shall endanger the peace of the country, or embarrass the general business either of the government or the country.

Some day next week I hope to set out for the North. I never wanted to see home more. My catarrh is going off, or else is having a long intermission; and, for whichever it may be, I am truly thankful.

I pray to be remembered most kindly to Mrs. Haven and your daughters.

Yours always, truly,
DANIEL WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 390-1

Daniel Webster to Fletcher Webster, October 2, 1850

Washington, October 2, 1850.

DEAR FLETCHER,—It is my hope to reach Boston on Monday evening next. For the two or three weeks, more or less, which I may be at Marshfield, I shall need a good coach, a handsome pair of horses, and a proper driver. If this could be had at Foster's, I should prefer it; if not, please look them up else where.

My cold is taking leave, and "it could take nothing I could more willingly part withal."

Tell the Judge,1 I have something to say to him about California. Everybody is off, and Mr. Kortiss 2 and I quite alone. except when Colonel March falls in.

Yours, affectionately,
DAN'L WEBSTER.
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1 Honorable John P. Healy.

2 Mr. Edward Curtis.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 394

Daniel Webster to Millard Fillmore, October 14, 1850

Marshfield, October 14, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,—Leaving Washington Friday, the 4th, I came that day to Philadelphia, and the next to New York, and staying on Sunday in that city, reached Boston Monday evening, the 7th, feeling tolerably well. Tuesday, the 8th, I was to have gone into State street to meet the people, but did not find myself well enough. The next day, Wednesday, I came down to my house, a good deal sick, and have hardly been out of doors from that day to this. My catarrh has held on uncommonly, and for three or four days last week, I was quite ill with it, so much so, that I called in a physician. Very sensibly, he recommends nothing but rest, patience, and herb teas. It is usual enough for the disease in its last stages to assume the form of a kind of asthmatic cough. This I have had, and hope I am now nearly over it. To-day the weather is cold, the skies bright, and every thing out doors looks well, and I hope to go over the farm. To-morrow the Turkish commissioner and suite are to be here, and I have asked some friends to meet them. It is difficult entertaining a guest, with whom one cannot exchange a word, and whose habits and wants are so unknown. We shall take care to keep all swine's flesh out of his sight; give him beef, poultry, and rice, and let him get on as well as he can, having always coffee in plenty.

Of political occurrences, and the political state of things in New York, and further south, your information is, of course, fuller and fresher than mine. In New England, affairs and opinions stand thus:

All true Whigs are not only satisfied, but gratified with every thing done by you, since the commencement of your administration. Men of property and business feel a degree of confidence and security, which it is certain they did not feel under the late administration. Indeed, I am at a loss to account for that want of confidence which appears to have prevailed. A gentleman of discernment said to me in Boston, that within a week after you had taken the chair, men met together, and, without saying a word, sufficiently manifested to one another, that, in their judgment, a highly important and conservative change had taken place.

The respectable portion of the Democratic party incline to treat the administration with respect.

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Yours, always truly,
DAN'L WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 394-5