Senator Henry Clay to Leslie Combs, December 22, 1849

WASHINGTON, December 22, 1849.

MY DEAR SIR,—I received your favor of the 17th instant, and thank you for its details. It seems that I have lost my negro man by the small-pox. I hope the measures taken will arrest its progress.

My object in writing you now is one of great importance, and I wish you to lead off in it. It will do the country good, and do you good.

The feeling for disunion among some intemperate Southern politicians, is stronger than I hoped or supposed it could be. The masses generally, even at the South, are, I believe, yet sound; but they may become influenced and perverted. The best counter-action of that feeling is to be derived from popular expressions of public meetings of the people. Now, what I should be glad to see, is such meetings held throughout Kentucky; for, you must know, that the disunionists count upon the co-operation of our patriotic State. Can't you get up a large powerful meeting of both parties, if possible, at Lexington, at Louisville, etc., to express, in strong language, their determination to stand by the Union? I hope the Legislature, and the Convention also, if it has not adjourned, may do the same. If you remain silent and passive, there is danger that the bad feeling may yet reach you. Now is the time for salutary action, and you are the man to act. I inclose some resolutions, which, or some similar to them, I should be happy to see adopted.

Prudence and propriety will suggest to you, that too free a use of my name should not be made in getting up this movement. You well know the persons to consult with; and I wish you would keep me advised of what you do.

SOURCE: Calvin Colton, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Henry Clay, p. 593

 

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

Frank G. Ruffin to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, November 2, 1852

SHADWELL, ALBEMARLE Co., [VA.], November 2nd, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR: I know not if a man retired as I am from politics and never very active or influential in that field has a title to ask a favour even at the hands of one of his own strait sect; but as I speak not in my own behalf but for another I have ventured to approach you on the subject.

I learn, but not from himself, or by his agency, that in case Mr. Pierce shall have been elected, my friend, Gov[erno]r McDonald of Georgia has been mentioned in his own and some other contiguous states as a suitable member of the Cabinet: and it has been suggested that your influence would avail in getting him into that position. I need not mention to you how true he has been to the rights of the South and that he is not more of a disunionist than you and I, that is to say, as the lady remarked of Wilkes, "he does not squint more than every gentleman ought to." But I may say, what his retiring disposition and rare modesty may have prevented your knowing, that he is a man of marked ability, of wise moderation, of Roman firmness, of devoted patriotism, and of the loftiest public and private character. Every drop of his blood pulseth in accordance with Southern rights; and had every Southern man been as wise, as prudent, and as firm as he we should not now have to mourn the surrender of those rights?

I presume from Cobb's activity, that he is after some such post. You know him. Ought such a man, dead in his own state, except perhaps for purposes of mischief, to supplant him whom I propose, and thus rise one step higher towards that office which he has sought by betraying not only his own section, but the very principles which he proposes to maintain? Would it not be a step gained that the President of the Nashville Convention should aid the deliberations of Mr. Pierce?

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 149

Senator John C. Calhoun to Andrew Pickens Calhoun, January 12, 1850

Washington 12th Jan 1850

MY DEAR ANDREW, . . . The issue between the South and the North is the all absorbing subject here, although one would not think so who would judge from the party Organs here. They keep silent in the hope of giving such prominence to mere party issues, as to divert the publick mind from the higher questions and issues. They see in the latter a power sufficient to brake up the old party organization, and with it, the spoils system. The Southern members are more determined and bold than I ever saw them. Many avow themselves to be disunionists, and a still greater number admit, that there is little hope of any remedy short of it. In the mean time the North show no disposition to desist from aggression. They now begin to claim the right to abolish slavery in all the old States, that is those who were original members, when the Constitution was adopted. The Session will be stormy, but I hope, before it ends, a final and decisive issue will be made up with the North. There is no time to loose.

Give my love to Margeret and all the children. Kiss them for their grandfather.

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, p. 780

Jonathan Worth to Joseph John Jackson, December 17, 1860

RALEigh, Dec. 17, ‘60.

I can not find time to write you as often as I ought to.

To-day the Senate voted 27 to 15 to suspend the rules in order to pass through its 2d and 3d readings a bill offered this morning by Erwin, who is a manly disunionist, not a disunionist under the disguise of secession, authorizing the Gov. to expend $300,000 in buying arms. The reason given for this remarkable precipitancy is that there are reasons to fear that a considerable insurrection is on foot, and secondly, that just now a gun factory offers him the guns at cash prices and payment to be made in State bonds at par. I need not say that such pretext is equally silly. The bill is made the order of the day for 12 to-morrow. It will probably pass its second and third readings. Its real object is to enable the Governor to arm volunteers to aid S. C. The State will soon be involved in war unless, to the great disappointment and mortification of the leaders in this General Assembly, the committee of 33 should make a pacification.

Cass has resigned because B. would not reinforce Ft. Moultrie. This is the report here, fully credited. Cass is too much of a Statesman to connive at the refusal of the President to execute the laws. Lincoln would not be permitted to execute them.

So So. Ca. will become another Paradise—By her cotton will rule the world—Get plenty of cheap negroes from Africa, and we may possibly be allowed to attach ourselves to her as an humble dependency.

Slavery, as Gen. Jackson well predicted, is only a “pretext.” Slavery is doomed if the South sets up a Southern Confederacy. With Canada in effect for her Northern border from the Atlantic to the Pacific—all hating us, it is madness to think of anything else only to cut the throats of the negroes or have our own throats cut.

I am truly sorry that I am a member of this Assembly which I think contains less of patriotism than any like number of men ever assembled in this State since the close of the Revolution.

Nearly half of the Democratic members desire to preserve the Union, but they are the rank and file and will all ultimately follow their leaders—at least, vote for the measures of Avery and Co.—all of which, openly or in disguise, look to a dissolution.

SOURCE: J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Editor, The Correspondence of Jonathan Worth, Volume 1, p. 126-7

Jonathan Worth’s Address to People Of Randolph And Alamance, January 31, 1861

To My Constituents of the Counties of Randolph and Alamance:

On the 28th of February next you are called upon, by the question of a an act of the General Assembly, by your vote to declare whether or not you want a State Convention, restricted to the consideration of our National Affairs; and also, at the same time, to vote for delegates for said Convention, in case a majority of the whole State shall call it. The Act provides that the action of the Convention shall have no validity until ratified by a vote of the people. I voted against this act because neither the Constitution of the United States, nor of this State, contemplates any such convention, and because I can see no way by which it can do any good, and I fear it may do much mischief. Such a convention is a modern invention of South Carolina, to bring about a sort of legalized revolution. It has been adopted in most of the Southern States. All its original advocates were disunionists. Wherever such a convention has assembled, it has asserted the power to sever the State from the Union, and declare it an independent government. Under my oath to support the Constitution of the United States, I could not vote to call a convention to overthrow that instrument. I thought it improper for the General Assembly to ask you whether you want an unconstitutional Convention. What can it do o lt can do nothing only as a revolutionary body. Everybody looks for a remedy for our national troubles, to an amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The Fifth Article of the Constitution of the United States prescribes two modes of amendment. I give you the words:

“The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution; or on the application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid, for all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratifical by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.”

Our wise fathers did not intend that the great fundamental law—the Constitution—should be lightly altered. If bare majorities of the popular vote could have altered it, a written Constitution would have been idle.

You will see that there are two constitutional modes of amendment. Congress has been endeavoring to agree on amendments. There is little prospect that two-thirds of both houses can agree on anything. The members were all elected as partizans. Many of them have indulged in crimination and recrimination in mutual abuse of each other till they are not in the temper to act as patriots and statesmen. They have become excited—excited men rarely act prudently and wisely. The other mode of amendment has not been tried. Shall we not try all constitutional modes of amendment before we resort to strange and unconstitutional modes? That other mode seems peculiarly adapted to our present condition. Let a National Convention be called. Surely two-thirds of the State will join in such a call. If called, it is hoped wise and discreet men, not men lately engaged in party strife, will be called to fill it. Can anybody doubt that such an assembly could compose the National commotions. I do not doubt it. The provision for such a convention, in common with all their works, shows the forecast and wisdom of our fathers. In such an assembly, composed of calm and prudent men, all sections could be heard, could interchange views, each could make some concessions to the feelings and prejudices of others, the same sort of concession we all have to make to each other in religion, morals, and everything else, which makes civilized society.

They would agree on a basis of settlement. In all the States excepting South Carolina, perhaps in a few other Southern States, the people still cherish a love for the name of Washington and for the Union. The doings of such a convention would be likely to be heartily ratified by three-fourths of the States. At all events let no one break up this great Union till we have fully tried all constitutional modes of amendment.

If the proposed State Convention does what its most ardent advocates desire it to do, it will be what all conventions south of us have done—declare the State out of the Union and an independent State. Every artifice will be employed to make you believe that a convention is to be 

called to save the Union. Believe it not. It is true, many members who are Union men voted for submitting it to a vote of the people whether they would have a convention or not, throwing upon you, with little time to consider, a responsibility which I think they should have met themselves. A majority refused to pass an amendment allowing you to endorse on your tickets whether you are for Union or disunion. It will be said that the convention can do no harm since whatever it may do will have no validity till ratified by you. The disunion leaders boldly maintain that the Legislature can not restrict the convention, that it may pass whatever ordinance it pleases, regardless of the restraints attempted to be imposed upon it by the Act of Assembly; and that it may, or may not, at its pleasure, submit its action to the people for ratification. If war begins it will probably be brought on during the sitting of the convention.

It is now the policy of disunionists to postpone hostilities until President Buchanan goes out and President Lincoln comes in. They will probably court a fight as soon as Lincoln takes the reins. If war shall have actually commenced before the convention closes its session, and an ordinance of secession be passed, it is to be feared that its action will not be referred to the people for ratification. Not one of the five States which seceded, though acting under no emergency, has submitted its action to the people for ratification. We have not yet exhausted constitutional remedies. We can not have exhausted them before this convention shall assemble. Believe not those who may tell you this convention is called to save the Union. It is called to destroy it. If you desire to preserve the Union vote “No Convention,” and at the same time, be careful for whom you vote as delegates.

When we shall have seen what the Commissioners shall effect, who are to meet in Washington on the 4th of February, to look for a remedy for the National disturbances, when we shall have called for a National Convention and it shall be refused, or shall have failed to accomplish a pacification, it will be time enough to resort to revolution. I think that those only should vote for a convention who regard disunion as the only remedy for the disease of the times.

I have felt it due to you to present this hasty explanation of my views, on a momentous question on which you are called upon to vote with such extraordinary haste.

To go into a discussion of the ground on which the disunionists claim that we ought to dissolve the Union, would require more time than I could properly withdraw from my legislative duties. I content myself with saying that I have carefully read nearly all the debates in Congress, and I see no sufficient reason for abandoning the counsels of the Father of his Country, and the Government under which we have become the freest and most powerful nation of the earth, and launching, probably through civil war, upon the dark sea of experiment.

JoNAThAN WorTh.

January 31, 1860 [sic]

SOURCES: “Circular,” Fayetteville Semi-Weekly Observer, Fayetteville, North Carolina, published February 7, 1861, p. 2;  J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Editor, The Correspondence of Jonathan Worth, Volume 1, p. 129-33

Jonathan Worth to proably Joseph John Jackson [fragment]*, after December 3, 1860

The late election of Clingman² to the U. S. Senate awakens painful reflections in every lover of Union, whose patriotism raises him above the influences of party. He has been long known as a sympathizer with the Disunionists of S. C.—originally a Henry Clay Whig–reviling Democracy more than his leader, of late years he got his eye on his present position, abandoning all his early principles and became a Democrat of the straightest order. At the opening of this Congress, upon the reading of President Buchanan's message, he was the first to condemn it on account of its pacific tone. He has long been known as favoring Disunion.

In the election for members of the present Legislature, it has often been asserted in debate here and in no instance denied, so far as I have heard, that every member, while a Candidate, professed devotion to the Union and declared the election of Lincoln, which we all expected would happen, would not justify breaking up the Union. Since then no one pretends that any new cause of offense to the South has occurred. It is well known that nearly all the unpretending Democratic members were at heart what they had professed to be before their constituents— Union men. But their leaders had doubtless joined the Southern league. Avery,³ Hall,⁴ Erwin,⁵ Street,⁶ Person,⁷ Hoke,⁸ Bachelor,⁹ Bridgers,¹⁰ in the first caucus, assumed the lead and demanded the decapitation of Holden, because he was known to be for Union. The rank and file were astounded. When required to abandon their old and approved leader, one who was known to have been the very heart of Democracy for long years past, the most talented and hitherto the most influential of their party, plain, honest members, gaped in wonder; and very many of them had the moral courage, at first, to oppose their leaders. Many honest Democrats, largely interested in slave property, could not at first understand why a native North Carolinian, himself a slave owner, lately deemed worthy to be Governor and United States Senator and a Union man, was to be superseded by a man lately from England, naturalized last April, without interest in slaves, an avowed Disunionist, a man without social position in Raleigh, where he was best known. The most prositable office in the gift of the General Assembly was the public printing. This first important move of the leaders was carried by a bare majority in Caucus; but being carried the rank and file, true to discipline, came in the next day and voted unanimously for John Spelman for public printer. The leaders next demanded that they should vote for Clingman. Many of the more worthy members

_______________

* This fragment of a letter in Worth's writing was probably to J. J. Jackson.

² Thomas L. Clingman, b. 1812. Whig member of Commons 1835 and 1841. Member of Congress 1843-45, 1847-58. United States Senator 1858-61. In 1850 he became a Democrat. He was a Consederate Brigadier General during the war. In 1875 he was a member of the State Convention.

³ W. W. Avery of Burke.

⁴ Eli W. Hall of New Hanover.

⁵ Marcus Erwin of Buncombe

⁶ Nathaniel H. Street of Craven.

⁷ Saml. J. Person of New Hanover.

⁸ John F. Hoke of Lincoln.

⁹ Jos. B. Batchelor of Warren.

¹⁰ Robt. R. Bridgers of Edgecombe

SOURCE: J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Editor, The Correspondence of Jonathan Worth, Volume 1, p. 125-6

Ausburn Birdsall* To Howell Cobb, September 8, 1848

Binghamton, N. Y., Sept. 8th, 1848.

Dear Sir: I sent you by yesterday's mail, a copy of the Albany Evening Journal, the leading whig paper in this State, in which you will find a full endorsement of the platform laid down at Buffalo as the old Whig platform. I send you herewith to-day a printed circular recently issued by the Whig State Central Committee, which is now being circulated throughout the State. I can vouch for its genuineness. The Whigs and Barnburners seem to vie with each other in the present crusade against the South. The Democratic party which supports Cass and Butler are the only advocates of a strict adherence to the Constitution and its compromises to be found in the North. Can it be possible that in such a contest the South will fail to stand by the Constitution, its own interests, and by its Northern friends? I will not permit myself to doubt that it will be found equal to the emergency. The idea is strange to us indeed, that Southern votes are to be given to aid sectional disorganizers and disunionists. It cannot — it ought not to be so. He that does not protect as well as provide for his own household is truly worse than an infidel.

_______________

* Member of Congress from New York, 1847-1849.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 125

Salmon P. Chase to Judge Milton Sutliff,* May 1, 1861

Private.

Treasury Department,         

May 1, 1861.

My Dear Judge: I thank you for your letter. The response of the States to the appeal of the Government is, indeed, most gratifying. Maryland, you will see, is rapidly returning to her loyalty. Kentucky and Missouri, I hope, will not be far behind her. You may be very sure there will be no negotiation with the Disunionists, though the return of the States which have been precipitated into disunion to their loyalty will be hailed, of course, with pleasure. The most energetic measures our means allow will be taken, and I think all impartial men will in the end be satisfied with the course of the Administration.

I thank you personally for your kind expressions towards me, and I hope you will never have occasion to withdraw your confidence.

My despatches to the Western Collectors, I see, have produced their intended effect, though they were not exactly what they ought to have been, in as much as no clearances are required on Western waters. Instructions will be forwarded immediately to all Collectors to prevent, by all proper means, shipments of arms, munitions, provisions and other commodities to States now in hostility to the Union.

_______________

* Lent by Mr. Homer E. Stewart, Warren, Ohio.

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 295-6

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, January 27, 1857

Worcester, January 27, 1857

I send you my speech at our Convention. You asked if I was led into it. It was entirely my doing, from beginning to end; nobody else would have dared to do it, because I knew of nobody at first who would take part with me, except the Garrisonians who were Disunionists before, but I found several rather influential persons, and the whole thing has succeeded better than we expected.

A nice pamphlet report will soon appear. I am surprised that you should not see the weakness of Theodore Parker's idea of preserving the Union for the slaves, when everybody admits that but for the Union, ten would escape where one now does, and slavery be soon abolished in the Northern Slave States. Last week Colonel Benton was here, and when he said these things as arguments against Disunion, everybody applauded, much to his surprise. They say his speech did more than our Convention.

I had a note from Mr. Sumner the other day, who thinks that Virginia will secede, first or last, and take all the States except perhaps Maryland, which can only be held by force. If it were not for the necessity of keeping Washington and the Mississippi, it would be well to have it so, but since those must be kept, it is hard to predict the end. I think however that you need feel no anxiety in Brattleboro'; I don't think the battering-rams (of which the old lady in the Revolutionary times, according to Rose Terry, was so afraid, her only ideas of warfare being based on the Old Testament and Josephus) will get so far. And I think there is more danger of compromise than war, at any rate.

I don't know whether you are aware of an impression which exists in many minds, but which I cannot attach any weight to, as yet, that the seceding States will prefer to abolish slavery, under the direction of England and France, rather than come under Yankee domination again. Wendell Phillips thinks this and says the Fremonts are very confident of it. If they made such a bargain, I think it would end the war and separate us and I don't think it would be so formidable a result, certainly. Even as a matter of Union, it would lead to ultimate reconstruction, for nothing but slavery can ever keep us permanently apart. And the slaves may be better off if emancipated by their masters than by us. Still I don't believe there is any chance of it.

Nothing could have happened better fitted to create enthusiasm than to begin the war by such a distinct overt act from the Southern Confederacy — and by a great disappointment. When you consider that such a man as Mr. Ripley firmly expected to see fighting in the streets of New York with the friends of the South there, and that the New York Mayor advocated annexation to the Southern Confederacy, the unanimous enthusiasm there is astonishing, compelling Bennett [of the "New York Herald"] to turn his editorials to the Northern side, for personal safety. Nothing else has been so remarkable as this.

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 78-80

Diary of John Hay: May 4, 1861

The Maryland disunionists — that branch of them represented by Bob McLane called to-day upon the President. . . . They roared as gently as 'twere any nightingale. The only point they particularly desired to press was that there was no special necessity at present existing for the armed occupation of Maryland. . . . They also implored the President not to act in any spirit of revenge for the murdered soldiers. The President coolly replied that he never acted from any such impulse; and, as to their other views, he should take them into consideration, and should decline giving them any answer at present.

Gen'l Scott gave orders to Gen'l Butler to occupy the Relay House as soon as practicable, and Butler instantly replied that he should hold divine service with his command there to-morrow (Sunday).

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 30; Tyler Dennett, Editor, Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, p. 18;

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: April 15, 1861 - 2nd Entry

To-day the secession fires assumed a whiter heat. In the Convention the Union men no longer utter denunciations against the disunionists. They merely resort to pretexts and quibbles to stave off the inevitable ordinance. They had sent a deputation to Washington to make a final appeal to Seward and Lincoln to vouchsafe them such guarantees as would enable them to keep Virginia to her moorings. But in vain. They could not obtain even a promise of concession. And now the Union members as they walk the streets, and even Gov. Letcher himself, hear the indignant mutterings of the impassioned storm which threatens every hour to sweep them from existence. Business is generally suspended, and men run together in great crowds to listen to the news from the North, where it is said many outrages are committed on Southern men and those who sympathize with them. Many arrests are made, and the victims thrown into Fort Lafayette. These crowds are addressed by the most inflamed members of the Convention, and never did I hear more hearty responses from the people.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p.19-20