ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI,
November 29, 1865.
I am going to start for Arkansas on Friday, and be absent
some three weeks. I take it nothing important can occur at Washington until
after Christmas, unless it be on the question of the admission of the Southern
members. I have never committed myself on that point, and though everybody
supposes that my terms with Johnston looked to that result, you will remember
that those terms specially provided that the laws of Congress were to control
all questions. Now the new oath is and was a law of Congress, and the members
elect must take the new oath, and if they cannot it is their fault or
misfortune, not ours. If they take the prescribed oath, I think they should be
admitted, simply because you cannot expect to hold a people always without
representation, and it will give them additional weight, if they be denied now
and afterward received. It is always better when concessions are to be made to
make them at once, and not seem to be forced to do it after contest. You can
now simply say, "Certainly, come in by subscribing to the conditions and
oaths already prescribed by law, the same oaths we take."
Affectionately,
W. T. SHERMAN.
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The
Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837
to 1891, p. 259-60
No comments:
Post a Comment