New York, May 11, 1861.
I must write to you, my dear Hillard, although I have
nothing to state, to give, or to ask, except, indeed, whether you are well,
bodily of course — for who is mentally well nowadays? Behold in me the symbol
of civil war: Oscar probably on his march to Virginia under that flag of shame,
Hamilton in the Illinois militia at Cairo, Norman writing to-day to President
Lincoln for a commission in the United States army, we two old ones alone in
this whole house; but why write about individuals at a time like this!
Mr. Everett sent me for perusal a pamphlet written in 1821,
by McDuflle, so hyper-national in tone and political concepts that it confuses
even an old student of history and his own times, like myself. . . . There are two things for which I
ardently pray at this juncture: that there be soon a great and telling battle
sufficient to make men think again, and somewhat to shake the Arrogantia
autlralis out of the Southerners; and secondly that, if we must divide, we
change our Constitution and shake the absurd State-sovereignty out of that. All,
there are other things, too, for which I pray. I bite my lips, that Italy has
stolen such a march over Germany. . . .
SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and
Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 318
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