Mt. Savage, March 28, '61.
Dana's speech was excellently
manly, — but events move so rapidly now, that the matters he most dwells on
have lost their prominence. Who cares now about the slavery question?
Secession, and the new Oligarchy built upon it, have crowded it out. Lincoln
must act soon, or forfeit his claim to our regard: he should call
Congress together at once and demand power to collect the revenue, or
permission to acknowledge the Cotton Confederacy, — the alternative to be
accompanied by a recommendation to so amend the Constitution as to make it
clear that the Nation is one Nation, and the government a real
government. It is absurd to talk of national deliberation with seven
States in open revolution; but if attempted, not Slavery but Secession should
be forever laid. Let the States that claim it as a right make a Confederacy,
and the States that do not claim it a Union. I think Seward will soon begin to
look foolish with his policy — its inevitable result seems to me a reaction and
a war.
SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of
Charles Russell Lowell, p. 196-7
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