Shady Hill, 5 March, 1861.
Is it not a great
satisfaction to have the dignity and force of the government once more
asserted? To feel that there are strong and honest hands to hold it, in place
of the feeble and false ones which for four months past have let it fall?
Lincoln's Inaugural
is just what might have been expected from him, and falls but little short of
what might have been desired. It is manly and straightforward; it is strong and
plain enough to afford what is so greatly needed, a base upon which the
sentiments of the uncorrupted part of the Northern people can find firm ground;
and from which their course of action can take direction. But what will the
seceded States say about it — still more, what will they do? I incline to
believe that they will not try violence, and that their course as an
independent Confederacy is nearly at an end.
Congress could not
have done less harm than it has done in passing the proposal for a
Constitutional Amendment.1 I am sorry that Lincoln should have
volunteered any approbation of the proposal, — though I have little fear that
the Amendment can be adopted by a sufficient number of States to make it part
of the Constitution. I do not wish to bind the future. I fully adopt the
principle in regard to “domestic institutions” (what a euphuistic people about
slavery we are!) of the Republican platform, but I do not want Congress bound
never to pass laws to prevent the internal Slave Trade. Let Slavery alone in
each state, — very well; but let us not promise never to try to stop Virginia
from being nothing but a breeding ground of slaves.
The first act of
this great play of Destruction of the Union has ended well. It seems now as if
before the play were ended it would be generally found out that, as you and I
have believed from the beginning, its proper name is, Destruction of the Slave
Power.
When the history of
American Slavery is written its open decline and fall will be dated from the
day in which the South Carolina Declaration of Independence was signed. . . .
_______________
1 The Thirteenth Amendment as proposed
by Congress in 1861, and approved by Lincoln in his inaugural address, forbade
the passage of any amendment empowering Congress “to abolish or interfere,
within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of
persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.” As adopted and
declared in force before the end of 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished
slavery.
SOURCE: Sara Norton and M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters
of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 219-20
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