Shady Hill, 29 April, 1861.
I wish we could have a long talk together. Your last note
found its answer in my heart. Everything is going on well here. The feeling
that stirs the people is no outburst of transient passion, but is as deep as it
is strong. I believe it will last till the work is done. Of course we must look
for some reaction, — but I have no fear that it will bear any proportion to the
force of the present current.
It seems to me to be pretty much settled by this unanimity
of action at the North that we are not to have a divided Union. I almost regret
this result, for I wish that the Southern States could have the opportunity of
making a practical experiment of their system as a separate organization, and I
fear lest when the time of settlement comes the weakness of the North may begin
to show itself again in unmanly compliances.
But our chief danger at the present moment is lest the
prevailing excitement of the people should overbear the wiser, slower, and more
far-sighted counsels of Mr. Seward, — for it is he who more than any one else
has the calmness and the prudence which are most requisite in this emergency. I
am afraid that he is not well supported in the Cabinet, and I more than ever
wish that he could have been our President. I am not satisfied that Mr. Lincoln
is the right man for the place at this time.
Sumner dined with our Club on Saturday.1 He did
not make a good impression on me by his talk. He is very bitter against Seward;
he expressed a great want of confidence in Scott, thinking him feeble and too
much of a politician to be a good general; he doubts the honour and the good
service of Major Anderson. There is but one man in the country in whom he has
entire confidence, and in him his confidence is overweening.
After Sumner had gone Mr. Adams2 came in
and talked in a very different and far more statesmanlike way. His opinions are
worthy of confidence. I think he is not thoroughly pleased with the President
or the Cabinet, — but in him Mr. Seward has a strong ally.
You see that Caleb Cushing has offered his services to
Governor Andrew. I understand that two notes passed on each side, — one a
formal tender from Cushing of his services, which the Governor replied to with
equal formality, stating that there is no position in the Massachusetts army
which he can fill. Cushing's first letter was accompanied by another private
one in which he offered himself to fill any position and expressed some of his
sentiments on the occasion. To this Andrew answers that in his opinion Mr.
Cushing does not possess the confidence of the community in such measure as to
authorize him — the Governor — to place him in any position of responsibility,
and that, even if this were not the case, Mr. Cushing does not possess his
personal confidence to a degree which would warrant him in accepting his
services. This is excellent. It is no more than Cushing deserves. Neither the
people nor the Governor have forgotten, and they will never forgive, his
speeches last November or December, or his previous course. . . .3
_______________
1 The Saturday Club of Boston.
2 Charles Francis Adams was appointed minister to
England, March 20, 1861.
3 Cushing had presided at the Democratic National
Convention which nominated Breckinridge to run against Lincoln.
SOURCE: Sara Norton and M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters
of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 231-3
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