Sunday, March 29, 2015

Fitz Henry Warren to James S. Pike, February 6, 1860

BURLINGTON, IOWA, February 6, 1860.

James: I send you a published letter of an aged gentleman, the sands of whose political life are nearly run out. The style, as you cannot fail to notice, is copied from Washington’s Farewell Address: some may think it superior to that outlawed production. Mr. Dana is not to be permitted to read it unless his family physician is present, with burnt brandy and smelling salts. Since Horace “saw visions and dreamed dreams” out here in the land of divine inspiration, the contents, perhaps, may be broken to him gently.

Do tell me, confidentially, if Fremont will probably be the nominee. Mule-steaks can now be got cheap, and I wish to lay in a stock for the campaign.

I see the Tribune squawks” a little over the committees. It was a very glorious victory, that election of Speaker. By the way, why don't you bring out Winter Davis for President? After the action of the Maryland legislature I think there is no doubt of his getting that electoral vote. Dana and Ripley appear to be quite well thought of down in Mississippi. Will one of them consent to take the nomination of Vice? That would take Mississippi, certain. With a pledge to make Helper Secretary of State we could bag North Carolina. In that case I shall insist on having Mr. Randall, of Philadelphia, Secretary of War; being in the “conservative zone” that would be all right. But I weary you.

Adieu.
Fitz-henry Warren.

Is Henry C. Carey temporal or eternal — “a spirit of health or a goblin damned?”

SOURCE: James Shepherd Pike, First Blows of the Civil War: The Ten Years of Preliminary Conflict in the United States from 1850 to 1860, p. 485

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