Boston, June 7, 1862.
My Dear Mr. Sedgwick, —
Cannot you get some ingenuous Hunker . . . to offer a little simple amendment
to the emancipation bill that shall provide for the freedom of any slave (and
his family) who may serve the United States, a certificate from the military
officer cognizant of such service to be his warrant for free papers from any
court of record, etc., etc., loyal masters to be compensated — rascals not?
Such an amendment, coming from a radical, disorganizing red Republican like C.
B. S. of Syracuse, would be of course summarily put down; there must always be
a ferocious cat, or royal Bengal tiger rather, under his meal! but such
an innocent and proper provision would be, I suppose, unanimously adopted if
offered by some moderate Republican. Our good friend Horton now would carry it nim.
con., unless you radicals, from the mere force of habit, oppose him. . . .
General Hunter hit
the nail on the head when he said to me, “I want to find out whether we, as well
as the rebels, are fighting chiefly for the preservation of slavery!”
Trebly conservative
as I am, I sometimes get so disgusted with the timidity and folly of our
moderate Republicans that I should go in and join the Abolitionists if these
last were not so arbitrary and illiberal that no man of independence can live
in the house with them.
Yours,
J. M. F
SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and
Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 316-7
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