Carl Schurz loafed into my room this morning, and we spoke
of the slaves and their ominous discontent. He agreed with me that the
Commandants at Pickens and Monroe were unnecessarily squeamish in imprisoning
and returning to their masters the fugitives who came to their gates begging to
be employed. . . . Schurz says that thousands of Democrats are declaring that
now is the time to remove the cause of all our woes. What we could not have
done in many life-times the madness and folly of the South had accomplished for
us. Slavery offers itself more vulnerable to our attack than at any point in
any century, and the wild malignity of the South is excusing us before God and
the world.
So we talked in the morning.
But to-night I saw a letter from Mrs. Whitman stating that
Thomas Earl , T. W. Higginson, the essayist of Boston, and young John Brown,
were “going to free the slaves.” What we were dreaming of came over my mind
with horrible distinctness, but I shrank from the apparition. This is not the
time nor are these the men to do it. They should wait till the government gives
some kind of sanction to the work. . . .
SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and
Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 33; Tyler Dennett, Editor, Lincoln
and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, p. 22-3.
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