RALEigh, May, 1861.
You know how earnestly I have labored to preserve the Union. I still regard it as the “paladium of our liberty.” I have no hope that so good a government will be built upon its ruins. I advised you last February to vote against a Convention, regarding it as a contrivance to overthrow the Government. There was then a majority in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas in favor of preserving the Union. I felt sure if a reconsideration could not be effected, war must ensue—and if war was commenced by either party, it would engender hatred between the sections and greatly widen the breach. I have always believed and still believe that the doctrine of secession, as a peaceful and constitutional mode of withdrawing a State from the Union, an absurdity; and that it was the right and the duty of the Federal Government, to execute the laws and protect the public property by military force in such seceding States; but after seven States had been allowed without molestation, to assert this doctrine of secession and set up and put in operation a new government—after all the Federal officers within their limits had resigned and they had possessed themselves without resistance of all the forts, excepting Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, on the mainland in seven States, I deemed it highly inexpedient for the Government to attempt coercion by military force: because,
First—it would result in a bloody civil war—and could not end in a restoration of friendly union.
Secondly—because I thought Congress had indicated, by refusing to pass a force bill, that it was inexpedient at that time, to use military power to retain or regain the public property, through the agency of a Sectional President, which indication I supposed the President, as the power appointed to execute the Legislative will, would observe.
Thirdly—I supposed that President, though he had obtained power by the advocacy of Sectional doctrines, tending to dissolve the Union, still desired to preserve the Union; and any man of ordinary common sense knew that any attempt on the part of a president elected by one section, to compel by force of arms, the other section which had been allowed quietly to accomplish revolution and establish a government, would be resisted—and all the men in the same States, still adhering to the Union, would be rendered impotent to resist the current of Revolution.
The President must have known that all of us in the Slave States, who in spite of the unfriendly action of the North, had barely become able to stand up for the Union would be crushed by the first gun he fired against the South. I believed he still desired to protect our rights and preserve the Union, and that he had some sympathy with those of us who had breasted the current of Disunion, and that he would not voluntarily drive us out of the Union—though the President had been elected as a partisan, upon one Sectional idea, I hoped and believed, when he and his party had attained control of the government, that he was enough of a statesman and a patriot to exert his powers to protect our rights and preserve the Union. Clay and Jackson and all the statesmen of the land, when South Carolina first asserted the Doctrine of Nullification and Secession, held that extraordinary Legislation was necessary to enable the executive to suppress the rebellion. The last Congress had refused the extraordinary legislation—the legislative will was therefore clearly expressed, that there should be no attempt at military coercion, and for some weeks after the inauguration of Lincoln, his administration allowed it to be understood that they intended to act in conformity to the will of Congress and evacuate Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens—and thus allowing excited passions to subside, leave to the next Congress to determine what was to be done. But suddenly and without explanation, a fleet is fitted by the President and notice given to the Southern Confederacy that Fort Sumter would be provided for peaceably or forcibly. Men of war were sent to Charleston Harbor—then Fort Sumter was attacked and taken. The first guns were fired by the Southern army, but this was after they had notice from the President that he intended to retain possession of the Fort by force.
[The remainder is missing, but the substance of it was an appeal to the people to unite in defense of the South.]
SOURCE: J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Editor, The Correspondence of Jonathan Worth, Volume 1, p. 135-7
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