Friday, December 25, 2020

Jonathan Worth to E. J. Hale and Sons, August 1, 1861

ASHEBORO, Aug. 1st, 1861.

The whole nation seems now to be heartily bowing its neck; in the North to Abolition, and in the South to Democracy and Secession. Each of the leaders seems to me to be conducting us to perdition. Being compelled to wear one or the other of these yokes, the latter is less galling to me and the goal seems more distant, and I bow my neck and submit to the goad.

In the present attitude of affairs no man will more willingly strengthen the military arm of the South and repel our invaders, but when the victory is won and peace restored, it is evident our late political opponents will regard us as subjugated vassals. They only tolerate us now because they need our aid to do the fighting. Events have proved Yancey's political sagacity. With the aid of the old villain Lincoln, the Secessionists have “warmed the Southern heart and influenced the Southern mind.” I regard the revolution as successful and the new government bound together with no [word illegible] of mind. But I know how impotent are the efforts of the wisest to look into the future, and find consolation in the hope that when Wickedness and Folly shall have finished their carnival, that Providence will bring good out of the miseries now impending

SOURCE: J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Editor, The Correspondence of Jonathan Worth, Volume 1, p. 157-8

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