Sunday, March 12, 2023

Major General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, January 19, 1866

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION                
OF THE MISSISSIPPI,        
ST. LOUIS, Jan. 19, 1866.

Dear Brother: The papers this morning announce your election by a strong vote, and settle that question. I am of course very glad, for it demonstrates not only your strength but that the people of Ohio approve your past. As to the future, of course in all things political you have far more knowledge than I, but I do believe that the extension of the election franchise is being pushed beyond the Rule of Right. All beings are entitled to the protection of the law, even “infants not born,” but because of such natural right it is not to be inferred they must vote. To vote implies an understanding almost equivalent to the ability to make laws. It is legislative — not natural Right. Instead of enlarging the privilege, we must gradually curtail it, in order to have stability and security. It was this popular clamor for supposed rights that carried the South into rebellion. No people were ever more unanimous than they, and though now they concede themselves vanquished, yet on this and kindred subjects they are as unanimous as ever.

To place or attempt to place the negro on a par with the whites will produce new convulsions. The country is in no condition to go on with such contests. Better pacify or acknowledge conditions than attempt new ones dangerous to the peace of the whole country. It will take ten years for the South to regain full prosperity with the negro free, and that should precede any new complication.

Affectionately, etc.,
W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 261-2

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