Friday, October 13, 2023

A Southerner to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, June 14, 1852

(Private.)
RICHMOND, [Va.], June 14th [1852].

DEAR SIR: I beg to call your attention, to that portion of Judge Conrad's speech in the Anti-Fillmore Convention of New York, which is enclosed. (You will find the whole speech in N. Y. Herald of 13th.)

I write to you as a true friend of the South, to know what is the South to do. Are her statesmen looking ahead and preparing for contingencies? As this letter is anonymous, you are not bound, I admit, to treat it with any consideration. I ask only to free my own mind of thoughts which press painfully upon it, and to leave them with those who can best judge whether they are of any value or practicable. The question is this—Cannot the South form an alliance, either with England, or some foreign country, which will protect her from the threatened aggression of the North? Look ahead, and do you not see a storm coming from the North which must dissolve the Union? Ought we not then to look ahead, ought not the Southern leaders to meet together and confer, and sound the governments of England, or other foreign powers, to see what can be done in such a contingency? You are one of the few men, I believe, not eaten up with selfish ambition. Strike a blow, then, I entreat you for the safety of the South. Would to Heaven that the South would stop talking and go to acting. Imitate the forecast, the practical character, and (as it has become necessary to fight the devil with fire) the subtlety of our sectional enemies. It strikes me, that it would be a good stroke of policy, and a most holy and righteous retribution, if we could form a treaty with England, giving her certain privileges in the cotton trade and vast navigation, in return for which, she could stand by the South, and crush the Free Soilers between Canada and the South States.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 145

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