WASHINGTON, Aug. 28, 1850.
MY DEAR DOWNER, I
received yours of the 26th to-day. We are at last at the hand-to-hand
encounter. The Texas Boundary Bill is up. The Omnibus is to be reconstructed,
or there will be an attempt to do it, and then the Devil is to be harnessed in
to take it through by daylight. I tremble for the fate of freedom. I fear our
only hope will repose at last on the Territories themselves. A motion is now
pending to amend the Boundary Bill by adding substantially the New-Mexico and
Utah Territorial Bills to it. Then another motion will be made to add
California to that. This is the bait. It is hoped that the friends of freedom
will not venture to vote against adding California, so that this amendment will
be easily effected. But then, California being on the amendment, it is hoped
that this will carry over a sufficient Northern force to sustain the whole;
that is, there are men who will not dare to vote for New Mexico and Utah
without the proviso, who will venture to face their constituents, if, at the
same time, they can say they have secured freedom to California. But while
there is life there is hope.
The inference which
you draw from the entire silence of every one of my acquaintances in the city
is inevitable. However painful, it forces itself irresistibly upon my mind, I have not a friend among them. While I
seemed prosperous, and had the leading men of the public on my side, they
professed friendship; but now, when I am away, and when a most extraordinary
conjuncture of circumstances has exposed me to the raking fire of all the sons
of Mammon and all the sycophants of power, I see that they are as heedless of
me, my character, my interests, my feelings, as though I were one of the slaves
whom they are willing should be created. It is saddening, disheartening. I feel
it for myself some: I feel it for human nature more. But will I ask them to
come to my rescue, and fulfil the promise which years of intimacy and of
professions have made? No: I will perish before I will beg. And as for this war
in favor of liberty, and against its contemners, high or low, I will pray God
for life and strength to carry it on while I live, and for the spirit that will
bequeath it to my children when I die.
SOURCE: Mary Tyler
Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 319-20
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