I have yours of the
19th.1 Let me try to make my views a little more clear:
1. I do not believe
that a State can secede at pleasure from the Union, any more than a stave may
secede from a cask of which it is a component part.
2. I do believe that
a people — a political community large and strong enough to maintain a National
existence — have a right to form and modify their institutions in accordance
with their own convictions of justice and policy. Hence if seven or eight
contiguous States (not one small one) were to come to Washington saying, “We
are tired of the Union — let us out!” — I should say, “There's the door — go!”
and I think they would have a right to go, even though no one
recognized it. If they should set to fighting and whip us, every one would say
they had a right to govern themselves; and I do not see how their having a few
more or less men, or a better or worse governmen general than
we, can make or mar their right of self-government.
3. If the seceding
State or States go to fighting and defying the laws, — the Union being yet
undissolved, save by their own say-so — I guess they will have to be made to
behave themselves. I am sorry for this, for I would much sooner have them
behave of their own accord; but if they wont, it must be fixed the other way.
4. We shall never
have peace nor equality in the Union till the Free States shall say to the
Slave, “If you want to go, go; we are willing.” So long as they threaten
secession and we deprecate it, they will always have us at a disadvantage.
5. The Cotton
States are going. Nothing that we can offer will stop them. The
Union-loving men are cowed and speechless; a Reign of Terror prevails from Cape
Fear to the Rio Grande. Every suggestion of reason is drowned in a mad whirl of
passion and faction. You will be President over no foot of the Cotton States
not commanded by Federal Arms. Even your life is not safe, and it is your
simple duty to be very careful of exposing it. I doubt whether you ought to go
to Washington via Wheeling and the B. & O. Railroad unless you go with a very
strong force. And it is not yet certain that the Federal District will not be
in the hands of a Pro-Slavery rebel array before the 4th of March.
6. I fear nothing,
care for nothing, but another disgraceful back-down of the Free States. That is
the only real danger. Let the Union slide — it may be reconstructed; let
Presidents be assassinated — we can elect more; let the Republicans be defeated
and crushed — we shall rise again; but another nasty compromise whereby
everything is conceded and nothing secured will so thoroughly disgrace and
humiliate us that we can never again raise our heads, and this country becomes
a second edition of the Barbary States as they were sixty years ago. “Take any
form but that!”
Excuse me fore
boring you at such length, when you must be drowned in letters. I hope not to
do so again.
(So many people
entertain a violent prejudice against my handwriting that I have had the above
copied to save you trouble in deciffering it.)
1 This letter has not been located.
1 comment:
My jaw quite literally hit the floor when I read "let Presidents be assassinated — we can elect more." Considering that Lincoln himself would be assassinated just four and a half years later.
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