Coalter and Woodson came home today, after a visit of several weeks to Dardenne prairie.61 They came down in Barton's little wagon, bringing Onward62 with them, and have promised to take him home in a few days. Caroline63 sent us a number of good things for the table — Bacon, Lard, Meat[.]
Mr. Welling64 This evening I recd, a long letter from J. C. Welling (actual editor of the Nat:[ional] Intel [ligence]r.) in answer to mine to him, on the, now, much mooted question of the status of our naturalized citizens, and their liability to compulsory military service, if, for any reason, they return voluntarily to their native country. He had taken ground with Secy. Cass' first letters,65 and asserts, — and goes far to prove, by the letters of Sec.y.s Marcy66 and Webster67 — that the liability continues. I the contrary. But we concur entirely, in contempt for Mr. Cass, on account of his sudden change (with the whole Adm[inistratio]n.) through fear of popular opinion.
Cass. Poor Cass! He clings to office with the tenacity of a drowning man, and under the most humiliating circumstances. His character as a Statesman, as a Publicist, as a constitutional lawyer, dont [sic] weigh a feather in the scale against the honors and emoluments of Office: His personal consistency and self-respect are sacrificed without a scruple, to get or to retain a place, under any President, upon any doctrines, and with any associates in power.
[A clipping from the Missouri Republican of July 30, 1859, quoting from the New York Express the facts that in Georgia all Whigs had received five out of six of the Democratic nominations for Congress.']
61 A prairie in St. Charles County about thirty miles northwest of St. Louis on which the village of Dardenne grew up. Here lived Mr. Bates's eldest son. Barton, and also the Woodsons — his cousins — and many of his oldest friends. He himself, had lived on a farm on the prairie from 1828 until 1842.
62 Mr. Bates's eldest grandchild. Barton's son. See supra, "Introduction."
63 Mrs. Barton Bates.
64 Supra, June 20, 1859, note 3.
65 Supra, June 8, 1859.
68 William L. Marcy of New York, Democratic secretary of State under President Pierce, 1853-1857. For Marcy's views on naturalization see Secretary of State Marcy to Mr. Daniel in Italy, Nov. 10, 1855, and Marcy to Mr. Florence, Feb. 17, 1857, in the State Department archives. See also Francis Wharton, A Digest of the International Law of the United States, II, 386.
67 No outstanding cases arose under Daniel Webster's secretaryship of State, 1850-1852.
SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, Annual Report of The American Historical Association For The Year 1930, Vol. 4, The Diary Of Edward Bates, pp. 38-9
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