Thanksgiving Day. No political news today. Congress meets Monday. Mr. Ruggles’s friend. Senator Dixon,21 is in town on his way to Washington. Horribly frightened. Connecticut expects him to do something in the Senate, and he is anxiously enquiring, "What shall I do to be saved from the humiliation of admitting that I’m unequal to my high place?"
Tom Corwin was in town Tuesday night with the draft of some "Bill of Rights” which he means to propose, affirming the rights which the South pretends to believe endangered.
There’s a bad prospect for both sections of the country.
Southern ruffianism and brutality are very bad, but the selfishness, baseness,
and corruption of the North are not good at all. Universal suffrage has been
acquiesced in for many years. It is no longer debated. But it’s at the root of
our troubles. What we want is a strong government, instead of a "government
of opinion.” If there be disunion, a strong government will be demanded and
will come into being somehow, both North and South. Democracy and equality and
various other phantasms will be dispersed and dissipated and will disappear
forever when two hostile families of states stand side by side, and a great
civil war becomes inevitable. To which party will God give a great general,
when that crisis is upon us?
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21 James Dixon (18l4-1873). Republican Senator from Connecticut.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 66
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