Monroe [ga.], July 9th, 1848.
My Dear Cousin,
. . . In reference to Politicks, the state of feeling could not be better in
Georgia than it now is. I do not know and have not heard of one Democrat who
will not give the ticket his cordial support. The movement of the Barn Burners
in New York must strengthen Cass in all the South. If the Southern Democracy do
not now go heart and soul for the regular Democratic ticket, they will deserve
all the evils which you predict will result from the ascendency of their
natural foes. Georgia, you know, is always doubtful. I consider her as safe as
can be predicted of any state so shifting in Politicks. We have the majority
and must succeed, for the Democrats are united and, about here, enthusiastic. .
. .
I attended the late convention at Milledgeville, and have
the vanity to believe that I convinced Gardner in five minutes that Holsey1
and himself had been quarreling over an abstraction — a judicial, not a
political question, and one with which the President will have no more to do
than the man in the moon. If he will check Congress it is all we can ask of
him, and all Calhoun could do were he President himself. How do you like
[our] resolutions—I think they are “tip-top”. . . .
_______________
* Judge of the superior court of Georgia (western circuit),
1849-1857.
1 James R. Gardner, of the Augusta
Constitutionalist, and Hopkins Holsey, of the Southern Banner, at Athens, were
leading Democratic editors in Georgia.
SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual
Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The
Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p.
115-6
