RALEigh, May, 1861.
You know how
earnestly I have labored to preserve the Union. I still regard it as the
“paladium of our liberty.” I have no hope that so good a government will be
built upon its ruins. I advised you last February to vote against a Convention,
regarding it as a contrivance to overthrow the Government. There was then a
majority in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Tennessee, Kentucky,
Mississippi, Arkansas in favor of preserving the Union. I felt sure if a
reconsideration could not be effected, war must ensue—and if war was commenced
by either party, it would engender hatred between the sections and greatly
widen the breach. I have always believed and still believe that the doctrine of
secession, as a peaceful and constitutional mode of withdrawing a State from
the Union, an absurdity; and that it was the right and the duty of the Federal
Government, to execute the laws and protect the public property by military
force in such seceding States; but after seven States had been allowed without
molestation, to assert this doctrine of secession and set up and put in
operation a new government—after all the Federal officers within their limits
had resigned and they had possessed themselves without resistance of all the
forts, excepting Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, on the mainland in seven States,
I deemed it highly inexpedient for the Government to attempt coercion by
military force: because,
First—it would
result in a bloody civil war—and could not end in a restoration of friendly
union.
Secondly—because I
thought Congress had indicated, by refusing to pass a force bill, that it was
inexpedient at that time, to use military power to retain or regain the public
property, through the agency of a Sectional President, which indication I
supposed the President, as the power appointed to execute the Legislative will,
would observe.
Thirdly—I supposed
that President, though he had obtained power by the advocacy of Sectional
doctrines, tending to dissolve the Union, still desired to preserve the Union;
and any man of ordinary common sense knew that any attempt on the part of a
president elected by one section, to compel by force of arms, the other section
which had been allowed quietly to accomplish revolution and establish a
government, would be resisted—and all the men in the same States, still
adhering to the Union, would be rendered impotent to resist the current of
Revolution.
The President must
have known that all of us in the Slave States, who in spite of the unfriendly
action of the North, had barely become able to stand up for the Union would be
crushed by the first gun he fired against the South. I believed he still
desired to protect our rights and preserve the Union, and that he had some
sympathy with those of us who had breasted the current of Disunion, and that he
would not voluntarily drive us out of the Union—though the President had been
elected as a partisan, upon one Sectional idea, I hoped and believed, when he
and his party had attained control of the government, that he was enough of a
statesman and a patriot to exert his powers to protect our rights and preserve
the Union. Clay and Jackson and all the statesmen of the land, when South
Carolina first asserted the Doctrine of Nullification and Secession, held that
extraordinary Legislation was necessary to enable the executive to suppress the
rebellion. The last Congress had refused the extraordinary legislation—the
legislative will was therefore clearly expressed, that there should be no
attempt at military coercion, and for some weeks after the inauguration of
Lincoln, his administration allowed it to be understood that they intended to
act in conformity to the will of Congress and evacuate Fort Sumter and Fort
Pickens—and thus allowing excited passions to subside, leave to the next
Congress to determine what was to be done. But suddenly and without
explanation, a fleet is fitted by the President and notice given to the
Southern Confederacy that Fort Sumter would be provided for peaceably or
forcibly. Men of war were sent to Charleston Harbor—then Fort Sumter was
attacked and taken. The first guns were fired by the Southern army, but this
was after they had notice from the President that he intended to retain
possession of the Fort by force.
[The remainder is missing, but the substance of it was an appeal to
the people to unite in defense of the South.]
SOURCE: J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Editor, The
Correspondence of Jonathan Worth, Volume 1, p. 135-7
