LANCASTER, Ohio,
Sept. 16, 1860.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I
came up from Cincinnati last evening, whither I had gone to prove the sheets of
our regulations of which I will have one thousand copies fifty of which with a
blank leaf at the end of each article, so that amendments may be made and noted
as they arise. I will not have them bound but covered with stiff paper. I doubt
if I can send any till about the 1st of October when or soon after I will have
all boxed and shipped from Cincinnati to New Orleans, where about October 15 I
will meet them and our other stores.
By the way on my
arrival last night I found your letter of September 3, which put me in
possession of a correct knowledge of the status of things on that day, enabling
me to prepare: the bedding, 80 mattresses, cases, etc., 500 volumes of books,
1000 of text-books, arms, accoutrements, etc., about 8 boxes of 150 lbs. each,
etc., will have to be transported up before November 1. The clothing can follow.
If Red River be dead low as you say and on my arrival at New Orleans my
information confirm it, I will write you to hire from four to five wagons under
one leader if possible, to meet me at the mouth (of Red River) on a certain day
say about the 20th, with my horse all saddled, when I can load the wagons and
conduct them to the Seminary. See Coats and agree on a price per hundred
pounds, but don't close a bargain till the last moment. Baden who has the
crapshop in Pineville has a fine team and wagon, the very thing for a load of
mattresses.
We have hit on an
unfavorable year—low river, undefined powers, unfortunate political crisis,
unlimited expectations on the part of the community, but all these must only
stimulate us to more strenuous exertions. I know this year will decide our
fate, another the fate of the institution confided to us, and I will give it
all my best energies and experiences, but I confess the combination of ill
influences are calculated to damp my ardor.
I cannot take my
family from their present comfortable and bounteously supplied home, for those
desolate pine woods, but I will try and cause the coming session to pass
off as smoothly and harmoniously as the past, which can only be done by making
the studies and duties flow in an uninterrupted current, from the first to the
last day of the session.
J. has not the
requisite energy and I fear he will be so cramped with debt as to impair what
little efficiency he does possess. His department is all important, but as I
regard it, he is independent of me. He is steward by lawful appointment. I am
only as superintendent or kind of supervisor. "Supervision” is the word,
and if any failure occur in his department, I shall claim to be absolved from
all responsibility. By a personal introduction to my personal friend in New
Orleans, I gave him credit, which I fear he has abused, and it shall not occur
again. I cannot incur personal liability in that manner again.
I think the three
boys can get out enough wood for the winter and if the fallen timber encumber
the ground too much we can make heaps or burn it up, so as to be ready next
spring for embellishment. I will try to have one or two white boys for drummer
and fifer who can clean the section rooms, tend the lamps, and do some writing.
I have not got them yet but will try at Cincinnati and New Orleans on my way
down. I could get them here, but I feel a delicacy in taking white men from
here lest they should excite undue suspicion.
I admit I am uneasy
about political causes or rather local prejudices. Reason can be combated, but
suspicion cannot. Here I must resist the opinion that the South is aggressive,
that they have made compacts of compromise of 1821 and 1850 which are broken
and slavery made national instead of local – in the South that the North are
aggressive endangering southern safety and prosperity, both factions argue
their sides with warmth and an array of facts, that is hard to answer and I
must content myself with awaiting the result.
I send you a speech
made by my brother John in Philadelphia a few days ago. I heard him here and
had much talk with him, and he told me he should prepare his speech for
Philadelphia with care and stand by it. Therefore this speech is the Republican
view of this section of the Confederacy.
An unexampled
prosperity now prevails here and it is a pity that so much division pervades
the Democratic Party, as it enables the Republicans to succeed. Even
Bennett's Herald admits the probability of Lincoln's success.
But I would prefer Bell to succeed because it would give us four years truce,
but I fear it is not to be. But I am equally convinced that Lincoln's success
would be attended with no violence. He is a man of nerve, and is connected by
marriage and friendship with the Prestons of Kentucky and Virginia, and I have
no doubt he will administer the government with moderation. No practical
question can arise, whereby men of the South would be declared on the statute
book as unequal to their northern brethren. There is now abundant slave
territory and we have no other land fit for it, but Texas, and that is all
slave territory by treaty.
If we go to Civil
War for a mere theory, we deserve a monarch and that would be the final result,
for you know perfectly well the South is no more a unit on that question than
the North – Kentucky and Carolina have no sympathy. I heard Leslie Combs speak
at Circleville a few days ago, and his language would have been Republicanism
in Carolina. He has been elected clerk by twenty-three thousand majority in
Kentucky.
In Ohio here we have
all sorts of political parties and clubs, but it is admitted that it will vote
the Republican ticket. My brother has no opposition at all in his district, and
is therefore helping others in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He resides at
Mansfield, seventy-five miles north of this. I will go up to visit him and my
sister in about ten days; but as to modifying his opinions further I cannot
expect it.
I wanted him to repudiate
openly the “irrepressible conflict” doctrine—but he has not done so, though he
made a left handed wipe at Seward and Giddings as extremists. These men
represent the radicals of that party but John laughs at me when I tell him in
the nature of things that class of men will get control of his party. He
contends that they – the Republicans – are the old Whig Party, revived solely
by the unwise repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Of course you and I are
outside observers of political events, and can influence the result but little,
but this is no reason why we should not feel a deep and lively interest in the
development of a result that for better or worse must interest us all.
At Cincinnati I
attended the U.S. Agricultural Fair. Joe Lane was there and I esteem him a
humbug, from his Mexican War reputation; other notorieties were there, among
which fat hogs, calves, pumpkins, apples, etc., competed for prizes, and I
think on a fair unbiased opinion the pumpkins were entitled to the first
premium over vain conceited men.
I wish however we
had Cincinnati near us at the Seminary. We should not then be troubled to get
provisions, books, or furniture. If Red River were navigable, and I would find
a boat for Alexandria or Shreveport direct, which often occurs in season, I
would buy a full outfit of everything for my house at a blow. As it is I now
must wait, as transportation by wagon must be out of all reason.
