Francis Lieber to George S. Hillard, May 11, 1861

New York, May 11, 1861.

I must write to you, my dear Hillard, although I have nothing to state, to give, or to ask, except, indeed, whether you are well, bodily of course — for who is mentally well nowadays? Behold in me the symbol of civil war: Oscar probably on his march to Virginia under that flag of shame, Hamilton in the Illinois militia at Cairo, Norman writing to-day to President Lincoln for a commission in the United States army, we two old ones alone in this whole house; but why write about individuals at a time like this!

Mr. Everett sent me for perusal a pamphlet written in 1821, by McDuflle, so hyper-national in tone and political concepts that it confuses even an old student of history and his own times, like myself.  . . . There are two things for which I ardently pray at this juncture: that there be soon a great and telling battle sufficient to make men think again, and somewhat to shake the Arrogantia autlralis out of the Southerners; and secondly that, if we must divide, we change our Constitution and shake the absurd State-sovereignty out of that. All, there are other things, too, for which I pray. I bite my lips, that Italy has stolen such a march over Germany. . . .

SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 318

Francis Lieber to G. S. Hillard, December 27, 1860

New York, December 27, 1860.

. . . I am very unhappy. My son Oscar is so imbued with all that I hold worst in South Carolina, that hardly anything is left between us but the thread of paternal and filial affection. I enter thus upon the last stage of old age! Such things must have happened in the Reformation; but that does not mitigate its bitterness. Unfortunately, too, my whole life has been spent, and my very profession obliges me to pass my days, in meditating on all that is going to ruin in corruption and by violence, — as it ever has been, and as it is.  . . . How happy Agassiz, is, who can shut himself up with his toads and turtles, and investigate that portion of nature which knows of no question of right or wrong, freedom or baseness, national unity or separation, treason or loyalty, purity or stealing, manliness or ignominy. I wish his work were not so monstrously dear. . .

SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 316