* * * * * * * * * *
On the whole I am
not sorry that your mission failed, since the French are leaving; my sympathies
are rather with Maximilian. The usual factions of Ortega and Juarez will divide
the native population, while Maximilian can have the support of the clergy and
property. They are a miserable set, and we ought to keep away from them. Here
political strife is hushed, and the South have two months more in which to
accept the constitutional amendment.1 What folly they exhibit! To me
Johnson and the old encrusted politicians who view everything in the light of
thirty years ago seem like blind guides. After the 4th of March they will rally
to the amendment, and it will then be too late.
1 The 14th amendment, then pending before the
State Legislatures.
SOURCE: Rachel
Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between
General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 286
