Daniel Webster to Richard M. Blatchford, December 10, 1850

Washington, December 10, 1850,}

Department of State, Friday, three o'clock.}

MY DEAR SIR,—I am glad you like the message, it seems generally agreeable, and I hope may do good. I regret that some of our New York Whigs still insist that the late measures cannot allay the excitement on the slave question. To say they cannot, is much the same as to say they shall not. To declare that slavery is unreasonable, that it is too exigent, that it cannot and will not be appeased, what is this but to instigate renewed agitation, to keep the angry controversy still up?

The South finds itself still exasperated, and as it thinks, insulted, by terms of contumely and reproach. I am sick at heart when I see eminent and able men, fall into such a train of thought and expression. Burke says, that in cases of domestic disturbance, peace is to be sought in the spirit of peace. Other oracles nowadays prevail, and we seem to expect to obtain the return of domestic peace by the continuance of reciprocal assaults, affront, and contumely. But enough of this. The peace of the country to a considerable extent will be restored, whoever resists, or whoever opposes.

I want to see you very much, on three or four things. Come as soon as you can.

It is too dark to see, and so I have made a blunder, in writing on two sheets. I have made many greater blunders.

D. W.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 406-7

Daniel Webster to Richard M. Blatchford, Sunday, November 3, 1850—6 p.m.

Elms Farm, Sunday evening,

November 3, 1850, six o'clock.

MY DEAR SIR,—I expect to take my leave of Franklin tomorrow morning, and the last thing I propose to do, is to write to you. I have now been here a fortnight, having arrived on Monday, the 21st of October. It is the longest visit which I have paid to my native place for many years, and it has been quite agreeable. It is hard to say when I shall look on these hills and vales again, for so many successive days.

Your visit is a marked part of the occasion, and I like to repeat the expression of the pleasure it has afforded me. I sometimes wonder that you should take any interest in those scenes or these things; but that you do is so much the better and the happier for me. You left me on Friday, the 1st of this month. I did not leave home on that day, as I had a good deal of company. Yesterday I was quite alone till afternoon, when I went to Boscawen, to see and take leave of my relatives. To-day the weather has been damp, threatening rain, and I have been out no further than to the barn. The clouds seem now dispersing themselves, and I look for a good day tomorrow. I duly received your note of Friday from Boston. The Union meeting was a stirring and spirited occasion, but what may be the end, I do not know. I expressed to you, you know, three weeks ago, my fears of a decisive split in the Whig party, and I now strongly fear that result. Nevertheless, my dear Sir, I go to Washington to stay for a longer or a shorter time, but determined to do my duty while I do stay. Of personal consequences, I grow every day more and more careless.

To-morrow is Amin Bey's dinner. Then I go to Marshfield for a day, and then South. I have been quite well since you left, though I must confess all the time melancholy, at leaving a place which is dear to my recollection, and which I cannot expect to see often. But away with low spirits. Dum vivimus, vivamus.

P. S. The stars are all out, but it is too warm for them to be very bright. The night is so perfectly still that one may hear the trickling of the little brooks. Or else it is the fall in the Winnipiseogee, away up near “Tin Corner.”

I have got 'em.¹

Yours,

D. W.

_______________

¹ During Mr. Blatchford's visit at Franklin, to which this letter alludes, Mr. Webster expressed much anxiety to find a pair of steel spectacles which his father had worn the last ten years of his life; he feared they were lost, but said he should devote a day to hunting for them; he found them, and told Mr. Blatchford of it by the words "I have got 'em."

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 399-400

Abraham Lincoln to the Congress of the United States, May 26, 1862

WASHINGTON, May 26, 1862.

To the SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

The insurrection which is yet existing in the United States, and aims at the overthrow of the Federal Constitution and the Union, was clandestinely prepared during the winter of 1860 and 1861, and assumed an open organization in the form of a treasonable Provisional Government at Montgomery, in Alabama, on the 18th day of February, 1861. On the 12th day of April, 1861, the insurgents committed the flagrant act of civil war by the bombardment and capture of Fort Sumter, which cut off the hope of immediate conciliation. Immediately afterward all the roads and avenues to this city were obstructed, and the capital was put into the condition of a siege. The mails in every direction were stopped, and the lines of telegraph cut off by the insurgents, and military and naval forces, which had been called out by the Government for the defense of Washington, were prevented from reaching the city by organized and combined treasonable resistance in the State of Maryland. There was no adequate and effective organization for the public defense. Congress had indefinitely adjourned. There was no time to convene them. It became necessary for me to choose whether, using only the existing means, agencies, and processes which Congress had provided, I should let the Government fall at once into ruin, or whether, availing myself of the broader powers conferred by the Constitution in cases of insurrection, I would make an effort to save it with all its blessings for the present age and for posterity. I thereupon summoned my constitutional advisers — the heads of all the Departments — to meet on Sunday, the 20th [21st] day of April, 1861, at the office of the Navy Department, and then and there, with their unanimous concurrence, I directed that an armed revenue cutter should proceed to sea, to afford protection to the commercial marine, and especially the California treasure ships, then on their way to this coast. I also directed the commandant of the navy-yard at Boston to purchase or charter, and arm as quickly as possible, five steam-ships, for purposes of public defense. I directed the commandant of the navy-yard at Philadelphia to purchase, or charter and arm, an equal number for the same purpose. I directed the commandant at New York to purchase, or charter and arm, an equal number. I directed Commander Gillis to purchase, or charter and arm, and put to sea two other vessels. Similar directions were given to Commodore Du Pont with a view to the opening of passages by water to and from the capital. I directed the several officers to take the advice and obtain the aid and efficient services in the matter of His Excellency Edwin D. Morgan, Governor of New York, or in his absence, George D. Morgan, William M. Evarts, R. M. Blatchford, and Moses H. Grinnell, who were by my direction especially empowered by the Secretary of the Navy to act for his Department in that crisis in matters pertaining to the forwarding of troops and supplies for the public defense. On the same occasion I directed that Governor Morgan and Alexander Cummings, of the city of New York, should be authorized by the Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, to make all necessary arrangements for the transportation of troops and munitions of war in aid and assistance of the officers of the Army of the United States until communication by mails and telegraph should be completely re-established between the cities of Washington and New York. No security was required to be given by them, and either of them was authorized to act in case of inability to consult with the other. On the same occasion I authorized and directed the Secretary of the Treasury to advance, without requiring security, $2,000,000 of public money to John A. Dix, George Opdyke, and Richard M. Blatchford, of New York, to be used by them in meeting such requisitions as should be directly consequent upon military and naval measures necessary for the defense and support of the Government, requiring them only to act without compensation, and to report their transactions when duly called upon.

The several departments of the Government at that time contained so large a number of disloyal persons that it would have been impossible to provide safely, through official agents only, for the performance of the duties thus confided to citizens favorably known for their ability, loyalty, and patriotism. The several orders issued upon these occurrences were transmitted by private messengers, who pursued a circuitous way to the sea-board cities, inland, across the States of Pennsylvania and Ohio and the Northern Lakes. I believe that by these and other similar measures taken in that crisis, some of which were without any authority of law, the Government was saved from overthrow. I am not aware that a dollar of the public funds thus confided without authority of law to unofficial persons was either lost or wasted, although apprehensions of such misdirection occurred to me as objections to those extraordinary proceedings, and were necessarily overruled. I recall these transactions now because my attention has been directed to a resolution which was passed by the House of Representatives on the 30th day of last month, which is in these words:

Resolved, That Simon Cameron, late Secretary of War, by investing Alexander Cummings with the control of large sums of the public money, and authority to purchase military supplies without restriction, without requiring from him any guarantee for the faithful performance of his duties, when the services of competent public officers were available, and by involving the Government in a vast number of contracts with persons not legitimately engaged in the business pertaining to the subject-matter of such contracts, especially in the purchase of arms for future delivery, has adopted a policy highly injurious to the public service, and deserves the censure of the House.

Congress will see that I should be wanting equally in candor and in justice if I should leave the censure expressed in this resolution to rest exclusively or chiefly upon Mr. Cameron. The same sentiment is unanimously entertained by the heads of Departments, who participated in the proceedings which the House of Representatives has censured. It is due Mr. Cameron to say that, although he fully approved the proceedings, they were not moved nor suggested by himself, and that not only the President but all the other heads of Departments were at least equally responsible with him for whatever error, wrong, or fault was committed in the premises.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series III, Volume 2 (Serial No. 123), p. 73-5