Diary of Adam Gurowski, January 1862

An ugly year ended in backing before England, having, at least, relative right on our side. Further, the ending year has revealed a certain incapacity in the Republican party's leaders, at least its official leaders, to administer the country and to grasp the events. If the new year shall be only the continuation of the faults, the mistakes, and the incapacities prevailing during 1861, then the worst is to be expected.

The lowest in moral degradation is an European defending slavery here or in Europe. Such Europeans are far below the condemned criminals. Still lower are such Europeans who become defenders of slavery after having visited plantations, where, in the shape of wines and delicacies, they tasted human blood, and then, hyenas-like, smacked their lips and thirsted for more.

Always the same stories, lies, and humbugs concerning the hundreds of thousands of rebels in Manassas. These lies are spread here in Washington by the numerous secessionists — at large, by such ignoble sheets as the New York Herald and Times; and McClellan seems to willingly swallow these lies, as they justify his inaction and c——.

The city is more and more crowded with Jeremy Diddlers, with lecturers, with sensation-seekers, all of them in advance discounting their hero, and showing in broad light their gigantic stupidity. One of this motley finds in McClellan a Norman chin, the other muscle, the third a brow for laurels (of thistle I hope), another a square, military, heroic frame, another firmness in lips, another an unfathomed depth in the eye, etc., etc. Never I heard in Europe such balderdash. And the ladies—not the women and gentlewomen—are worse than the men in thus stupefying themselves and those around them.

The thus called arbitrary acts of the government prove how easily, on the plea of patriotic necessity, a people, nay, the public opinion, submits to arbitrary rule. All this, servility included, explains the facility with which, in former times, concentrated and concrete despotisms have been established. Here every such arbitrary action is submitted to, because it is so new, and because the people has the childish, naïve, but, to it, honorable confidence, that the power entrusted by the people is used in the interest and for the welfare of the people. But all the despots of all times and of all nations said the same. However, in justice to Mr. Lincoln, he is pure, and has no despotical longings, but he has around him some atomistic Torquemadas.

It will be very difficult to the coming generations to believe that a people, a generation, who for half a century was outrunning the time, who applied the steam and the electro-magnetic telegraph, that the same people, when overrun by a terrible crisis, moved slowly, waited patiently, and suffered from the mismanagement of its leaders. This is to be exclusively explained by the youthful self-consciousness of an internal, inexhaustible vital force, and by the child-like inexperience.

The Congress, that is, the majority, shows that it is aware of the urgency of the case, and of the dangerous position of the country. But still the best in Congress are chained, hampered by the formulas.

The good men in both the houses seem to be firmly decided not to quietly stand by and assist in the murder of the nation by the administrative and military incapacity. This was to be expected from such men as Wade, Grimes, Chandler, Hale, Wilson, Sumner (too classical), and other Republicans in the Senate, and from the numerous pure, radical Republicans in the House.

Burnside's expedition is a sign of life. But all these expeditions on the circumference, even if successful, will be fruitless if no bold, decided movement is at once made at the centre, at the heart of the rebellion. But McClellan, as his supporters say, matures his strategical plans. O God! General Scott lost by strategy three-fourths of the country's cause, and very probably by strategy McClellan will jeopardize what remains of it.

Will this McClellan ever advance? If he lingers, he may find only rats in Manassas. McClellan is ignorant of the great, unique rule for all affairs and undertakings,—it is to throw the whole man in one thing at one time. It is the same in the camp as in the study, for a captain as for a lawyer, the savant, and the scholar.

It is to be regretted that some of the men truly and thoroughly devoted to the cause of freedom and of humanity, mix with it such an enormous quantity of personal, almost childish vanity, as to puzzle many minds concerning the genuine nobleness of their devotion. It is to be regretted that those otherwise so self-sacrificing patriots discount even their martyrdom and persecutions, and credit them to their frivolous self-satisfaction.

Most of the thus-called well-informed Americans rather skim over than thoroughly study history. Above all, it applies to the general history of the Christian era, and of our great epoch (from the second half of the 18th century). Most of the Americans are only very superficially familiar with the history of continental Europe, or know it only by its contact with the history of England. Many of them are more familiar with the classical wars of Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, etc., than with those of Gustavus, Frederick II., and even of Napoleon. Were it otherwise, strategy would not to such an extent have taken hold of their brains.

Mr. Adams was terribly unhorsed during the Trent excitement in England; he literally began to pack up his trunks, and asked a personal advice from Lord John Russell.

What a devoted patriot this Sandford in Belgium is; he has continual itchings in his hand to pay a higher price for bad blankets that they may not fall into the hands of secesh agents; so with cloth, so perhaps with arms. Oh, disinterested patriot!

Austria and Prussia whipped in by England and France, and at the same time glad to have an occasion to take the airs of maritime powers. Austria and Prussia sent their advice concerning the Trent affair. The kick of asses at what they suppose to be the dying lion.

Austria and Prussia! Great heavens! Ask the prisons of both those champions of violated rights how many better men than Slidell and Mason groaned in them; and the conduct of those powers against the Poles in 1831! Was it neutral or honest?

I am sure that Russia will behave well, and abstain from coming forward with uncalled-for and humiliating advice. Russia is a true great power, — a true friend, — and such noble behavior will be in harmony with the character of Alexander II., and with the friendliness and clear perception of events held by the Russian minister here. I hope that when the war is over the West Point nursery will be reformed, and a general military organization introduced, such a one as exists in Switzerland.

McClellan is a greater mistake than was even Scott. McClellan knows not the ABC of military history of any nation or war, or he would not keep this army so in camp. He would know that after recruits have been roughly instructed in the rudiments of a drill, the next best instructor is fighting. So it was in the thirty years' war; so in the American Revolution; so in the first French revolutionary wars. Strategians, martinets, lost the battles, or rather the campaigns, of Austerlitz, of Jena, etc. In 1813 German rough levies fought almost before they were drilled, and at Bautzen French recruits were victorious over Prussians, Russians, and Austrians. The secesh fight with fresh levies, etc.

Numerous political intriguers surrounding McClellan are busily laying tracks for him to the White House. What will Seward and Chase say to it, and even old Abe, who himself dreams of re-election, or at least his friends do it for him? All these candidates forget that the surest manner to reach the White House is not to think of it—to forget oneself and to act.

It is amusing to find in European papers all the various stories about Mr. Lincoln. There he is represented as a violent, blood-thirsty revolutionaire, dragging the people after him. In this manner, those European imbeciles are acquainted with American events, character, etc. They cannot find out that in decision, in clear-sightedness and soundness of judgment, the people are far ahead of Mr. Lincoln and of his spiritual or constitutional conscience-keepers.

And the same imbeciles, if not canailes, speak of a mob-rule over the President, etc. Some one ought to enlighten those French and English supercilious ignorami that something like a mob only prevails in such cities as New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore; and nine-tenths of such a mob are mostly yet unwashed, unrepublicanized Europeans. The ninety-nine one-hundredths of the freemen of the North are more orderly, more enlightened, more lawabiding, and more moral than are the English lordlings, somebodies, nobodies, and would-be somebodies. In the West, lynch-law, to be sure, is at times used against brothels, bar-rooms, gambling-houses, and thieves. It would be well to do the same in London, were it not that most of the lynch-lawed may not belong to the people. If the European scribblers were not past any honest impulse, they would know that the South is the generator and the congenial region for the mob, the fillibusters, the revolver and the bowie-knife rule. In the South the proportion of mobs to decency is the reverse of that prevailing in the free States. The slavery gentleman is a scarcely varnished savage, for whom the highest law is his reckless passion and will.

If Jeff. Davis succeeds, he will be the founder of a new and great slaveholding empire. His name will resound in after times; but history will record his name as that of a curse to humanity.

And so Davis is making history and Lincoln is telling stories. Beauregard gets inspired by the fumes of bivouacs; McClellan by the fumes of flatterers. Beauregard frightens us, McClellan rocks his baby. Beauregard shares the camp-fires of his soldiers; he sees them daily, knows them, as it is said, one by one; McClellan lives comfortably in the city, and appears only to the soldiers as the great Lama on special occasions. Camp-fellowship inspired all the great captains and established the magnetic current between the leader and the soldier.

McClellan organized a board of generals, arriving daily from the camps, to discuss some new fancy army equipment. And Lincoln, Seward, Blair, and all the tail of intriguers and imbeciles, still admire him. In no other country would such a futile man be kept in command of troops opposed to a deadly and skilful enemy.

For several weeks, McClellan and his chief of the staff (such as he is) are sick in bed, and no one is ad interim appointed to attend to the current affairs of our army of 600,000, having the enemy before their nose. Oh human imbecility! No satirist could invent such things; and if told, it would not be believed in Europe.

The McClellan-worship by the people at large is to be explained by the firm, ardent will of the people to crush the rebels, and by the general feeling of the necessity of a man for that purpose. Such is the case with the true, confiding people in the country; but here, contractors, martinets, and intriguers are the blowers of that worship. Lincoln is as is the people at large; but a Seward, a Blair, a Herald, a Times, and their respective and numerous tails, as for their motives, they are the reverse of Lincoln and of the people.

Victories in Kentucky, beyond the circumference or the direct action from here; they are obtained without strategy and by rough levies. But this voice of events is not understood by the McClellan tross.

Change in the Cabinet: Stanton, a new man, not from the parlor, and not from the hacks. His bulletin on the victory in Kentucky inaugurated a new era. It is a voice that nobody hitherto uttered in America. It is the awakening voice of the good genius of the people, almost as that which awoke Lazarus. This Stanton is the people; I never saw him, but I hope he is the man for the events; perhaps he may turn out to be my statesman.

I wish I could get convinced of the real superiority of Fremont. It is true that he was treated badly and had natural and artificial difficulties to over come; it is true that to him belongs the credit of having started the construction of the mortar fleet; but likewise it is true that he was, at the mildest, unsurpassingly reckless in contracts and expenditures, and I shall never believe him a general. With all this, Fremont started a great initiative at a time when McClellan and three-fourths of the generals of his creation considered it a greater crime to strike at a gentleman slaveholder than to strike at the Union.

The courtesies and hospitalities paid to Thurlow Weed by English society are clamored here in various ways. These courtesies prove the high breeding and the good-will of a part, at least, of the English aristocracy and of English statesmen. I do not suppose that Thurlow Weed could ever have been admitted in such society if he were travelling on his own merits as the great lobbyist and politician. At the utmost, he would have been shown up as a rara avis. But introduced to English society as the master spirit of Mr. Seward, and as Seward's semi-official confidential agent, Thurlow Weed was admitted, and even petted. But it is another question if this palming of a Thurlow Weed upon the English high-toned statesmen increased their consideration for Mr. Seward. Duke of Newcastle and others are not yet softened, and refuse to be humbugged.

Whoever has the slightest knowledge of how affairs are transacted, is well aware that the times of a personal diplomacy are almost gone. The exceptions are very rare, very few, and the persons must be of other might and intellectual mettle than a Sandford, Weed, or Hughes. Great affairs are not conducted or decided by conversations, but by great interests. Diplomatic agents, at the utmost, serve to keep their respective governments informed about the run of events. Mr. Mercier does it for Louis Napoleon; but Mr. Mercier's reports, however friendly they may be, cannot much influence a man of such depth as Louis Napoleon, and to imagine that a Hughes will be able to do it! I am ashamed of Mr. Seward; he proves by this would-be-crotchety policy how little he knows of events and of men, and how he undervalues Louis Napoleon. Such humbug missions are good to throw dirt in the eyes of a Lincoln, a Chase, etc., but in Europe such things are sent to Coventry. And Hughes to influence Spain! Oh! oh!

Dayton frets on account of the mission of Hughes. Dayton is right. Generally Dayton shows a great deal of good sense, of good comprehension, and a noble and independent character. He is not a flatterer, not servile, and subservient to Mr. Seward, as are others Mr. Adams, Mr. Sandford, and some few other diplomatic agents.

The active and acting abolitionists ought to concentrate all their efforts to organize thoroughly and efficiently the district of Beaufort. The success of a productive colony there would serve as a womb for the emancipation at large.

Mr. Seward declares that he has given up meddling with military affairs. For his own sake, and for the sake of the country, I ardently wish it were so; but I shall never believe it.

The Investigating Committee has made the most thorough disclosures of the thorough incapacity of McClellan; but the McClellan men, Seward, Blair, etc., neutralize, stifle all the good which could accrue to the country from these disclosures. And Lincoln is in their clutches. The administration by its influence prevents the publication of the results of this investigation, prevents the truth from coming to the people. Any hard name will be too soft for such a moral prevarication.

McClellan is either as feeble as a reed, or a bad man.

The disorder around here is nameless. Banks compares it to the time of the French Directory. Banks has no guns, no cavalry, and is in the vanguard. He begs almost on his knees, and cannot get anything. And the country pays a chief of the staff, and head of the staffers.

The time must come, although it be now seemingly distant, that the people will awake from this lethargy; that it will perceive how much of the noblest blood of the people, how much time and money, have been worse than recklessly squandered. The people will find it out, and then they will ask those Cains at the wheel an account of the innocent blood of Abel, the country's son, the country's cause.

The defenders of, and the thus called moderate men on the question of slavery, utter about it the old rubbish composed of the most thorough ignorance and of disgusting fallacies, in relation to this pseudo science, or rather lie, about races. More of it will come out in the course of the Congressional discussions. Not one of them is aware that independent science, that comparative anatomy, physiology, psychology, anthropology, that philosophy of history altogether and thoroughly repudiate all these superficially asserted, or tried-to-be-established, intrinsic diversities and peculiarities of races. All these would-be axioms, theories, are based on sand. In true science the question of race as represented by the Southern school partisans of slavery, with Agassiz, the so-called professor of Charleston by European savans, at their head, — that question is at the best an illusive element, and endangers the accuracy of induction. As it presents itself to the unprejudiced investigator, race is nothing more than the single manifestation of anterior stages of existence, the aggregate expression of the pre-historic vicissitudes of a people.

If those would-be knowing arguers on slavery, race, etc., were only aware of the fact that such people as the primitive Greeks, or the ancestors of classical Greeks, that the ancestors of the Latins, that even the roving, robbing ancestors of the Anglo Saxons, in some way or other, have been anthropophagi, and worshipped fetishes; and even as thus called already civilized, they sacrificed men to gods, could our great pro-slavers know all this, they would be more decent in their ignorant assertions, and not, so self-satisfied, strut about in their dark ignorance.

Those who are afraid that the freed negroes of the South will run to the Northern free States, display an ignorance still greater than the former. When the enslaved colored Americans in the South shall be all thoroughly emancipated in that now cursed region, then they will remain in the, to them, congenial climate, and in the favorable economical conditions of labor and of existence: Not only those emancipated will not run North, but the colored population from the free States, incited and stirred up by natural attractions, will leave the North for the South, as small streamlets and rivulets run into a large current or river.

The rebels extend on an immense bow, nearly one hundred miles, from the lower to the upper Potomac. Our army, two to one, is on the span of the arc, and we do nothing. A French sergeant would be better inspired than is McClellan.

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, pp. 137-50

Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, Wednesday, February 13, 1861

The Presidential votes were counted in Congress today without any disturbance which had been heretofore anticipated, but Gen^l Scott had all things ready. The Dragoons & Flying Artillery men were standing by their horses all accoutered, ready to mount at a moments warning. The Pres^t Elect is now on his way to the Capital. I was at the Hotels this evening. Nothing of importance stirring. Saw Mr Lighthall and Mr Lowe of NY at National. Miss Douglass called at my office today and invited myself and wife to a Musical entertainment at her School Rooms tomorrow night. Have read the NY Times an hour, to bed at 12.

SOURCE: Horatio Nelson Taft, The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 1, January 1,1861-April 11, 1862, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington D. C., image 18.

Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, Thursday, February 28, 1861

Another Spring day rather too warm in the sun. I took the shady side in coming from the office. One Hundred Guns were fired at noon on account of the result of the Peace Con^tn by order of Gen^l Scott. Interupted a good deal today in the office, could not do much business. Went on to 7^th St after dinner and made some purchases, 2 looking glasses and Holly a Jacket. Have been at home this evening Drafting — a Condenser and also a Decalorator or water cooler for Steam Ships, plans of my own. I think I could get them Patented if I was out of the office, cannot while I am in. I have other improvements relating to the Steam Engine.

SOURCE: Horatio Nelson Taft, The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 1, January 1,1861-April 11, 1862, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington D. C., image 23.

Major General Winfield Scott to Senator John J. Crittenden, March 28, 1856

NEW YORK, March 28, 1856.

MY DEAR CRITTENDEN,—More than a month ago I gave Major Crittenden a six months' leave of absence. Observing that he spoke of asking permission to visit Europe, I forwarded the papers, and requested that he might be indulged. Such indulgence, under the army regulations, can only be granted by the President. During the last twelve months but one, in some twenty applications, has been granted.

The day that I received your letter (inclosing the Kentucky resolution) I chanced, at dinner, to mention the compliment, in the fullness of my heart, to another guest, when he instantly suggested that the New York legislature might be induced to follow the lead, and begged me to send the resolution, with a paper of notes. The result is, that Mr. Crosby, in the Senate, yesterday, brought forward the subject, and I have letters this morning saying that the movement will succeed.

God bless old Kentucky, and God bless the friend that put her legislature in mind of doing me this great service!

On reflection, I may add that Captain Walker, of the Rifles, is now in Europe, and Colonel Irving's request to be allowed to cross the Atlantic has been refused.

Why don't you and Mrs. Crittenden go abroad this summer? If you do not, you must both come North.

Most truly yours,

WINFIELD SCOTT.

Hon. J. J. CRITTENDEN.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, pp. 117-8

Congressman Horace Mann to Theodore Parker, August 10, 1852

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10, 1852.

REV. THEO. PARKER.

MY DEAR SIR, — I hope you did not think the two queries which I put to Mrs. Mann imposed any necessity on you to write an answer; though I am so glad to hear from you, that I might be tempted to use means a little irregular for that end.

I sent the question about Gen. Scott's supposititious policy because I think justice to be the highest policy. I know you think so too. It being my belief that Scott is an anti-war man and an anti-annexation man, I think it wrong, or rather it would be very wrong in me, to intimate the contrary. Besides, the tendency of all such statements is to put the two Presidential candidates, Scott and Pierce, upon the same ground; whereas I think their principles, desires, and purposes are very diverse. I know there is little if any difference in the platforms; but there may be all the difference there is between life and death in two pilots, though both profess to steer by the same chart. One may wreck you, while the other may get you safely into port.

A strong effort is made, by men who care more for democracy than for antislavery, to make it out that freedom has more to hope from the success of Pierce than from that of Scott; but this I believe to be a great mistake, and I do not think the argument ingenuous.

As to the amount of the Free-soil vote, it must be remembered, that, in 1848, New York alone gave one hundred and twenty thousand votes for Van Buren. Now, if she gives fifty thousand, I shall be agreeably disappointed.

Our loss of Rantoul is very great. I am also struck with exceeding sadness, because this is the second blow that our cause has received. Taylor's death let in the whole pack of slavery bloodhounds, and they have wantoned in their power ever since. Will not Rantoul's death unleash another pack? I fear so. Nothing but my faith in God saves me from despair; for just now I can hardly "walk by sight."

H. M.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, pp. 373-4

Congressman Horace Mann, July 16, 1852

JULY 16.

Miss Beecher prays, if I want any more comfort in this life, that I will not try to build up a college at the West, and says Mr. Stowe held up his hands in deprecation at the thought. So you see what persons who know about things think our prospect would be.

I should like to see Father Pierce anywhere, even in a picture; but still think that he and I, and such looking people, ought to let those who don't know us inquire how we look, rather than show our faces.

I see that some one, in a Maine paper, says he wanted to nominate Ralph Waldo Emerson for President, and Nathaniel Hawthorne for Vice-President; but, seeing they have such good men as Scott and Graham up, he concludes not to do any thing more about it. Wit ought not to run its head against a stump of any kind. That man forgot that both President and Vice-President cannot come from the same State.

I do feel homesick here. When I was here in the summer of '48, I had so much to do, that I had no time to think how I felt: I was still Secretary then. The next summer I spent here (1850) was the year of the slavery controversy; and I was too much alive to the immense interests at stake to have any consciousness of my

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, pp. 375-6

Congressman Horace Mann, July 27, 1852

JULY 27.

. . . I should like to see Rev. Theodore Parker move a table without touching it, directly or indirectly. Suppose what we call electricity is the motive power of the universe, embracing magnetism, caloric, gravitation, &c.; suppose the vital principle in us—at least the principle of mere physical life—is electricity too: may not an organized possessor of this principle be able to exert a force stronger than that which operates upon unorganized bodies, or one organized being be able to exert a controlling influence over another organized being? If so, why may not the battery in a man's brain overcome the natural gravitation of a table? I have seen a magnet, that could lift but a few pounds when acting alone, lift seventeen hundred-weight when a current of magnetism was poured through it. Now, if the brain could evolve this amount, why should not that lift according to its size, structure, &c.? This is all I have to say on the subject.

Kossuth designed to leave, as I suppose, in a way to secure privacy. As for his going incog. for any bad purpose, I do not believe a word of it; nor have I heard a lisp, to prove it, of any credible testimony. A report was sent abroad that he had gone without paying his debts. There could not have been a word of truth in it: a regular Hunker lie.

I agree with you that history is bad reading for children. What, then, must be thought of a great part of the Old Testament, which records as terrible crimes as any to be found on record? It is too terrible a world to make children acquainted with. It is said we must look back to get wisdom to direct us when going forward. I hope we shall soon get wisdom elsewhere, or be so far advanced as to need no past warning. Biography of the right sort of lives is the better reading for children. And science, and the elements of science, what can be better than that, where we do see God in his works? Here the mind will find its true discipline.

I send you a "Liberator," which has a communication from the reformed John Wesley, on the last page; also a speech of Mr. T. Parker's, on the inside. What can Mr. Parker mean by saying, that, if Gen. Scott is elected, we shall probably have an annexation of a "large slice" of Mexico during the next four years? Will the good gained by making a man out worse than he is repay the evil? Mr. Parker has been so much wronged himself, that he should be careful about wronging others.

In 1837, in a speech delivered in New York by Mr. Webster, he said,

"On the general question of slavery, a great portion of the community is already strongly excited. The subject has not only attracted attention as a question of politics, but it has struck a far deeper-toned chord. It has arrested the religious feelings of the country; it has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He is a rash man indeed, little conversant with human nature, and especially has he a very erroneous estimate of the character of the people of this country, who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled with or despised. It will assuredly cause itself to be respected. It may be reasoned with; it may be made willing—I believe it is entirely willing to fulfil all existing engagements and all existing ties; to uphold and defend the Constitution as it is established, with whatever regrets about some provisions which it does actually contain: but to coerce it into silence, to endeavor to restrain its free expression, to seek to compress and confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as such endeavors would inevitably render it,— should all this be attempted, I know nothing, even in the Constitution or in the Union itself, which would not be endangered by the explosion which might follow."

What an apostasy has his been!

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 376-7

Congressman Horace Mann to Samuel Downer, July 27, 1852

WASHINGTON, July 27, 1852.

MY DEAR DOWNER, — What is said about the Pittsburg Convention? From what I see and hear, I apprehend the current of feeling in Massachusetts sets in favor of nominating Hale, rather than Chase. For any genuine Free-soiler this would be the worst policy. That nomination should be such as to cut into the Democratic party. Notwithstanding all that some of the Free-soil papers say about the equal proslaveryism of Scott and Pierce, it is not at all improbable there is the whole difference between the annexation and the un-annexation of Cuba, between the division and the non-division of California, in these candidates. How, then, can any real lover of liberty fail to give the scales such a turn as shall check slavery, and hold it at bay? Are not our Free-soil friends, in their zeal to help the fortunes of the coalition, misled on this point? You, who have great influence with them, ought to make that influence felt. I wish you were to be at Pittsburg. The nomination there made may bar slavery, or help it on. To-morrow, Sumner means to speak. He needs combativeness, which he has not got. Don't you think I could spare him a little of mine, with advantage to us both? He will make a great speech, be assured of that. He has all the material of all who have hitherto argued the question; and, besides, the greatest speech can always be made on the right side.

I am awfully homesick. The summer is dull: nothing is upon the tapis in which I take any special interest, and my heart is with my family.

With affectionate regards to you and yours,

I am, as ever, your friend,

HORACE MANN.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, pp. 377-8

Senator John C. Calhoun to Duff Green, April 17, 1847*

Fort Hill 17th April 1847

MY DEAR SIR, The mistake, which I think you and the most of my friends make in reference to myself is, that you do not fully realize how completely I hold my own advancement subordinate to what I deem my duty to the Country. Even in the ardour of youthful aspiration, when the Presidency was an object of desire, I never could bring my mind to yield to a measure, or course of policy, which I thought wrong, to obtain that high office; much less can I now, when it is no longer to me an object of desire. Had I arrived at the Presidency by any other way, than an upright, and fearless discharge of what I conscienciously believed to be my duty, I would have been much more flexible, and under the influence of friends; but as it is, when I do not agree with any one portion, they have been too apt to suppose, that I had been influenced by those, with whom I happen to agree. You make this mistake as to my course in 1840. It may be, that the motives of those on the occassion, to which you refer, was such as you suppose; but, be that as it may, in making up my opinion, I had no consultation with them, nor had their opinion in relation to the subject to which you refer, the least influence with me. I am always happy to hear the opinion of my friends and often avail myself of their suggestions, in modifying my course; but rarely ever in taking it. I have said thus much, because, I think, you not infrequently fall into error, in attributing, what is the result of my deliberate judgement to the influence of others.

I entirely agree with you, that the Presidential election ought to be held in reserve, with the restriction, that no one of the old hunkers or their nominee by the Baltimore convention, shall get our support. I regard that portion of the party, as incurably corrupt. In their folly and profligacy they made the Mexican war, without seeing, that the successful general will ever be sure to turn the party, in this country, out of power, which makes a war. They began to see it, when it was too late, and hence their desire to have a Lieut General and to strike a blow at Genl Taylor during the last session. And hence, also, the sending of Genl Scott, in the hope of exciting their mutual Jealousy and dividing their political friends on the Presidential question. Indeed, the movements, on the part of both parties, have looked to that exclusively. It is to be hoped, that the very few, who look exclusively to the country, by taking an independent stand, and keeping in reserve their influence, may finally throw it, where something may be done to advance the publick good.

I am glad to learn, that you have closed a satisfactory arrangement, about your mountain property, and I hope that your expectation will be realized, but let me repeat my hope, expressed on a former occasion, that you will not engage in publishing a paper, unless you can see your way clearly. Your first duty is to your family.

My Charleston friends appear disposed to make an effort to raise the necessary funds to establish a paper for the support of the South, on a solid basis, provided the other Southern States will cooperate, or at least a part of them. But, I fear, that their attention is so much absorbed in the events of the Mexican war, and that they are so much entangled by their party connections, that nothing will be done.

_______________

* Original lent by Mr. R. P. Maynard.

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, pp. 727-8

 

Diary of George Templeton Strong, August 15, 1860

Find myself on a committee headed by General Scott and William B. Astor to get up a “banquet” for Lord Renfrew, alias the Prince of Wales, when and if his Lordship’s Grace’s Highness comes to this city.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 39

Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 2, 1860

Diligent day. Having been put on the reception committee for the Prince of Wales’s ball, I attended a meeting thereof. There were Hamilton Fish, Luther Bradish, Perit, Maunsell Field, Mintum, Cisco, and myself. There was severe prosing on “nice sharp quillets” of etiquette. Bradish and Field were uncommonly solemn and impressive. With what manner of reception shall we receive General Scott? “Can he be separated from his military family?” There’s the rub. Shall we ten reception committeemen dress alike? Shall it be white vests and black cravats or vice versa? Are silk vests considered provincial in Paris? What manner of gloves prevailed at the Tuileries when Governor Fish was there last, and what light is thrown on the whole subject by Bradish’s little souvenirs of court society at the several capitals of Europe? Cisco and I are a sub-committee on the carriages that are to convey His Royal Highness and suite from the Fifth Avenue Hotel to the Opera House. O happy carriages, and horses too much blessed! I am a Committee of One to provide drinks for the special consolation of His Royal Highness in a small withdrawing room to be consecrated to that use. The Prince is said to be partial to sherry and seltzer water.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 42-3

Diary of George Templeton Strong, Sunday, November 4, 1860

Mr. Ruggles had a long private talk yesterday with General Scott, some portion whereof he imparted to me, including matters I don’t care to write here. The General is loyal and union-loving, intensely and without reservation. He wrote to the War Department October 27 or 28, calling attention to the inadequate garrison of Fort Moultrie, only about one hundred men instead of the eight hundred or one thousand required to work its guns, and to the unprotected state of other Southern forts and arsenals, but he has received no answer, Ingraham, appointed some three months since to command of the Home Squadron, is a South Carolina man.

If old Buchanan be really playing into the hands of secessionists, and if disunion come next week, as I think it will, and if his non-feasance enable the fire-eaters to take possession of Fort Moultrie or any other federal fortalice, there will arise from all the North (and, I trust, from no small portion of the South), a reactionary indignant cry for vengeance against traitors in high places that will make old Buck’s neck feel insecure for a season.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 57-8

Diary of Adam Gurowski, December 1861

MCCLELLAN is now all-powerful, and refuses to divide the army into corps. Thus much for his brains and for his consistency.

The message — a disquisition upon labor and capital; hesitancy about slavery. The President wishes to be pushed on by public opinion. But public opinion is safe, and expects from the official leader a decided step onwards. The message gives no solution, suggests none, accounts not for the lost time — foreshadows not a vigorous, energetic effort to crush the rebellion; foreshadows not a vigorous, offensive war. The message is an honest paper, but says not much.

The question of emancipation is not clear even in the heads of the leading emancipationists; not one thinks to give freeholds to the emancipated. It is the only way to make them useful to themselves and to the community. Freedom without land is humbug, and the fools speak of exportation of the four millions of slaves, depriving thus the country of laborers, which a century of emigration cannot fill again. All these fools ought to be sent to a lunatic asylum.

To export the emancipated would be equivalent to devastation of the South, to its transformation into a wilderness. Small freeholds for the emancipated can be cut out of the plantations of rebels, or out of the public lands of each State — lands forfeited by the rebellion.

State papers published. The instructions to the various diplomatic agents betray a beginner in the diplomatic career. By writing special instructions for each minister, Mr. Seward unnecessarily increased his task. The cause, reasons, etc., of the rebellion are one and the same for France or Russia, and a single explanatory circular for all the ministers would have done as well and spared a great deal of labor. Cavour wrote one circular to all cabinets, and so do all European statesmen. So, as they are, the State papers are a curious agglomeration of good patriotism and confusion. So the Minister to England is to avoid slavery; the Minister to France has the contrary. All this is not smartness or diplomacy, but rather confusion, insincerity, and double-dealing. One must conclude that Lincoln and Seward have themselves no firm opinion. The instructions to Mexico would sound nobly worded but for the confusion and the veil ordered to be thrown upon the cause of secession. That to Italy, above all to Austria, has a smack of a schoolmaster displaying his information before a gaping boy. It is offensive to the Minister going to Vienna. It may be suspected that some of these instructions were written to make capital at home, to astonish Mr. Lincoln with the knowledge of Europe and the familiarity with European affairs. All this display will prove to Europeans rather an ignorance of Europe. The correspondence on the Paris convention is splendid, although the initiative taken by Seward on this question was a mistake. But he argued well the case against the English and French reservations.

Never any government whatever treated so tenderly its worst and most dangerous enemies as does this government the Washington secessionists, spies for the enemy, and spreading false news here to frighten McClellan.

The old regular, but partly worn-out Republican leaders throttle and neutralize the new, fresh, vigorous accessions. So Curtis Noyes, one of the most eminent and devoted men, could not come into the Senate because Greeley wished to be elected.

No living man has rendered greater services to the people during the last twenty years than Greeley; but he ought to remain in his speciality. Greeley is no more fit for a Senator than to take the command of a regiment. Besides, the events already run over his head; Greeley is slowly breaking down. McClellan is beset with all kinds of inventors, contractors, etc. He mostly endorses their suggestions, and on this authority the most extravagant orders are given by the War Department. All this ought to be investigated. Somebody back of McClellan may be found as being the real patron of these leeches.

If the genius or capacity of a commander consists not only in closely observing the movements of the enemy, but likewise in penetrating the enemy's plans and in modifying his own in proportion as they are deranged by an unexpected movement or a rapid march, then the generalship is altogether on the other side, and on ours not a sign, not a breath of it.

A civil war is mostly the purifying fire in a nation's existence. It is to be hoped that this great convulsion will purify the free States by sounding the death-knell of these small intriguing politicians. The American people at large will acquire earnestness, knowledge of men, and clear insight into its own affairs. Tricky politicians will be discarded, and true men backed by majorities.

The South has for its leaders the chiefs who for years organized the secession, who waged everything on its success, as life, honor, fortune, and who incite and carry with them the ignorant masses.

The reverse is in the North. Mr. Lincoln was not elected for suppressing the rebellion, nor did he make his Cabinet in view of a terrible national struggle for death or life. Neither Lincoln nor his Cabinet are the inciters or the inspiring leaders of the people, but only expressions — not ad hoc — of the national will. This is one reason why the administration is slower than the people, and why the rebel administration is quicker than ours.

The second reason, and generated by the first, is, that every rebel devotes his whole soul and energy to the success of the rebellion, forcibly forgetting his individuality. Our thus called leaders think first of their little selves, whose aggrandizement the public events are to secure, and the public cause is to square itself with their individual schemes.

Such is the policy of almost all those at the helm here. Not one among them is to be found deserving the name of a statesman, endowed with a great devotion, and with a great power, for the service of a great and noble aim. From the solemn hour that the fatherland honorably chains him to its service, the genuine statesman exists no more for himself, but for his country alone. If necessary, he ought to consider himself a victim to the public good, even were the public unjust towards him. He is to treat as enemies all the dirty, tricky, and mean passions and men. His enemies will hate, but the country, his enemies included, will esteem him. Such a man will be the genuine man of the American people, but he exists not in the official spheres.

It is for the first time in history that a young, insignificant man, without a past, without any reason, is put in such a lofty position as has been McClellan; he is to be literally kicked into greatness, and into showing eventually courage. All this is a psychological problem!

Kent's Commentary upon the qualifications of a President is the best criticism upon Lincoln.

These mosquitoes of public opinion, the sensation-seekers, the sentimental preachers, the lecturers, the amateurs of the thus called representative men, these oratorical falsifiers of history, but considered here as luminaries, are already at their pernicious, nay, accursed work.

They poison the judgment of the people. These hero-seekers for their sermons, lectures, and sensation productions, have already found all the criteria of a hero in McClellan, even in his chin, in the back of his horse, etc., etc., and now herald it all over the country. Curses be upon them.

No nation has ever raised idols with such facility as do the Americans. Nay, I do not suppose that there ever existed in history a nation with such a thirst for idols as this people. I may be a false prophet; but this new idol, McClellan, will cost them their life-blood.

The Blairs are now staunch supporters of McClellan. It is unpardonable. They ought to know, and they do know better. But Mr. Blair wishes to be Secretary of War in Cameron's place, and wishes to get it through McClellan.

And poor Lincoln! I pity him; but his advisers may make out of him something worse even than was Judas, in the curses of ages.

Polybius asserts that when the Greeks wrote about Rome they erred and lied, and when the Romans wrote of themselves they lied or boasted. The same the English do in relation to themselves, and to Americans. Above all, in this Trent affair, or excitement, all European writers for the press, professors, doctors, etc., pervert facts, reason, and international laws, forget the past, and lie or flatter, with a slight exception, as is Gasparin.

The Trent affair finished. We are a little humbled, but it was expedient to terminate it so. With another military leader than McClellan, we could march at the same time to Richmond, and invest Canada before any considerable English force could arrive there. But with such a hero at our head, better that it ends so. Europe will applaud us, and the relation with England will become clarified. Perhaps England would not have been so stiff in this Trent affair but for the fixed idea in Russell's, Newcastle's, Palmerston's, etc., heads that Seward wishes to pick a quarrel with England.

The first weeks of Seward's premiership pointed that way. Mr. Seward has the honors of the Trent affair. It is well as it is; the argument is smart, but a little too long, and not in a genuine diplomatic style. But Lincoln ought to have a little credit for it, as from the start he was for giving the traitors up.

The worst feature of the whole Trent affair is, that it brought back home from France this old mischief, General Scott. He will again resume his position as the first military authority in the country, confuse the judgment of Lincoln, of the press, and of the people, and again push the country into mire.

The Congress appointed a War Investigating Committee, Senator Wade at the head. There is hope that the committee will quickly find out what a terrible mistake this McClellan is, and warn the nation of him. But Lincoln, Seward, and the Blairs, will not give up their idol.

Louis Napoleon said his word about the Trent affair. All things considered, the conduct of the Emperor cannot be complained of. The Thouvenel paper is serious, severe, but intrinsically not unfriendly. Quite the contrary. Up to this time I am right in my reliance on Louis Napoleon, on his sound, cool, but broad comprehension.

Mr. Mercier behaves well, and he is to be relied on, provided we show mettle and fight the traitors. Now, as the European imbroglio is clarified, at them, at them! But nothing to hope or expect from McClellan. I daily preach, but in the wilderness. Prince de Joinville made a very ridiculous fuss about the Trent affair.

Americans believe that a statesman must be an orator. Schoolboy-like, they judge on English precedents. In England, the Parliament is omnipotent; it makes and unmakes administrations, therefore oratory is a necessary corollary in a statesman; but here the Cabinet acts without parliamentary wranglings, and a Jackson is the true type of an American statesman. Washington was not an orator, nor was Alexander Hamilton.

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, pp. 129-36

Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, Tuesday, January 8, 1861

The weather has been moderate today M[ercury]. 44 — Streets muddy, and the crossings bad. Statements that troops have been sent to reinforce Maj Anderson at Fort Sumpter created much excitement, a collision is expected. It is reported tonight that the Sec'y of Interior Mr Thompson has resigned, and also that a collision has occured at Charleston. U. S. troops have been ordered to this City to defend it if necessary. Gen^l Scott is here and will remain until after 4^th March. 100 guns were fired today in remembrance of the Battle of New Orleans. I was at the “National” this evening, called with wife at Mr Fenwick's on I St.

SOURCE: Horatio Nelson Taft, The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 1, January 1,1861-April 11, 1862, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington D. C., image 6.

Congressman Horace Mann, June 24, 1852

WASHINGTON, June 24, 1852.

When the Whig Convention nominated Scott, they killed off those who had been most clamorous for slavery, and therefore did a great work. Though not a triumph of antislavery sentiment, therefore, it was a defeat of Hunkerism at the North, and of slavery domination at the South. It was the first antislavery stand in a National Convention that has ever been successful. So far it is matter for thanksgiving and hallelujah. But it adopted the proslavery platform. This was effected by the union of the slavery men of the South, and the Hunkers or Fillmore and Webster men of the North. These together made a large majority; one hundred and forty-nine being a majority. All these men worked together in the organization for the Committee on Credentials and for the Platform Committee, and were, of course, successful. But, when they came to candidates, they split. Nothing could carry enough of the Webster men over to Fillmore, or enough of the Fillmore men over to Webster, to make a majority. A portion of each knew of the other, what all sensible and unbiassed men knew, — that the nomination of the other would be death to the party; and they would not defeat the party, even for the nomination of a favorite. Thus it was done, and thus it was not done.

There is such an infinite difference between Scott and Pierce, that all true antislavery men must desire the success of the former. About ten or a dozen Whigs from the South, and about the same number of Fillmore men, went over for Scott. This is all that could be meant by the South's supporting Scott or abandoning the compromises. They have got them in form, but not much more. The reason why they say Scott adopts the Southern platform is, that he accepts the nomination of the party that adopts the platform; and, indeed, his telegraphic despatch to the convention was, that he accepted the nomination with the platform. But as many interpretations can be given to the platform as to the Thirty-nine Articles. And, besides, the Whig Platform, though disgraceful to human nature, is not so black by many hues as the Democratic.

I read this morning the greater part of Kossuth's speech at the Tabernacle, New York. Is it not his greatest speech?

We are now taking the question, by yeas and nays, on the passage of a bill to give a certain quantity of the public lands to the old States for educational purposes; and it looks as if it would go through the House. I hope so with all my organ of hope.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, pp. 370-1

Congressman Horace Mann to Mr. Combe, July 1, 1852

WASHINGTON, July 1, 1852.

MY DEAR MR. COMBE, — . . . My friend Henry Barnard, Esq., who for many years was Secretary of the Board of Education, either in Connecticut or in Rhode Island, is about to visit England and Scotland, partly on account of his health, and partly to see your schools. You have always been partial enough to affix a higher value to my services on the subject of education than I could honestly claim or fairly expect. If you will put double all the credit you have ever given to me, and pass it to Mr. Barnard's account, you will hardly do his extraordinary services more than justice. His mind is full of wisdom, and his life has been full of devotion on this subject.

You will have learned, before receiving this, the event of our party Presidential nomination. What an awful moral has been derived from the fate of those who have been false to freedom! Every one of those Northern men, who, for the last half-dozen years, have devoted themselves to slavery, have been set aside; and those men who suffered and indirectly promoted all the atrocities of the Mexican war, though against all their own professions, did, by that very dereliction from duty, raise up two warriors to come in and pluck away the honors they had forfeited their integrity to obtain. Was it not a just retribution?

There is all the difference between the candidates that there is between a hero and his valet de chambre. Scott, too, is an antislavery man. Pierce will be the merest tool of slavery.

The Democratic Convention was almost in toto a proslavery body, and the ultra proslavery portion of it prevailed in the selection of Pierce. In the Whig Convention, the antislavery element prevailed; so that, though the contest is implicated with other matters, and its real issues are somewhat obscured, yet, if Scott is elected, it will be a great antislavery triumph. It was the first time that the antislavery element ever prevailed in any national convention.

Mrs. Mann and the children have gone home. I live here alone, and, of course, forlorn. I hear from them every day, and they are well. With kindest regards to yourself and Mrs. Combe,

I remain, as ever, yours truly,

HORACE MANN.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 372-3

Senator John C. Calhoun to Thomas G. Clemson, June 15, 1847

Fort Hill 15th June 1847

MY DEAR SIR, Your views in reference to our political condition and affairs is so good, that I have little to add. I regard my position the best that it could be, in the present state of our affairs. By having done my duty fully in reference to the Mexican war, as it relates both to its origin and the mode it ought to have been conducted, I stand free of all responsibility, and independent of both parties, and their entanglement. It is difficult to say, which is most so in reference to the war; the administration and its party, as its Authors, or the Whigs for the folly and weakness of having voted for a war, which they had in discussion pronounced to be unconstitutional and unprovoked.

I regard everything in reference to the war and its consequences as still uncertain. Whether victorious, or defeated our situation is bad. If the former, it would seem impossible almost to stop short of the Conquest of the country; and then comes the question; What shall we do with it? to annex it would be to overthrow our Government, and, to hold it as a Province, to corrupt and destroy it. The farther we advance, the more appearent the folly and wantoness of the war; and the more fully will the wisdom and patriotism of my course be vindicated. Indeed, already have the assaults on me terminated, except from the Would be Lieu General. But his ravings prove not only his wounded pride, and his spite, but that he regards my position as strong.

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, pp. 733-4

Senator John C. Calhoun to Anna Calhoun Clemson, August 13, 1847

Fort Hill 13th Augt. 1847

MY DEAR ANNA.  I am not at all surprised, that the victories our arms have achieved in Mexico should make so deep an impression in Europe. They had greatly underestimated our strength and military skill; but I fear their developement will have more pernecious influence at home, than beneficial abroad. I fear my forebodings will be realized to the fullest extent. The bitter is yet to come. I look forward to the next session of Congress, as one pregnant of events of the most momentous character. We shall, before it terminates, begin to realize the train of events, to which the Mexican war was destined to lead. I shall go prepared to speak the truth, fully and boldly, and to do my duty regardless of responsibility. The next news from Mexico will probably bring information of the occupation of the Capital by Scott and his army.

All join their love to you and Mr Clemson and the children. Kiss them for their Grandfather, and tell them I wish to see them much.

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, p. 736

Senator Jefferson Davis to Governor Albert G. Brown,* October 3, 1847

Reports of the Battles of Monterey and Buena Vista.

(From the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.)

Brierfield 3d Oct. 1847

Govr. A. G. Brown

Sir,

Herewith I have the honor to transmit to you the reports of the Regimental officers of the Battles of Monterey and Buena Vista, as far as the same were in my possession. I had hoped before this to have received full information in relation to the number of Rifles for which our state will be justly responsible and to have sent you a consolidated return; but regret to say that no company return has been made to me, since that of which I advised you.

It was my purpose to have made a report to you, which should have been a history of our Campaign in Mexico, but ill health at last compels me to abandon the design. A wish on the part of the Company officers to have their reports published, has been communicated to me by one of their number, and I have replied that they would be furnished to the Executive.

Very Respectfully

yr. mo. obt. svt.

Jeffn. Davis.

_______________

* At the election of officers of the First Mississippi Regiment of Volunteers War with Mexico July 18, 1846, Capt. A. B. Bradford, who had been a soldier under Jackson in 1812-15 and Colonel of a regiment of Tennessee volunteers of Armstrong's mounted brigade under General Call in Florida, 1836, and was known as "the hero of Withlacoochee," was supported by the northern counties for Colonel and received 350 votes to 300 for Jefferson Davis, who was a graduate of West Point, had been a Lieutenant in the regular army in the Black Hawk war, and Adjutant of the Dragoons in a Comanchee war, and was at the time a Representative of Mississippi in Congress. R. N. Downing also received 135 votes, W. L. Brandon 91, and A. G. Bennett 37. Bradford declined to consider the election his, although it was sufficient in militia elections, unless he had a majority of the regiment. On the second ballot Davis received a majority of 147. A. K. McClung, R. E. Downing and Major-General Duffield were candidates for Lieutenant-Colonel and McClung was elected on the second ballot. On a subsequent day Bradford was elected Major. McClung commanded the regiment until after it reached New Orleans.

The staff officers were: Richard Griffith, Adjutant; Seymour Halsey, Surgeon; John Thompson, Assistant Surgeon; Charles T. Harlan, Sergeant-Major; S. Warren W White, Quartermaster-Sergeant; Kemp S. Holland, Commissary; Stephen Dodds, Principal Musician.

Colonel Davis, then at Washington, D. C., arranged that the regiment should be armed with rifles instead of the ordinary infantry musket. On this subject he said later in life: "General Scott endeavored to persuade me not to take more rifles than enough for four companies, and objected particularly to percussion arms as not having been sufficiently tested for the use of troops in the field. Knowing that the Mississippians would have no confidence in the old flint lock muskets, I insisted on heir being armed with the kind of rifle then recently made at New Haven, Conn., the Whitney rifle. From having been first used by the Mississippians, those rifles have always been known as the Mississippi rifles." The arms were sent to the regiment by ship, to New Orleans. They were without bayonets, there having been no time to make them. Colonel Davis, traveling by way of Wheeling, joined his command at the camp near New Orleans July 21, 1846.

______________

See:

• Col. Jefferson Davis to Brig. Gen. John A. Quitman, September 26, 1846
• Col. Jefferson Davis to Brig. Gen. John A. Quitman, Undated

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, pp. 102-3

Congressman Horace Mann to George Combe, May 8, 1852

WASHINGTON, May 8, 1852.

MY DEAR MR. COMBE,— We are on the verge of a Presidential election. Our political caldron is beginning to seethe vehemently. Macbeth's witches had nothing in theirs so baneful as that which gives character to ours. The political leaders desired to make it palatable to the South; and hence they have saturated its contents with proslavery. Even under the application of the three-fifths basis of the Constitution in regard to the slave-representation in Congress, we can give nearly two-thirds of the Presidential votes. Could we only unite for freedom as the South do for slavery, all would be well; but the lower and hinder half of the brain rules, and we do not. The acquisition of our new territory from Mexico, by robbery under the form of a treaty, gave opportunity for competition between our leaders for Southern support. Mr. Fillmore, the present President, goes for what is called the "finality" of the compromises, and makes himself acceptable to the South by issuing proclamations, and giving instructions to marshals and prosecuting attorneys to enforce the Fugitive-slave Law. Mr. Webster tries to get some new popularity in the same quarter by lauding the same accursed law, and by maintaining that it is not only constitutional, but "proper" in itself. The only Whig candidate who is not fully committed on all these proslavery measures is Gen. Scott; and towards him, therefore, the antislavery part of the Whigs are looking as their only hope. Portions, indeed, of the antislavery men, — the abolitionists and no-government men, who vote nowhere; the Liberty-party men, who will vote for no one who does not represent their views in full; and the extreme men, perhaps, of the Free-soil party, — are as violent against Gen. Scott as against Gen. Cass. This repellency of bigots and partisans seems to act on the law of the "inverse ratio of the squares of the distances;" for they are much more violent against those who almost agree with them than against those who are at the opposite moral pole. How the contest will eventuate, it is impossible to foresee. Should the Whigs indorse the "compromise measures " of 1850, or should they nominate Mr. Fillmore or Mr. Webster, or should Gen. Cass, if nominated, come out in favor of the “compromise measures," the Democrats will certainly prevail. There seems to be but one chance for the Whigs to succeed; namely, the contingency of their nominating Gen. Scott, and then of his non-indorsement of the compromises." Of course, the greater portion of the antislavery people are hoping for this result.

Another great moral question is profoundly agitating the people of the Northern and Eastern States: it is the question of temperance. Between one and two years ago, such a concentration and pressure of influence was brought to bear upon the Legislature of the State of Maine, that though it is said that body was principally composed of anti-temperance men, yet it passed what has now become famous, and will forever be famous in the moral history of mankind, — the MAINE LIQUOR LAW. Its grand features are the search for and the seizure of all intoxicating liquors, and their destruction when adjudicated to have been kept for sale. It goes upon the ground that the Government cannot knock a human passion or a depraved and diseased appetite upon the head, but it can knock a barrel of whiskey or rum upon the head, and thus prevent the gratification of the passion or appetite; and after a time the unfed appetite or passion will die out. The author of this law was Neal Dow, the mayor of the city of Portland. He enforced it, and it has worked wonders. The alms-house ceased to be replenished with inmates; assaults and batteries became rare; the jail-doors stood open; and the police officers held almost sinecures. The success was so great, that the temperance party in other States have made it an element in popular elections; and though in most instances they have been defeated at the first trial, yet they are resolved to return again to the contest. The Legislature of the Territory of Minnesota passed the law, but provided that it should be submitted to the people for ratification; and it has been ratified by a popular vote! And, what is still more important, the Legislature of Massachusetts, now in session, has this very week, after one of the most earnest and protracted contests ever waged, passed a similar law. It is to be submitted to the people next month. If a majority vote for it, it is forthwith to become the law of the State. If a majority vote against it, then it is to be suspended in its operation, and we will agitate anew. But this, perhaps you will say, is an heroic remedy for the evils of intemperance. I acknowledge it. But, when a disease becomes so desperate, I go for heroic remedies. I would resort to surgical practice, and lose a limb to save a life, or deplete the whole body to reduce a topical inflammation that threatens to be fatal. When I saw you, I believe I used occasionally to take a very little wine; and I sometimes, though rarely, drank tea. I believe I had left off coffee long before. But, for many years past, I have abjured wine, coffee, tea, and every thing of a stimulating nature. I confine my beverage to the pure element," and am a great deal better in health for the practice.

My whole family has been in Washington since the commencement of the session. How I wish you could come here and see them! for then one of the greatest desires of my life would be answered; that is, I should see you.

How goes on the work of educating in your island? I had a printed account of an examination in your school; but how is it for the million? . . .

Your friend and disciple,

HORACE MANN.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, pp. 363-5