PRIVATE LETTERS 
 
 PARMENAS TAYLOR TlRNLEY, 
 
 (TOGETHER WITH SOME LETTERS OF HIS FATHER 
 AND GRANDFATHER,) 
 
 ON THE 
 
 CHARACTER OE THE CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT OF 
 THE UNITED STATES, AND THE ANTAGONISM OF 
 PURITANS TO CHRISTIANITY, &c. 
 
 (folletteb, jArrangib, anb |)rhttrb for |3ribai£ (Himilafion ortlg, 
 among ^rlatiks of fbe .Jfanulg, 
 
 BY HIS SISTER, 
 
 CINDERELLA L. TURNLEY. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SONS, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, W.C. 
 
 18G3. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/privatelettersof01turn 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 T 
 
 A nation which uses involuntary labour strives more to 
 “ preserve ” than to “ acquire while, a nation using only 
 free labour, strives more to “ acquire” than to “ preserve.” 
 Commerce, more than all else, tends to unite nations. 
 It makes them, step by step, dependent on each other, 
 and therefore, it makes them friends. One community 
 needs to buy that which another creates ; while the latter 
 needs to sell what the former does not have nor create. 
 Hence, commerce is progressive, — the small beginning 
 leads to the moderate, — the moderate to the great, — the 
 great to the greatest ; and, so long as the principle of 
 mutual exchange or interchange is observed, communities 
 or nations thus dealing with each other are friends, and 
 are united by strong ties of mutual good-will. But, not 
 so with individuals in a commercial community. The 
 spirit of commerce makes enemies of individuals in the 
 same community. More especially is this the case where 
 the same people or nation are plainly divided into two 
 distinct classes of vocations — one being purely commer- 
 cial, the other being purely agricultural, or creative. 
 Wherever a people move only by the spirit of trade (or 
 commerce), they soon learn to make a traffic of the most 
 
VI 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 worthy of all human virtues ! This is not only to be 
 regretted, it is absolutely shocking, but none the less 
 true. We have thus seen in the history of nations — • 
 purely commercial — that even the smallest dues of 
 humanity are to be obtained for a price; and are, in 
 fact, an article of commerce. It is true, the sense of 
 trade which commerce (left alone) produces in the minds 
 of its votaries approaches a very high sense of exact 
 justice. That is, they will never rob outright, nor out- 
 side of a rule of trade. Neither will they ever contribute 
 charity, nor stop to think for a moment of the necessities 
 of any other class of humanity, unless such consideration 
 comes within their commercial rule, and will benefit the 
 trade. On the other hand, a community or a nation 
 purely agricultural, or one to which trade is either 
 unknown or prohibited, may rob outright, yet such 
 community may have high regard for moral virtues, and 
 may favour and practice the most charitable intercourse 
 with each other, and with other communities. Hence 
 we find that hospitality is much more rarely met with in 
 commercial cities and marts of trade, than in the most 
 remote frontiers, even, of a rude farming people. 
 
 In the collection of letters which follow, this charac- 
 teristic of the distinct classes of people composing the 
 United States is set forth. And also the tendency of 
 the two classes of people in opposite directions as regards 
 the American form and system of Government. 
 
 The North-Eastern or Puritan States of America 
 have never given much thought to the mere preservation 
 of any established system, but have looked almost entirely 
 to acquisition, either of wealth, numbers, or physical 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 vn 
 
 development. On the other hand, the purely agricultural 
 States have always given mainly their attention to pre- 
 servation, letting any increase or acquisition be of 
 secondary consideration. This spirit, in the two classes 
 of people was and is pre-existing , and is independent of 
 every accidental cause. But both tendencies have been, 
 and are yet, constantly strengthened by the vocations or 
 pursuits each respectively adopted. That is, the spirit 
 to acquire in the North has been constantly increased by 
 the food it lives on, which is, and ever has been, com- 
 merce and manufactures ; while the spirit to preserve, 
 and not to acquire, in the South, has been as constantly 
 growing, by reason of their purely creating or agricultural 
 pursuits. 
 
 For half a century the North has been purely free 
 labouring ; while the South has been using mixed labour, 
 that is, part free and part slave labour. The slave labour 
 thus used is that of the African heathen (to the manor 
 born, though the descendant of the imported African of 
 the last century). About one-fourth of the labourers in 
 the South are the African ; the other half being free, white 
 Christians. A wise man once said that “ the human 
 family on earth appeared to be at war with each other 
 but he did not tell us what the cause of this conflict or 
 enmity is. Every one is thus left to speculate on this 
 cause of conflict, according to his own capacity to reason 
 about such things ; and, in exercising tins privilege we 
 hold to the theory that a constant strife exists in all 
 countries, and all ages, between two species of occupation 
 or labour ; one class of people being creative only, the 
 other transforming and exchanging only. Between these 
 
Vlll 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 two, then, there is a conflict since the world began, and 
 will be, so long as man continues to' act on the stage. 
 If man would live by his own labour, and not by that of 
 another, this conflict would cease ; but this will only be 
 when the millennium shall break upon us. This remark is 
 not meant to apply to guardians nor masters, nor to him 
 who uses serf or slave labour ; but it is meant to apply 
 to those who seek to live off the products of others, who 
 have no claims to their protection from want, and who 
 try to divert into their own coffers an undue amount of 
 the profits, to the detriment of the producer. 
 
 The present conflict of war and blood, going on in 
 the United States is nothing more nor less than the last 
 and final effort of a purely agricultural people to sustain 
 themselves against a long-continued and systematic effort 
 of a purely commercial and manufacturing people to 
 depress the agricultural — curtail the agriculturalists’ pro- 
 fits, and enhance those of the commercialists and manu- 
 facturer. This conflict had to come, one day, to America, 
 just as it has come to all nations. Of course, a thousand 
 causes are assigned for the conflict coming when and as 
 it did, still the true cause is most generally lost sight 
 of, at least by those whose personal interest blind the 
 mind’s eye. 
 
 The following letters were written at a time, and 
 under circumstances which were most favourable to see 
 things in a proper light, and while I was then too young 
 to understand or feel much interest in the very impor- 
 tant subjects treated off; yet, at a riper age, I have not 
 failed to read them with great care and the liveliest 
 interest. The proof of great sagacity and sound judg- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IX 
 
 ment of the writer is now being daily exhibited to the 
 world, in the million and a half of soldiers under arms, 
 in deadly conflict in America, where all was peace and 
 quiet when these letters were written ! 
 
 Twenty millions of people in one section are trying to 
 crush out, and extinguish, if possible, ten millions in the 
 other section ! The existence of slavery in one section is 
 assigned as the cause of this blood ! Yet the very North 
 people who thus assert slavery to be the cause, actually 
 brought it to America, used it as long as it was profitable, 
 and then sold it out to the Southern people, for value 
 received in gold ! The same North people have con- 
 tinued to live on the sweat and blood of the Negro, in 
 the shape of most exorbitant tariffs and c: coasting-trade ” 
 perquisites for half a century ; and now, when the owners 
 of those Negroes roused themselves to allow no further 
 exactions, this slave-labour becomes all at once very 
 odious in the eyes of those who were quite content to 
 use it — so long as they could abuse it ! The true friends 
 to the African Negro — {slave or free ) — are the Southern 
 people. I am a native of a Slave State, yet never owned 
 one; my family, for four generations back, were all 
 natives of Slave States, yet never owned them ; personal 
 pecuniary interest, therefore, cannot be said to influence 
 my feelings one way or the other; and, in collecting and 
 printing the private letters of a brother, my only apology 
 is, that I desire all my family relatives — who are utterly 
 surprised at the colossal proportions of this most inhuman 
 and vindictive war, in which they are shedding their blood 
 freely — may also know some of the most distant but 
 secret motives which has prompted to its gradual com- 
 
X 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 mencement for nearly half a century. My own opinion 
 is, that so far from African slavery being the cause of this 
 war, it has actually prevented it for twenty years ! I 
 most sincerely believe that, if the ivhole of southern labour 
 had been white free labour, that they would have rebelled 
 long, long ago, against the undue exactions of Northern 
 cupidity, tariffs, and coasting dues ; but the poor Negro 
 having broad shoulders and a hardy constitution has been 
 the quiet pack-horse; with none to take his part, his 
 owner preferred to move along quietly, suffering the 
 excessive exactions to fall on his slave rather than make 
 complaints which might lead to open rupture. And the 
 six millions and half of non-slaveowners in the Slave 
 States also strove for peace for a quarter of a century. 
 But this quiet conservative mass in the South have every 
 one of them jumped to their own rescue when every 
 species of imposition, every epithet that could be spoken 
 and written in the North against the character of the 
 Southern people Lave completely taken possession of 
 Northern minds. The Southern Christians now see their 
 danger and condition, and what greater dangers they have 
 escaped by “secession.” Hence it was only the sweat 
 and blood of the Negro that kept off the conflict. His 
 sweat and blood would again bring a temporary peace, if 
 the South would only acquiesce in Northern tariffs, 
 Northern shipping dues, and Northern dictation, as to all 
 legislation in agricultural States , — then would peace come 
 to-morrow. On the other hand, if there were not a 
 slave on earth ; if there were nothing but the white free 
 labour in the South, and the South yet persist in throwing 
 off those tariffs, and claim to do her own legislation, then 
 
IN 1'RODUCTION. 
 
 XI 
 
 will the war continue just the same. Peace comes, either 
 by the agriculturalist yielding to Northern commerce and 
 manufacturing, or by defending itself to the death ! 
 
 Nothing is truer or plainer than this ; so think the 
 two hundred and eighty thousand slaveowners in the 
 South ; so think the six and half millions of free white 
 non-slaveowners in the South, and who are filling the 
 armies of the South in defence of (not slavery) but their 
 homes and firesides, and the dearest rights of Christian 
 souls — be he bond or free — black skin or white ! Never 
 in the history of the world had a people more cause to 
 call upon the Great Eternal for support, than the Chris- 
 tian people of the Southern States have at this time. 
 Never in the age of Christian warfare have any people, 
 army, or leaders, so utterly set aside the mitigated rules 
 of civilized and modern warfare as the Puritans have 
 done in this present conflict. Women and innocent 
 children in villages and towns (whose husbands, fathers, 
 and brothers are ascertained to be in the Confederate 
 armies) are at once subjected to the most brutal treat- 
 ment and gross insults by Federal officers and Federal 
 soldiers ! These helpless ones have in thousands been 
 given one hour only to leave their houses ; and then, at a 
 few hundred yards distant, saw the same committed to 
 the flames by Federal Puritan officers. Is not this 
 evidence of a religious (alas ! not Christian) zeal, rather 
 than of patriotism ? Not only so, but numerous in- 
 stances exist in the Border States when Federal Puritans 
 have got possession, that when a Southern man had a 
 wife who was Puritan, she has delivered her own hus- 
 band to the Federals, and has seen him executed in sight 
 
Xll 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of his own house ! Mr. Prior Lee, of Missouri, is one case. 
 Numerous instances exist of Southern wives (but who 
 were of Northern Puritans) eloping with Federal Puritan 
 officers, while wives of Southern birth and blood married 
 to Northern Puritan men, have deserted their husbands 
 in order to remain in the South and give aid to the cause 
 of the South. We ask, then, what can be clearer than 
 that this present conflict is one of religious Puritan frenzy 
 against Christian faith, hope, courage, and perseverance ? 
 
 While the Christian world is called upon to sympa- 
 thise with Poland, and while they do And great cause to 
 sympathise and even aid her, it is equally true that 
 Christians in every clime may not overlook brother 
 Christians struggling as men never struggled before ! It 
 will one day appear that a little African heathen slavery 
 is the excuse only — not the cause of the American war. 
 
 Affectionately, 
 
 A Sister, 
 
 C. L. T. 
 
PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 ON 
 
 AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 New Orleans, July 4th, 1846. 
 
 I arrived here safely, expecting to meet my regiment, 
 with which I shall proceed on to Mexico, to join the main 
 portion of the army now leaving its camps on the Rio 
 Grande for Monterey. I have read with care all you say 
 in regard to the war* which seems now to be upon us, 
 whether we are willing for it or not. I think I can well 
 account for your warm expressions of approval of the 
 course of the President and his administration. Your 
 “Democracy” is enough to explain this, if nothing else. 
 But I know you feel other and stronger reasons than 
 mere party attachment in the just cause we have of 
 complaint, and the great propriety of our enforcing our 
 claims by arms, if needs be. Still, as an abstract theory, 
 I am averse to war (not that I want to be a soldier in 
 peace, and a citizen in war), but the more I study of 
 war — its objects, aims, results, and effects — I am con- 
 vinced that more harm than good comes from it always, 
 and it should therefore be avoided. 
 
 * The war declared with Mexico, May 13th, 1846. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 It is now some years since you treated me to a lengthy 
 dissertation on the political character of the Government 
 of the United States, in which, if I mistake not, you 
 thought you proved it was not a War Government, and 
 could not be, from its very constitution. Many other 
 topics you treated of (as to its magnificent perfection), 
 none of which views have I ever made answer to. You 
 must not, therefore, because of my silence, suppose for a 
 moment that I agreed with you, or that I believe the half 
 you said on this subject. 
 
 I did, however, at your solicitations, as well as from 
 personal inclination, devote myself to a more careful 
 study of the “ revolution of these colonies ” (which I 
 choose to call a rebellion), and I must insist, in justice 
 to my convictions, that I am more than ever convinced 
 of the improper motives which actuated the Northern and 
 Eastern colonies in that matter, and that some of the 
 more Southern people also finally acted from quite un- 
 worthy motives. To have said this at that time your 
 grandfather would have called good and loyal doctrine ; 
 but my grandfather would have called it Toryism, or 
 traitorous, and it would not have been easy for one to 
 escape rough handling. At present, however, I express 
 the sentiment under the aegis of a free government. May 
 be 1 shall always be able to do so; yet I must confess I 
 am not without serious doubts on this point. 
 
 It did not require your hint that some of my political 
 view r s are distasteful to you and to my grandfather. I 
 am quite ready to believe that both of you will condemn 
 much of w'hat I express as my firm convictions of truth. 
 But you call forth my view's by your unasked animadver- 
 sions, and I believe that you would prefer to know my 
 honest feelings in the matter, rather than any “ white- 
 washed ” defence of what I do not believe to be true. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 3 
 
 Hence, I trust to your magnanimity at least to give me 
 credit for honesty of purpose. Neither can you attribute 
 my views to any hostile feelings for our present magnifi- 
 cent country, because it is needless for me to assure you 
 that no one living can enjoy its greatness, its blessings, 
 and its liberty, more truly than I do. It is not, there- 
 fore, the present, nor the real, but that which I think to 
 be perishable and false, that I so despise, and which I 
 think permeates the whole structure. I do not see the 
 evidences of continued advancement and prosperity which 
 appear so plain to your mind’s eye. Neither do I say 
 that the defects I perceive are entirely in our system of 
 government, although it has defects which will not fail 
 to come to light from time to time. My fears are founded 
 on something further back, and which had deep root long 
 before our Government had any existence. It is in the 
 very nature of men and of races, wherein I discover an 
 utter want of homogeneousness, a direct antagonism, which 
 holds the seeds of its own destruction. These seeds, of 
 course, exist in all Governments ; but all other Govern- 
 ments (with one or two exceptions) have provided for such 
 evils, and take measures to prevent the evil tendencies. 
 Our mother-country, England, for instance, had her streets 
 drenched in blood before she discovered the real character 
 and existence of these elements. But she has well pro- 
 vided for their control. Now, you will at once say that 
 my views are those of all others who have no faith in 
 popular government. Not so ; I even differ from them 
 also, as I will take occasion to show hereafter, as time 
 will permit. Meanwhile, I hope you will all, in Tennessee 
 and elsewhere, check the present symptoms of opposition 
 to the war, and will give your hearty co-operation to the 
 administration, in prosecuting it to a propitious end. 
 Peace will not come in a day, or a week, but will in the 
 
4 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 course of a year or two, and when it does, I have no doubt 
 but that our territorial limits (which you think are already 
 sufficiently extended) will be still more enlarged. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Matamoras, August 12th, 1846. 
 
 I arrived here two days ago, after a pleasant voyage — 
 at least, as pleasant as could have been expected. I 
 also find yours of the 15th ult. here a-head of me. I 
 thank you for your promise to read my views on the 
 subject of Democratic Government, a subject which you 
 and grandfather think I know nothing about. Well, ’tis 
 very likely I don’t ; but 1 think few do. Hence, I am 
 the more willing to express my views, knowing that I 
 will always have company in ignorance. There is a great 
 difference between truths and what people think are 
 truths ; so is there between what we really know and 
 what we think we know. Now, when I have all the 
 surrounding facts before me, and the same evidences of 
 results that others have, I cannot see why my inferences 
 should be so wide of the mark as you would seem to 
 pronounce even in advance. My opinion is, that your 
 mind has been led to wrong conclusions because of wrong 
 premises ; and it will be my first effort to show this, and 
 place, instead, correct premises. 
 
 In the first place, father, you are honest in your devo- 
 tion to the best interest of the whole country; and hence 
 you naturally suppose that all other people are also honest. 
 Whereas they are not, nor the half of them. Secondly, 
 you think all democrats are alike — hold like views, and 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 5 
 
 aim at like results. This is also very erroneous. Thirdly, 
 y T ou look upon the Northern people and the Southern 
 people as homogeneous and similar in manners and 
 customs, and requiring similar laws ; and you also look 
 upon the democratic government in each as similar, and 
 tending to like results ; which I also assert is very far 
 from being the truth. Now, much of your confusion 
 in this matter results from what you understand to be a 
 “ democrat.” You profess to be a “ democrat ” in the 
 true sense of the term. You have allowed certain ques- 
 tions of legislative policy to direct you in choosing which 
 side you would belong to ; and that side having (by 
 accident) taken the name of “ democrat” in your State,* 
 you class yourself and all men as democrats who oppose 
 the general measures which you oppose. As I have been 
 raised in the same county 7 with ymurself, I must have some 
 correct ideas of y 7 our democracy south. You have 
 admitted this before, and I think we will not disagree 
 now. I fully coincide with you in opposition to the 
 electing of your Judiciary by the people, and for the same 
 reasons ; yet that Avas and is eminently a democratic 
 measure, yet very 7 properly opposed by the democratic 
 party south. We have always been together on the 
 scrupulous and literal adherence to the terms of the 
 Federal Constitution, y 7 et such strict adherence is so far 
 anti-democratic because, when the popular voice thinks 
 any established rules not the best suited to all, such 
 popular voice can, on purely democratic grounds, override 
 or set aside such provisions. This is the true character 
 and tendency of democracy in the North ; but I assert 
 that you have little or no tendency of this kind in the 
 Southern States of the Union. On the contrary 7 , all purely 
 democratic tendencies or practices in the United States 
 * A Southern State — Tennessee. 
 
G 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 Government are to be looked for in the North and not in 
 the South. There is even some evidences of this difference 
 in all the great questions of a political nature which have 
 been discussed in the national councils for half a century, 
 during which you and grandfather were lookers-on at 
 events as they transpired, whereas I have come in as a 
 mere dreamy reviewer of the records. 
 
 Now, in these records I find bank and anti-bank .(I 
 mean a national bank as a fiscal agent) and internal 
 improvement by the general Government (instead of by 
 the States or by private corporations). The holding public 
 lands, and the Government being a kind of agency to 
 peddle them out at so much the acre, instead of a general 
 donation to the needy and the willing for homesteads ; 
 high tariffs on imported goods to aid and assist a class to 
 build up similar manufactories in the east, versus a tariff 
 for national revenue only ; — in all these matters you and I 
 have always agreed. You called yourself a democrat ; 
 hence I also, in your estimation, must be a democrat. 
 You opposed a bank; you opposed the peddling out of 
 the lands, on pecuniary grounds, and favoured (on pecu- 
 niary, not democratic grounds at all) the giving away to 
 actual settlers homesteads, because the enhanced value of 
 revenues by the rapid settlement would be tenfold greater 
 than the dollar or two per acre, with all the expenses of 
 surveying and taking care of such a land-agency on the 
 part of the Government. Also, you opposed specific 
 tariffs, and you admitted that I gave ymu the clearest and 
 best mathematical demonstration of its unfairness you 
 ever had. 
 
 So far, then, we have been together. I have been 
 thus particular in defining our positions, because I want 
 to prove to you that I am, and ever have been, just as 
 good and sound a democrat, in your sense of that word, 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 7 
 
 as you are yourself ; and yet I most emphatically assert 
 that I am not a democrat in what I call the American 
 sense of democracy. Athens had her democracy, and 
 had her end too ; Greece had her republics, mistaken, 
 too, somewhat for democracies. The United States has 
 democracies within her limits, and also republics ; which 
 I shall proveT The former are in the North ; the latter 
 are in the South. The Southern States are representative 
 republics ; the Northern States are the same only in name, 
 but in practice the Northern States are democracies. It 
 is this difference which I shall treat of diereafter, and a 
 difference which, to my mind, foreshadows the extreme of 
 peril. But I go back far beyond this, and ground these 
 differences in pre-existing differences of the North and the 
 South people. 
 
 More anon. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Comargo, Mexico, August 20th, 1846. 
 
 I arrived here yesterday on a small steamer which ran 
 up this little creek from where it empties into the Rio 
 Grande some three miles distant. I say a creek, though 
 it is known as the “ San Juan River.” I am preparing to 
 leave and overtake the army with Taylor, now en route for 
 Monterey, but I shall be delayed in order to form part of 
 an escort with a supply train. I find no letters from you ; 
 but I have one from uncle J. A. T., of Alabama, exhorting 
 me in his methodistical style to do and to be everything 
 that is very good, and especially to take Washington for 
 my guide in religious as well as in military practices. 
 
8 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 This is certainly kind and thoughtful in my uncle; but, if 
 he knew how slim are the hopes of his brevet second- 
 lieutenant nephew to attain to rank enough ever to mark 
 out a future in the line “ militaire,” he would have saved 
 himself the time and paper. On the other hand, if he had 
 a more clear idea of my dislike to exhortations and 
 preachers, he would have cut short even that part of his 
 letter. I have just passed outside of the “ preacher- ridden ” 
 United States, and have got into a “ priest-ridden ” Re- 
 public, and I prefer to enjoy their luxuries separately. 
 This matter of “ preachers ” has much to do with my 
 ideas of “ Democracies ” and “ Republics/’ and constitutes 
 an especial element in the antagonism of races which I 
 shall have much to say about. I hope I shall not 
 be bored with sectarianism in advance, else I may say 
 some unfriendly things. My notion is, that half the wars 
 which have cursed the world were brought about by 
 “preachers;” and, when a war does occur in which they 
 have had no part (as in the present), they should be more 
 than cautious to keep quite aloof from its conduct. Our 
 officers and army generally here show evident signs of 
 exultation in the unity and harmony which pervade our 
 forces over and above that extant in our Mexican enemies, 
 and in the magnificent power of the United States, as a 
 nation, over distracted Mexico; yet, when I look back 
 from the Rio Grande to Maine, and consider the extreme 
 diversity of character, of interest, of aims, and efforts — in 
 other words, the intense “ antagonism of races” in their 
 very origin, the terrific hatred which is only slumbering 
 from motives of expediency, but which, like the volcano, 
 will ultimately break out, I can scarcely participate in the 
 exultation. I constantly ask myself the question, how 
 many decades will elapse before the United States are in a 
 like, or even worse condition than Mexico ? This will 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 9 
 
 come. The motive will be this inherent antagonism ; the 
 means, or channels for its execution, will be diverse, some 
 of which will be different habits, customs, religions, moral 
 ethics, but, especially, difference of geographical pursuits 
 and pecuniary interests. The occasion, or time, will be 
 when a hatred sufficiently intense shall have been generated 
 by a war of ideas between these “ Republics ” and those 
 “ Democracies.” Republics have one object, which is a 
 very cautious exercise of democratic theories and privileges. 
 Democracies have for their object the full exercise of what- 
 ever the vox populi (no matter how expressed) may decide. 
 Democracies have in view the making of laws and consti- 
 tutions as they progress. 
 
 Now, in reply to this, you will treat me to a dissertation 
 on the philosophy of the age, the example of other nations, 
 a common interest, not to say analogous habits, & c. But, 
 that philosophy is more proof on my side than yours ; 
 while all nations constantly prove that none ever yet 
 profited by the experience of previous ones. 
 
 Now, here is my starting point in the subject I have 
 promised to write you on, as it respects our own Govern- 
 ment, which is an inherent antagonism between the (two) 
 distinct classes of the American people ; and the effort to 
 mould all into one common system will produce (as it 
 always has) disruption. 
 
 The Southern Colonies of the present United States were' 
 settled primarily by a class of people fully imbued with 
 the orthodox-church Christianity of the age, and notions 
 whence they came. They were honest, punctilious, and 
 scrupulous; some were the idle dependencies of respect- 
 able families ; but all were gentlemen, whose ideas of 
 wealth were not measured by dollars, but by the manner in 
 which it enabled them to live, and the extent it enabled 
 them to exert moral influences among their fellow-men. 
 
10 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 Their cultivation and refinement were not superficial, but, 
 as a general rule, thorough and deep ; their study of civil 
 Government was extensive, and their experience in the 
 same greater than that of any other people who ever 
 settled a new country. They were not inventive, but 
 followed pretty much the established rules of their prede- 
 cessors, and of tradition, both in Church and State, as 
 well as in domestic economy. We might say they were 
 a fiftieth remove from the Feudal order, and retained but 
 the semblance of that mode of settlement and of living ; 
 everything about them go to indicate this character — the 
 very manner in which they would mark out fields and 
 plantations (called in this country haciendas or villas), 
 and the way in which they would locate their dwellings, 
 in some vast woodland or park, and their vocation, always 
 agricultural and rural. Their habits were those most 
 conducive to health and development, as well of the body 
 as of .the intellect, but not rapidly. They did nothing 
 hastily or in a hurry ; they were slow and deliberate to a 
 fault; would prefer to consume a whole year in building a 
 house rather than do it in a month. Now, these were 
 characteristics, not of the age, nor the country, nor of 
 circumstances, but were distinct in breed — pre-existing 
 elements in nature ; and all those having these charac- 
 teristics have always, and will necessarily, congregate 
 together, all extraneous obstacles being removed. All 
 persons possessing these qualities were equals under the 
 law and in the church ; so, also, did a social equality exist 
 on the basis of — first, Christianity; second, refinement; 
 third, cultivation. All Christians had certain inalienable 
 equal rights, independent of themselves, while totally 
 dependent on themselves, did they attain to, or not, cer- 
 tain social equality. But the heathen was not the equal 
 of the Christian in any respect, but was always made sub- 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 li 
 
 servient to the Christian in every position of life ; yet 
 this heathen was always made the especial object of 
 instruction, example, admonition. He was not driven 
 away, nor even permitted to go away. His very hours of 
 sleep, of labour, of rest, and of spiritual culture were made 
 to come and go by the Christian rule of superiority. This 
 was not, and is not, considered to be merely an accidental 
 superiority, but a Divine superiority, ordained of God, and 
 having for its end the converting of the heathen to the 
 light and life of Christ. Hence, the Southern Christians 
 did not settle in large cities, or towns, nor did they ever 
 build large towns, but dispersed themselves over wide- 
 extended country, comparatively distant from each other. 
 Their pursuits were not commercial nor mechanical ; their 
 life was not spent neither in store nor counting rooms, 
 nor mechanic shops; their minds were not occupied with 
 bank stocks, nor losses, nor profits. All these pursuits 
 and modes of living are utterly incompatible with the 
 Christianisation of the heathen, and has been since the 
 world was redeemed, as also destructive to God^s govern- 
 ment prior to the Advent. Every characteristic of the 
 Southern Christians goes to show that their tendency was, 
 and is, to rural life, and the implanting of like habits, 
 tastes, and natures into the heathens around them. 
 
 The clearing of the forest, the ploughing, the seed-time 
 and harvest, seems to be the one prevailing idea and 
 effort. Agricultural pursuits seem to be not an accident 
 of the people, but the very incentive which influence their 
 resting-place ; not a consequence, but an antecedent ; and 
 it was a part of the blood and life of the mother-country 
 whence they came. They appear not to be entirely 
 prodigal adventurers, neither exiles, but so many arms 
 of the same bod} 7 , each forming a digit stretched out to 
 develop the new soil for the double purpose of Chris- 
 
12 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 tianising the heathen, and to advance the Christian by new 
 and fresh products of God’s soil. And this we apply to 
 all those settlers, whether of English, Irish, Spanish, or 
 French Christians. Their parent countries did much to 
 assist them, and receive ample rewards for their assistance 
 to early emigrants, if not in money, yet in products, in- 
 formation, and Christian advancements. 
 
 A mutual feeling of friendship and interest was at once 
 established. A feeling of mutual dependence existed 
 between the colonies and mother-countries ; and, while 
 those countries received rich returns, no colonists ever 
 advanced so rapidly in all the elements of wealth, power, 
 and influence ; nor anything to compare with the strides 
 which Christianity has made among the heathen. 
 
 This country of Mexico is called benighted, and all that; 
 but when I look at the heathen population which Cortez 
 and Spanish Christians met with here, in 1520, and now 
 look at the Church and the “ Cross,” I think much has 
 been done, even though abuses exist, and selfishness has 
 perverted the best means to not the best ends. So, too, 
 when I look at nearly three millions of negroes in the 
 Southern States, whose parentage were fresh heathens, 
 transported thither, I feel a conviction that the civilisation, 
 humanisation, and Christianisation of them has progressed 
 amazingly, notwithstanding some apparent perversions, 
 and misapplication of some of the means; of course, defects 
 among fallible and finite men must needs be expected. 
 True, both English and Spanish settlers have had the 
 field for labour on earth. A boundless country, the finest 
 the eye of man ever rested on, with the greatest variety of 
 climate, soil, and physical diversity, all inviting, and 
 receiving the most rapid settlement and development of a 
 highly civilised and refined people ; but, aside from all 
 these advantages (which may be called God’s work), these 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 13 
 
 people have measurably fulfilled the command to ££ convert 
 the heathen.” And, while a peculiar mind may reason 
 that not half so much has been done as could have been 
 done, yet this is begging the general question. 
 
 Such, then, was the condition of the Southern colonies, 
 including Mexico, from the first settlement until the in- 
 cipient C£ agitation ” of the subject of rebellion against the 
 mother-country. From that date I note a falling-off from 
 the advance of those colonies, which will be the subject of 
 future letters. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Farm enas. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Mier, Mexico, September 6th, 1846. 
 
 I arrived yesterday at this little town, twenty-five 
 miles from the Rio Grande. It is of no special interest 
 to you, except, perhaps, as being the place where the 
 noted Mier prisoners were taken, in the earlier Texas 
 Revolution (some of whom were shot by drawing of lots, 
 and among them we had one or two blood relations). 
 Only think, that in the present age, which men call en- 
 lightened, and filled with a spirit of liberty and liberality, 
 in this age, I say, imagine, if you can, a people calling 
 themselves Christian taking as prisoners other Christians 
 for an effort to establish their own independence and 
 government. And thus to draw lots, as to which man 
 shall be shot ! Well, such is human nature, and so will 
 it ever be, or at least till the ££ Millenium ” draws nearer 
 than we have signs of just at present. In my last, from 
 Matamoras, I gave you some ideas I have of the peculiari- 
 
14 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 ties of character of those who first settled the Southern 
 colonies of the United States, and also to some extent 
 this country. I have yet a word to say of them, in a so- 
 called religious point of view. As a class they were 
 generally Roman Catholics or of the English Church, with 
 a few Huguenots. In their natures they were not inquisi- 
 tive, not at all disputative, nor inclined to metaphysical 
 dissertation either in Church or State. Little or no 
 scepticism existed either in their religion or politics ; 
 plain maxims and established rules (whether good or bad) 
 were closely followed without question or criticism. There 
 w^as more than a mere absence of disputation ; there was 
 an absolute repugnance to it, and had its seat in their 
 very natures, not in accidental surroundings or education, 
 but pre-existed in this class of people. This pre-existing 
 innate dislike to metaphysical discussion must not he 
 overlooked, because it did then, and does yet, exist, and 
 is the foundation of antagonism on the one side between 
 the two classes I am going to treat of. The class just 
 spoken of were not possessed of what one might call 
 C£ restless energy,” nor a disquieted temperament, but 
 rather a deliberate, I may say, indolent : and entertaining 
 an especially high regard for blood, lineage, race, and 
 Christian culture with refinement, these were and are to 
 this day ruling emotions in the breast of the people of the 
 Southern States and of Mexico ; praiseworthy notions, 
 indeed, but where circulated as the only capital of certain 
 degenerate descendants, it becomes, to say the least, very 
 irksome. I am now going to leave the settlers of Southern 
 soil to go on with their own affairs, their developments, 
 their laws, rules, regulations ; with all their attachments 
 to the power and tradition of the mother- countries, none 
 of whom as a class were exiles, or fugitives therefrom, but 
 in reality were the petted children of a parent who almost 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 15 
 
 watched for their return. Scarce an artisan or mechanic 
 among them, and none inclined either to manufacture or 
 commerce ; but their whole united energies were turned 
 to the rural life of agriculture, and their herds and flocks. 
 
 A constant and growing demand for labourers in the 
 New World was also a relief to the crowded populations 
 of the mother-country, who was liberal in bestowing large 
 grants of land to selected persons, which thus kept the 
 control of affairs in the hands of a comparatively small 
 number, and thus insured more stability and harmony, but 
 less democracy in the new Government. Just at this 
 point, too, it is proper to place the origin of the present 
 prevailing spirit of republican representative society in all 
 the South rather than a spirit of broad democracy (which, 
 I will show hereafter, prevails in the North). The control 
 of public matters being thus delegated to a few well 
 chosen agents, -was the cause of much harmony, and while 
 some corruptions are inherent to all human affairs, yet 
 we may say, that, whatever of evil did exist in the South, 
 it was more a violation of fixed rule than any compromise 
 with it ; and that, where honesty and virtue were lacking 
 in public affairs, natural attachment to fixed maxims and 
 rules served very much to avert the evils from society 
 which might have followed. Besides the whole society 
 being directed to one pursuit, and that the least favourable 
 to the growth of views, there was less to be feared or 
 guarded against either in morals, religion, or politics. The 
 Bible holds out to us in all of its pages that the greatest 
 virtues and fewest vices find place among' the tillers of the 
 soil. Profane history also has taught the same for 
 thousands of years, and doubtless all who have had the 
 opportunity of studying the different vocations in life will 
 at once feel the truth of the idea. Great cities and ex- 
 clusively commercial and manufacturing districts exhibit 
 
1G 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 to our eyes the greatest chastity of manners, and by the 
 side of it the deepest and darkest hues of vice and infamy. 
 While the rural communities show less chastity of 
 manners, yet accompanied with a most rigid virtue, the 
 simplest, not to say rude habits. 
 
 At this period (1770) the Southern States were in their 
 greatest prosperity, and, I may say, gave real evidences of 
 Christian progress. We have no record of any people 
 having enjoyed greater happiness, more peace, or made 
 greater strides in the great work of converting the heathen 
 to Christian faith, than did the people from New Jersey 
 to Carolina in the United States and the Gatupins in this 
 country. Especially Maryland, Virginia, the Carolina, 
 and Georgia were the most prosperous and advanced 
 because of their people. They had neither manufacture 
 nor commerce, neither did they wish any, because, first, 
 they were by nature averse to such pursuits and sought 
 the quiet of agriculture instead ; just as the heathen, to 
 'whom their mission seems to have been directed, preferred 
 the far distant and lonely forest to the comforts of a 
 civilised home. 
 
 They found in Mother Earth everything which nature 
 required, and the excessive surplus procured for them the 
 implements of husbandry, comforts, and refinement from 
 the artizans of the mother-country. The colonists fed the 
 world, and ships of commerce conveyed from and brought 
 the articles to their very doors, while each class was 
 pursuing the species of labour assigned them, yet working 
 to each other’s happiness and progress, and so far separate 
 the while as to prevent interference. How strange that 
 disruption should so soon follow it in 1776; still it did 
 come, perchance not for ever. We will look at this 
 hereafter. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 17 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Marina, Mexico, September 27th, 1846. 
 Well, I have at last come to a halt for a time, in order 
 to repair wagons and all et ceteras which appertain to a 
 long wagon-train moving in our enemy’s country. The 
 fact is, with proper energy and vigilance on the part of 
 the Mexican troops, these large trains could be cut all in 
 pieces in spite of guards, 
 
 My rank being that of second lieutenant, I can only 
 aspire to a kind of chief-wagon-master ; but even in this 
 I am useful, and daily find opportunities to put in prac- 
 tice my early lessons in hauling saw-logs to the mill, 
 hauling rails to new ground, to say nothing of breaking 
 young mules and horses to the plough and wagons. Tell 
 grandfather, that if the colonies were as improvident in 
 their means for transportation in 17/8 to 1780, as the 
 Government is at present, I have no surprise at the 
 national debt the country was obliged to pay after the 
 close of the Revolution. Wars cost money, which some 
 one must get, else there would be fewer of them. Taylor 
 had a fight at Monterey (20th to 23rd), took the city, 
 and holds it — which was to be expected ; and that is all I 
 have yet learned on the subject. 
 
 • The enterprising public press will doubtless give you 
 all the particulars, and doubtless a thousand times more 
 than is true, long before you receive this. A score or two 
 of penny-a-liners are following the army ; whether for the 
 interest of the service in general, or only for the political 
 portion of it, I do not know. 
 
 An armistice was agreed upon at Monterey, between 
 General Taylor and the enemy, which is somewhat com- 
 plained of ; but you had best not prejudge anyone — rather 
 wait till you hear both sides of the stipulation. An 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 armistice is the only mitigating feature of a bloody 
 battle. 
 
 I closed my preliminary remarks on the character and 
 habits of the first settlers of the Southern Colonies of the 
 United States in my last letter from Mier, which is a 
 small town about sixty miles from here ; and I have jotted 
 down since then some views respecting the other class of 
 people which settled the North-eastern Colonies. I say 
 nothing of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and 
 Delaware, because they were not unlike those of the 
 Southern Colonies ; while in New York the classes were 
 somewhat mixed. But whatever influence the Dutch 
 exerted, it was with that of the surrounding, or what we 
 now call Middle States. I therefore consider only and 
 especially the New England settlements. I am also some- 
 what at a loss how to designate the class of New Eng- 
 landers ; for you and grandfather will at once accuse me 
 of prejudice. Still I shall have so much to say in their 
 favour (as the world now goes) that I will risk it. 
 
 The New England States, then, were settled about the 
 same time as Maryland and Virginia, and therefore much 
 earlier than the Carolinas or Georgia ; but the emigrants 
 were widely different from those we have heretofore con- 
 sidered. They were less scrupulous in forms, they ignored 
 many of the established customs, and they aimed less at 
 the shadow than at the substance. They were more prone 
 to physical things, and less to moral and mental exeicises. 
 They were more active, and had more of what we call 
 at this time energy; finding it exceedingly difficult to 
 remain quiet, either in body or mind. Nature had not 
 endowed them with any taste for the rural life of agricul- 
 ture, nor with the patience requisite to rely upon the slow 
 progress of the returns of the husbandman. The Southern 
 colonists have sometimes been called Cavaliers, and those 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 19 
 
 of the Eastern States Puritans ; but neither is entirely 
 correct. The Southern people are not and were not 
 entirely of Cavalier origin, though it vastly predominated; 
 nor were all of the New Englanders Puritans, though with 
 them also the larger portion belonged to that branch. In 
 fact, many of the characteristic traits of the two classes 
 go back many centuries beyond the use of those terms. 
 “Puritan” and “Cavalier” are, so to speak, of recent 
 coinage; and I wish to speak of the character of both, 
 rather than of any name which designate them. With 
 this explanation, however, I will use the terms merely as 
 a convenience, and not as embodying all of the elements, 
 which is the object of my consideration. Perhaps a better 
 religious division would be Puritans and Churchmen, 
 because under these heads are best known the antagonistic 
 elements which were first transplanted to this continent. 
 By Churchmen I mean all who settled in the Southern 
 Colonies — whether Catholics, Protestants, Huguenots, 
 Quakers, or Baptists ; and by Puritan I mean all who 
 are in opposition to the former, whether on this continent 
 or Europe, for the past two thousand years ; because just 
 here is the grand line of division between two classes ; I 
 make but the two divisions in the world, whatever be 
 their country or clime, and I find the line of their demarca- 
 tion in their creed or faith, or whatever you may call it. 
 However subdivided people may seem to exist, such sub- 
 division is only apparent, and not contradictory of my divi- 
 sion. To illustrate this, God divides his creatures into two 
 classes only (i.e.), those who love, fear, and serve Him, 
 and those who do not. Now, as no living creature hath 
 the power to decide who belongs to either, since every one 
 professes to have the conviction that his class is the one, 
 and, as no creature can separate himself from that to 
 which he may by nature belong, to judge rightly, it would, 
 
20 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 of course, be as futile as presumptuous for any one to 
 attempt to explain the division which God hath made ; 
 still, without leaning to the practices of either, we may 
 very properly consider the habits and characters of all 
 men simply in two classes, without knowing or feeling an 
 interest in either class ; we may very properly consider 
 the physical, social, political, and moral proclivities of all 
 people, and thus (like assorting cards) throw them finally 
 into just two classes. I hope you will not think there is 
 any want of reverence in this, for certainly none is 
 intended, nor is any felt. As we cannot know the secrets 
 of each other’s hearts, we have to rely on outward actions 
 for the evidences (among men) of what is reverent or 
 irreverent: hence, I do not wish you to construe these 
 ideas of mine as indicating the one or the other. The 
 visible physical traits and practices of these two classes 
 are very different, and so they are all over the world, as 
 well among heathens as among Christians. Some of 
 these traits are so plainly visible on this continent that 
 they need scarce be mentioned : hence, in the Southern 
 people we find sloth, indolence, inaction, intellectual as 
 well as physical culture, faith, hope, love, and charity — 
 the extreme representation of order, system, rule, aversion 
 to change or rapid motion, seeing, learning, and acting but 
 few things (comparatively), and those very gradually and 
 very thoroughly, always contending for a principle on 
 which to base action rather than expediency. 
 
 Now, as a class, we find the New Englanders to 
 possess elements of energy, activity, great desire for 
 physical enjoyments, extreme proneness to change, no 
 regard for rule, order, or system, great practical efforts 
 regardless of theory, slight evidences of faith, no hope but 
 of a physical kind, no love or charity, great restlessness, 
 much impatience, and a sleepless vigilance, seeing, learn- 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 21 
 
 ing, acting, all things partially, and nothing thoroughly ; 
 always acting from expediencies rather than theory or 
 principle, full of scepticism, which sets in motion great 
 enquiry, which also results in much change and constant 
 experiment. The foregoing characteristics of the two 
 classes of people in our nation I believe to be correctly 
 stated ; I believe the same to be, not the consequences of 
 any accidental, local, or educational causes, but the same 
 innate, pre-existing elements which direct, control, and 
 dispose of their respective vocations, places of abode, 
 shape their institutions, and control their weal or woe on 
 earth, and among the nations thereof : hence it is I dis- 
 cover, wherever these people have now and then inter- 
 mixed, as it were, in the same community, hath general 
 peace prevailed ; but, where either predominated, war 
 ensued; like opposite electricities in the same body, both 
 being present to a certain extent, left the body in a quiet 
 or neutral state ; but, where either was in excess, agitation 
 resulted. So, also, where they have not intermingled, but 
 were so located as to forbid interference, yet have inter- 
 course, then peace was the result ; but, wherever a closer 
 proximity and intercourse, then came conflicts : thus it is 
 that I discover an utter impossibility of a peaceful Govern- 
 ment with these two classes so nearly together. It is to 
 me impossible, unless you could so intermarry the whole 
 as to destroy a concentration of these antagonistic elements; 
 but, as this intermarriage cannot be effected in many 
 countries, if at all, I entertain no idea of a long duration of 
 a peace ; neither have I laid the causes of conflict in differ- 
 ence of customs, manners, or habits, or any real or visible 
 difference in their religious or political views. 
 
 Although the difference in these respects will be the 
 means of bringing it on, yet the prime first motive, as it 
 were, lies in these first great different natures, which I call 
 
22 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 “antagonism of races.” In subsequent letters I will more 
 particularly consider the extent and bearing of the differ- 
 ences in political habits, social relations, and domestic 
 economy of the two people, which must play a great part 
 in future troubles ; but all such differences are the results 
 of the first antagonism, not antecedent. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 Monterey, Mexico, October 20th, 1846. 
 
 I have been for ten days or two weeks at this place, and 
 I feel somewhat rested from our long and wearisome 
 march, though my health is by no means good, on which 
 account, and my regiment a foot concern, I am half inclined 
 to tender my resignation. This, however, would not 
 look like aiding the Administration in the war. Still, the 
 limited field that I am confined to, scarce gives aid to the 
 cause, especially in the midst of such an army of high 
 commissions in the political troops now pouring in (or I 
 should say) volunteers or “sovereigns.” Colonels, majors, 
 and captains abound, with a few days’ or week’s expe- 
 rience in military matters, while I, in my fifth year can 
 scarce boast of the lowest lieutenant’s grade. These 
 “ sovereigns ” look upon the “ regulars ” as a set of in- 
 dolent pensioners on a glorious free Government, who are 
 only fit for garrison duty at some retired or frontier post 
 in time of peace, and good routinists for the brave and 
 sagacious volunteers when war comes ; and, in turn, the 
 regular looks upon the “ volunteer sovereign,” with his 
 spread eagles, as an impudent ass, good at political tricks, 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 23 
 
 which generally culminate in war, the brunt of which the 
 sovereign never bears. 
 
 I am glad to receive yours of the 25th ultimo, and 
 thank you for your kind patient review of my remarks. 
 I did not suppose that I should receive much favour at your 
 hands in the way I treated the subject, and I have not 
 been disappointed ; I am one of those that expect nothing, 
 and am therefore seldom disappointed ; however, I will not 
 argue these points here, nor attempt to answer your ob- 
 jections, but will allow you to have your owh views. You 
 can throw all my letters into that old desk at “Oak Grove 
 Museum,” where they will moulder away by time, as you 
 say my theories will. But, of course, I do not believe one 
 half you say. Before you get this you will have received 
 and read another long letter upon the same subject, and it 
 will, no doubt, be further evidence to your mind of my 
 “ aberration ; ” but you must not infer that I give other 
 signs of insanity,-” or that the regimental surgeon has 
 any apprehension for me on this point, because he and I 
 take a “ wee drap ” together ; besides, he is far behind me 
 on our “ whist docket.” 
 
 I closed my last letter with a division of our people 
 into two classes. I had previously considered some of the 
 peculiarities of the Southern settlers, and I now wish to 
 mention some of the characteristics of the New Englanders; 
 because this is necessary, in order to properly consider the 
 local differences of habits, customs, and political economy 
 of the two people. 
 
 The first settlers, then, in New England were 
 “ Puritans,” so called. They are, however, one of the 
 classes already defined. Their extreme restlessness in the 
 mother-country, constantly aggravated by not being allowed 
 as great an influence and control in the Government 
 as they desired, and not being sufficiently strong to obtain 
 
21 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 it by the sword, they scattered over to Holland and else- 
 where, and called themselves “ the persecuted.” Religious 
 persecution was the epithet they ascribed to the motive 
 which denied them all the political rights they thought 
 themselves entitled to in England. The same thing 
 occurred in other nations ; and it is proper for me to state 
 here, that the class I am treating of, whether you call them 
 “ Puritans,” or any other name, or whether you locate 
 them in New or Old England, or under the tropics, still 
 that class of people have, for three thousand years, always 
 considered all social and temporal affairs, and political 
 economy, as well as customs and manners, as being inse- 
 parably connected with religion, and that all their accidents 
 of life go to make up religion. Hence, a deprivation of 
 any, is, with them, a deprivation of religious en- 
 joyment. A full enjoyment of all is their sum total of 
 religious joy. Now, I do not mean to say that they are 
 purely worldly and not spiritual in their religion. What 
 I intend to say is, that they are just as much so as their 
 natures admit of, and that they discover no distinction 
 between the various accidental relations and a religion ; 
 and that whatever of spirituality there maybe in it belongs 
 just as much to those accidents as to any other part of 
 their religion. This is surely the history of Puritans in 
 England, Holland, Poland, Austria, Russia, France, 
 Germany, and the United States. 
 
 Not finding Holland any more disposed than the English 
 Government, they at once procured grants from the 
 Crown, and set out for the New World, landing at 
 Plymouth Rock, an event still commemorated by them. 
 They speedily began to put in operation a social system to 
 suit themselves. Their whole customs were different from 
 those of the South ; they built houses differently ; they 
 ate, slept, and drank in a different manner ; they married. 
 
ON AMEBIC AN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 25 
 
 and were buried differently; their labours were different; 
 they settled in towns ; villages and cities were soon built ; 
 commerce and the mechanical arts claimed their entire 
 attention. They were not a creating people, but a handy, 
 ingenious, “ barter and exchange ” people. They des- 
 pised agricultural pursuits, because this was too slow a 
 mode of acquiring wealth and influence. The commercial 
 and mechanical were much more advantageous in this 
 respect. They soon forgot their late hatred to English 
 Church and State (if indeed they ever had any), because 
 they at once organised civil government, w T ith all the 
 ecclesiastical incumbrances possible to conceive of, and 
 buried all their enmity to the Throne and Parliament in 
 exchange for good grants of land, and a liberal trade of the 
 home people. 
 
 In this way their population increased every year by 
 large emigration, though not fast, as Virginia, and the 
 emigrants, whether from England, France, or Germany, 
 were always of the class “ Puritan,” or some of the 
 adjuncts. In fact, their first organisation was made to 
 exclude all other sects or denominations. They were 
 not even half as liberal as the Mother-Church, in which 
 they had imagined they suffered great religious perse- 
 cution, because deprived of some political or temporal 
 power. They showed much less sagacity and sound sense 
 in their civil policy than any people who have ever 
 attempted to establish a government ; but this is owing 
 to the exclusive and classified nature of the people. They 
 contained but one class of talent, and that of the purely 
 material or physically inclined, all in pursuit of the 
 same purposes, namely a speedy acquisition of wealth, 
 with as little to do with surrounding tribes or people as 
 w y ould enable them to obtain the end they sought. A 
 brisk trade speedily grew up between them, and the 
 
26 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 mother- country, but little or none for a long time between 
 them and the Southern colonies. In fact, the two people 
 were as distinct in intercourse as they were in natures. 
 May I not express the fear that the blood of thousands 
 yet to be shed will attest the great misfortune that they 
 ever became better acquainted? The New Englanders 
 were a very industrious and energetic people ; such was 
 and is their nature, and their natures directed them to a 
 climate calculated to keep them so. They were excessively 
 religious ; whether it were of the Christian kind, I am not 
 called upon to say. My own opinion is, that much blood 
 will yet be shed for the sake of that which will still 
 remain in doubt. 
 
 Their articles of traffic were, lumber in its various 
 shapes, fish, and also some hemp and flax, which required 
 but slight culture of the soil to produce. They soon 
 commenced a more extensive system of manufacturing in 
 other branches, and extended ship-building, showing that 
 their very natures directed them quite as much to their 
 vocations and thence to the mercantile, as did the 
 Southern people take to the soil. It is beyond doubt the 
 pre-existing element, which first directed the two classes 
 to their respective latitudes in the first place on this 
 continent. The peculiar labours to which the New 
 Englanders directed their minds called for a special class 
 of emigrants each succeeding year, and as constantly drove 
 away from them the heathen among whom they had 
 settled, because the only species of labour which God 
 seems to have vouchsafed to the Indian or heathen is that 
 of the soil or chase, and they offered no assistance or 
 inducements to pursue such in the North and East. So 
 with the heathen African ; he never found a field for 
 labour with the New Englanders, nor did any other 
 creature, unless he was mechanically or commercially 
 
ON AMERICAN . GOVERNMENT. 
 
 27 
 
 inclined. Of course, I do not mean to reduce the asser- 
 tion down to isolated individuals, but I speak of a class. 
 This remark holds good in all nations and ages with 
 respect to the class, of which the “ Puritans of America” 
 are a very small part. This class of people the world over 
 have never mingled with the heathen nor converted any 
 to the Christian faith. 
 
 The critic will, of course, instance numerous mis- 
 sionary societies organised by this class. As a proof that 
 my statement in this respect is a correct one, I will only 
 ask you to trace carefully these efforts to their end, and I 
 think you will agree with me. I will now leave the New 
 Englanders to pursue their trade and develop their re- 
 sources and country up to the incipient stages of the 
 rebellion against the English Government (1760 to 1775). 
 
 I shall then consider both classes together, as they 
 had by that time formed considerable business relations, 
 and had made many efforts, not entirely unsuccessful, to 
 unite discordant elements centuries old, and to mould 
 into one homogeneous element natures very dissimilar. 
 I think these natures cannot be amalgamated into one. 
 I also think, the attempt to do so has been going violently 
 on in this nation since 1765 up to the present time, but 
 without effect, and I think a continuance of the same 
 effort will convulse this nation, perhaps the whole con- 
 tinent, or even Europe, and still be unaccomplished. I 
 shall then in other letters point out some of the physical 
 elements, political and pecuniary differences, as evidences 
 of a first, greater, and pre-existing difference, as well as to 
 show, that these physical, visible, differences will be the 
 agents or means which will lead to this deplorable result. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
28 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 China, Mexico, Nov. 1st, 1846 
 
 I arrived here a few days since, having performed the 
 circuitous travel from Monterey down to Camergo, and 
 thence across to this little town of “ Arenges-dulcy,” or, 
 as the Spanish say, “ Naruncas de China.” This people 
 and country present to my mind a strange spectacle of 
 freedom and indolence, the latter obviously the conse- 
 quence of the former. Yes, I assert that this indolence is 
 a consequence of freedom. The truth is, there is no 
 element in Government so erroneously understood, and so 
 ruinously interpreted of late years, as that of freedom. 
 The enjoyment of certain inalienable rights is surely the 
 proper, if not the only object of Government. But there 
 are those in the world (and of such this country is filled) 
 whose ideas of liberty is exemption from labour — either 
 physical or mental. Nor is it strange that such should 
 be the prevailing sentiment here, since the people are a 
 partially civilized Indian, by a cross between the original 
 heathen" and the Christian Castilian ; yet Mexico, by her 
 haste to imitate America — in theory, achieved her political 
 independence from Spain, without a single preparation in 
 the character or manners of her people to understand, 
 appreciate, or enjoy the social relations it was meant to 
 secure. This is a representative Republic ; but there is 
 nothing for the “ Deputodus ” to represent but crude, half 
 savage ideas of — liberty from labour and effort. Not a 
 liberty to push forward in the great field of human 
 development, but a liberty to push back into indolent 
 sloth, and qnjet inaction. Query, hath not some of these 
 false ideas of liberty come from those extremely meta- 
 physical expressions in the Declaration of American Inde- 
 pendence, such as, t£ All men are created free and equal.” 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 29 
 
 This expression is true only in a certain abstract sense. It 
 is false in all respects of practical application, in which it 
 strikes the ordinary mind. Question second, Was it not 
 meant to be a cunningly devised truth, in the abstract 
 dressed in practical falsehood, to do much harm ? I think, 
 whether meant so or not, such is, and has been, and will 
 still be the practical effect. Undoubtedly such is the 
 broadcast effects here in Mexico. If I chose to dissect 
 that broad assertion, I could easily show its absurdity, if 
 not utter falsity, because everything on earth, and I might 
 say in heaven, will bear witness to the fact that all men 
 are not born equal, nor free, nor created equal; indeed, 
 the very opposite is more nearly true, i. e., all men are 
 born bondsmen, and unequal in temporal conditions, 
 mental faculties, and physical forms. However, I will 
 not pursue this subject further than to assert the fact 
 that this so-called Republic of Mexico is early feeling the 
 bitter fruits of attempting to put into practice an imprac- 
 ticable theory, whether possessed of abstract truth or not. 
 The attempt, merely, to amalgamate into one homogeneous 
 mass, elements and characters utterly discordant and 
 diverse, has proved a sad failure in Mexico. It is for 
 wise statesmen to see to it, that a like failure does not 
 occur elsewhere Forcing the Christian on a par with the 
 heathen, rather than forcing the heathen gradually up to 
 a par with the Christian ! A levelling down, instead of a 
 levelling up; but, such is the object of the theory, because 
 it is much quicker to level down than to level up. It is 
 easier to rake down the hill than to carry the earth and 
 fill in the depression. So with society, it is easier to force 
 an equality on paper, than to develop an actual equality 
 by time and diligent development of natures and manners. 
 Mexico is not the only people who will yet suffer the evils 
 of such theories. The truth is, I don’t believe the reputed 
 
60 
 
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 author of the words I have quoted (Jefferson) really 
 believed the truth of the assertion ; but he uttered the 
 same under pressure, and the ambitious impulses of the 
 occasion; either this, or else he meant it to apply only to 
 men in a Christian sense ; and this takes me back to the 
 people and the period at which I closed my last letter 
 (from Monterey), which I trust you have received before 
 this ; I closed that letter about the incipient stages of the 
 rebellion of the American colonies, and I am going to 
 pursue the subject thenceforward, by treating of both 
 classes of peoples. I am sorry that I am without some 
 books of dates, places, and events, but, such are not 
 essential for my purposes, because I am not attempting 
 to write a history, nor to prove any fact; I am only giving 
 my own convictions of facts — past, present, and yet to 
 come ; and whatever events or circumstances I note in 
 this connection are only referred to as showing my grounds 
 for belief. About 1760 I think we may note the incipient 
 spirit of rebellion, and it began, as all revolutions have for 
 three thousand years, among the class” inhabiting the 
 New England States, I do not say among the New 
 Englanders, I say among that “ class.” I do not say this 
 in any unfriendly spirit ; I say it because it is a fact. If 
 the act, or acts, were commendable, then they receive the 
 praise. If not, but were reprehensible, then they will 
 receive the odium. I pass no judgment on the merits or 
 demerits of the spirit which began that, and all other 
 rebellions since Moses ; they may all have been right, and 
 may have resulted in good, or the reverse. I only assert 
 that the class of mankind to which the New England 
 Puritans belonged, did actually begin, and carry on, and 
 nurture a spirit of rebellion against the mother-country 
 from about 1760 till 1776, when they succeeded in inducing 
 all other of the colonies to join them. The ostensible 
 object of that rebellion, too, w r as to get rid of taxation ; to 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 31 
 
 get rid of import, export, and excise taxes, stamp raxes, 
 &c., &c. This, I say, was the ostensible or avowed object ; 
 and it is the only acknowledged grounds on which such 
 rebellion could ever have l'eceived the assistance of colo- 
 nies south of New York. But I deny that such was the 
 real grounds. I have not time to go into the secret springs 
 of the Parliament, and see how many of the same class 
 there aided and assisted in imposing those taxes on to 
 their Puritan brethren in New England States, for the 
 express purpose of creating a disruption. But such was a 
 well-digested plan, and had a double object in view, only 
 one of which succeeded, and that but half way. First, it 
 was the plan to replace the English Government in the 
 hands of a second Cromwell ; secondly, to place the 
 American colonies under the same control, but with a 
 separate seat of government. Now, this was the actual, 
 hidden motive of all the New England States, together 
 with their co-religionists in Europe, elsewhere as well as 
 in England. But such motive was carefully veiled under 
 the garb of resistance to taxes, and burthens which were 
 palpable and visible to all, and alike repugnant to all, and 
 therefore commanded the approval of the very opposite 
 class. Hence, the New England States raised the flag of 
 resistance to taxation, under which to recruit; and she 
 succeeded. She soon went one step further, and got a 
 Confederation of States. (A little later she took another 
 step, and got a consolidated Government — not quite, but 
 she came as nearly succeeding as it was possible. Had 
 New England logic affected Patrick Henry, and a few 
 others, as it did Madison, and some other Southern 
 statesmen, then would a consolidation been complete). 
 There is an unwritten history of the efforts of the New 
 England States (from 1760 to 1775, a period of fifteen 
 years) to persuade and coax the other States to join them 
 in that rebellion, which ought to be known by all men, in 
 
32 
 
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 all countries. No doubt grandfather can recollect most of 
 it which occurred in Virginia. Governor Bottetourt* (after 
 whom grandfather’s native county is named) left a record 
 of those times which is known to some yet living. New 
 England outwardly and ostensibly wanted to get rid of 
 undue taxes ; but New England wanted, really and secretly, 
 a religious democracy, and wanted to control and manage the 
 commercial and manufacturing interests of the New World ; 
 while New Englanders in old England were working at 
 the same pump-handle in that country. New England 
 people did not care so much for a few taxes ; they did 
 not think it so much burthen to supply a little fuel and 
 some comfortable barracks to a few Royal troops. They 
 did not think a few revenue cutters, or a few ship-loads of 
 tea of such vast importance as to want blood solely on 
 that account. No ! these were the means to convert 
 others to the cause, while the motive was to be kept con- 
 cealed till the proper time. That proper time will yet 
 come. It will be when the whole public mind is directed 
 to something else, or else is steeped in incredulity, and is 
 under the rule of a “ dominant democracy.” 
 
 To show how the Southern colonies first doubted the 
 propriety of that rebellion, I will mention the fact that 
 Governor Bottetourt, of Virginia, actually dissolved the 
 House of Burgess, because they merely received a petition 
 from the State of Massachusetts, urging resistance to the 
 laws of Parliament ! Maryland did the same, and North 
 Carolina the same, until the same colony and South 
 Carolina were filled with agents from the New England 
 colonies in disguise (pretending to be citizens of the 
 Southern colonies), who were engaged on the borders and 
 interior creating disaffection, by forming bands of “free- 
 
 * He was the Governor the King had appointed over Virginia. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 33 
 
 hooters,” to pillage, and then “regulators,” to pursue and 
 detect them. By this means two parties were formed in 
 those Southern States (or colonies), one for, the other 
 against, the Governors, who were Crown officers. A hand 
 of these imported New Englanders would commit robberies 
 which it was the business of the Crown officers to ferret 
 out and punish ; hut some of the same parties had pre- 
 viously arranged to be the agents and servants of the 
 unsuspecting Governors in detecting the evil ones, and 
 which, of course, therefore failed. Hence the common 
 people soon began to lose confidence in the Governors and 
 officers, which was speedily followed, of course, by a 
 general democratic deposing of those officers and those of 
 their own (a New England selection) placed instead ! 
 Such is my reading of the unwritten history of those 
 times, without bias, partiality, favour, or affection. These 
 efforts were successful; a Declaration of Independence 
 followed six or seven years of w r ar; then a peace of arms 
 in the field, but a war of ideas in the legislative halls 
 which hath never ceased. Now, I do not excuse or approve 
 of the course pursued by either King or Parliament. The 
 King certainly was a mixture of weakness and wickedness ; 
 while the Parliament acted more like men who had lost 
 all sense of reason, and were governed more by a mad- 
 ness precedent to destruction than like legislators or phi- 
 losophers. Such madness alone was necessary for their 
 defeat. Still, unwarranted as were the acts of King and 
 Parliament after war commenced, this was no excuse for 
 the equally unwarranted acts of New Englanders in 
 mobbing soldiers, burning vessels, throwing overboard tea, 
 ordering royal troops out of their cities and districts, — all 
 which acts were actually revolutionary and disloyal by 
 intent and preconceived plan, and not solely to redress 
 the slight wrongs set up as the reasons for it, but actually 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 for a power beyond that — and outside of all, even far 
 beyond the expectation of the Southern colonies, which 
 were fast becoming her allies, — under a false impression 
 of the objects in view. Hence it is, father, that I did, a 
 few years ago, express to you my firm conviction that 
 the secret, hidden, and unrevealed motives of that rebel- 
 lion made the same a crime, the punishment whereof is 
 yet to be inflicted on the American people ! The bitter 
 fruits of that subterfuge, hypocrisy, and deceit did not 
 ripen during that Revolution, nor since, but will in due 
 course of time, and will be pressed to the lips of many 
 generations of those who thus deceived and were deceived. 
 
 I do not oppose revolution in certain specific cases of 
 necessity ; but I assert that no such necessity did then 
 exist in fact. Happy for us that, in our present Govern- 
 ment, we have tried at least to lay the foundation for a 
 political revolution instead of a bloody one. In the 
 monarchical Government of England no such provision 
 existed. The world, even, had no knowledge of a peaceful 
 or political revolution ; and to this extent we have to 
 excuse the silly, wicked course of both King and Parlia- 
 ment. Such coercion as they persisted in, if practised by 
 our own Government at this day, against any one or more 
 of the States, would be more diabolical than was the act 
 of England ; and, I will add, would be the perfect proof 
 of my views on antagonism of races, since it would 
 prove that Governments, laws, and constitutions are 
 nothing; but that habits, manners, customs, hatred and 
 revenge is all in all. That is, that democracy is just as 
 tyrannical, and more so, than Kings and Parliaments. 
 However, in reply to all this, you will account me a fool, 
 or, at least, a visionary dreamer, and will, doubtless, beg 
 the question by asking me, what a miserable set of serfs 
 and slaves we would all have been had we not carried 
 
OX AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 35 
 
 forward that great revolution, and established this great, 
 free, popular Government. You will thus speak because 
 you really thus think and feel. You see nothing but 
 what is good and lasting in this new Government. Happy 
 you are, too, in thus seeing. I do not thus view it, and 
 hence would not be happy were I not more philosophical. 
 Your faith serves you, my philosophy serves me. So 
 must it be. 
 
 I have offered you no proofs of what I have asserted. 
 I have only stated what I have gleaned from study and 
 observation as satisfactorv proofs to my mind. The New 
 Englanders I believe to be of that class which constitute 
 the revolutionary elements of the world ; and that where- 
 ever a sufficient number of them get together, with a 
 sufficient opposing force in their reach, a revolution is 
 sure to follow. That these opposing elements are inhe- 
 rent and are antagonistic, and have been for thousands of 
 years ; but the channels through which this antagonism 
 has been, and is at present, and will continue to be, made 
 manifest, can be clearly pointed out. It is seen all over 
 the world ; but that only in our own country will receive 
 my comments or notice. Hence, to consider these 
 channels, we go back to the primitive division, and start 
 at their physical diversities in worldly pursuits. The 
 revolutionary class being commercial, manufacturing, 
 trading, bartering, exchanging, and banking, active, rest- 
 less, and vigilant. The other agricultural, being natu- 
 rally peaceful, lawful, patient, enduring and suffering, 
 slow and indolent. 
 
 More anon. 
 
 Affectionately vours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
36 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Victoria, January 20th, 1847. 
 
 Since my last, from China, of November 1st, I have 
 had quite a chase on the lines of march between Monterey, 
 Monte Morelas, and this place. About four thousand 
 troops are thus far on the way towards Tampico. Taylor 
 in command; but he has been ordered (by Scott, at 
 Brazas) to return from here to Monterey, and remain in 
 command on that line. The intention is, obviously, to 
 move a large column from Vera Cruz to the capital, under 
 Scott. Perhaps Taylor will move in that direction also, 
 from Saltilla. From that, I presume that Scott and 
 Taylor will so far interfere with each other’s ideas of 
 command, preference, &c., as to neutralize any feeling of 
 opposition which either may have towards the Adminis- 
 tration ; and thus leave the President and Cabinet free to 
 conduct this war as they think best. 
 
 An accident just occurred a few miles from our pre- 
 sent camp, at a little town called Villa Grand. Lieu- 
 tenant John Riches, bearer of despatches from Monterey 
 to this column, was murdered by the townspeople, or 
 “guerillas” — a kind of Light Horse Guards, organized 
 by the States and towns for the protection of the settle- 
 ments. These guerillas are not robbers, as some news- 
 paper reporters assert ; they are a species of Light Horse 
 Cavalry, used extensively in this country for a century 
 past, and, in fact, in all South America. But, under the 
 name of guerillas, no doubt exists that many freebooters 
 carry on their operations of robbery and depredation alike 
 on friend and foe, under the guise of being guerillas. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 37 
 
 Still, the guerilla proper is a time-honoured and well- 
 defined troop, originating no doubt in times of harassment 
 with the more savage heathens — in a climate where the 
 Christians were little inclined to make pursuit on foot. 
 Indeed, such heathens used horses, or ponies, and hence 
 could be successfully pursued only on horseback. This led 
 to a universal use of guerillas, or a kind of cavalry. 
 
 I closed my last on “ antagonism ” of our peoples 
 with the close of the Revolution — a successful war, and, 
 per consequence, a baker’s dozen of “ free colonies,” so 
 called. They had previously “ set up shop ” for them- 
 selves, under the firm of “ Confederation,” and a while 
 after changed that firm, in its name and character, to 
 “ The United States,” or “ Union of States.” I have 
 expressed my utter w T ant of confidence in the honesty of 
 the motive which the colonies assigned for that rebellion. 
 I have also expressed my abhorrence of the weakness, 
 wickedness, and folly of a King and Parliament in the 
 manner which they treated that rebellion. I feel sure 
 that in no period of the history of the English Govern- 
 ment and of the English people (both of whom I admire) 
 have they ever shown so little statesmanship as was 
 exhibited in their military efforts to hold on to an unwil- 
 ling set of colonies. Had Chatham’s voice, or Burke’s 
 appeal, been heeded, to “ let them go : they will the 
 sooner return if separation is wrong, or be as advan- 
 tageous to England as to the colonies if separation is 
 right.” But such councils were not heeded, and hence 
 followed the blood which makes the separation still to 
 exist. 
 
 We now come to the formation of what was called a 
 “more stable Government,” the present Union, “the 
 Constitution,” and the legislation under it. I am going 
 to consider this very briefly ; only for the purpose of 
 
38 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 tracing the channels through which the antagonism I have 
 mentioned becomes visible. In the very formation of 
 that Constitution we plainly see the characteristics of the 
 two classes I have specified, namely, the one favoring, 
 even insisting on a strong Government — that is, a Con- 
 stitution almost consolidating the States into one central 
 Government. I need not tell you that the advocates of 
 this were all commercial and manufacturing people — (there 
 may have been here and there a convert to it of the other 
 class ; but, as a class, all agricultural people, that is, all 
 the Southern States, and Middle States, opposed such 
 concentration of power, and advocated only limited and 
 specific powers to the Federal Government) — while the 
 colonies (now called States) reserved all other powers to 
 themselves. There was an actual conflict of ideas at the 
 very outset touching the most vital nature of the Govern- 
 ment to be formed ; and we have, as the advocates of the 
 two systems, the same classes we have divided the people 
 into. But, what is stranger still, we find that class 
 striving for a strong Government — to exercise constructive 
 or implied powers — which had been the first to rebel 
 against implied powers of the late Parliament ! While, 
 on the other hand, the agricultural class advocated the 
 complete annihilation of all implied powers, and a specific 
 code of expressed powers only. Query — does this not 
 afford further evidence that the real motive of the one 
 class was not so much to get rid of a strong Government, 
 having implied powers over them, as it was merely to 
 change the source of that power ? I think it does. How- 
 ever, the conflict waxed warm, and continued long ; and 
 no reader of the debates in the several State Conventions 
 can fail to see distinctly the real character of the Govern- 
 ment which either class desired to form. But neither 
 class was quite successful. A compromise w 7 as come to. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 39 
 
 and a Constitution was agreed upon (which we now have), 
 limiting the Federal Powers to expressed objects, solely 
 by dint of the agricultural efforts, and yet made as strong 
 and as general, on the part of commerce and manufacturing 
 classes, as they could. The result is called by most people 
 very plain. I don’t see it in such light. If all men and 
 classes were honestly devoted to £: peace and good-will 
 among men,” then the Constitution is perfect. But, with 
 the “ antagonism ” I see in the two classes, it is a bone 
 between Towser and Tray, and will yet have to be 
 interpreted. Not because that instrument is wrong, but 
 because it will stand in the way of “ class interest” and 
 coveted power ! Nothing is ever done without some kind 
 of an excuse; so will the Constitution be made the excuse 
 for — all things. 
 
 Already, under constructive powers, the commercial 
 and manufacturing class demand the power more exten- 
 sively to further its special trade — such as high tariffs, 
 favoring home bottoms, fishing dues, &c., &c., — and a 
 part of the same class call for banks as fiscal agents, 
 internal improvements, &c., &c. ; while, pitted against this, 
 as a class, is the whole agricultural districts, having 
 against them of their own class only an isolated individual, 
 now and then, whose life and study and associations have 
 drawn him out of his natural family or class. 
 
 We here come to the plain path of conflict —physical 
 and visible — between our two antagonistic classes. It is 
 in the vocations of life which they have been driven to 
 follow, not by accident, but by that pre-existing element 
 of nature. It is not this vocation which causes the con- 
 flict; the vocation is only the avenue of bringing it on. 
 The motive to conflict is “ innate antagonism of two 
 classes” which never should have formed a co-partnership. 
 The means through which such conflict will be carried on 
 
40 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 are these diverse vocations and their cognates. The excuse 
 for conflict will be the Constitution ! 
 
 Hence we come to the final end of wise men’s labours. 
 Even their Constitution — their palladium, men’s liberties 
 — is what? Answer — it is the excuse to destroy them ! 
 
 Affectionately, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 Tampico, Mexico, January 30, 1847. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 After much hard marching and great harassment by 
 rival generals, we arrived at this delectable place, and 
 cleared off some hundred acres of thick underbrush to 
 form an encampment. We are on the elevated banks of 
 the Panuco River, which is an estuary or arm of the sea, 
 coming up and extending round the city of Tampico, and 
 extending far back into the interior. I understand we shall 
 embark here for Vera Cruz in a few days or weeks. I 
 wrote you from Victoria ; but I half fear it will never reach 
 you, because I sent it by the interior, or land express, to 
 Matamoras. Most of this army has marched from 
 Monterey and Matamoras to this place, some 370 miles; 
 and I will state that I have never before known what it 
 was to look at sugar, cotton, and rice lands. Nothing in 
 the United States can even approximate to this climate 
 and soil for sugar and rice ; and for cotton, it is quite as 
 good as any we have in Mississippi. 
 
 The nations of the Earth will not long suffer these 
 heathen slothful people to occupy and not cultivate this 
 vast region of country. Nations and people have their 
 epochs, and Mexico has hers. Her religion, her morals. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 41 
 
 and her customs have been changed in the greatest haste, 
 and with much violence. Her very traditions have been 
 obliterated. All before the least diffusion of a general 
 knowledge of Christianity and humanity has been extended 
 to her people. The consequence is, her condition as a 
 nation is gloomy in the extreme, and scarcely more so to 
 the stranger than to her own subjects. They do not even 
 evince a joy in the fruits of their own soil, for it is scarce 
 theirs. Neither in the customs of their forefathers (the 
 Aztecs), for they have just learned enough to despise their 
 practices as debasing, yet not enough to lay hold of some- 
 thing higher. They have no interest in their laws, for 
 they do not even originate in their behalf. They have 
 lost their country. They cannot discover it to be their 
 own nor their ancestors. So they live and move in what 
 we might call a superstitious egotism. They cut loose 
 from a Christian Government before they could go alone, 
 and have, therefore, neither the intelligent patriotism of 
 republican citizens, nor the loyalty of good subjects to a 
 Crown. They hang midway between Christianity and 
 heathenism with no force to start them either way. So 
 much for liberty, referred to in my last, with no preparation 
 in habits or manners to enjoy it ! 
 
 My last letter closes our political dissertation on the 
 visible physical elements of antagonism between the two 
 classes of the American people. The peculiarities of this 
 (Mexican) people offer striking proofs of my division, and 
 of the characteristics of either. The same classes, too, 
 exist here to some extent, though in the aggregate the 
 whole people belong to the Southern or agricultural class. 
 Still, even here (being a separate nation) the people are 
 subdivided into the two classes, agricultural and mercantile, 
 which combines the commercial and what, little manu- 
 facturing they have. On my way down I had occasion to 
 
42 
 
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 purchase some iron to mend a wagon, and I paid the 
 usual market price, 31 cts. per pound, for it. Also I got 
 my horse shod at one dollar the shoe, being the usual 
 rates current. This will seem to indicate how extremely 
 puny are the manufacturing and mechanical interests here. 
 Notwithstanding, I will remark, for the especial benefit of 
 you people in the United States, that the duties on im- 
 ports in Mexico are about four times as high as in the 
 United States. Hence you will ask, why is this? I will 
 answer. It is because the mercantile interest here con- 
 trols the manufacturing also, and finds it easier to do such 
 work in foreign countries than here, because the mechanics 
 and other facilities are there ready at hand, while on the 
 other side, the people, the masses, are semi-lieathen, 
 purely agricultural, and too ignorant and obtuse to under- 
 stand their pecuniary interest or the means to secure 
 such. Hence the mercantile, i.e., commercial and manu- 
 facturing, has here got entire control of the creative or 
 agricultural. Hence excessive high duties depriving four- 
 fifths of the masses of all articles of comfort or refinement, 
 while the other fifth pay the enormous tariff on only a 
 portion which they otherwise would use. This com- 
 mercial class then, though few in number, controls also 
 the productions of the soil, since they alone offer a market. 
 They regulate supply and demand, and the value of a 
 man’s crop (be it sugar, cotton, rice, or maize) is just 
 what a few men may arrange amongst themselves to pay. 
 In other words, these few men fix the value of crops here 
 the same as Philadelphia or Wall Street brokers fix the 
 value of stocks or shares of certain railroads or other 
 corporations in the market. Just in this way, too, are 
 the mechanical and commercial interests in the Eastern 
 States trying to control the productions of the whole agri- 
 cultural districts or States. They must and will control 
 
ON AMElilCAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 43 
 
 them, or else fail in the attempt, which is not the history 
 of such conflicts in the past. 
 
 I here find myself close to the subject which closed 
 my last letter to you from Victoria, in which I remarked 
 that the channels or avenues, through which the 
 “ inherent ” antagonism of the two classes of people in 
 the United States are to be manifested, are those apper- 
 taining to their special vocations. I, therefore, return to 
 this subject. God has implanted in the hearts of all men 
 many emotions in common. Many of their hopes and 
 fears are common. Many of their tastes, desires, and 
 passions are common ; yet, as we have before said, there 
 are some emotions of the human heart sufficiently diverse 
 as to form the basis of our division into two classes. 
 Then comes the intellectual endowment which still further 
 demonstrates the existence of the inherent difference or 
 antagonism. There are but two vocations or occupations 
 for man on earth. You may subdivide the various pur- 
 suits of the human family as you will, yet there are but 
 two classes, the one which lives by creating, the other 
 which lives by that created. There is but one mode of 
 creating. There ai'e scores of changes and modifications 
 to be wrought on that which is created. The world was 
 scarce delivered over to man when these two inodes of 
 living or vocations were adopted by their respective 
 votaries, i.e., the two classes referred to. These two 
 vocations are called emphatically agricultural and mecha- 
 nical. The talent or endowment “ agricultural ” is com- 
 plete in itself, is passive, quiet, peaceful, deliberate, 
 patient, and constant. Faith is the first element of its 
 nature. It plants in faith. It cultivates in confidence. 
 It reaps in the proud exultation of the enjoyment of the 
 fruits of its faith. It is a slow process of acquiring what 
 we call “ worldly wealth ; ” yet it is this very slowness 
 
44 
 
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 which adapts it to the natures of the class who follow it. 
 It is the least cunning (we might say, the most obtuse), 
 the least vigilant, because the least suspicious in its 
 nature. It does not reason closely, because it deals in 
 faith and not in reason. Being utterly without design 
 on others, it suspects not others with designs on it. Now 
 the mechanical is just the reverse in its nature. It is 
 active, violent, and demonstrative. It has no faith, but 
 deals only in certainty or proofs deduced from reason. It 
 more and more learns to substitute reason for faith ; its 
 scepticism leads to inquiry. Inquiry brings out reason ; 
 the faculty of reason thus becomes the test for all things. 
 This is all very well, as far as reason is applicable ; but 
 finite minds cannot apply reason to all things ; and here, 
 where it fails, the mechanical class drops the certain and 
 stands on utter disbelief, while the other class, agricultural, 
 goes on in faith to believe all things even unto super- 
 stition. However, I have dwindled down into a more 
 metaphysical dissertation than I had intended. I will 
 return to the more practical view of the subject. 
 
 I have already remarked the early conflict of ideas in 
 the National Congress as to the “ powers conferred by the 
 Constitution ” to regulate and control the mechanical and 
 commercial interests on the one side versus the agricul- 
 tural on the other. This war or conflict of ideas still goes 
 on, and while the apparent conflict may seem to be on 
 subjects quite remote from a strife between the two 
 opposite interests (agricultural and mechanical), yet such 
 are only apparent, not real. The opposition lately to the 
 admission of Texas into the Union on the part of some of 
 the Northern (i.e., manufacturing and commercial) States, 
 was not because they desired no more States in the Union. 
 Because, if the Union and Government of the United 
 States is what it purports to be in theory, then it is as 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 45 
 
 well suited to a hundred States as to thirteen or twenty. 
 Neither was the large and respectable opposition in Texas 
 herself to going into that Union based on the theory of 
 that Union. 
 
 No. The Northern opposition was based on its 
 antagonism to agriculture, which was all the new State 
 possessed ; while the opposition in Texas was based on a 
 distant cloud of mechanical and commercial pressure, 
 which is, and was then clearly visible on the horizon. 
 Neither party comes forward to assert its fears, because 
 the very presence of such fear would show want of con- 
 fidence in the common chart, compact, or Constitution. 
 Still, such are the grounds of that opposition. There is 
 at this time a violent opposition in Congress to this war, 
 and a score of reasons are assigned for that opposition ; 
 and no doubt the human heart has, in isolated cases, worked 
 itself up to the belief that the reasons are real ; yet I assert 
 that no reality attaches to any one which the opposition 
 has yet assigned, while the real foundation of all objections 
 is in the deep, dark, hidden enmity of one class of pursuits 
 to another. Go back to 1820, when the State of Missouri 
 was suspended in the balance. Her admittance into the 
 Union was ostensibly opposed because she admitted negro 
 slavery; but it is folly to suppose such was the real ground 
 of objection. 
 
 No. It was because she came in with her whole 
 capital on the side of agriculture, versus the mechanical 
 and commercial. Let that State ever become commercial 
 and mechanical, and those who now oppose her would be 
 just as loth to part with her, slave or not slave. I cannot 
 refrain the remark just here, that the present opposition 
 in Congress to this war presents a most strange spectacle 
 of absurdity, because the whole cause of the war is on 
 account of commerce. Hence, the strongest champions 
 
40 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 for its prosecution are the interested commercial men ; 
 while the balance of commercial men are opposing it, not 
 because of its origin, in fact, but because of the results 
 likely to be attained — to wit, a large addition to our domain, 
 containing a purely agricultural people, whose representa- 
 tives will advocate agricultural interests, versus mechanical 
 and commercial. As I have before said, real causes of 
 opposition are concealed, while false ones are substituted. 
 Hence, as in the case of Missouri, some will aver that 
 their opposition springs from a repugnance to slavery in 
 Texas (and most likely to be in any State created south of 
 that, or south of the parallel 33° 30' from the Sabine). 
 But this is not a real cause of opposition, because slavery 
 already exists there, and has for three hundred years, and 
 will till the heathen slave is Christianized, be it long or 
 short. The opposition to Missouri, and the compromise 
 line of slavery, was not because of slavery ; it was because 
 of the character of labour and productive capital which 
 slaves gave to the States which had them. Those who 
 oppose the extension of slavery in the North do it not 
 because of slavery or the slave ; they oppose its extension 
 because it is well known that the heathen slave (be he 
 Indian serf, Mexican peon, or African slave) always pur- 
 sues entirely the agricultural vocation, and hence his owner 
 represents the welfare, progress, and interest of agricul- 
 tural pursuits, versus the commercial and mechanical. 
 Neither dees he who advocates the extension of slavery do 
 so because he wants to continue to receive the slaves’ labour 
 per se. It is because he wants the benefits of agriculture, 
 the slave by chance only being part of his means of obtain- 
 ing it. You might as well sav that the wealthy owner of 
 an Eastern manufactory wants tariff benefits, because of 
 his operatives, which we know is fallacious ; he wants 
 tariff to enable him to emplov his capital in that work. 
 
OX AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 47 
 
 All these are the visible political antagonisms growing 
 oat of an inherent pre-existing antagonism bet.veen the 
 two classes of people. And in this conflict all persons 
 (of apparently intermediate status) will arrange them- 
 selves, according to circumstances, local interests, and 
 lastly, natural bent. 
 
 More anon. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 Vera Cruz, Mexico, April 15th, 1847. 
 
 # 4: -X- >!< 
 
 My long silence has been caused by the activity of mind 
 and body in the military line of duty. We sailed from 
 Tampico on the 26th of February; tarried awhile at 
 Lobos Island, thence to Antonlizardo ; landed at this 
 place on the 9th of March ; invested the city for a 
 circuit of some sixteen miles ; bombarded it till about the 
 27th, when it capitulated, and we now hold it. I was for 
 eighteen days and nights on picket duty, without a change 
 of clothes or water to wash my face ; only raw pork and 
 hard bread. We could make no fire to cook, because the 
 smoke would make known our locality to the enemy; 
 neither had I any bedding but my overcoat. In the mean- 
 time we had a severe norther, which subjected me to 
 extreme exposure : a dreadful cold and chill, which re- 
 sulted in measles and mumps, so I am barely able to sit 
 up to write. The army has mostly gone on to the interior 
 via Cero Gorda. I shall try and visit New Orleans in a 
 few days or weeks, as I feel utterly unable to do duty. 
 My regiment remains here to garrison this place, which is 
 
48 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 not hopeful for field duty; I cannot, therefore, go on to 
 the interior, to the high atmosphere of the table-lands or 
 mountains. I hope you will be able to meet me in New 
 Orleans : write me there to St. Charles’ Hotel, and say 
 what time I may expect you. You will have learned all 
 the particulars of the military movements from the news- 
 paper correspondents. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 Convent, St. Domingo, Mexico, March 5th, 1848. 
 ****** 
 
 I have just closed a long march from Yera Cruz to this 
 place, forming part of an escort to the largest wagon -train 
 of supplies that I have ever seen on the road at any one 
 time. My health is very far from satisfactory — in fact, 
 unless I improve I must seek quiet and release from all 
 duty. I have volunteered for an expedition across the 
 mountains (in the direction of Accapulco), where the 
 climate is said to be fine. I will leave some time during 
 this month, and may not find it convenient to write you 
 soon again. 
 
 What a theme for study this country and people fur- 
 nish to the philosophical mind 1 The country itself having 
 everv variety of climate, soil, and production, containing 
 untold mineral resources, and a variety and grandeur of 
 scenery beyond description ; but the people attract my 
 attention more than the country, though they evidently 
 belong to each other in many respects. It is now almost 
 a year since I “ bored” you with my views on “classes” 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 49 
 
 in the United States, but I have not failed to jot down a 
 few ideas on that subject, induced to some extent by the 
 character presented to my mind here of the people. In a 
 previous letter somewhere I remarked that I had passed 
 out of a “ preacher-ridden 55 Government into a “priest- 
 ridden 55 one. The “ Convent St. Domingo,” therefore, in 
 which I am quartered, may be a fit place to give my views 
 on this matter of “ preachers 55 and “ priests, 5 ’ for there is 
 a vast difference in the parts they perform. I hope you 
 will not consider me irreverent, nor yet personal, when I 
 express my 'want of regard for either class, as I find them 
 in life ; the fact is, I am not a little disposed to lay the 
 foundation of my two classes in this matter of so-called 
 religion. I have already said that the manifestations of 
 antagonism, or the means of its developing or showing 
 itself, are in the worldly products, or the gains, or the 
 remunerations, if you please, of two kinds of vocations ; 
 but the “antagonism ’ 5 itself is deeper and anterior. 
 Now, it occurs to me that man’s vocation is mainly, if not 
 entirely, induced by reason of his ideas of existence after 
 death ; furthermore, no nation or people on earth that 
 we know of, or have ever known, failed to shape their 
 customs, habits, manners, and social relations^ entirely by 
 their ideas of service to a Creator : hence, I think it is 
 obvious that this religious belief must be one of the 
 elements of extreme antagonism. Certainly, more blood 
 has been shed on account of religion than for any other 
 cause. Even where those of the same creed were pitted 
 against each other, one cannot tell but what their common 
 confession is one of tradition, or of forced compliance, 
 rather than an intelligent conviction in like faith. We 
 certainly look in vain for any people whose temporal 
 government is not really founded on their religion, so that 
 the cause of trouble and dissension is always a religious 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 rather than a political one. The “Catholic Church” was 
 not called so very long — it was soon the “Roman Catholic 
 Church,” the “ Roman ” being the whole civil polity of 
 the State; and it soon dragged down the ecclesiastical to 
 the level of temporal Government. Our own Government 
 is an attempt to keep the ecclesiastical and civil distinct, 
 but, so far from being successful, I think it is permitting 
 the religious to absorb almost entirely the political, by the 
 very disconnection specified in the Constitution ; that is 
 to say, I think it is fast becoming a politico-religious 
 Government instead of a political one. In Mexico the 
 cle facto Government is the “Church,” while its adjunct, 
 or aid, is the nominal political organisation. In the 
 United States the de facto Government is at present 
 political, with the religious spirit supplying its whole life 
 and motion. In Mexico political measures are such only 
 when they are sanctioned by the Church. In the United 
 States political measures are potent and popular only when 
 they come charged with the religious zeal and sectarianism 
 of a dominant Democracy. In Mexico, statesmen are only 
 supplied from the “ Church,” or by its authority, and 
 represent ecclesiastical instead of political ideas. In the 
 United States statesmen are passing away, and their places 
 are filled by politicians who embody and represent a 
 religious league instead of a political organisation. The 
 exclusive character of the Church, in Mexico binds the 
 individual intellect to a blind confession of its dogmas, 
 and supplies mental culture only in that mode which warps 
 the intellect, stifles scepticism, and therefore prevents 
 inquiry. In the United States the complete independence 
 of Church and State in theory gives unlicensed scope to 
 each organisation to pursue its inquiry, irrespective and 
 theoretically regardless of the other, while, in both coun- 
 tries man’s every action being governed mysteriously by 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 51 
 
 his unwritten inexplicable faith, his legislation will always 
 show signs of a religious bias: hence, while the United 
 States is in theory a civil Government, yet, on this very 
 account it is compelled to admit in practice whatever of 
 religious enthusiasm its Democracy may possess; so that, 
 in course of time, when the various sects or creeds have 
 run their course (as they most certainly will ere long), you 
 will find them “pairing off,” like joining like, so that 
 only two classes will then be formed ; and, at that period 
 will be concentrated the elements of antagonism perfect 
 for a conflict. No such inherent antagonism exists in 
 Mexico, because, all being of one religion, there is nothing 
 to encounter. Now, as it is impossible to form a civil 
 Government separate from the religious elements of the 
 people, in its practical workings, it appears to me that 
 there is a judicious safety in a well-devised connection of 
 the two by statute, rather than a broad ignoring of the 
 whole evil by theory, where a practical interference was and 
 is unavoidable. This restrains the religious from extrava- 
 gant interference, and secures time to the political to effect 
 a change. The evils of this Church Government in 
 Mexico do not result from the political, but from the 
 Church polity ; neither do the evils come from the Church 
 2)CJ' se, but from the polity it has thought necessary for 
 defence against future political combinations which are 
 only feared. The nation cannot exist, nor the people 
 abide, without “the Church,” or some religion; this 
 religion cannot exist without shaping their habits, man- 
 ners, and customs ; but their habits and manners do form 
 their political status, which must either conform to, or 
 run counter to, any other political system which has been 
 set up. Here, then, is an unavoidable point of conflict 
 but you will say the United States escapes this because 
 she has no connection between the political and the 
 
52 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 ecclesiastical, or religious: this I deny. Her political 
 theory, I know, admits of no connection ; but, the moment 
 that theory is to be put into practice, then it is entirely 
 governed by the habits, manners, and customs of her 
 people; but their habits and customs are the result of the 
 people’s religious theories and practices. Now, if all 
 religious theories and practices were unchangeable — if 
 they remained the same yesterday, to-daj 7 , and for ever — 
 then I admit that the civil or political code could very 
 well be so framed and adjusted as to avoid collision ; but 
 such is not the character of religious liberty anywhere : 
 if it were, it would cease to be religious liberty, since it 
 would then be as here, in Mexico, confined to fixed 
 dogmas. We therefore come to the unavoidable conclu 
 sion that either your political system must be left open for 
 constant change and modification, so as to conform to the 
 constant daily and annual fluctuations in religious senti- 
 ment, or else you must make the religious stationary. 
 The latter is the condition in Mexico, where, to make it 
 doubly sure of stability, “the Church” holds all the keys 
 of education, moral culture, and physical habits. This 
 insures a political system in harmony with the religious. 
 The reverse is the case in the United States : there the 
 political is fixed, which does not form the habits, manners, 
 and customs, but which is formed by the habits ; while the 
 religious, which does form those habits, is left unbridled 
 scope within the range of all man’s passions, prejudices, 
 tastes, and inclinations. But you will say that I am 
 wrong — that the political is not fixed, but changes at will 
 by the very people. So they do in localities, and to too 
 great an extent in States ; but I assert that the Federal 
 Constitution is fixed, in comparison with the rapid change 
 around it, outside of it, and over it. It is susceptible of 
 change and modification, it is true ; but not with sufficient 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 53 
 
 ease and frequency as to be able to keep out of the way of 
 religious interference, or of the rapidly-changing habits 
 and manners of the people. You will say, then, make it 
 of easier modification : then your Federal system will be 
 unstable, because too certain of constant change. Now, I 
 fear that in all I have said I may be misunderstood, and 
 that you will at once jump to the false conclusion that I 
 am making too close acquaintance with u the Church/’ or 
 Roman Catholicism. Such is not the fact. I have been 
 comparing two opposite extremes, without condemning or 
 adopting either. I will say more — I have no kind of affilia- 
 tion with the system here : the Mexican people are as yet 
 only in the early dawn of enlightenment, and still posses- 
 sing a superstitious bigotry. The Church, which is the 
 fountain of all instruction, the source of all power, and 
 of every rule of action, both moral and physical, is a 
 carcase, with all inside of it decayed, except a series of 
 formulas and traditions, equally with the corpse, devoid of 
 one element of life or of vitality. Their religion is one of 
 the body, not of the heart ; it is entirely of physical 
 exercise, not of a heart- felt intellectuality; it is solely and 
 entirely a service of bodily exercise, rotating about certain 
 fixed axes, confining it within certain fixed limits — in 
 other words, feeding solely on the word which “ killeth,” 
 and excluding the spiritual, which is “ life.’’ The legiti- 
 mate object of religion (which is spiritual life) is entirely 
 lost sight of in the purely worldly acquisitions which its 
 systematic formulas secure to the higher officials who ad- 
 minister them. The sanctification and acceptance of the 
 priest is at once the sufficient atonement for his own sins 
 and those of his people. God may accept the people 
 because the heathen, who hath not the law, are a law 
 unto themselves; but the priest must be judged by the 
 law. On the other hand, the United States presents the 
 
54 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 opposite extreme. Religion there is purely intellectual ; 
 it has neither formulas nor traditions about which to 
 rotate ; it flounders about in space, jostling its neighbour, 
 colliding at times, and even falling to atoms, but is soon 
 repaired by metaphysical cement, and a few timbers of 
 rationalism. The religion there excludes all physical 
 action, and is only an exercise of reason. What is not 
 reasonable is false, what cannot be proved by a regular 
 course of logic is thrown out : hence, in Mexico, the sense- 
 less motions of visible exercise are supposed to produce 
 unseen and mysterious results; while in the United States 
 religion is the unseen exercise of one’s reason, without regard 
 to manner or motion, and from the full and proper exercise 
 of which all physical relations will be shaped and modified. 
 This is the superstition of ignorance ; that the superstition 
 of reason. In Mexico all reason is extinct, or else pros- 
 tituted to the infallibility of faith. In the United States 
 all faith is subject to the test of reason. Here belief alone 
 exists, because faith is the only soil necessary for its 
 growth. In the United States temporal knowledge alone 
 exists, because it is the only fruit which reason alone will 
 produce. In Mexico the priest is estimated solely by his 
 theology, his dogmas, and his formulas. In the United 
 States the preacher is estimated solely by his character, 
 his actions, and his reason. Religious controversies are 
 daily going on in the United States which would incur the 
 instant anathemas of “the Church” in Mexico (only 
 distant three days post). Meanwhile the political habits 
 of localities in the United States keep even pace with and 
 conform to the march of the religious. Query — Can a 
 written Constitution (unless speedily and frequently 
 modified) stand the test of “ Reason,” unaccompanied by 
 those other elements of Faith and Charity ? I think not. 
 Reason does not admit of either Faith or Charity. Neither 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 has Reason any hope ; because it already hath the certainty 
 demonstrated, and hence has no room for the useless 
 element — “ Hope.” But I am getting into the field of 
 e< Fraternity/’ which, in the United States Government, 
 occupies the place which Charity does in the Government 
 of God. If a people foster Reason to the exclusion of 
 Faith, then will their habits and manners be shaped 
 accordingly. But if Reason excludes Charity, then must 
 Fraternity also be on the decline. Ultimately it will be 
 extinct. Then what ? Why, nothing very extraordinary 
 — only what you see in England, France, Russia, Prussia, 
 Austria, &c. That is a Government in which Church and 
 State will be connected, and will be either a despotism 
 or a monarchy. But I think it is a big jump from an 
 Universalism” to an “ Absolutism,” and a “ Constitu- 
 tional Union of States ” will have but a poor chance to 
 escape the gulf between, which is a conflict in blood. 
 Fraternity, the only legal weapon, destroyed, then will 
 come Reason for and against. Faith, Hope, Charity, will 
 then be unknown. Fraternity in the United States 
 Government will then be as dead as is the spiritual in 
 Mexico. Both nations are on the road to ruin, but in 
 opposite directions and from opposite causes ! 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Pakmenas. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 Cuernavaca, Mexico, May 15, 1848. 
 ****** 
 
 In my last, from the capital of Mexico, I referred to the 
 opposite extremes of the religious tendencies in Mexico 
 compared with those in the United States. That both 
 nations are tending rapidly to great dangers, though in 
 
56 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 opposite directions. That the Church or religion of 
 Mexico governs almost entirely the State, and, being at a 
 complete standstill, little or no progress is made in any 
 thing useful in her political system. But while the 
 Church has and does shape her political course almost 
 entirely, yet there are points in which the Church fails to 
 command entire control. And in this single respect is the 
 political now beginning to move (barely perceptible) 
 distinct from the Church rule. As I have before said, 
 this Government adopted nearly entire our own Constitu- 
 tion of a Federal character, yet the character and the 
 habits of the people of the United States which made 
 that Constitution efficient for them to the present time, 
 was utterly wanting in the Mexican people, and hence 
 made the same form of Government mere mockery with 
 them. Still its adoption, though at first weak, and of 
 apparently no effect for a few years, has created a bare 
 semblance of political action in a few minds which, I 
 doubt not, may one day feel competent to even challenge 
 the authority of the Church in the civil government here. 
 But it will be some time first, and may count on many 
 defeats. The result, both in its time and effect, will 
 depend very much on the influence which this war, and 
 the associations with our army, may have on the minds of 
 the masses with whom we have come in contact. 
 
 I lived several weeks in the house of President Peny- 
 y-Pen) T . He fully understands the nature of our system 
 of Government, but he also sees the utter impossibility of 
 inaugurating the same among the Mexicans at the present 
 time. It would require the immediate separation of 
 Church and State, which event would necessitate the dis- 
 posing of the immense landed interests or domains now 
 held by and belonging to the Church, by which means 
 alone can the large revenues be directed from the cede- 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 57 
 
 siastical to the political authority. The Church revenues 
 for only a few years would suffice to pay even the National 
 Debt. But the Church will never willingly consent to any 
 such use of her benefits for various reasons ; but a suffi- 
 cient one is, that such payment would give impetus to a 
 power and influence antagonistic to her own. Still, the 
 entering wedge of inquiry has been inserted, and may or 
 may not be gradually driven through the dull mass of 
 intellect ; and when so driven may or may not find poli- 
 tical acumen or moral honesty enough to produce fruits. 
 Two grand parties are wanted here at present, both to be 
 governed by principle; one for, the other against, the 
 present union of Church and State. Minor parties there 
 are already enough to destroy the country ; but two great 
 parties on opposite principles would very soon culminate 
 into a healthy conflict of two opposite systems, both based 
 on a principle, and therefore commanding the hearty and 
 honest advocacy of high moral worth and talent. Until 
 this occurs, however, little can be expected from any 
 change in Mexican Government. The present numerous 
 parties or cliques only harass and disturb the whole body 
 politic without any results except the wasting of energy 
 and corrupting the political morals and integrity of the 
 people. 
 
 Query. Are not the United States in the same cate- 
 gory at this present time, divided into miserable small 
 parties, neither able to effect anything in general legisla- 
 tion, — in fact having nothing real to effect except a gradual 
 undermining of political honesty and endeavouring to 
 instil a poisoned kind of patriotism for the real? In one 
 of your letters some years since, you expressed great joy 
 at what you considered the rapid passing away of the two 
 great parties, Federal and Republican, because you at once 
 concluded that the numerous smaller cliques or parties 
 
58 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 which were taking their places would neutralise each 
 other^ and thus remove even the shadow of danger to our 
 system of Government. Now, I think if you will examine 
 more closely the moral effects of these local and sectional 
 parties or cliques, you will find they are and have been 
 sowing the only seeds of real danger. These smaller 
 parties are the very agents at work to cultivate the seeds 
 of the antagonism I have asserted to exist. This antago- 
 nism, though existing in a latent state, would never 
 become manifest, and hence do no harm just as long as 
 two great parties only existed, both acting from moral 
 principles of honest conviction ; but the moment these 
 great parties subside, then general quiet ensues, and in 
 this quietude does the element of inherent antagonism 
 find time and opportunity to insinuate itself, select its 
 defenders, and work out its lines or avenues of progress. 
 It has nothing to do with principles ; it deals solely in 
 expediencies and self or sectional interests. Hence it 
 never commands the attention of great minds till it has 
 well nigh encased itself in an impenetrable network of local 
 prejudices and interests. 
 
 By this period of its progress, however, it has cor- 
 rupted the masses, and all principles are then lost sight of 
 in self-interest, or, as in the United States, in geographical 
 products. Now this appears to me to be just now going- 
 on as rapidly in the United States as it is here; the only 
 difference being in the fact that the American people have 
 a greater distance to travel, more people to corrupt and 
 render obtuse to moral principle, a larger amount of intel- 
 ligence to overcome, and a breastwork of moral honesty 
 to encounter before they consummate the end. 
 
 The Mexicans, on the contrary, have but short distances 
 to travel, and have nd ~~fix fcd h abifsof a just Government 
 to overcome, little intelligence, and less moral honesty. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 59 
 
 Hence they have got to the abyss of anarchy, misrule, and 
 violence. Already the American parties are going apace, 
 and the period at which they will arrive at the same con- 
 dition will be measured by the difference in velocity 
 between their religious zeal and rationalism and the slower 
 motion of our constitutional application of fixed political 
 principles, the intensity of the same being equally increased. 
 The very rapid advance in change, of social habits, cus- 
 toms, and manners in the United States, caused mainly 
 by an unbridled religious frenzy, and the application of 
 reason to everything (or, to bring it down to what it is, 
 and is determined to be), a levelling dominant democracy 
 must stop, or the Constitution must permit radical poli- 
 tical changes, or else a conflict must ensue. One of these 
 three effects will certainly be produced. 
 
 This spirit of democracy is not equally prevalent, how- 
 ever, in all parts of the United States, and hence the 
 more certainly will it create disruption. (Now I do not 
 wish you to misunderstand me when I thus speak of 
 “Democracy',” for you are so sensitive on the subject that 
 I am in constant danger of being misconstrued). I know 
 you belong to the so-called Democratic party, as under- 
 stood in the South ; but I have already called your atten- 
 tion to the fact, that such is not the same Democratic 
 party of the North. That of the South I have called 
 Republican, which, of course, is also Democratic when 
 comparing the whole United States Government with a 
 monarchy or an absolute government, but which, in 
 comparing the North with the South, the latter is not 
 so Democratic as the North. This is evident from the 
 character, nature, and habits of the two classes of people 
 who settled the two sections of country. The Northern 
 or New England people were a religious democracy when 
 they first landed on these shores. It was the “ religious 
 
60 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 democracy” of those people which induced the English 
 Government to be rid of them. And it is from the same 
 element of democracy that the emigrants from England, 
 Germany, Scotland, and France that have been increas- 
 ing the population of the Northern States for ninety years. 
 The Northern States are all subjected to these influences, 
 and in consequence of them, are becoming intensely demo- 
 cratic j while the small parties into which they are divided 
 for no general principles, but only political preferment, 
 have each their violent partizan leaders engaged in cor- 
 rupting the masses as rapidly as possible by constant agita- 
 tion and elections. This religious, democratic frenzy has full, 
 absolute sway ; and since the disappearance of your two 
 great national parties, nothing has existed to counteract 
 or neutralise the evil tendencies. 
 
 I do not say the same evils of a similar kind have, or 
 do now exist in the Southern States. To some extent 
 they may, but are scarcely perceptible. But other changes 
 are going on with you, which, in effect, will be the counter- 
 part of the change in the North. The South is too slow 
 in religious socialisms — the North too fast; and while 
 both are progressing, and that not slowly, yet the North 
 so much the faster that the South seems to stand still. 
 
 r lhis would be no ground for apprehension were it not 
 for the fact that the rapidly moving North is becoming so 
 Democratic, or if the South were making timely changes in 
 the Constitution to meet the inevitable changes in manners, 
 customs, and religions of the North people. It is the 
 beauty of the English Government which secures this 
 equilibrium. But the South is neither adjusting her con- 
 stitutional relations with the Federal system, nor is she 
 progressing in any change of religious habits or customs 
 to enable her to acquiesce in the pressure from the North. 
 But you remark, in one of your letters, that “ the Consti- 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 61 
 
 tution is the guide” to all parties. Now, I admit it was the 
 guide, and, to some extent, is so yet ; but, as I have time 
 and again said, good as it was, and good as it is, yet they 
 are merely relative terms. Whatever our Constitution is, 
 it was the product of certain manners and habits and 
 religious tendencies of a people. So are all Constitutions. 
 Now, if you let the Constitution alone for a period long 
 enough, the habits, manners, and religion of that same 
 people will have so completely changed that they will not 
 recognise their own work. It will have become the life- 
 less work of a deceased people. 
 
 I know you think differently. You hold to the idea 
 that, while the law stands, it will be enforced by common 
 consent ; and perhaps you so think from experience. So 
 it would in England or in Russia, but not so in a “ Demo- 
 cracy.” Your life as well as mine are too short, as is that 
 of any one man to judge of these matters by his own field 
 of observation. In this matter of compacts or Constitu- 
 tion for a Confederacy or common Government, we must 
 take history. We thus learn that all nations make inroads 
 in their laws, while Democracies are perfectly rampant to 
 ride over and defy, at times, the written code. I fear the 
 United States will not be an exception. Monarchical or 
 absolute Governments make fewer and slower changes 
 than Republics. This is inevitable: it is either a curse or 
 a blessing of Democracy to change rapidly and often, — the 
 world has not yet decided which. Absolute Governments 
 agree that it is a great curse. Democracies themselves say 
 it is the acme of perfection in liberal, free government. 
 With the greatest filial regard, and with perfect respect 
 for my father’s Democracy and views, I am constrained 
 to say I view Democracies as unbridled tyrants, with power 
 and will to do anything that the concentrated wickedness 
 of the populace may see fit. The Northern States is 
 
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 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 such a Democracy, or is fast becoming such. The South 
 is not, and never will be such, because the natures of the 
 people are different; they have no manners, no customs, 
 no habits tending to it, nor did they ever have such ten- 
 dencies. Hence they are, so to speak, a different nation 
 from the North ; and the continued effect of a dominant 
 Democracy to force a similarity where God has made an 
 inerasable line of distinction thousands of years ago, will 
 result in like conflicts, which have alwavs occurred between 
 the same classes all over the world. 
 
 A thousand supposed (but false) reasons will then be 
 assigned as the cause of such conflict. So it always is. 
 A few taxes by Parliament was assigned as the cause of 
 the Colonial revolt against England. So millions yet 
 believe. I am not one of them. I feel no doubt but the 
 true cause was religious antagonism ; and, hence, would 
 not have received the co-operation of the Catholic and 
 Church States if all motives and the secret of heart 
 could have been known. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 P ARM ENAS. 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 Hacienda, Trinidad, May 30th, 1848. 
 
 I have been ordered over into this region to protect 
 the proprietors of some large haciendas (or plantations) 
 from violence by the revolt of their “peons,” or serfs. 
 1 am on the slope, bearing west towards Acapulca, some 
 forty rmles from Guernabaca. I have had considerable 
 intercourse with these large haciendas and their mode of 
 management. The owners, or proprietors, are most 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 63 
 
 refined gentlemen, and possessed cf all the gallantry and 
 chivalrous hospitality so well known to belong to the 
 Spanish gentleman. On these large estates — where sugar, 
 cotton, coffee, &c., are grown — it is not unusual to find 
 from three hundred to eight hundred peons, or serfs. 
 Perhaps I had best call them serfs, as they differ some- 
 what from our slaves in the United States. Hence you 
 will want to know just what a peon is. I shall, therefore, 
 explain what it is ; but, in so doing, I shall take occasion 
 to hit your e: democratic-free-labour-competition ” system 
 a lick which I think it justly deserves. 
 
 In the first place, slavery once existed in this country 
 and would yet, I presume, if that noble race (the Spaniard) 
 who conquered it had kept it. But I have already 
 lamented the separatiou from a Christian nation of this 
 Mexican people at too early a period to make anything of 
 themselves ; so I will not recur to that again, any further 
 than to exhibit still more of its evils. The evils I then 
 mentioned were mostly of a religious or spiritual kind. 
 I will here refer to the evils of a political kind. I have 
 before said somewhere in my letters that freedom is 
 imaginary. The whole world hath proved that. God 
 hath said so ; and Christ saith, neither the freeman nor 
 the bondman is anything. But living, eating, drinking^ 
 and sleeping, are not imaginary : these are real, actual, 
 and tax the energies (mental and physical) of three out of 
 four of all free people. Slaves are not so much exercised 
 about their eating, nor clothing. When slavery was 
 abolished here, there was a large majority of the people 
 who were utterly incapable of self-preservation. Five out 
 of six of them fell victims to poverty and crime in the 
 great scuffle which free competition of labour brought 
 about. They had either to steal or beg. This was followed 
 by a system of contracting debts with the principal pro- 
 
64 
 
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 prietors of estates, which they could not pay. Failing to 
 pay soon put a stop to further credit. Then began theft. 
 To remedy this, the Government passed laws enabling the 
 proprietors, or creditors, to hold the person or persons for 
 the debt, at so much per week or month for his labour. 
 This, then, was at once the establishment of the “ social 
 system,” called “ villienage,” or serfage. The person who 
 thus became the vassal, or peon, to a gentleman for a debt 
 of ten dollars, at once made his domicile on his premises, 
 and formed part of the household and estate; so did his 
 family if he had any. His weekly allowance in pay, so 
 far from paying his debt, did not even suffice to pay for 
 his feed and clothing — still less for that of his family — 
 with all which he was, and is, regularly charged in account- 
 books kept for the purpose. Hence, in one year, if not 
 less, he found himself tenfold deeper in debt than at first ; 
 and then his family, male and female, were all passed over 
 under the laws, as peons also. This is peonage, or serfage ; 
 and it is not unusual to find five hundred peons on a 
 plantation of this kind. These peons are sold, also, from 
 one Duana to another ; but common consent keeps families 
 together. You will thus perceive that the peon is a slave, 
 yet without the advantages of the African slave, or that 
 of the “villien” of former periods; because he is not 
 cared for in sickness and old age, as those are, but can 
 only claim such to the extent of his weekly earnings ; or, 
 if he receives more (as he does), it is a gratuity not obli- 
 gatory on the owner. This is one step towards an 
 imnrovement, however, over the destitution now, and for 
 years, extant in all Europe on account of “ liberty,” in 
 the midst of competition of labour. The world is getting 
 rabid for freedom — freedom of labour. I have been over 
 a large portion of the world, and from what I have seen 
 the effects of competition of labour are most cruel and 
 
OX AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 G5 
 
 damning! It is starving millions who were once happy 
 and well fed and clothed. France, England, Austria, 
 Prussia, and Poland, and Hungary, are suffering this day 
 countless miseries by this “ freedom to starve if you can’t 
 get work.” It is filling prisons, debasing women, and 
 drying up the fountains of parental and filial affection ! 
 The monasteries and peonage here relieve this to some 
 extent, but in a miserably unjust mode, since it limits 
 the responsibility of the owner to the serf’s nominal 
 wages ! But the evils of “competing labour” are in their 
 infancy in Mexico, because none of those great improve- 
 ments in labour-saving machinery have yet appeared. 
 Hence, all can come more nearly finding work. But not 
 so in the European countries I have named. In the 
 United States (in the North) the evils of competing 
 labour are already beginning to be felt, arid but for the 
 great outlet in the West it would be unbearable in a few 
 years longer. As it now is, however, it is severely felt ; 
 and will demand an outlet in the Slave States. It will 
 demand this as a temporary relief, and as a subterfuge to 
 cover its total failure in supporting the great labouring 
 mass of man. Socialism throughout France and England, 
 and now beginning in the North-eastern States, is nothing 
 else than an attempt to remedy a great evil brought about 
 by free competing labour, which began at the discon- 
 tinuance of serfage ! 
 
 You know nothing of pauperism. No such thing 
 exists in a slave country. In a slave country, or a serfage 
 community, there exists the only kind of socialism which 
 is worthy of the name. Such is, in fact, a community 
 where each one loves his neighbour. Hence, in slave or 
 serf countries you seldom find all the thousand and one 
 societies purporting to be for the relief of the needy, 
 because there are none. The owners see to this — not by 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
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 the dollar, or by the visit, but freely and purely — because 
 it is his. 
 
 Now, you will count me very strange to talk thus 
 about liberty — the cradle in which I was rocked, and the 
 shanty in which I was raised ! Well; let us see. What 
 is liberty here on earth? It is not to do as you please, 
 for the laws restrain you on every hand. It is not to seek 
 happiness in your own way, for in this you are restricted. 
 There is no definition for liberty that I know of, except 
 what the political economist gives us, which amounts to 
 this — that a man is at liberty to compete with his neigh- 
 bours and all others in the world for his food and raiment. 
 This looks like a vast privilege ; but let us see. Four out 
 of five of the human family are incapable of competition. 
 They are either too slow, too indolent, too weak, or too 
 simple ; but the fifth one is astute, active, cautious, dis- 
 honest, or in some other way takes the prize. He mono- 
 polizes the substance of four ; and at once puts the four to 
 bidding against each other for the labour which it only 
 requires two or less to perform. He who gets it fares 
 well ; he who fails must starve ! This is the true effect of 
 free-competing-labour throughout the world ; and I would 
 be false to my duty and heartfelt conviction if I did not 
 go further, and say it is the direct effect of Jefferson’s 
 false and infidel expressions in the very beginning of the 
 Declaration of Rights; viz., that all men are equal, &c. 
 I have before made allusion to the falsity of his theory ; 
 and the whole universe, not only unequal and enslaved 
 man, but the whole animal and vegetable kingdom, prove 
 it false ! Men are unequal, not free ; not at liberty to 
 pursue happiness in their own way ; because I helped to 
 hang several for having pursued their line of happiness in 
 their own way by depredating on others. 
 
 Philosophers and political economists ought to be 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 67 
 
 chained together, and fed on bread and water; and led 
 round over the country (in which they affect to offer rules 
 for), and let see something of practical life and of human 
 nature; for of all men, I think they are the most narrow- 
 minded and short-sighted. Now, you will at once class 
 me anti-democratic, because of my views about liberty. 
 I will take occasion ere long to show more fully the 
 absurdity of the talk of the liberty philosophers and poli- 
 tical economists, and of nearly all our politicians; while 
 I shall maintain that your democracy affects it not, nor is 
 it affected by it. 
 
 Affectionately, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 Austin, Texas, Dec. 30th, 1848. 
 
 I had the pleasure to receive your long letter of 30th 
 September last, but have been too much engaged to find 
 time to answer it until now. This is no detriment, how- 
 ever, because I have improved the time to read the more 
 carefully what you have said ; and I design, now, to answer 
 some of your objections to my previously expressed views. 
 You fall back, as usual, on the terms of our Constitution ; 
 yet, I have never objected to one word of that instrument. 
 I fully acknowledge it to be all you say it is in word and 
 letter ; you assert, however, that the Constitution alone is 
 sufficient to secure perfect peace and harmonious Govern- 
 ment between all the States. I say it is not. This is a 
 simple difference of opinion ; secondly, you say that mutual 
 interest between the Confederate States is also sufficient 
 to secure the same end, and that both these forces are 
 “ ample for any emergency.” I think you are mistaken 
 
 f 2 
 
68 
 
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 in both ; first, the Constitution is specific in its powers 
 and limitations, as you say ; are not all Constitutions the 
 same ? All Democracies we know of, as also all Republics, 
 had written Constitutions, or the equivalent ; and all 
 specific, so far as it was designed they should have action, 
 yet they failed to secure what they were designed to secure. 
 Ours will fail in like manner, because a Constitution is 
 only the product of certain habits and customs prevalent 
 among the people who originate it, and agree to make it 
 the rule of action in certain cases ; hence, a Constitution 
 of some kind is not a mere accident; it is a necessary 
 consequence of certain habits of life ; but our written 
 Constitution is the same to-day as it was half a century 
 ago, or nearly so, while the habits of three-fourths of the 
 people have changed amazingly. You say that instru- 
 ment can be changed ; so it can, but only in a certain 
 way. That way has not yet been tried, and could not be 
 tried to-day, because of the very extreme dissimilarity 
 between the very people whom it was made to govern. 
 They were more nearly alike when they first made it ; 
 now they are widely different ; in fact, they were not half 
 so similar when they agreed to it, as they imagined ; they 
 only appeared to each other in a true light when they 
 came to be compared by that one common standard, while 
 they have gone on separating more and more ever since. 
 Constitutions, strictly so, govern only stable representative 
 communities ; the whole United States is not such a 
 community. The Southern States are comparatively stable 
 and representative ; the Northern States are not. These 
 latter are Democracies already, and will be excessively so 
 in a short time. Not only do their citizens, by natural 
 increase, advance rapidly on into a Democratic mass, but 
 those States receive nine-tenths of the emigrants from 
 the old countries, and all of such emigrants are Radical 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 69 
 
 Democrats ; they are the very pestiferous, revolutionary 
 characters, which European nations are more than happy 
 to get rid of. The man -who fails to look at this, fails 
 to see the imminent dangers awaiting the North. But 
 the South is connected with the North by this same 
 Constitution. The Northern Democracy will one day roll 
 up that instrument as a scroll and waste paper. They 
 cannot avoid it; it is their destiny (when unrestrained by 
 stable laws). The vox populi is their Constitution. You 
 count on men who will be constitutional observers in 
 the North, but you count on what you will fail to find. 
 How can one man resist a hundred ? Now, I don’t say 
 this evil will come in a year, nor in ten years. I can’t 
 tell how rapidly this spirit of “Democratic equality” will 
 progress in the North. It may come sooner or later. 
 Come it will, unless something checks that progress. The 
 Constitution is a safe guarantee, so long as it is the rule 
 of action. But it ceases to be such just when you most 
 need it. Hence, I will say, that if the Constitution saves 
 the country, then will I have proved the existence of a 
 Government without any written Constitution, because in 
 a pure Democracy that which we have is as none. You 
 seem to give your Constitution a kind of materiality; 
 because you can see a piece of paper, you seem to clothe 
 it with some of the powers of material resistance, as if it 
 were a mountain, or an impassable river or lake. It is 
 not so; it is all imaginary. The Constitution is nothing. 
 The observance of what is recorded makes up all there is 
 of it; but, as I have said, observance of it is absolutely 
 impossible ; vox populi of a wild Democracy takes its 
 place. I repeat, that its observance by a “ Democracy ” 
 is utterly impossible, because such Democracy never 
 suffers any restraints, whereas your Constitution is made 
 up of restraints. So much for the Constitutional guarantee ! 
 
70 
 
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 Now, as it regards your ‘‘bond of mutual interests.” 
 You say the North needs the South and West to supply 
 her with food, raw material, and to occupy her ships, &c. 
 This would seem to he true, and, in fact, is true to that 
 extent. But Democracy is not content with hut half a 
 loaf! She clamours for the other half! She wants higher 
 tariffs. She despises that agriculture which objects to 
 high duties. The North wants nothing but high tariffs. 
 This is all she now begs for. She has kept her paid 
 agents in Congress for fifty years to secure this ; but the 
 South has objected to this. The South must submit, or 
 else this “ dominant Democracy ” will force them. It is 
 only a matter of time. The West is in pretty much the 
 same fix as the South ; but the manufacturing States can 
 manage them better, because the East are pushing out to 
 the West their own men and money, and favouring, by 
 every means, the immigration thither of those red- 
 republican or solid democratic elements from Germany, 
 France, England, Ireland, Hungary, and Austria. The 
 South don’t favour this class, because she is not a 
 Democracy. These elements will be ten times more 
 merciless and unconstitutional in their demands, as well 
 as in their mode of legislation, than the native Americans 
 have been. In fact, these are the tools which will do 
 the voting, and the legislating will be done by the partisan 
 leaders. Besides, the high tariffs affect the North-western 
 agriculturalists less than the Southern people, because 
 much of the products of North-west go South for bread, 
 and hence never pass through the tariff exchange-avenues ; 
 and also, the West is advancing with considerable manu- 
 facture, which retains among them no small amount of 
 the proceeds of those tariffs. All these things are beyond 
 the reach of the South. The South has but one remedy 
 in warding off conflict in this matter of “mutual interest” 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 71 
 
 you speak of, which is to acquiesce in any amount of 
 tariffs which manufactures and commerce choose to 
 impose, and substitute her own manufactures in defence. 
 This is the line of antagonism in this country and in our 
 Government. 
 
 The South had best not employ herself with long, 
 logical, and constitutional speeches in Congress as to their 
 rights in the use and protection of slavery ; because the 
 North do not object to slavery, per se. What they object 
 to is the power of the agricultural people; the North 
 don’t care a farthing what kind of labour is used in agri- 
 culture. It is enough for them to restrict its influence, 
 whether it be black or white — free or bond. It is true 
 that the North makes loud lamentations over negro 
 slavery; and they pretend to put it on philanthropic 
 grounds, but this is only to secure the co-operation of 
 that class of European emigrants among them whose 
 votes they rely on to control their elections, and whose 
 excessive zeal for freedom (like a man suddenly in pos- 
 sesion of riches he knows not what to do with) makes 
 them good tools to work with. It is not because they 
 care anything about negro slavery per se. It is possible 
 they think that negro slavery secures more unity of action 
 in the agricultural States on political matters than any 
 other kind of labour would admit of, and hence this would 
 be another good political reason for wishing to diminish 
 the present negro slavery in the South ; but this is all. 
 Their philanthropy in opposition to slaves is just the same 
 as lies at the bottom of my philanthropy in opposing my 
 neighbour’s riches — because I have not an equal amount. 
 This is its length, and depth, and breadth ! I am inti- 
 mately acquainted w T ith many leading abolitionists in the 
 North, and I have often heard them say, that the negro 
 was “just where he ought to be, and he would be of no 
 
72 
 
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 use except as a bondsman, and that all they wished to do 
 by the agitation of the question was to weaken the power 
 of the agricultural States in the national Congress so as to 
 legislate more for the interest of manufacturers and the 
 commercial marts.” Knowing these facts, I say that the 
 South should not be defending a false attack on the part 
 of the violent partisans of “ Northern Democracy.” 
 
 ^ ou must, therefore, see that this “ band of mutual 
 interest” is not going to suffice long to secure the kindly 
 feelings of the two “ classes,” because it hath already 
 almost ceased to be of mutual interest. If the South 
 could induce a large emigrant population of “ Radical 
 Democracy ” to settle among them, then would she also 
 take up the march of rapid Democracy; but even in such 
 case they would be antagonistic to the Eastern people. 
 But this she will not do, because her “ class ” of people 
 are averse to it ; and you, with all your so-called “ Demo- 
 cracy, 55 would be the first to shrink from the rabid, wild, 
 unmeaning, and senseless vaporings of such a mass as I 
 have seen in Northern cities. 
 
 The fact is, father, you must take a quiet trip out 
 West, and up to the Lakes, thence on East, and observe 
 a little of the working of that Democracy before you 
 become its blind defender. 
 
 lou will find a physical prosperity that will astonish 
 your senses. A development most extraordinary, and 
 deserving of all praise, admiration, and imitation, save and 
 except in its utter prostitution of virtue, integrity, and 
 political morals. All these elements of durability are 
 rapidly declining — will soon become extinct in their 
 growing Democracies. Then we shall see what the rapid 
 advance in worldly development, in populations, and im- 
 provements, &c., are worth. For this we must wait. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Pa RM ENAS. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 73 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 This letter was written by George Turnley, Esq., of Jefferson 
 County , Tennessee , to his Grandson (the Author of the pre- 
 ceding letters in this hook). 
 
 Dandridge, Tennessee, July 4, 1847. 
 My mind has entertained the subject of writing to you 
 for a while past, and this desire is in no wise diminished 
 since I have read some letters from you to your father 
 And while it is not my expectation to finish a letter 
 to-day, yet, it being our “ Independence Anniversary,” it 
 fully entered my mind to begin one, and I shall continue 
 it from time to time as the working of the spirit within 
 me and roy poor old feeble hand shall permit. This day 
 calls to mind, afresh, the time when our great and wise; 
 men dictated and published to the world our Declaration, 
 of Rights under Civil Government, and, in the efforts to 
 establish which I did what was in my power to effect. 
 My father, long since gone — whence I, too, must soon 
 follow — and who lies buried not far from where I write 
 this, differed with me at that time to some extent ; not 
 that he felt any objections to the Declaration of Rights, 
 then announced by the thirteen colonies, but because he 
 felt that most of the Rights claimed could and would be 
 secured ultimately from our mother-country without a 
 Revolution ; and also he was resting under the obligations 
 which his oath imposed (taken the day he sailed from 
 Liverpool for the New World), which was, that he would 
 « never take up arms against his King and Parliament.” 
 However, he, like many others, had to acquiesce in the 
 powers then present around him, and we made our Decla- 
 ration good by more than six years of hard war, and we 
 made our own Government, which is called, and is in fact, 
 a free Government in contra-distinction to a monarchical 
 Government : that is, we made a Republican Government 
 
74 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 — in the which the “sovereign power” rests with the 
 people, and is delegated from time to time to Representa- 
 tives chosen by those who are to he governed. Therefore 
 it is, we say, with some truth, “that we govern ourselves” 
 by choosing for our agents a President, Vice-President, 
 and Members of a House of Commons, or Congress, and 
 al: jo we choose, through the State Assembly, our Senators. 
 H enee, you see the people actually choose the agents who 
 are to make the laws, and a President who is to see that 
 t! is same are executed. All this really seems very plain 
 a nd simple, and was so considered in the beginning. It 
 c ertainly is very simple if properly studied and practised. 
 ^3ut in after years it does appear to have become some- 
 what complex. This complexity, too (and which appears 
 to be increasing), I fear, sometimes is going to be a great 
 stumbling-block in the path of peace and good-will ; and 
 while I have an abiding faith in the agents of our Govern- 
 ment chosen by the individual voice of every intelligent 
 free man, yet it does appear to me that there is too much 
 disposition to extend, and make too common this liberty 
 to vote, and also too much tendency to multiply laws, all 
 over the country, and, as it were, to supply a profession 
 for a class of idle folks called lawyers. 
 
 But I am now tired of this present writing, and will 
 defer further remarks till another day. I am getting well 
 on to one hundred years of age, and can do many things 
 better than write, especially ride my old favourite horse, 
 which I propose to do to-day — and go to the celebration 
 and carry my “ hickory pole.” God bless you. 
 
 July 6. — It has entered my mind to resume my letter 
 to you, my son ; and, that I may the better approach your 
 understanding, I have not failed in the past day to read 
 over many of your late letters to refresh my mind with 
 your ideas therein contained. 1 am at present, and have 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 75 
 
 been for half a century, a member of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church ; and have, the while, tried, by God’s 
 assistance, to push forward the good work especially 
 enjoined by His Son and blessed Saviour on all of His 
 creatures here below. Of course I have fallen far short 
 of my duty; at the same time I do not relish nor approve 
 of your expressed views in regard to preachers and 
 ministers of the "Word. I do not fail to perceive that 
 your mind inclines, but too strongly as I think, to draw 
 invidious distinctions between religious sects, and to 
 present more favourably the one than the other, and 
 which, if you fail to take heed, may lead you into a dis- 
 torted and biased line of thinking. It may be of acting 
 also. You have divided all men into two classes, and it 
 does appear to me that you have assigned all of Chris- 
 tianity to the one and none to the other, which is a task 
 you nor any other human creature can do. You have not 
 quite stated which class I may be placed in ; and it is 
 partly on this account I have thought it proper to inform 
 you of the sect I belong to. Had the Church of England 
 been extant in the wild and thinly-settled countrv it 
 pleased God to introduce me in infancy, I have no 
 doubt but that I should have attached myself to it instead 
 of a reformed branch of it. At the same time I cannot 
 consent to deny to other sects some good, mixed though 
 it may be with evil. My advantages for historical reading- 
 have not been such as to enable me to form any definite 
 ideas of “ two classes ” you dwell upon ; and as I sup- 
 pose you are indulging more of an abstract propensity, 
 than treating of practical results, I will not discuss the 
 subject of “ classes,” but leave y-ou to follow the same as 
 your mind listeth. I shall, the rather, notice the political 
 results to flow from the classes you have made, and of 
 which results you appear to have gloomy apprehensions. 
 
76 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 I do not feel all of the apprehensions you seem to; yet I 
 must confess I am not without serious misgivings in this 
 matter. Complications in our Government appear to be 
 increasing ; wrangling and disputation are advancing apace, 
 and seem to be leaving morality, wisdom, charity, and 
 fraternity quite in the rear column as a kind of useless rear- 
 guard. Instead of which these heavenly virtues should 
 be in the front or leading column, and govern all our 
 actions in public and private. Should this continue 
 for a long time I fear the consequences for you and 
 yours, though I should not be present to experience 
 the same personally. I was born and raised in a 
 slave State (Bottetourt, county Virginia), and yet I 
 never owned any slaves ; nor hath any of mine, so far 
 as I know, ever owned any, unless a few have servants. 
 I have not even employed any of the African race in any 
 way. In fact, I have never felt the slightest inclination to 
 give to the system, as practised of late, my approval. I 
 do not say that I do not approve of servitude of the 
 heathen races (whether African or any other) to a Chris- 
 tian people ; on the contrary, I do approve it — when done 
 in the right way. Now, for that mode which is right, I 
 go to the revealed Word of God, and there T find that it 
 is absolutely commanded to go preach salvation to all 
 heathens. Paraphrase it a little, and it may just as well 
 read — “ Go to, or bring to you, ye Christians, all the 
 heathen of the world, and teach them the Word of God 
 and the salvation of Christ.” Now, I have tried to do 
 what I well could to enlighten the heathen. I was almost 
 the first white man to settle among the heathen Indians 
 on the French Broad ; and they used me roughly — had me 
 prisoner — held councils over me, to put me to death, &c. 
 
 I failed not, and faltered not, in my firm convictions 
 of my duty to teach and convert them to the ways of Life 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 77 
 
 and of Light. But the system in operation among the 
 Christians, of pushing the Indians hack and away from 
 the means of enlightenment and harmonising influences, 
 rendered any efforts I might make futile to a great extent. 
 Surely there is a dereliction in this matter on the part of 
 all enlightened people in this country which must bring, at 
 some period, a most fearful retribution. I. feel this in my 
 soul, and I tremble for the consequences. Not that I love 
 the Indian, especially; but because I feel the end which 
 God hath assigned him, and feel the conviction that I, 
 and mine, are the appointed agents and stewards to lead 
 him to that end. Have we done it ? No ; my son, we 
 have not; nor any part thereof ! Merciful God ! Think 
 of it ! No part thereof, have we done ! Now, precisely 
 in this light stands the other class of heathens, the African 
 negroes. No; I will not say in the same light. He stands 
 in a far better condition, personally. Yet the aggregate 
 motive of the Christians which places him so, I fear is of 
 that sort which will fail of reward. I say, that I fear the 
 motive which hath placed the heathen negro in a better 
 condition than the Indian, while it does, and will con- 
 tinue to advance, in a measure, the purposes of God, to 
 the Christianisation of the negro, will yet fail to secure 
 to the owners the blessed rewards of our Heavenly Father. 
 Now, it is not the ordeal of labour the negro is undergoing 
 which ought to excite commiseration ; it is not the re- 
 straints which his physical body is under that should call 
 for relief ; nor is it the corporal punishment which is 
 uniformly inflicted which should be stayed. All opposition 
 to these governing rules is misplaced philanthropy, and, 
 when coming from well-informed men, savours of a hypo- 
 critical cant of the Scribes and Pharisees, and which hath 
 another and a concealed motive. No ; the heathen negro 
 is just where he ought to be, so far as his daily labour is 
 
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 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 concerned. The Indian were infinitely better off if he, 
 too, were in a like condition. Now I come to the prac- 
 tical abuse, and not the use of this system. The heathen 
 negro, as well as Indian, owes his time, and labour, and 
 efforts, and service to the Christian ; and the former 
 is rendering it. But what does the Christian owe to the 
 heathen in return? — not dollars and cents. No. He owes 
 him, in due course of time, a Christian humanity. Is 
 that all, do you ask? Yes. And is that not enough. 
 Surely it is beyond price ! because that is freedom indeed. 
 It is not only spiritual freedom, but physical freedom fol- 
 lows naturally. It requires no force, no interference, no 
 blood, no revolt ; but it comes peacefully, gradually, and, 
 what is stranger than all, with magic acquiescence. Let 
 the Christian masters fully look this matter in the face, 
 and feel its truth and import, and they will tremble at 
 their awful responsibility, and speedily think less of dollars 
 and cents out of involuntary labour, and bestir them- 
 selves to a more rapid culture of the intellect, as well as 
 that of the physical. Without this culture the negro can 
 never be free. With this culture the Christian cannot be 
 induced to keep him in bondage. This may require 
 decades of time — even centuries. Let the northern anti- 
 slavery people think of this, and they will cease trying 
 to send weapons to inflame an ignorant heathen people 
 against Christians; which only tend to check enlighten- 
 ment of mind, which has long ago been partially com- 
 menced, but which cannot be sufficiently advanced if this 
 recent interference goes on till the weapons of harm, 
 pushed through its channels, would work destruction. 
 Let the anti-slavery North people look over the wander- 
 ing tribes of Indian heathens, towards whom they have 
 woefully failed to do as God hath commanded; and if 
 they are right-minded they will tremble with visions of 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 79 
 
 a fearful retribution close at hand. Nay, they will say 
 God speed you, brethren of the South, in your good work 
 with the negro; but, I fear for the results. The North 
 have sinned, and have almost entirely failed in this task. 
 The South have sinned, and have not so failed in the re- 
 sults to be attained ; but have turned the means and 
 objects into a vile and damnable acquisition of worldly 
 gain which hath most woefully retarded the end in view, 
 while it almost divests them of the rewards due to good 
 motives ! 
 
 We are all bondsmen, some more than others, and 
 we owe a debt of constant servitude to our God ; and, 
 while some of us are sufficiently enlightened to know by 
 study and prayerful reflection what service is acceptable 
 to Him, there are others, whose benighted condition 
 extends even to bondage of a physical nature, and who 
 must seek, little by little, the release from enthralment 
 from intermediate sources and classes more advanced. I 
 do not object to slavery ; nor should any Christian man, 
 North or South, object to the enlightenment in slavery or 
 out of it ; but I do object to many of the improper regu- 
 lations governing it. These have a remedy in peace, but 
 not in war ! Those having it in charge are not doing 
 their duty. It is a lease, or a trust, confided to us which 
 must be performed, or the trust will prematurely expire, 
 i. e.. be forfeited ; in the which both slaverv and anti- 
 slavery will be accounted as nought, but will both be 
 engulfed in one sad ruin. May God help us to see 
 things as they are. May God help us, and each and 
 every soul, to cease these miserable sectarian animosities, 
 and to cultivate faith and confidence in each other, and 
 charity for each other, that we may, unitedly, set our hands 
 to the work before us. There are those in the North who 
 affect to see the sum of all infamy in a little speck of 
 
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 bondage of a few poor miserable African heathens. Their 
 grounds for such are utterly false, ridiculous, and unworthy 
 of true Christians. I fear their motives are also false ! 
 There are those in the South, holding these slaves only 
 for self-aggrandizement, and account such service of 
 eternal duration. The same beings ! What folly. What 
 absurdity on both sides. Both are condemned of God ! 
 Slavery of body and mind will exist as long as there is a 
 heathen on earth. It is God’s own school for heathens; 
 and he who despises it, or he who perverts it to wrong 
 purposes, will receive like condemnation. I have not 
 time to read over what I have written. I have spoken 
 from the heart. My life is a long one; more than is 
 vouchsafed to many. As my duty is, so have I spoken 
 the truth as I do feel it. 
 
 God bless you, 
 
 George Turnley. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 Eagle Pass, Texas, June 30th, 1849. 
 Yours of 30th ultimo has chased me from Austin to this 
 place. The object of my being here is, to locate a military 
 post at some suitable point on the Rio Grande — the new 
 boundary line between our nation and that of Mexico. 
 This spot we have selected as the one most favourable for 
 such purpose. I am therefore about two hundred and 
 seventy miles west of Austin, the capital of Texas, and 
 about fifty miles due west of the Nucus River, so much 
 referred to in Congress during the late war with Mexico. 
 You seem still to deprecate very much our increase of 
 territory, as furnishing grounds for serious apprehension 
 of future trouble. I do not think, however', that the mere 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 81 
 
 extension of limits can be considered cause for such, though 
 it will certainly be made the means for developing the 
 true cause, or motive, and which I have alluded to before. 
 The line agreed upon between free and slave territory, at 
 the admission of Missouri, and which pretended to be a 
 compromise between the North and South factions, I see 
 Mr. Douglass tried to extend from the Sabine (its western 
 limit when agreed upon) to this river, the new western 
 limit when Texas came into the Union ; but he failed (see 
 the proceedings in Congress relating to Texas admission). 
 I wonder what will be the result now, since we have 
 extended our limits entirely to the Pacific. The North 
 faction opposed that compromise line in the first place, 
 because they wanted more free territory, as they called it, 
 and less slave territory. And I see that it is this same 
 North faction who have opposed the extension of that line 
 on through Texas. Of course, I presume they will con- 
 tinue to oppose its extension to the Pacific. Meantime, 
 the South, I presume, will insist on it being extended. If 
 this be so, we may expect another war of ideas, like that 
 of 1821 and 1822 . This is sure to follow any attempt to 
 extend that line. Its formation, in the first place, was 
 most unfortunate, and was a sacrifice of constitutional 
 principle to expediency, which is always the seed that 
 produces a heavy crop of troubles. But even Henry Clay 
 was its author ; and no doubt it was from good motives. 
 He and many others saw then, and see yet, that Consti- 
 tutions are flimsy, paper concerns ; and, however much 
 reverenced by some, are not, on that account, even known 
 to or understood by others. It is evident, from present 
 appearances, that the many questions of political differences 
 in this country are going to be merged into some one of 
 these differences, which may appear to be the most potent 
 for attack and defence. To my mind this will be the 
 
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 subject of free and of slave territory ; and I must express 
 my belief that the South ought to be cautious not to insist 
 on any extension whatever, nor disturb the present status 
 of the line of slavery. I will give my reasons for this. 
 In the first place, its first establishment was wrong, and 
 did much to engender ill feeling ; but the agitation of it 
 will only inflame that ill feeling. This would not be the 
 case, if both factions were really and truly contending for 
 a great principle ; then there would be great moral honesty 
 and talent brought to its consideration on both sides. 
 But this is not the case. If the South contends for its 
 extension on purely constitutional grounds (and certainly 
 no man is so blind as not to see that the Constitution 
 does guarantee such, and in fact excludes the Congress 
 from the whole subject of making any such restrictions) then 
 they contend for a principle which is a mere abstraction. 
 On the other hand, the opposition to such, from the North, 
 contend for a practical result, namely, the limiting of 
 agricultural power and influence in the legislation of the 
 Government. This is a practical, tangible, and physical 
 element, to be seen, and felt, and handled ; besides, it 
 has the whole North in its favour, which must override 
 the South in the end, on all these matters of political 
 expediency, or, if you please, of political economy. The 
 reason of this is twofold ; first, the North is a “ progressive 
 Democracy,” and is, so to speak, a vast school of political 
 philosophers, or political economists. They reason from 
 false data, because all of their data are merely special 
 cases, cases applying only to their own community, and 
 hence are only true for a class or locality. What is good 
 for them is bad for others; what is best for them is worst 
 for others ; what is their life is another’s death. Yet the 
 North outnumber the South, two to one, and are daily 
 increasing, every new emigrant being one of this same 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 83 
 
 class of European-refugee ec political philosophers,” or 
 “ political economists,” whom old nations seek to get rid 
 of. I believe you claim to be something of a political 
 economist, and hence will receive my strictures on that 
 class of doctors with no very good grace ; but, if you 
 will agree with me in a definition of the term, I think you 
 will be less sensitive on this point. I ask, therefore, what 
 is political economy? It is not the science of government, 
 surely, because the word, nor the field of its action, are 
 yet three hundred years old, while civil government is 
 thousands of years old. It cannot be the science which 
 teaches men and nations fair dealing between each other, 
 because it teaches opposite lines of action in different 
 nations — 'even in different sections of the same nation 
 (vide high tariffs taught in the North, versus low tariffs 
 taught in the South). I go to the “ political philosopher,” 
 again, for a definition, and after lopping off all verbiage, 
 and flow of speech, I find that political economy “ is the 
 science which teaches one nation how to live on the labour 
 of another teaches one community how to live on another 
 community ; teaches one man how to live on the labour 
 of another man. Think of this a little, and you will 
 certainly agree with me. Such, I say, is the definition 
 and teaching of political economy now extant throughout 
 the world ; I don’t say such ought to be its definition, or 
 its teachings ; on the contrary, political economy ought 
 to be the science of fraternity. So ought religion to be 
 the practice of Christianity, instead of, as it now is, the 
 “ school for hatred and infidelity.” But, I am dealing with 
 things as they are, not as they ought to he. Hence, 
 political economy teaches the North how to live on the 
 labour of the South, and teaches the South, in turn, how 
 to live on the North, or at least how to avoid the burthen 
 of supporting the North ; that is, it teaches our antago- 
 
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 nistic classes how to avoid each other’s burthens, and how 
 to inflict a burthen in return. It is the very science 
 which first put on foot free competing labour, as the great 
 boon, the acme of liberty, which I have heretofore said 
 I conceive to be imaginary. Such, then, is philosophy, 
 or political economy ; yet this is the power which for three 
 centuries has been striving to establish government on 
 purely theoretical basis, regardless of God’s laws, or the 
 laws of Nature. Every word and line and precept of the 
 political economist teaches man to compete with his 
 fellow-man. It does not teach violence, bloodshed, and 
 hatred. Yet it teaches the very mode of living and deal- 
 ing which inevitably leads to blood and violence, places 
 the goal to be attained to the strong or the cunning. It 
 must, then, from pure consistency, acquiesce in the result, 
 namely, that five out of six of the whole human family are 
 the lawful victims, or slaves, of the remaining sixth. Our 
 own country is too new, yet, for us to see much of the 
 evil effects of this horrible doctrine, of which Thomas 
 Jefferson was one of the advocates in the New World; 
 but older countries, by their annual revolutions, by their 
 pauper list, their almshouses, their numerous societies to 
 relieve the growing wants of the five destitute, from the 
 excessive accumulations of the sixth prosperous, demon- 
 strate this result. God mysteriously (and wisely, we must 
 suppose) so disposes the hearts of his creatures, that they 
 naturally aggregate together, and counsel each other “ how 
 to relieve the wants of their fellows,” although this want 
 is, in fact, the bitter fruits of a warfare which political 
 economists have put into action. We must accept this 
 system of relief-societies as a means that God induces to 
 correct or relieve evils which he hath permitted, not 
 ordered or sanctioned. 
 
 But, to return to my subject — the twofold reason why 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 85 
 
 this territorial strife (should it come) will override the 
 South. The one reason I have given — namely, because 
 the North vastly outnumbers the South in votes, and is 
 constantly increasing, and are all of that class antagonistic 
 to Southern labour. I don’t mean antagonistic to Southern 
 slave-labour, because it is not true that political economists 
 of the North can be opposed to slavery in the abstract ; it 
 is only in its temporary existence, because of its effects on 
 Northern interests, mainly connected with Northern pau- 
 pers, or the class corresponding to them in older countries. 
 The North, en masse, are as hostile to the white labour in 
 the South as they are to the black labour, just so far as 
 that white labour is efficient. They oppose the black 
 labour in loudest terms, only because black labour is the 
 most potent. I wish not to be misunderstood on this 
 point: I will, therefore, repeat what I desire to be clearly 
 understood, which is this — the North people of the 
 United States are not opposed to involuntary labour or 
 service, in the abstract. I care not what they think they 
 are, nor what they imagine their efforts tend to, or ought 
 to tend to. In all this they may be as blind as possible, 
 yet honestly so. But I mean to say that they cannot be, 
 at bottom, opposed to involuntary service, according to 
 certain fixed rules, for the reason that their whole efforts 
 to relieve the wants of those who are in distress, by reason 
 of free-competing labour, are directed (whether they know 
 it or not) to the substitution of this involuntary service 
 instead : hence, I say, I am quite sustained in asserting 
 that the opposition of the North to the existence and ex- 
 tension of the exclusively African slavery of the South, 
 measures the intensity of their underlying longing for 
 involuntary service in the abstract, and in some shape for 
 (the white as well as the black) man. Now, I am fully 
 aware that the Northern philanthropist would feel shocked 
 
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 at this remark ; but such is even the fact without his 
 feeling conscious of it. He looks over the surface; and, 
 urged on by the political economist from the old European 
 nations (who has escaped to this country to inaugurate his 
 revolution instead of in Europe), in this false idea of free- 
 competing labour, thinks that relief to the five paupers I 
 have mentioned, will come by the negro giving way to 
 him; hut this is false — relief will be only temporary, — hut 
 for a day. Just so soon as you fill up the State or city with 
 three times the number required to do the labour, then 
 comes the same competition, the same underbidding, to get 
 the work. Needlewomen, who at first received fifty cents 
 for making a shirt, because needlewomen were then scarce, 
 get but ten cents a shirt when the supply is filled, and 
 five over. But, say you, labourers will turn to various 
 other vocations ; so they will, but all vocations will soon 
 be filled ! Then what ? Why, then begins want, hunger, 
 crime, and poverty. Now, this does not result from the 
 large ljurnber of people : it results from mean, selfish com- 
 petition among them to out -reach, out-wit, and out-trade 
 their neighbours, by which the earnings which would 
 support all are concentrated into but few hands, which is 
 taught and inculcated by those political economists of 
 “ free-labour-competition-schools.” Then, you will ask 
 me, what will you have? Will you have slavery every- 
 where — as well white as black ? My answer is, I don’t 
 know what slavery is ; I don’t know what you mean by 
 the term “ slavery ; ” and, one reason is, because I don’t 
 know what liberty is. I parted with what our country 
 calls liberty when I entered the military service ; I also 
 parted with my power to pursue happiness in my own 
 way — I yielded all, and am now, and have been for some 
 time, the property of the President, who owns me, and 
 orders and directs me, through his agents and his over- 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 87 
 
 seers, as he thinks best for the good of all. Yet, I don’t 
 call myself a slave ; but I daily render involuntary ser- 
 vice — service that I cannot escape from, because, if I do, 
 some one else must take my place, which is the same 
 thing. True, I am paid a certain price (not for my ser- 
 vices, surely, because they are worth ten times what I 
 get), but a price merely to feed and clothe me, in order 
 that I may the better perform my duties for the President. 
 You kept me in a similar state of involuntary service for 
 twenty-one years, and paid me nothing but my feed and 
 clothes. Now, I am not defending the word slavery, for 
 I don’t know what it means, in the great field of labour 
 throughout the world ; but I am defending the just and 
 only practical relation of three-fourths of God’s creatures 
 to the other fourth, rendered reasonable, just, and humane 
 by God’s own laws of inferiority in size, mind, wit, moral 
 capacity, &c. ; and, on account of which, I denounce the 
 war, and the strife, the wickedness, and misery of free- 
 competing labour — alias, that the strong pluck the weak — 
 should cease. I should prefer some other word than 
 slavery. From my experience in a dependent service I 
 should give it the name of ‘‘ service of fraternity,” or, 
 <c service of safety and comfort;” for such it is, and always 
 will be, if the practical wants of mankind are consulted 
 in enacting laws to govern the lord towards his vassals. 
 
 Encroachments of this kind, and based on this false 
 idea of relief, will force the North over the South ; unless 
 the South take warning in time, and pursue the only 
 practical method to avert it. She is not doing this now, 
 and never has been. Her utter neglect of necessary 
 duties to prevent this, forms the other reason why the 
 North will succeed. The South is blindly contending for 
 abstract principles, at a period and in a country where 
 principles do not form the basis or motive for any action 
 
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 in Government legislation ! The world hath its periods, 
 since creation, as do the planets revolve. Practical appli- 
 cations of practical laws operate at one time ; theorems 
 versus practical rules operate at another. A confused, 
 misapplication of philosophy, which is not, but is sup- 
 posed to teach, utilitarianism, has full sway to-day in the 
 United States. It is not to fortify negro slavery which 
 the South should be employed at at this time. In another 
 letter I will say what she ought to be at. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 Sanantouia, Texas, December 30th, 1849. 
 
 I am here on a brief trip for special purposes, and avail 
 myself of the occasion to commit to paper my views on 
 the duties of the Southern people and States, rendered 
 doubly pressing by the grave aspect now presented in our 
 Federal Congress of sectional enmity. I have thought 
 over these relations seriously, and almost constantly ; not 
 in a spirit of prejudice, as you seem to think, but, if I 
 know my own heart, my view of the whole is without 
 bias or preference. 
 
 My last letter to you was dated June 30th, and from 
 Eagle Pass (one hundred and ninety-five miles west of 
 this). In closing that letter, I promised that in another 
 one I would point out more definitely the course the 
 Southern States should pursue. In the first place, let me 
 briefly call to your mind the substance of my letters for 
 the past two years. You will there find one leading idea 
 insisted on : namely, that the whole world is divided into 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 89 
 
 just two grand classes, which are antagonistic to each 
 other — first in spiritual affairs, and secondly in all tem- 
 poral affairs. Between these two classes there is, and 
 ever has been, a conflict ; sometimes of blood, and then 
 merely of ideas. But ever and anon we find, clearly 
 defined, two prevailing theories. I have also insisted on 
 the fact that this antagonistic element is coeval with 
 man’s creation, and is spiritual in fact; so that all tem- 
 poral disagreements are merely consequents, or means for 
 the one or the other to attain the mastery. I have placed, 
 as the most universal and constant of these means, or 
 elements of temporal disagreements, the vocations of men ; 
 and I found that only two vocations existed on earth pri- 
 marily ; and that to one or the other of these two voca- 
 tions belonged more or less intimately all sub-divisions, 
 or branch pursuits. One of these vocations was that of 
 husbandry, or agriculture in its broad and universal sense; 
 comprising all creatures on earth, in w T hatever clime, who 
 employ their time in cultivating the soil. The other class 
 I call either mechanical, or that of the artizan ; and in it 
 I include all other people not included in the first. The 
 first I have called those who create from the soil every- 
 thing required for the subsistence of man and beast, and 
 also everything out of which the artizan fabricates all of 
 his products. Hence, for simplicity of treatment, we will 
 say that the first class are exclusively employed in pro- 
 ducing the raw material, while the second class are 
 employed in transforming that material into the numerous 
 useful shapes for variable and varying society, and in 
 transporting the same wherever required. 
 
 Now, don’t let your mind fix itself down on any 
 speciality (as, for example, cotton, or tobacco, or hemp, 
 or timber) ; I don’t make any such limit, nor do I dis- 
 cover any such limit in the producer of raw material ; 
 
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 because the raw material of the ironfounder is as much 
 the product of the agriculturist as is hemp or cotton. So 
 also is the baling of cotton as much the work of the 
 artizan as is the spinning and the weaving it. Hence, 
 we will find at present in our time quite a mixture of the 
 two vocations — the same person doing a little of both 
 labours. But this is only an evidence of a very partial 
 blending of the two classes ; not by any means an union of 
 them, nor a harmony of action between them. I have 
 also said that we have in the United States, more than in 
 any other country, these antagonistic classes, assorted out, 
 classified, and (so to speak) located in different latitudes. 
 There is, actually, no intermarriage or mingling of the 
 races. Each household has remained aloof from the 
 other in all domesticities, and, as a consequence of this, 
 the ruling elements of antagonism have been left free to 
 accumulate most intense power of opposition. Not only 
 this, but both classes have been drawing to itself only 
 those intense members of its own class : that is to say, 
 the North and the South people, diametrically different from 
 each other, in the first settlement on this continent, settled 
 apart from each other and pursued different vocations ; 
 while each successive increase by emigration to either has 
 been from those extreme opposite classes from the Old 
 World. By this the South has received only that class of 
 its kind, and those of an extreme kind ; while the North 
 has been the asylum only for the extreme elements of its 
 kind, which consists of the religionists, freethinkers, and 
 religious revolutionists of every nation in Europe. Thus 
 it is, then, that our nation, composed of the most diverse 
 elements' on earth, are existing side by side, under a 
 paper bond, emblazoned on its pages, Fraternity ! This 
 imaginary bond has so far proved peaceful ; but there are 
 two other inscriptions now being written on that paper 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 91 
 
 by some of the extreme malcontents of France, Hungary, 
 Poland, and England, and Germany, who have arrived in 
 the North during the last half-century, which is to be the 
 finality of Fraternity ! and then, too, the finality of Union ! 
 These dreadful words, now being written, are “ Liberty ” 
 and “ Equality.” Tour paper bond will then be Fraternity, 
 Liberty, and Equality ! I have for years past, in all my 
 letters, tried to prove my high appreciation of the first of 
 these words — Fraternity. I love it. It is from Heaven, 
 one of the essential attributes of him who shall make safe 
 his calling and reach peace after this life. It is in the 
 Scriptures called Charity ; in temporal Government we 
 call it Fraternity. But I cannot see how it can exist 
 along with those other two words now being inscribed on 
 its door-post ! No, my dear father : I might as well 
 order my tailor to make a “ white-red-black coat/’ as to 
 demand that Fraternity, Liberty, and Equality should live 
 in the same household or in the same community. State, 
 or nation. The God of Heaven hath decreed otherwise, 
 in time and in eternity ! 
 
 If Equality exists, it is the potent means — even the 
 only means — whose sole mission is to destroy Fraternity; 
 and it does it with amazing rapidity. If Liberty exists, 
 which is utterly impossible, — yet, if the effort of man be 
 to produce equal liberty, then is he at war with his fellow- 
 man, with all creation, even with his Maker’s works ; for 
 He hath made men and angels, and all creatures and 
 things unequal, and, under classes and systems, subservient 
 to each other, while all are subject unto Kim. This effort 
 to force an unnatural equality is the ammunition to carry 
 on a war between antagonistic classes. It is covered, and 
 cloaked, and concealed ; it hath many stages to pass 
 through, but its end and aim is Dominion! It will fail! 
 But not without much effort, long suffering, and desola- 
 
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 tion. It is not new in the world ; it is only new in our 
 country. It hath always failed. So will it fail again ; but 
 not for some years, or decades yet to come. There is 
 now a war between the North people and the South people 
 of this nation ; and composed of the antagonistic elements 
 the same as exist in all nations, only they are more 
 thoroughly asserted, and hence more intensified here than 
 elsewhere. This war appears to be for this, for that, and 
 yet for another object. But these are only apparent 
 objects, not real. The motive is the same that hath led 
 step by step from a war of ideas to a war of blood ! So 
 it will here in the end. 
 
 But this war may be deferred. It may be postponed 
 or modified. The manner of doing this, in these United 
 States, now rests solely with the Southern people. I say 
 it rests solely with them, because nothing short of Divine 
 interposition can produce any relief from it in the North. 
 The North is hopelessly merged into a “religious demo- 
 cracy,” the elements of which are of the most extreme par- 
 tizan advocates of an impracticable, visionary, leveling of 
 dissimilar objects, and of blending antagonistic natures. 
 Hence, nothing that human power or skill can do, will 
 check or stay its course. But the South can modify, 
 check, and restrain this current by timely action. This 
 brings me to an unpleasant part of my subject, but a sub- 
 ject which must needs be dissected. I have, in the course 
 of previous letters, said much in commendation of Southern 
 vocation or agriculture ; and all I said I believe to be true. 
 But you must not suppose that I have nothing to com- 
 plain of. I have much ; and it is to correct the evils of 
 the same in the South that I now offer a few words of 
 advice, which I hope you will not fail to scatter broadcast. 
 The Southern people have been content to pursue the 
 agricultural vocation to the exclusion of everything else. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 93 
 
 This is wrong; and, unless it be speedily changed, will 
 prove their ruin. Agriculture is the simplest of all voca- 
 tions. It is the surest, yet slowest, to competency — 
 slowest, because it has to enrich all others while it secures 
 its own competency — the surest because it is peaceful and 
 never fails. But its exclusive pursuit in the South has 
 prevented the cultivation of any mechanical skill among 
 the people necessary to render tenfold valuable her agri- 
 cultural products. The wealth, therefore, which is in 
 the raw material annually produced, is extracted in the 
 Northern States or in Europe ! and the man who produces 
 that material out of Mother Earth only receives one 
 dollar, where the North or Europe receives five dollars ! 
 Why is not your cotton made into thread and cloth 
 where it is raised ? Why is not your tobacco prepared 
 in the States where it is produced ? Why are not your 
 ships and steamboats built along your sea-coast instead 
 of the timber now there being sent a thousand miles 
 North to be made into ships ? Why is not your sugar 
 refined where made, instead of in the North ? Why 
 not your hemp and flax made at once into rope, 
 instead of paying freight on the crude and more bulky 
 material ? Why not manufacture the ten thousand articles 
 of household comforts from the millions of acres of heavy 
 timber now surrounding you, instead of sending to the 
 North for all these ? Why not open the unlimited fields 
 of iron ore and coal beds, and make your iron ware, and 
 all articles of the iron class at home, instead of procuring 
 them in the North with high duties, and then pay freight 
 on them for a thousand miles. As it is, a bale of cotton 
 goes to Lowell at heavy cost of freight. It is there made 
 into thread, then marked with cost, profits, tariffs, and 
 then sent back to the very man who raised it to clothe his 
 family ! Just so with every other article I have men- 
 
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 tioned. Can you conceive of greater folly or stupidity? 
 ® till there is a deep, divine reason for this in first ele- 
 ments of nature ; namely, the social, easy, live and let 
 live nature of the husbandman. And if all the world 
 were governed by like fraternal feelings, then even this 
 stupid course might not be the worst; but, as human 
 nature now stands, it is the height of all folly. But this 
 is not all the evil, nor the half of it ; exclusive agricul- 
 ture prevents education, because there is nothing in it to 
 exhibit the necessity for it, and necessity alone will pro- 
 duce results among men in temporal wants. 
 
 I have before intimated that the purest civilisation is 
 that of the Christian agriculturist. Now I come to say 
 that it is also the lowest civilisation. This you may think 
 contradictory, but it is not. The most highly educated is 
 also the most highly civilised. They may not be the purest 
 Christians, but their civilisation is always far above that 
 of the exclusive agriculturist. Hence, I ask why are not 
 the South filled with schools — free to all — without price 
 and without stint ? No reason under the sun but that 
 the people confine themselves exclusively to the plough. 
 The consequence is the rich, and all who want educa- 
 tion, go off to other countries to get it ! and spend mil- 
 lions of money every four years elsewhere in sustaining 
 foreign Colleges which should have been spent near 
 at hand, where her whole population would receive the 
 benefit ! Not only so, but this exclusive agriculture — 
 preventing the mechanical entirely — deprives a certain 
 class in all communities from embarking in that species 
 of labour they really prefer and have a taste for ; and the 
 man who has surplus money to invest is forced to go 
 abroad to do it, instead of investing it at home in some 
 system of manufactories. 
 
 The result of all this folly is a constant drain on the 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 95 
 
 soil of the South to create five dollars worth of raw 
 material, only one dollar of which stops with the producer, 
 while four dollars lodge in a distant pocket ! and the 
 ploughman knows not education because he feels no need 
 of it ! 
 
 Now, that the South is in the condition I have pic- 
 tured, is notoriously true. You all know it. The North 
 knows it. The world knows it ; and it is this condition, 
 and the spirit and disposition of her people that sanctions 
 its continuance, which constitutes her extreme weakness 
 at this hour. 
 
 The Northern religious democracy say the South is in 
 her present condition because of “ Negro Slavery;” and a 
 large portion of the North people, plus the same element 
 of human nature in Europe, no doubt believe what they 
 say; yet this don’t make it true. I have shown that the 
 North, and her similar natures elsewhere, are as false in 
 theory as the South are in practice. The North say negro 
 slavery is the cause of the South’s present stand-still 
 condition in schools and mechanics. If they could be 
 induced to reason practically instead of falsely on this and 
 other governmental points they would see the error of 
 this. It would be more nearly correct to say that negro 
 slavery in the South is the result of the spirit and genius 
 of the Southern people. This is, in fact, true; and yet 
 there is no earthly connection between negro slavery and 
 want of schools, or want of mechanics. On the contrary, 
 negro slavery really favours both schools and mechanics 
 above all else. Because the heathen negro is fit only for 
 the plough (at present, and for a century to come), and 
 for the quiet domestic duties of the fireside ; hence, this 
 leaves all the whites free to attend schools, or to develop 
 their higher genius in the mechanical shops. Is this not 
 the plainest truth. Yes; but, says the North, negro 
 
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 slavery corrupts the whites, and degrades labour. This 
 you know, and all men in the South know, to be a mere 
 assertion without any truth. In fact, if it were true in 
 the South to day, it must have been true in ancient 
 periods, because slavery (not only of black but of all) was 
 the rule, and freedom to the few was the exception. Yet 
 we do not find that even white slaves made labour dis- 
 honourable, or white labourers degraded. Still less can 
 African slavery have this effect. 
 
 Who were the mechanics and artizans of Rome and 
 Athens ? whom even inventive North and inventive Europe 
 only partially imitate to-day ! Down on such nonsense ! 
 That negro slavery degrades white labour in the South is 
 as false as hell, and is known to be so by the shrewd par- 
 tizan of the North who utters it. But it is not known to 
 be false by nineteen out of twenty of his deluded, anxious, 
 striving followers, whose morsel to eat, and that of his 
 family, depends on his underbidding his neighbour in 
 work of c ' free competition.” So far from negro slavery 
 in the South degrading white labour, the reverse is true, 
 as millions of white men can testify who follow their 
 ploughs daily. Your father never owned one, yet he 
 followed his plough and defended negro slavery. You, 
 his son, and seven other sons, who never owned a negro, 
 have followed your ploughs in summer, and divided your 
 time between the bar and the pulpit the rest of the year ; 
 yet you all bear testimony to the fact that negro slavery in 
 the South does not degrade labour nor the whites, but 
 elevates them. No ! it is not negro slavery which degrades 
 the whites of the South. In the first place, the whites in 
 the South are not degraded; and he who utters it falsifies 
 truth. It is a puritanical assertion for puritanical pur- 
 poses. But the Southern white masses were thrown into 
 a wide, extended country — a perfect wilderness, and with 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT 
 
 97 
 
 no means of communicating with each other, or with the 
 more advanced portion of the world. They were, as a 
 general thing, poor people, little else than a Christain 
 faith to begin with, and they have failed to avail them- 
 selves of all the necessary means to make their labour as 
 productive as their enemies and rivals have done. This 
 has resulted, mainly, because they permitted the natural 
 effects of a purely agricultural life to lull them into an 
 indifference to matters of education. Here is the root of 
 the evil. Want of education degrades labour everywhere. 
 Nothing else that I know of does degrade labour, except 
 ignorance. I know of no conventionalities of a domestic 
 kind in all my travels or reading or observation, which 
 degrades labour, excepting it be ignorance ; and I think it 
 will be difficult for the partizan leader of the North, or any 
 other country, to show, truthfully, that slavery is, or can 
 be, the cause of a lack of schools. The want of schools 
 in the South is traceable to other causes, perfectly indepen- 
 dent of slavery, and causes which would have existed if no 
 slavery had been there. The want of schools and colleges 
 is a burning shame and a disgrace to the Southern people. 
 I am prepared to defend the South in everything on earth 
 that relates to principle, honour, integrity, and high moral 
 Christianity ; but in her gross dereliction to education I 
 cannot defend her. I will denounce her statesmen, her 
 judges, her divines, and her Governors without stint, and 
 severely, for this great crime. The want of education of 
 her masses of whites is dragging her down daily and annu- 
 ally, because it prevents her embarking more in manu- 
 factures. This lack of schools is attributed to wrong 
 causes, namely, slavery — which, though a false cause, is 
 yet one in which the great mass of destitute “free com- 
 peting labourers ” will lay hold of, as the drowning man 
 does the straw, especially when urged so to do by the 
 
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98 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 reckless partizan leader, and “ religious enthusiast ” full to 
 overflowing of “Red Republican France ” and “Infidel 
 Germany.” 
 
 Therefore it is, I say to the South — first, cease your 
 effort, in and out of Congress, to defend negro slavery. 
 It needs no defence ; God will take care of that. Cease 
 your effort to get slave territory ; that will also come 
 naturally. These are all false points of attack, and are 
 threatened only as a means, not the end. Let the South 
 go to work at once, as one man, in establishing schools 
 and colleges, in building up her manufactories. Cease 
 spending your money in the North, and in Europe; 
 convert all your available ready money into machinery, 
 and two or three entire crops of your farms into means of 
 putting it into working order at home. Educate, and make 
 mechanics and navigators of your whites, while your 
 blacks follow the plough. Apposition (false as it is) to 
 negro slavery will at once cease. This falsehood, that 
 negro slavery retards your progress, has been drummed 
 into your ears so long by designing men, that half of you 
 have really got to believe it, whereas your difficulty is 
 in something else. In all I say, I am not advocating 
 especially negro slavery; certainly not that in its present 
 shape. It has evils, but they can only be corrected by 
 education of the whites. A certain amount of education 
 among the negroes will make them far more valuable and 
 happy than at present ; but this cannot be done till the 
 whites are far more advanced in education than they are. 
 If the South will do this, then will they demonstrate the 
 truth and efficacy of representative liberal Government. 
 If they fail to do it, then will the North destroy what you 
 now have, in one rabid “religious Democracy.” “What- 
 ever may appear to be the side issues brought forward from 
 time to time in this country, yet the great conflict to be 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 99 
 
 waged henceforth is a conflict between enlightened, cautious 
 representative Government, on the one side (South), against 
 a leveling Democracy, or a religious Rationalism, on the 
 other side (North), the primitive elements of which are 
 antagonisms of nature, but the means for which are any 
 and all expediencies which may be at hand, in each 
 succeeding stage of its progress. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 Oak Grove, Tennessee, July 15, 1846. 
 
 I received your letter of the 4th instant, and was glad 
 to hear of your health and safe arrival. But I am not 
 pleased at the views you express concerning our Govern- 
 ment. Sometimes I fear you are too simple to be so 
 far from home. Your Utopian notion of races, and the 
 “ antagonism of races,” is an old falsehood which will 
 never fail to have half-witted people to defend it. But I 
 am grieved to think I have a son so short-sighted as to 
 sympathise with such absurdities. Still more grieved to 
 have one who can think so unworthily of his sires for 
 having laboured in a long war to establish, and then in a 
 second war, to perpetuate free Government. Time and 
 experience, mixed with more study, will remove these 
 clouds from your mind, and I shall have the pleasure of 
 reading a recantation of all this from you at some future 
 time. Meantime, see to it that you don’t fail to perform 
 your whole duties as an officer of that Government in 
 which you appear to have little confidence of success. 
 Although I wish some other than the military profession 
 had claimed your attachment, still, like many other things, 
 
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100 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 the military is a necessary evil, and while I have no very 
 high opinion of military men as a class, I hope they are 
 more weak than wicked. I was in the War of 1812, and 
 from good cause I formed the worst possible opinion of the 
 head and heart of some who commanded over me, one of 
 whom you now have in New Orleans (Gaines). I hope 
 the fraternity has improved in the interim, and that long 
 before your period for a final disruption of all our Govern- 
 ment, we will have little or no use for your class of officers. 
 As you say, your apprehensions of future troubles lie in 
 the remote elements of men’s natures, I hope in your 
 dissertations you will not fail to go back far enough to 
 • f begin at the beginning,” so that as I progress I will 
 know that I have done with the subject. 
 
 Your grandfather is quite feeble— approaches his hun- 
 dred years. He bids me say, that he fears your military 
 studies have had the effect to warp your ideas of popular 
 Government. In fact, this is one of the evils of a military 
 institution. The military to be useful must be tyrannical, 
 hence the anti-liberal notions engendered. You must 
 resist this. Cherish the great virtue in Government of 
 the popular voice, which is after all the only rule of 
 Government, because it is the voice of those alone who 
 are to be governed. Write me often, even though you 
 persist in boring me with nonsense. 
 
 Affectionately, 
 
 J. C. Turnley. 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 Oak Grove, May 20, 1847. 
 
 Yours of 15th ultimo from Vera Cruz came duly to hand, 
 and gave me the first information of your sickness ; but I 
 am much gratified that it also contains the information that 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 101 
 
 you were recovering. I hope, ere this reaches you, that 
 you will be sufficiently well to visit New Orleans, and 
 will thence consider it both a pleasure and a duty to 
 extend your trip home. It is now nearly five years since 
 we have seen you. Your grandfather is even more anxious 
 to see you than the rest of us, if possible ; while his great 
 age scarce gives promise that he can count on living to 
 see you at any very distant day, I do hope, therefore, 
 that you will run up the river as far as Nashville, thence 
 in stage to this place. From the sickness you have had, 
 it is highly improper (if avoidable) for you to remain in 
 that prostrating climate during a long hot summer. Thirty 
 days up in this mountain air will do more to re-establish 
 your health and strength then a whole summer in New 
 Orleans. 
 
 I have received, and read with much interest, your 
 several letters on the “ political antagonism ” existing in 
 the United States, &c. Some of your views I agree with, 
 but some others I think are very crude, and scarce con- 
 taining anything warranting an application to our national 
 affairs. The fact is, I am at a loss to understand 
 whether you really entertain serious fears of difficult}', 
 or whether you only want to vent your feelings of 
 aversion to Democracy ; if the latter, it will readily 
 account for your laboured effort to abuse it ; but if the 
 former, then I scarce think your fears will ever be 
 realized. I feel no little pride in having contributed, in 
 the last War, to the aid of establishing the rights 
 claimed under our present Constitution ; so did all your 
 uncles participate in the same, while your grandfather 
 (now living, to read your letters) took an active part in the 
 late and the first Revolution. It is needless, therefore, for 
 me to say that none of us agree with you in your expressed 
 views of imminent dangers in the future. It may be true 
 
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 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 that people of diverse characters and natures settled this 
 country, and all participated in the formation of our 
 present form of Government ; yet, there cannot be any 
 conflict of interest, still less of habits and manners, as I 
 think which will warrant serious apprehensions for the 
 future. Your great grandfather held much the same 
 views you do, and even considered it his duty not to 
 resist the laws and commands of the King and Parlia- 
 ment ; but it was not because he failed to appreciate a just 
 cause of complaint. It was because he had taken an oath, 
 when leaving Liverpool for the New Country, that he 
 “ would never take up arms against the Sovereign,” &c. 
 Hence, as was natural, he endeavoured to excuse himself 
 on the plea that all grievances could be more easily re- 
 dressed in peace than in revolution. And in this he was 
 certainly right. But, as you have rightly said, it was the 
 design of the Colonies not to ask for a remedy under the 
 old Government, but to establish a new Government, de 
 facto. I think we improved vastly on the English Govern- 
 ment. As a further proof of it, we have lived to see the 
 English Government amazingly modified by the example 
 we set them. Remove a few grievous errors still existing 
 in that Government, and I could wish that ours possessed 
 some of its more stable characteristics ; still, I feel no 
 doubt but that those who made ours can always preserve 
 it. It was not formed in Revolution, as you and some 
 others have intimated ; it was fully organized and put in 
 motion after the Revolution — in calmness, wisdom, and 
 deliberation. It is not an absolute Government, but one 
 of specific, well-defined, and divided powers. The States 
 are the units of the national Government , and as such 
 delegated certain powers (not uncertain nor indefinite 
 powers, as you would imply). All uncertain or indefinite 
 powers were, and are, lodged with the respective States. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 103 
 
 These reserved powers are not the same either; but 
 vary in extent and character, as do the several States vary 
 in habits and manners, and can be exercised by the several 
 States within their limits in a sovereign capacity, save and 
 except only that such exercise must not run counter to 
 the grants in the Federal Constitution, and the laws passed 
 under it: hence, laws passed by the Federal Congress, 
 regardless of that Constitution, are void; and, in order 
 that all the States may have an uniform mode of ascer- 
 taining this fact, a supreme court is organised under that 
 same Constitution, whose powers and functions are re- 
 stricted also to the simple action of deciding the question 
 when brought before them. They do not go round to 
 hunt up questions — they merely act when the question is 
 carried to them : hence, when that Constitution is so 
 express in its own powers and limitations, and a special 
 court has been created for no other purpose than to 
 explain it, surely I fail to see the point of “ antagonism ” 
 in our political organisation, whatever may be in your 
 “ classes of mankind.” “ Government,” in the true sense 
 of the term, on this Continent was commenced, and has 
 been carried on, always, in States — not as a national one. 
 The practical and theoretical workings of all civil Govern- 
 ment in this country, I repeat, is a purely State affair. 
 The national feature is an after agreement, and for a 
 specific purpose only, and, I will add, a very limited pur- 
 pose, and which is too well defined for any State, or 
 number of States, to attempt to overstep the limit. 
 
 However, when you arrive here, we will talk over 
 these matters more fully. Until then, at least, we are all 
 safe. 
 
 Affectionately, 
 
 J. C. Turnley. 
 
104 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Washington, November 30th, 1852. 
 
 Yours of October 30th ult. has been read, and I 
 avail myself of the first leisure moment to reply. I feel, 
 as you do, full of apprehension concerning our political 
 relations ; and I know that my heart inclines to do all I 
 can to avert the evils threatened. But what can he done ? 
 This is the question. If we had only to meet ordinary 
 difficulties it were easy ; but we have to meet extra- 
 ordinary ones. If we only had to provide for our 
 political necessities, with all hearts disposed to acquiesce 
 in “ well enough,” then could we readily see our way 
 clear ; but, as it is, a large portion have their hearts 
 turned to revolution, no matter what may he the patriot’s 
 action. I have already tried my utmost to have the old 
 compromise line of 1820 extended, first to the Rio 
 Grande, then to the Pacific ; but it was voted down by 
 the very party who opposed strongest its first adoption in 
 1821 ! This, you will say, is extraordinary. I say so, 
 too ; but it is true, and only proves how perverse, how 
 wicked the hearts of some among us are ! My plan now 
 is to bring forward a Bill to repeal altogether that com- 
 promise. This is what you suggest. I have tried the 
 extension of it, and have failed. I am now for its repeal. 
 It was a compromise of principle in the Constitution in 
 the first place, which was wrong; yet it was acquiesced in, 
 and for that reason I was willing to continue it. But I 
 am met in my efforts by the most violent opposition from 
 Northern fanatics ; so I will try to remove altogether the 
 question, and we will thus very soon be able to give form 
 and chai’acter to the extensive domain you refer to. It 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 105 
 
 is large enough for three or four territories, and we will 
 certainly make two, or perhaps three, out of it in the 
 first place. 
 
 I received your previous letter on the subject of 
 Commercial Power versus Agricultural Extension, and 
 I am quite of your opinion. I do not believe that 
 those people who are so loud in their opposition to 
 slavery are honest. I do not believe that they really 
 dislike slavery per se. On the contrary, I am frank 
 to confess that they appear to me more and more every 
 day as the covert, sly enemies to white men’s liberties, 
 far more than they are friends to negro’s freedom. The 
 misfortune is, too few among us thus closely watch their 
 designs ; and the danger is, they will get power, under 
 false pretences, when it will be too late to prevent the 
 ruin they have fully meditated on the country. I do not 
 find all of these elements of destruction from the North ! 
 I find some of the most cunning, subtle, and treacherous 
 of them to be from the so-called Slave States originally. 
 These men are more to be watched than all others, 
 because they are false as hell, and have their hands ready 
 to receive their price ! Illinois has several of this class ; 
 so has Missouri, and Kentucky. 
 
 My efforts have always been, and will continue to be, 
 for the best. I have no guide but my heart and my 
 judgment. I had rather be the means of averting the 
 dreadful calamities we both see and dread, than to hold 
 all the offices under Government. Any honest man can 
 perform the duties of office ; but it takes also sagacity, 
 effort, courage, and faith, to meet the enemies of popular 
 Government. By this I mean the enemies to our plain 
 Constitutional Government. You justly remark that we 
 have no Government outside of the Constitution; and if 
 that durst be violated with impunity, and persisted in, 
 
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 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 then are all parties who come together under it absolved 
 from further adherence to the Government. As to how 
 far such violations should be borne before a withdrawal 
 by States, I cannot say. This will of necessity depend on 
 the feelings of those who suffer by the breach of faith. 
 I could hope, however, (and I feel sure such will be the 
 action), that a call for a general Convention of all the 
 States will precede any hasty action by separate States. 
 This would rouse the latent patriotism in the North to 
 strangle at once the enemies to Constitutional Govern- 
 ment, who have been permitted to grow and increase 
 unmolested the last half-century. 
 
 The South is certainly becoming very weary of aboli- 
 tion flings at their States and their domestic relations. 
 Still, I have confidence in their patriotism to suffer it still 
 longer ; for I do believe the Southern people, rich and 
 poor, are the most devoted people to Constitutional 
 
 Government on earth. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 S. A. Douglass. 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 New York, September 1st, 1852. 
 
 My Dear Father, — 
 
 My last letter (dated on the extreme frontiers of 
 Texas the past summer) scarcely intimated that I would 
 so soon be addressing you from this metropolis. How- 
 ever, thus uncertain are all our goings and comings. 
 I have availed myself of the opportunity to revisit the 
 national school at West Point, and as I wrote you from 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 107 
 
 New Orleans to try and meet me here, I was in hopes you 
 could have done so; because I was exceedingly anxious 
 that you might visit also that valuable military school. 
 West Point has its enemies as well as its friends; and 
 what is strange, its bitterest enemies are those living in 
 the old Eastern states, whose young men have received the 
 greatest advantages from that school ! This is truly a 
 strange feature, and is difficult to explain. You, at one 
 time, felt some little enmity to that institution, but finally 
 yielded to Jackson’s reasons for its support, and I believe 
 you have ever since been found defending it. Some op- 
 pose that institution on one ground, some on another ; 
 but the most usual grounds of objection put forward are 
 that it is expensive, aristocratic in its tendencies, and 
 fosters an established military system not friendly to the 
 national militia. AVill you excuse me, now, if I express 
 the conviction in my mind that this dislike to the national 
 school springs from the spirit of “progressive Democracy” 
 now so rapidly overrunning the -whole Northern and North- 
 eastern States, and which is the poison destined to ruin 
 this country. Whatever the retired citizens of these 
 United States may think on the subject, I know I can 
 speak for the thousands who have received diplomas from 
 it when I assert that it is pre-eminently a national and 
 nationalising institution. Without it there would cer- 
 tainly be much room to fear the effects of separate State 
 military schools in the future ; but with its nationalising 
 influences spread broad cast over the whole country by its 
 constantly receiving graduates representing every State in 
 the Union, all fears of State schools are at once banished. 
 West Point demonstrates most effectually its national 
 character in the unmistakable effect on the minds of all 
 young men who receive there their education. Not only 
 so, but that school also gives the most wonderful proof 
 
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 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 of the sad, sad character of most of the systems of educa- 
 tion now extant throughout the country. The Northern 
 States stand to-day pre-eminent, in public estimation, for 
 their wide-spread system of mental education ; yet it has 
 most glaring defects when brought to the test of West 
 Point proficiency ; and while it thus exposes a great 
 defect in the education of the intellect, it shows a still 
 greater defect in the education of the heart in the present 
 schools of the North. On the other hand, as tested by 
 West Point, the South is tenfold more deficient in her 
 education of the intellect, yet more efficient in that of the 
 heart. One-half of all the Southern and South-western 
 young men fail at West Point because of a deficiency in 
 early education ; this deficiency being the direct result of 
 no system of home schools. On the other hand, those 
 from the North are over-crammed with a purely mental 
 culture, by rote, by the book, and by rule. These ruinous 
 defects only become apparent to the close observer when 
 all sides are brought together at this national school. 
 The nation will receive a great wound the day partizan 
 leaders succeed in abolishing West Point ; not only in a 
 political sense, but in a moral and genuine scholastic 
 system of education. If the North would dispense with 
 one-half of the present hot-bed, forced culture of the 
 mind or intellect, and give more attention to the moral 
 and to the cultivation of the hearts of youths, and the 
 South would quadruple the efficiency of her home schools, 
 the country would be in safer hands ere long. 
 
 While on this subject (of education), I will recall to 
 your mind what I said in previous letter last year touch- 
 ing the matter of education in the South. I there stated 
 that the great lack of education in nearly all of the South 
 was a burning shame ; that every white child ought to be 
 not only supplied with a complete education free, but 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 109 
 
 each and every one ought to be compelled by statute to 
 receive the same. 
 
 But, it is proper for me to say that I do not recom- 
 mend the system of mental culture in the South, which 
 obtains now in the North; on the contrary, very much of 
 that extant in the North should be avoided. The North 
 directs too much to specialities — too much to special 
 vocations, with a view to a specific profession, or trade. 
 This may do very well for any one trade, but, by exclud- 
 ing so much else, it becomes very injurious to the body 
 politic. Besides, from the greater opportunities which the 
 whites in the South have for going to school, they ought, 
 as a mass, to become more thoroughly educated. With 
 all the boasted perfection of the system for education in 
 the North, I think I see something very wrong. It is not 
 unusual to find young men in the North who have been 
 going to school from five years old to eighteen or twenty ; 
 yet they are scarcely equal in education to our greatest 
 men, who could only attend school three months in the 
 year for five years. It appears to me evident that respite 
 from books, by other labour, is very necessary; but this 
 is difficult in the North, where there is nothing for such 
 class to do. Not so in the South. Agriculture is universal, 
 and actually supplies, at one’s home, all the advantages of 
 manual-labour-schools, where boys can pursue their 
 farming in summer, and their books (in free schools) in 
 autumn and winter. The North violates her progressive 
 Democracy theory, in this matter of education, by remov- 
 ing it from “ do as you please ” — vox populi doctrine — 
 and making it a matter of State law and authority. The 
 South violates her law and order theory, by leaving educa- 
 tion ec to whom can,” and “ do as you please.” The South 
 must change this to a matter of State requirement. We 
 live in the world for nothing, if we go out as ignorant as 
 
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 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 we came in. The purely agriculturist will do this, unless 
 he be forced to education in the first place : once thoroughly 
 started, however, it will thrive on its own productions. 
 Education will at once beget a spirit of mechanical in- 
 quiry, which will be the very field to absorb the surplus 
 white talent in the manufacturing shops, iron founderies, 
 and sea-going labour. The South has always left this to 
 chance : if she continues to do so much longer she is gone. 
 I alluded to this in my letter on manufactories in the 
 South, and need not here repeat it. Further, then, to say 
 that the Southern people will be poor until they cease 
 sending away the raw material of their farms, to be made 
 up in distant States or nations. I know your panacea for 
 all this is free trade : I am also for free trade, but for this 
 purpose. I am not for free trade as a remedy for the 
 poverty of a purely agricultural people : it will never bring 
 any relief. The relief it brings is only temporary, and 
 that to the few cunning ones, who can take advantage 
 of it; 
 
 It matters not to what nation you pay duties, if you 
 continue to pay. High tariffs, in our country, favours 
 home manufacturers, by enabling Eastern mills to work 
 up the raw material. Cut off this tariff, and the only 
 difference is, the raw material would not go East, but 
 would go direct to Europe. True, you would, for a time 
 only, receive a little more of made articles for your raw 
 material. You might get a little more railroad-iron for a 
 bale of cotton, or a few more bolts of prints for a hogshead 
 of tobacco. But even this would soon be taken advantage 
 of by that more distant manufacturing community you 
 dealt with. No ; the only remedy — the only safety of a 
 purely agricultural community, is in making up her raw 
 material closer at home, “ where the soil which produced it 
 will receive back the ‘dung’ requisite to reproduce the 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Ill 
 
 same article.” You then get your five dollars among the 
 home people, instead of one. Your bedsteads, wash- 
 stands, ploughs, wagons, carriages, coaches, are made 
 from the timber round you, and by your own surplus 
 white mechanical skill; while your cotton which was 
 picked yesterday, is put into thread or cloth without even 
 baling ! Your railroad-iron is being made almost along 
 the very route where it is to be laid, and not brought from 
 Pennsylvania nor yet from Liverpool. All this would 
 follow speedily were a moderate number of the wealthy men 
 in the South to start up their own manufactories. Do you 
 tell me that means are wanting? Then, I ask, where is 
 your annual exports of two hundred millions of dollars ? 
 How many men are there in each State worth half a 
 million of dollars, one half of which, at least, could — 
 without even temporary detriment to his business — be at 
 once invested in manufacturing ? But the will is wanting ! 
 That is all. The day will come when the people of the 
 South will see, either their folly in neglecting this, or else 
 the necessity of going at it. 
 
 But I have wandered quite off from the subject I 
 began to write about. To return to that, I will make one 
 more remark, which is — that the fictitious, poisonous, and 
 false education of the intellect in the North, and the utter 
 want of education in the South, is fast ruining this nation ; 
 because it is placing the political existence of the nation 
 in the hands of the destructive revolutionists of all Euro- 
 pean nations — who come here because they can’t practise 
 their destruction at home ! 
 
 Affectionately, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
112 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 Salt Lake City, Utah, May 30th, 1860. 
 
 Dear Father, 
 
 I am very thankful for your kind offer, in applying 
 to Mr. Floyd for a leave for me, useless as such application 
 is at the present time, and especially for me ; Floyd 
 evidently identifies me with the “ chief ” in this territory, 
 and hence considers me his special enemy ; and, however 
 false this supposition, still, it will have the same effect ; I 
 have forwarded my resignation, and shall wait till my 
 successor arrives, and relieves me of all property and 
 money. I will then quit a service which has about ceased 
 to be honourable. I hope that Mr. Floyd will at least order 
 all my accounts to be closed, and accept my resignation. 
 The political clouds on the horizon suggests to every 
 military man the propriety of freeing himself, without 
 delay, from all cumbersome surroundings, so as to be free 
 to choose such course of action as events may require. I 
 am sorry that the people in Tennessee are so stupid, luke- 
 warm, or indifferent ; they seem to neither care nor think 
 of those difficulties in the future, which I have so often 
 alluded to in my letters for the past ten years. 
 
 By the way, have you read the recent speech of that 
 man, Mr. H. Seward, of New York? If not, you should 
 read it at once, and let every man read it who has a speck 
 of common honesty. No honest mind can read it without 
 seeing the cunning, and dark and damnable scheme at the 
 bottom, and in fact, a full, complete, and perfect pro- 
 gramme for the destruction of the American Government, 
 such as I wrote you about from Nebraska in 1856 and 
 1857- 
 
 It will be refreshing for you people in Tennessee, who 
 follow your ploughs, and all other daily labour, to hear 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 113 
 
 Mr. Seward call you Capital States, and in the next breath 
 call the New England States Labour States. I think this 
 is certainly the most transparent libel on truth that a 
 shrewd man has ever been foolish enough to utter. Still, 
 Seward has the Puritans with him ; and, because of 
 Puritan capital holding the meat and bread of millions in 
 the North in their own coffers, these millions have no 
 other alternative but to fall in with Seward’s false theory, 
 and train in his company. 
 
 When one looks over the South, and seeks in vain to 
 find any capital whatever, hut meeting nothing, save labour 
 at every turn, every hearthstone and cottage, truly may 
 we wonder that the very opposite should be asserted of 
 that poor country. Still more strange is it, that, with 
 nothing but capital in the Puritan States (including a large 
 part of New York and Pennsylvania), the same man should 
 assert that those States are “ Labour States.” God save 
 the ignorant, I say, in these “last days” (as Brigham 
 Young says) ! 
 
 Mr. Seward and Co. mean to destroy the Government 
 of the United States, for he has said so, in social conver- 
 sation, a score of times, and he will effect it ultimately. 
 The very blanket with which he covers his work is this 
 profession of love for it. 
 
 I had prepared a condensed description of the Mor- 
 mons and Utah, which I designed for your information ; 
 but press of business has prevented me from finishing it 
 entirely ; besides, there is at present (or has been) so 
 much morbid curiosity, mixed with so much ill feeling, 
 throughout the country, in regard to Mormonism, in Utah, 
 that I thought I would let the manuscript lay over till the 
 public mind became more calm. I shall, however, try to 
 finish it up, and let you have it. I don’t suppose that one 
 in a thousand in Tennessee ever heard of a Mormon, or 
 
 x 
 
114 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 has the most distant idea of what the fraternity consists 
 of. All this you and they (as many as care to read it) 
 will learn from my few pages on the subject, which shall 
 be forthcoming in a few weeks more. It is short, and to 
 the point; avoids personal opinions, excepting as to a few 
 points: gives the character of that “ class ” which com- 
 pose the “Mormons.” This must needs bring into it 
 “religious classes,” which (in the United States) compels 
 one to class them in a political light. You will, no doubt, 
 take issue with me, in some of this classification, but you 
 have done this so often, that I have become quite used 
 to it. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Pakmenas. 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 Omoho City, Nebraska, August 25, 1855. 
 
 * * * # * * 
 
 I wrote last month of the organisation in the Eastern 
 States for the purpose of driving all Southern agricul- 
 turists out of this and Kansas territories. This organi- 
 sation is being rapidly perfected, and is on a most 
 extensive scale. I have met several of the leaders of this 
 party and they are being rapidly and amply supplied with 
 all the means — both in money and arms ! An old scoun- 
 drel, by name of Brown, with several sons or nephews, 
 from some interior county of New York, heads the 
 crowd; and a large number of Puritan Congressmen, and 
 half a-dozen Senators, and a dozen preachers are the local 
 resident agents in the Eastern States to collect contribu- 
 tions of money, arms, &c.. and forward the same to this 
 frontier! Take it altogether it is the most serious and 
 extensive revolutionary organisation I have yet known of. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 115 
 
 Its object purports to be on behalf of the negro, but I 
 have learnt enough about it to know that it is really for 
 plunder and robbery on the frontiers of Missouri and 
 Arkansas, and to extend to Texas. It is a kind of a John 
 Murrel* organisation on a large scale, with Eastern Sena- 
 tors and preachers to back it up. Some person or persons 
 in East Tennessee, near to you, are also members of this 
 infernal band. I can’t learn who he is, but he is a metho- 
 dist preacher, or exhorter, and lives in or near Knoxville ; 
 from all I learn, however, I think he is not a native of 
 that State, but comes from some New England State ; I 
 wish I could learn who he is.f Holding out to the unsus- 
 pecting the idea of philanthropy, while, in fact, it is to 
 steal and rob, and ultimately to revolutionise the Govern- 
 ment. My advice to all Southern people, whether negro 
 owners or not, would be not to emigrate to Nebraska nor 
 Kansas. In the first place, not one-half of them will like 
 the country ; and, in the next place, it will not be a quiet 
 and agreeable region to live in for many years to come. 
 
 I will here repeat what I have said for ten years, 
 namely : the Southern people are fooling themselves in 
 contending for constitutional rights in their negroes, 
 because their opponents and enemies in the North know 
 just as well as do the South all about these constitutional 
 rights. But they don’t care a farthing for such rights, nor 
 for the Constitution either. Neither do they care, really, 
 to free negroes. What they want to do is to revolutionise 
 the American Government so as to strike a blow at 
 Southern agriculturists, and get more control of Northern 
 labourers and artificers, no matter whether they be negro- 
 owners or the followers of their own ploughs. I know 
 
 * John Murrell is known, in Mississippi history, as the Great 
 Land Pirate. He died in the States prison in Nashville, Tennessee. 
 
 t Perhaps Horace Maynard. 
 
116 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 you have different views ; but I know better than you do, 
 because I have been sixteen years among the Northern 
 Puritans and the emigrants from foreign countries, all of 
 whom are of the radical revolutionary kind, and I have made 
 it my business to learn quietly all about them. This old 
 man Brown and his clan, consisting of his sons, and a fellow 
 named Stevens or Stevenson, another named Cook, and 
 Thompson, besides half-a-dozen more, have a secret 
 rendezvous in Iowa, some fifty miles below here, and 
 they are already doing much mischief. Brown has a regular 
 correspondence with wealthy men in the East. Old Gerrit 
 Smith, of New York, is really his agent. I am on very 
 good terms (on the sly) with some of these infernal scoun- 
 drels, and therefore learn a great deal about their affairs 
 and designs, which I would not get if they for a moment 
 suspected my true sentiments. 
 
 I communicate this to you to be used for the benefit 
 of innocent emigrants to Kansas from your section of 
 Tennessee, and, also, for the true interest of the Govern- 
 ment. However, you think that I am a sensationist, and 
 therefore you must wait the advent of things before you 
 can credit my views. This you will see before long. In the 
 meantime, I wish to God the Southern people would cease 
 to even mention the word negro, and would at once go to 
 work to prepare themselves — in every State — to defend 
 and protect, not negro slavery alone, but their homes and 
 firesides ! The time will come when the Christian people 
 of the South will be most glad to be able to do that — and 
 let the African go to destruction if needs be. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 117 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 March 14th, 1854. 
 
 4 = * 
 
 Politically, the country (as you must see) is in no 
 very promising condition. You will have seen by pro- 
 ceedings in Congress, that Mr. Douglass, in January last, 
 as Chairman of Committee on Territories, reported a 
 Bill for the organisation of the Territories of Nebraska. 
 On the 23rd of same he offered another, making two 
 territories — one called “ Nebraska/ 5 the other to be called 
 “ Kansas. 55 The latter, Kansas, is west of the Missouri 
 River, east of Arkansas, and runs out nearly to the Platt 
 River, but terminates at the junction of the Platt River 
 with the Missouri River. Nebraska begins at the mouth of 
 the Platt River, and extends up, on the west side of the 
 Missouri River, indefinitely. Kansas is a fertile region of 
 country, and a good climate ; Nebraska is good soil (on 
 the Missouri River, and other smaller streams), a most 
 healthy, but is a cold climate. Few, if an}', from the 
 South will care to emigrate there ; but they will, no 
 doubt, like that of Kansas. I have been all over both 
 regions of country, and am perfectly familiar with the 
 character of water, soil, timber, grass, &c., and will gladly 
 give to those desiring it, all requisite information. 
 
 Much difficulty awaits the country in the future as to 
 negro serfage and freedom in these territories. Mr. 
 Douglass has tried to avoid this for ten years : first he 
 tried to extend that old Missouri compromise line of 1821 
 to the Rio Grande, when we acquired Texas ; but the 
 Northern Puritans prevented it. Douglass then tried to 
 
118 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 extend the same to the Pacific, at the time we acquired 
 California by treaty with Mexico, some time in 1848 or 
 1849. The same Puritan element prevented it. Finally, 
 as California, New Mexico, and Utah, had to be organised 
 in some way or shape, Douglass assented to some legisla- 
 tion in 1850 and 1852 (for New Mexico and Utah), which 
 really abrogates the old Missouri compromise ! This was 
 not discovered by the Puritans till very recently ; and 
 Douglass, in his late Bill, in order to set everything like a 
 misunderstanding out of the question, expressly annuls 
 that old Act, and thus leaves the people of these new 
 territories to decide the matter of negro serfage or no 
 serfage, as they think fit. This, of course, is opposed by 
 all the Puritans on, so-called, holy grounds; while, also, 
 some Southern Churchmen oppose it because of fear that 
 it may produce trouble. The Puritans here denounce 
 Douglass in the most bitter terms ; have burned him in 
 effigy; posted dirty handbills in the streets; call his two 
 children negro babies you will recollect his wife, now 
 dead, was a North Carolinian. 
 
 1. ou have no idea of the venom and intense hatred of 
 a Puritan. I will not attempt to describe it. If you 
 have failed to see any of it in my previous letters these 
 ten )ears, it were idle for me now to attempt to describe 
 it. Suffice it to say, that the Southern people will know 
 it by experience before another decade is past ! 
 
 But I am sorry to see Southern Christians thrown off 
 their guard so far as to be defending their rights to take 
 negro serfs into territories. By this they are burning 
 daylight, and only strengthening the Puritans. Besides 
 nearly all the German revolutionists are now falling into 
 the Puritan ranks. The Southern Churchmen were blind, 
 ver y blind, when they came to the rescue of foreigners, 
 and opposed the secret order of “ Know Nothings” or 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 119 
 
 native Americanism, in the North. A Mr. Seward, of 
 New York (a senator, too, and who has made a long speech 
 against the Douglass Bill, is really the originator of that 
 order ; and he is the most subtle, refined, political hypo- 
 crite I ever knew. The Southern statesmen, I think, fail 
 to see the feints and false manoeuvring which is being 
 carried out against agricultural interests and extension. 
 Not less deceived are the poor labourers of the North. 
 The moneyed lords of the North, who are now prating for 
 the negro, don’t care a cent for him, really ; but they must 
 have more control over the poor artificer in their factories. 
 The only way to get this is to cripple agriculture, or, which 
 is the same thing, get the negro freed from labour, and 
 on an equality with the poor white ; then they will control 
 both. I would like, above all things, to see half a million 
 negroes sent into the Puritan States, and even into the 
 North-western States; because, as self-interest governs 
 all, I think these German infidels would soon find that 
 Cuffey, freed, will soon reduce their wages. 
 
 At present, you can’t hire a white man to plough here 
 for less than one to two dollars per diem. This is owing 
 to the fact that new land is all ready and labourers are 
 few. It would certainly be good for the owners of negroes 
 to get ten dollars per month, and have them fed and 
 clothed, which would not exceed half a dollar a-day, all 
 told. However, this we cannot see. The present plan 
 must go on. The Puritans are now engaged in poisoning 
 the minds of the imported sovereigns,” who glory in the 
 name of “ Democracy and, when all is ready, the now 
 unsuspecting South will find out what a Puritan’s love 
 consists in. Y r ou read in the Northern papers that the 
 Puritans hate slave-owners only. This is another smart 
 trick to take in the non-slave owners of the South ! But 
 the Puritan’s love, or respect for even a non-slave-owner 
 
120 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 of the South is about one-tenth that of Judas Iscariot for 
 his Saviour. The Puritans will love anything — the Devil 
 himself — provided it “ pays,” either in ready cash or poli- 
 tical power. They will hate anything — even Christ — if he 
 stands in their way of ready cash or of political power. 
 They will receive either of these articles in payment, 
 because they always have an eye to converting them into 
 long bonds. 
 
 But I will close by requesting you to read the debates 
 on the Bill. Above all, read Wade and Chase, of Ohio ; 
 Sumner, of Massachusetts ; and, lastly, that arch-hypo- 
 crite, Seward. I know him well. Read his sophistry ! 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Farm unas. 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 Upper Missouri River, Nebraska Ty., 
 August 20th, 1856. 
 
 Dear Father, 
 
 Your long letter of inquiry reached me some two 
 hundred miles from here on the head waters of the Big 
 Sioux River, and I have not had time to answer it till now. 
 I am just off a long trip, and will start in a day or two 
 still on another to establish a post somewhere below here 
 on this (Missouri) river. I presume it will be at or near 
 the mouth of the River “ L’eau qui Cour,” or better known 
 by old folks as the “Neabrara.” I will write you more 
 about this when I get there. Meantime, to your ques- 
 tions : you ask me who J. C. Fremont is. It would 
 scarce be polite for me to enter into any extended bio- 
 graphy of him, as I never made his personal acquaintance; 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 121 
 
 but, as he married old Bullion’s second daughter, you 
 ought to take some interest in him, as you were one of 
 those worshippers of Benton for so many years. Hence, 
 you must not think me personal if I fail to tell you all I 
 know and have heard about Mr. Fremont. 
 
 J. C. Fremont came into the United States’ Army as 
 a Lieutenant of Engineers about 1838. He is, I believe, 
 from South Carolina : was a poor boy, and received much 
 aid (as I learn) from the Catholic sisters in his early 
 education. He received at a later date, from or through 
 Mr. J. R. Poinsett’s aid, a position in the navy ; thence 
 into the army. He continued a Lieutenant of Engineers ; 
 and while such “ stole away” old “Bullion’s” daughter, 
 which made the old man and woman very angry. Like 
 most parents under similar circumstances, however, they 
 got over their anger, and set about doing all they could 
 for the young Lieutenant and his wife. Hence followed 
 Fremont’s “ gasy ” trips over the plains, and the Rocky 
 Mountains ; his explorations, surveys, routes, &c., &c. ; 
 all of which were concocted by old Benton for Fremont’s 
 special benefit, and also to satisfy Benton’s long desire to 
 know more of our North-western regions. Hence it was 
 that “ My Son-in-Law ” was well fitted out (having such 
 a good parent at Court). He took draughtsmen, geolo- 
 gists, botanist, naturalists, and a thousand other et ceteras, 
 regardless of expense. The result of all his travels has 
 been presented to the world by a munificent “Uncle 
 Sam,” which (if you have nothing else to do) you might, 
 perhaps, read a few pages of; but I think you will get 
 quite all needful information in half-a-dozen of my letters 
 while passing over the same country. Finally, in 1845, 
 when it was “ 54-40 or fight,” and Congress passed a law 
 raising a regiment of rifles, J. C. F.’s “ friend at Court” 
 procured him the commission of Lieutenant Colonel of 
 
122 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 that regiment (Fremont being at the time out on, or near, 
 the line on which it was intended this regiment should be 
 posted). Thus it was he made a leap from a Lieutenant 
 to a Colonel ; but the Mexican war prevented the send- 
 ing out of that regiment, hence Fremont remained out 
 there on duty with other troops ; got into trouble by 
 claiming to command over his superiors ; got put in arrest, 
 was exceedingly insubordinate, finally was even mutinous, 
 and so that General Kearny had to put him in close con- 
 finement. He was brought to Washington in arrest, and 
 there tried before a Court and dismissed the service; but 
 Mr. Polk saw fit to remit the sentence, and ordered him 
 to duty ; whereupon he resigned, and became, as did the 
 whole Benton family, the inveterate enemies of the whole 
 United States 5 Army. Finally, through the ramifications 
 of the dark-lantern organisations now extant in the 
 Northern United States. He was put up as candidate for 
 President, where you now find him. 
 
 I don’t suppose you have asked me so particularly 
 about him because you entertain any idea of voting for 
 him. Still, he is about as worthy as the usual run of 
 partizan leaders now preying upon and devouring the 
 vitals of the United States North. Fremont is ‘ f nobody- 
 in-general,” and “ especially nothing,” when you come to 
 statesmen. For that reason I think he may get a pretty 
 large vote in the Puritan States, because he is “ always 
 available” for “proper considerations.” As to his parent- 
 age I know nothing; but I have heard it said that it 
 is a wise child who knows its father. This I have heard 
 from officers of the army — not that I know anything of 
 him myself, and I certainly cai’e very little. 
 
 Now, having answered your questions, permit me to ex- 
 press the hope that what I have said will not be made the 
 subject of public political gossip for electioneering, or any 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 123 
 
 other purposes ; because, in the first place, such things 
 do much harm, and no good, and is the very sin of the 
 North Puritan States at this time ; and I should rather 
 not he the medium of following their example in this low, 
 vulgar system of telling all you have heard. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 Chicago, Illinois, October 30, 1852. 
 
 S. A. Douglass, Washington. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The country south-west of the Missouri River, which 
 must very soon call for some kind of organised Govern- 
 ment, lies above, that is, north of the old compromise line 
 of 1S20, and is evidently included in the compromise of 
 1850, which latter appears to do away with that of 1820, 
 in case of admission of Missouri. Cannot that line be 
 agreed upon still as the compromise line, and to be ex- 
 tended on to the Rio Grande, or to the Pacific ? It will 
 prevent a vast deal of future trouble in the legislation of 
 our country. Utah has slaves in it, by compromise of 
 1850, merely by the will of her people; so ought other 
 territories to be allowed to decide this. I have been for 
 several years in the region of country I refer to — from 
 north-east corner of Chiuahua to Yellow Stone. Govern- 
 ment must be very soon organised in nearly all parts of it ; 
 and, knowing as I do, that t he real aim of abolit ionism is 
 not to free n egroes, but to curt ail agr icultural territory ; 
 and that the pro -slavery idea is not extension of slavery, 
 
124 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 but extension of agricultural territory, I hope both 
 parties will agree, either to let the compromise of 1850 
 extend over this new country, or else let all (including 
 Utah and New Mexico) fall back on that of 1820, and let 
 the same be continued, as that of common agreement. 
 Should this not be the case, I fear that extreme partisan 
 spirit and action will be the result. 
 
 If this kind of spirit gets up just now, it will ruin the 
 Government. We really have no Government — we have 
 only a kind of “ common-consent free territory,” bound 
 by good faith and a feeling of justice. Break this senti- 
 ment, and our Government ceases to be a unity at once ; 
 while party hatred will still try to inflict all the punish- 
 ment possible, and a bloody war must be the result. Now, 
 any hostility, no matter how little, must be the end of 
 this Government. 
 
 I am going back to Council Bluffs, and hope to learn 
 that this “idea” in territory, covered up, as it is, by the 
 “word” (not the fact) of “ slavery,” is abandoned. I feel 
 sure you will do all in your power to quell this sectional 
 spirit. If it be not settled one way or another very soon, 
 then is the end of our experimental Government already 
 visible. 
 
 Nearly all of the territory adjoining Arkansas is agri- 
 cultural, up as far as the mouth of the Sioux River, in 
 Minnesota. Of course it becomes a rather cold region 
 after you get above the Platt River ; still it is a good soil 
 and prairie, with timber on the Missouri River, and other 
 smaller water courses. 
 
 f Should fanaticism and wickedness refuse to apply the 
 / law of 1850, refuse to extend the old line of 1820, then 
 why not repeal it altogether? It must either be 
 acquiesced in, and thus extended, or it must be repealed : 
 the former is good in practice, the latter good in principle : 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 125 
 
 hence, I think either, if agreed to, will suffice — at least, 
 for a time ; but, with the present damnable spirit of 
 .^ Radic alism, I don't look for peace very long. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 P. T. T. 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 Oak Grove, Sept. 30th, 1848. 
 
 I received yours from the city of Mexico, giving me 
 the general news of peace, and something of the terms of 
 the same, which, as I feared, includes that of a large 
 addition to our already extensive domain. I have aided 
 all I could the carrying on of the late war to a satisfactory 
 close, but not for conquest. I suppose the acquisition of 
 territory, in the treaty, may not be called conquest, because 
 it is merely an indemnity for our great expenditure in 
 prosecuting the war ; still, I fear the result of this will be 
 fruitful in trouble. I have read your several letters, lastly, 
 one to vour grandfather. You say so little about your 
 views concerning our Constitutional Government, that I 
 don’t know whether you know anything about it or not. 
 Sometimes I fear you are utterly ignorant that we have 
 any Constitution at all. I am surely at liberty to think 
 so, because you deal so much in abstract theories and 
 antagonism of races, and on this antagonism you base the 
 failure, or at least disruption of our Government, not even 
 saying a word about the written character of the same ; 
 in fact, I begin to fear that your seven years’ sojourn in 
 the North has done you serious injury, and that you have 
 imbibed the bad, to the exclusion of all the good. In the 
 first place, then, we have not got a Government which 
 exists by chance, nor yet terminable at the pleasure of a 
 
126 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 t- mob/’ (which you please to call “ Democratic masses,” I 
 thank you for tne epithet, as I choose to be, in the true 
 sense, a Democrat ; but I will say, that I have yet to dis- 
 cover that it possesses any of the mob spirit about me). 
 Our Government, then, is one of specific, legal statute, so 
 to speak, and if everybody don’t understand it, it is because 
 they don t read it and study it. The contribution of the 
 several States to a Federal fund (called the Constitution) 
 was specific, and made the Federal Government all it was, 
 and all it is, and all it can ever become. It matters not 
 whether such be good, bad, or indifferent ; it matters not 
 whether this Federal machine suits the North, South, the 
 East, or West ; it is just what it is, and is nothing more, and 
 nothing less. The Federal Government has just so much 
 power, and no more. It is folly to talk about the Federal 
 Government running over, or absorbing the several State 
 Governments ; the thing is absurd, and impossible. If it 
 ever could have done so, it was years ago, and is always 
 getting further from such the older we get. 
 
 On the other hand, the States can never encroach on 
 the Federal; because they operate on local affairs, the 
 domestic citizen, and are fully occupied in the same. All 
 this comes from actual statute. 
 
 Now, in regard to interests : I argue that no such dis- 
 ruption can occur; because a variety of interests, I think, 
 strengthens rather than weakens this bond. The North 
 needs the West and South to occupy her manufactories 
 and her ships. The West needs the North to supply her 
 with these elements of a market and transit; and she 
 needs the South to furnish an outlet for her products. 
 The South needs the North to manufacture her comforts, 
 and carry her millions away from the place of production, 
 most of which goes beyond the seas ; while she also needs 
 the breadstuff's of the West — not that the South could 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 127 
 
 not produce the same, but it is more profitable to produce 
 something more valuable and exchange it. This I call 
 the bond or “Union” of self-interest. Now, my fears 
 about more territory does not really apply to territory in 
 the abstract. It is the heterogeneous and mongrel races 
 we get along with it which gives me alarm — not the soil, 
 nor climate, nor country; but the character of the people 
 we thus annex to us. 
 
 The great extent of country we have acquired by this 
 war contains a class of people inimical to us in every 
 respect, and yet they possess certain political rights which 
 we may not deprive them of. They do not possess that 
 intelligence which gives them a fair claim to civilisation, 
 yet they are not fit subjects for the pupilage of the Indian 
 or that of the negro. Hence it is that I fear their influ- 
 ence; superior civilisation of the Americans will gradually 
 run over them, because they have not that protection of 
 the negro, even, in the which conflicts will occur. How- 
 ever, I am not disposed to borrow trouble. As our 
 Government was formed in reason, economy, and sound 
 judgment, I am willing to trust to like elements to sustain 
 it. It was, and is, an experiment ; but has been so 
 eminently successful that I cannot think it can fail, even 
 on the score of self-interest. Besides all, I am a fatalist 
 in Government. So are you ; but the difference is, you 
 hold to a fatality of destruction — I hold to a fatality of 
 preservation. All apparent difficulties are at once buried 
 into nothing with me when I come to reflect on the great 
 heaving mass of Christianity, intelligence, and civilisation, 
 of twenty millions of people, soon to Be doubled and 
 quadrupled. Your finely-drawn elements of “ antagonism 
 in races” sink to mere speculations. I do not say there 
 may not be “ innate differences ” among classes of men, 
 but I do say that all such must fade away before the 
 
128 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 moulding hand of time and true civilisation. And while 
 all the present and future States of this nation are united 
 by a written compact, for the purposes of a general national 
 Government, so are they all united on even stronger 
 grounds of continual advancement in Christianity, civili- 
 sation, and humanity. The South is Christianising the 
 negroes, and benefits not only the negro in this work but 
 millions in other lands receive almost an equal benefit in 
 the negro’s labour. The North receives full benefit from 
 the same. The products of the negroes on this continent 
 forms a wonderful element in the economy and habits of 
 millions far distant from the place of production ; while 
 the negroes, in turn, are just so many consumers of 
 Northern productions and aids to Northern commerce. 
 
 A small class of sickly sentimentalists in the North, 
 and throughout the world, are striving to emancipate the 
 bondsman more rapidly than he is fitted to receive it, but 
 the great mass of intelligent people know that such a 
 course is at once destructive to the best interest of the 
 negro, and injures the whites, even thousands of miles 
 distant from him. Hence, the idea is Utopian, and is on 
 a par with your Northern spiritualism, short-lived at best, 
 and not much while living. 
 
 Your want of faith, I think, comes from a failure to 
 examine closely, first, the written Constitution ; secondly, 
 from a want of confidence in mankind ; while I have not 
 confidence in every man, yet, in the aggregate of man, I 
 have the greatest faith. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 J. C. Turn ley. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 129 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 Kansas City, March 8, 1857. 
 
 Yours of last month chased me round for more than six 
 hundred miles, but finally came safely to hand. 
 
 I had read the speech of Mr. Seward, which you refer 
 to, with all the attention and close scrutiny which that 
 man's sophistry requires, and it appears to my mind that 
 I wrote you on the subject a few days after I read it. In 
 this I may, perhaps, be mistaken ; I hope, however, you 
 slow coach people of Tennessee will not allow Mr. 
 Seward’s ventilation of his theories to disturb your quiet. 
 That gentleman is one of the new lights, or “ Latter-day 
 Saints,” in the political economy of America, and I had 
 supposed you were all quite conversant with his revela- 
 tions. For my own part, I have so long been reading his 
 views and theories (none of which have ever yet proved 
 half so true as those of Brigham Young on Mormonism), 
 that I supposed every sensible man viewed Brigham, on 
 religion, and Seward, on politics, about in the same light. 
 There is one great difference, however — Brigham has not 
 the power to do much harm, as his influence is confined 
 to the few ignorant, deluded sensualists, who are lured to 
 his flock more in search of freeholds, than any fixed know- 
 ledge of, or attachment to, that would-be Saint’s religion ; 
 whereas Mr. Seward is the acknowledged prophet of all 
 the Puritan and Democratic elements of the North-eastern 
 States. His views, as expressed in his speeches respecting 
 his “ irrepressible conflict ” between slave labour and Lee 
 labour, is as false as it is cunning. It is Mr. Seward’s 
 mode, however, of still keeping under control, while he 
 makes still hotter, the real antagonism of races which I 
 have heretofore alluded to in my letters as existing 
 
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1 30 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 between the Northern and the Southern people. You do 
 not tell me that Mr. Seward has one follower in Tennessee ; 
 in fact. I doubt whether he can have very many, even in 
 the free States of the North-west. It would be strange, 
 indeed, if Mr. Seward’s theory could be believed, namely, 
 that there is an irrepressible conflict between free labour 
 of the North, and the slave labour of the South. Mr. 
 Seward must know, and count largely on the ignorance 
 and credulity of the people, to whom he makes this 
 inflammatory remark. If such “irrepressible conflict” 
 exists between slave labour of Tennessee, and the free 
 labour of New York (this is what he says), why not a still 
 greater conflict between that slave labour of Tennessee 
 and the white labour of Tennessee ? This latter every- 
 body knows does not exist; hence, still less does the 
 other exist. But millions of people in the North, to 
 whom, and for whom Mr. Seward’s views were uttered, will 
 take for granted all he said, and will proceed accordingly. 
 In fact, they have been, and are now proceeding on that 
 assumption. No ; the fact is, Mr. Seward himself don’t 
 believe that any such conflict exists, or ever has existed, 
 but he only wants to try and create such conflict. His 
 object is to try and produce that which he imagines might, 
 ought, or should exist, and not that which he really thinks 
 does, or ever has existed. In other words, Mr. Seward 
 means to have a revolution, and if he can’t get it in one 
 way, he will in another; but, so far, his plan is to 
 inoculate the mind of the Democratic masses in the 
 North with his views and sentiments, so that he can lead 
 them. AVhen he has done this, then any action (how- 
 ever revolutionary) will be supported by those masses. 
 This is just now the theme, all over the North-eastern 
 States; it is on the boards of every theatre; it is in the 
 drama of that most infamous creature, “ Mrs. H. B. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 131 
 
 Stowers book,” two-thirds of which, by the bye, Mr. 
 Seward himself wrote. This feeling of hatred is taught 
 in every school and college ; in every church it is preached 
 Sunday and week-day. It were impossible for me, in a 
 letter, to convey to you the perfect system of poisoning 
 the ignorant masses in the North against the peace, the 
 happiness, and domestic tranquillity of the Southern 
 States. To see and know the whole, in all of its ramifica- 
 tions, its secret orders, and dark-lantern brotherhoods, 
 would astonish you. All this exists, and will continue to 
 exist ; it will increase daily, until it culminates into revo- 
 lution. This revolution was designed when Fremont was 
 put forward by the Northern revolutionists, as candidate 
 for President 3 his failure, however, delayed it, but the 
 delay was not regretted by Mr. Seward and his partizan 
 aids. By delay, they will gather strength; and nothing is 
 truer than that this Northern Puritan revolutionary party 
 design to prevent another national President of the United 
 States. 
 
 It behoves the Southern States to look this matter 
 squarely in the face ; [not ' captiously and with bravado, 
 and with an eye single to the protection of their slave 
 property (although this is one of many causes they have 
 to complain) ; but the entire South ought to come to 
 some understanding, and every agricultural State act in 
 harmony with a fixed plan of self-defence. For, I must 
 here repeat what I have before said, which is, that the 
 aim and drift of this revolutionary organisation all over 
 the Puritan States is not alone, nor mainly, against slavery ; 
 but it is against everything and anything which supports 
 and sustains the agricultural pursuits. Hence, you will 
 ask me why is not this enmity directed also against the 
 North-western States, which are also agricultural. My 
 answer is, that it was for a time; but was withdrawn, 
 
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132 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 seeing that the East relied on so man} 7 partisan leaders in 
 Ohio, Indiana, and especially Illinois. They at once 
 ceased everything like allusion to tariffs or agricultural 
 interests, and determined to write on their flags and 
 banners, “Down with negro slavery !” knowing that such 
 labour is solely devoted to agriculture. After the Slave 
 States are subdued, either by force, or by such legislation 
 as will effectually place every tiller of the soil at the 
 mercy of Eastern manufacturing task-masters and their 
 co-workers, the commercial millionaires, their attention 
 will be turned to the agricultural free States of the North- 
 west. In fact, these North-western States people are of a 
 very different kind of political economists from those of 
 the South. Nearly all of the agriculturists are of com- 
 parative recent importation from foreign countries, who 
 have been content in the Old World to cultivate but an 
 acre of land ; and they found themselves rich with the 
 products of only ten acres. They are mostly of the 
 Germans and Irish, who are quite content to till ten or 
 twenty acres ; and, as a general thing, they cultivate that 
 amount of land much better than a man in Tennessee does 
 his two hundred. Not only this ; but they are very 
 ignorant people, and the political partizan leaders of the 
 North (of whom Mr. Seward is one of the most subtle 
 and dangerous) are constantly drilling it into these 
 German and Irish, Welsh, Danes, and Swedes, that the 
 slave-owners of the South design to enslave them also ! 
 And it is a fact that many of these poor ignorant crea- 
 tures really live in constant fear of this ! Many of these 
 new-comers to the West have been made to believe that 
 negroes are white, and have been kidnapped by Southern 
 people from the Northern States ! 
 
 The fact is, you would be utterly astounded could you 
 take a “ peep in ” behind the curtains, at all the infamous 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 133 
 
 and diabolical machinery now in operation in the North- 
 eastern and Western States to bring about a Revolution ! 
 Everything possible to conceive of is used for that pur- 
 pose. Regularly paid agents are traversing the States 
 north-west, to lecture to the people. Scarce a sermon is 
 preached any more in a church, without at least half of 
 it being a most terrific tirade against Southern people. 
 
 While passing through Rochester, New York, not long 
 since, 1 had occasion to stop over Sunday, and attended a 
 church called the “ Congregationalists,” and heard the 
 dirtiest tirade imaginable ! The church, or hall, was 
 quite filled with men and women, all of the first people in 
 that city. Their pious leader, after discoursing at great 
 length on what God had assigned for him and his flock 
 to do, closed out his “ stock-in-trade ” by telling them 
 that the “ Southern people were heathens, ” and had to be 
 “ Christianised !” “ Not only this,” said he, “ but virtue 
 
 and chastity are unknown among our Southern people, 
 whether male or female !” This, I thought, was plain 
 enough : when a preacher is piously listened to by the 
 most respectable people in the town of Rochester, in the 
 State of New York, while he asserts that the Christian 
 agriculturists of neighbouring States are “ heathens,” 
 “ harlots, ” and “roues,” I considered it time forme to 
 leave; especially as my mother and sisters were included 
 in the list ! 
 
 I have alluded to this, as only one instance in ten 
 thousand now going on in the North to poison the minds 
 of the ignorant masses against the Southern States people. 
 It is wide spread, and is having its effect. It must result 
 in revolution. And Mr. Seward, and his aids and 
 assistants, are aiming at this. The South, in the mean- 
 while, do not suspect what is going on. True, the South 
 talk much about being compelled to secede from the 
 
131 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 Union, in order to secure their rights, &c. ; but this is just 
 what the Northern leaders want ; because then will they 
 have succeeded in their aim for revolution; and out of 
 that revolution will hope to obtain better results and 
 greater benefits for the Puritans than they did out of that 
 of 177^ which they inaugurated for the same selfish 
 purposes. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 Salt Lake City, July 25th, 1860. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 In my last letter I alluded to the cause of the 
 piesent political differences extant in our country. I 
 gave you my views of what I conceive to be the true 
 cause— differing, very much, from the generally-received 
 opinion that it is slavery. I showed that the cause of 
 disagreement is inherent in the different classes of human 
 beings composing our country. I feel sure that, on due 
 reflection, your mind will feel the force of my argument, 
 and you will not fail to perceive, in addition, the ten thou- 
 sand evidences, daily offered to one’s view, that this deep- 
 set antagonism is not to be ignored nor overlooked, even 
 temporarily, merely on the announcement in the halls of 
 Congress, on the stump, or in the pulpit, that “ we are all 
 one, £- we are brothers, sisters,” &c., &c. 
 
 A either is it necessary for you nor I to pass sentence on 
 either of the classes, or decide which is right, and which 
 wrong. This would be, at once, attaching ourselves to 
 one or the other class, and very soon thus become inca- 
 pable of discussing either with freedom or unbiased feeling 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 135 
 
 At the same time, the fact is true, that nature has un- 
 doubtedly assigned us to one or the other of the numerous 
 classes or casts; or, if you please, “types” of the human 
 family ; and it would be folly to attempt to separate our- 
 selves from that class, whether we are conscious of the fact 
 or not. 
 
 But I omit much that might be said on this subject, and 
 come at once to your second question, viz. : “ What is to 
 be the ultimate result of this difference or disagreement ?’ 
 I cannot conceive that any different results can follow in 
 our own country, than such as have always followed dis- 
 agreements among the various types or casts of mankind. 
 It is not man's nature to be either charitable or peaceable. 
 The reverse is rather true. Man is by nature oppressive 
 and warlike in his proclivities. These traits of man’s 
 nature may be trained and directed and moulded into this 
 or that shape, and greatly modified for a long series of 
 years, even for centuries ; but the element is still there, 
 and ultimately it breaks forth and shows itself in every 
 manner of hostility and revenge that human skill is 
 capable of inventing. 
 
 Now, when we come to examine the history of men 
 from all known sources- — as well profane as what we call 
 inspired — we find that differences and dissensions are 
 coeval with their very beginning on earth. But, there 
 does not appear, in any period, or among any people, but 
 one cause or element of disturbance. However numerous 
 the causes appear to be, yet all are consequents of one 
 first cause. It is customary for us in our present day to 
 speak of the unsettled condition of society in different 
 States, nations, &c. We see at the present moment what 
 we call a useless and unstable state of mind among the 
 people of France, England, Austria, and other provinces, 
 and we all ascribe to this disaffection political causes. 
 
136 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 This is as erroneous as to say the slavery question is the 
 cause of our own troubles. 
 
 Civil Government, old as it is, is yet the second con- 
 dition in which mankind have tried to live in harmony. 
 Nearly every form of civil government possible to conceive 
 of has been tried; yet, not one form was ever devised or 
 practised that did not include in its operations, its rami- 
 fications and effects, all known ideas of an existence after 
 this life. The three hundred and twenty different beliefs 
 among tribes on earth, as to the existence of their souls 
 and bodies after this life, enter into every attempt at social 
 civil government! Now, the framers of our social system 
 endeavoured to establish a Government free from all sects, 
 creeds, and belief ; yet, so far from doing it, we see they 
 have included all; and the United States is the field of 
 battle for the votaries of a hundred religious creeds to fight 
 the battle of faith. Thev arc all drilling their recruits, and 
 have been for two hundred years. 
 
 It 'is this inherent element which induces or solicits 
 different religious beliefs, that I allude to as being irrecon- 
 cilable. Hence, it follows that only those creatures, whose 
 belief and faith are similar, can possibly cohere for a length 
 of time in one social compact. This, too, brings me to 
 the point, which I have before had occasion to speak of, 
 which is, that preachers are the agents throughout the 
 woi'ld of strife, dissension, blood, and desolation ! They 
 are the recruiting officers of hostile sentiments, the drill 
 sergeants of squads, and the commanders of the thousands 
 on the bloody fields of battle. But, we know of no period 
 of the world in which they have not existed — and alwavs 
 filling the offices, too, in which I have assigned them. 
 The inference is, therefore, that they were designed by 
 the Author of all things either as a curse or a blessing, — - 
 we know not which. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 137 
 
 The sentiment of hostility, therefore, between our 
 different sections of country is more a religious difference 
 than anything else ; and, hence, it is simply idle to expect 
 a cessation until the hundreds of thousands on both sides 
 shall have been offered as a sacrifice to their respective 
 angry Gods. This conflict may be hastened or delayed a 
 little, but not wholly averted by any means. Individuals 
 as well as communities always make false attacks. If one 
 religious sect wants to supplant or make war on another, 
 it assumes at once part of the dress of its intended victim. 
 This is necessary in order to create division — division 
 being essential to success. Hence, we find old school and 
 new school Presbyterians, North Methodists and South 
 Methodists, North Baptists and South Baptists, Roman 
 Catholics and Holy Catholics, &c., &c. Likewise, in poli- 
 tical communities, the professed object is never the real 
 one. 
 
 Now, to apply this course of reasoning, and this 
 species of action, to the disaffected parties in the United 
 States, is plain and easy; as likewise to discover the 
 falsity of design, that one class of people want to see all 
 others free, &c., &c., while another desires to have a 
 portion subject unto them. Now, the latter is evidently 
 in accordance with the instincts of mankind. We all 
 know that if w T e have one trait more marked than another 
 in our very nature, it is the desire to have the control of 
 others, and to have them entirely subject unto us. This 
 is true in practice and in theory with every human being 
 that was ever born on earth. God requires subjection 
 unto him, Christ desired subjection unto himself — he in 
 turn being subject unto the Father. The Apostles and 
 Prophets desired submission unto them, while they were 
 lesser than Christ, &c. 
 
 In all classes and grades of society, not one being but 
 
138 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 covets power and control over others ; so, likewise, since 
 the world began, has this power of one over another been 
 exercised. One human creature has owned and used and 
 bartered and sold another at pleasure for his own benefit. 
 At one period, the vanquished tribes in battle were the 
 willing chattels of their conquerors. Later in history, 
 persons taken in battle were transferable chattels; and 
 well-defined rules of service and transfer were laid down 
 and practised three thousand years ago. This subser- 
 viency of one class to another is as universal over the 
 world to-day, as it ever was ? and it will always continue 
 to exist. 
 
 The masters and the servants or slaves shift and 
 change with the restless changes in all human affairs. 
 The strife is continuous, and is, and always will be, a war 
 of races. Jn some countries there is white slavery, in 
 others black slavery. One set of rules govern the service 
 at one place, and another set of rules at another place. — 
 Might rules always, whatever we may think of right 
 or wrong. The very opposition now rampant in one 
 section against African slavery, is the measure of the 
 intensity of the human heart in favour of white slavery. 
 The stronger will be the victor. 
 
 The war of one class on another, is the result of fre- 
 quent and easy intercourse. We are told among indi- 
 viduals, that “ too much familiarity breeds contempt.” 
 Not less true is the adage when applied to States or 
 nations. The difficulties among European nations is in 
 direct ratio of their increased commercial and other inti- 
 mate relations. Those nations most exclusive and retired 
 — Japan and China for example — are least changeable and 
 fluctuating in government and society. Sectional troubles 
 in the United States have increased directly in proportion 
 to the facilities of frequent and ready intercourse. An 
 
ON AMERICAN CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 139 
 
 union of the several States was of doubtful propriety in 
 the first place, was viewed with distrust by many, and 
 absolutely opposed by some of the wisest heads of that 
 day. 
 
 Even that union, when consummated, was differently 
 construed and understood by the contracting parties ; one 
 claiming it to be a kind of “ alliance offensive and defen- 
 sive 5 ’ only; while the other maintained that it was a con- 
 solidation. Whether meant to be the latter or not, we 
 see it has practically proved to be such. The rights and 
 privileges claimed by States, for example, we see is merely 
 a nominal, not a practical power. Whether “might makes 
 right 5 ’ or not, w r e constantly see that might is having its 
 own course. Might is forcing a sameness in all society. 
 It is mixing up heterogeneous elements under guise of 
 moulding all into one mass, which we know from experi- 
 ence cannot be done peaceably; but that the continued 
 attempts must bring its fruits, which are revolution, strife, 
 blood, anarchy, and, lastly, peace, with the separate classes 
 of the “ruler 55 and the “ ruled , 55 or the “ masters 55 and 
 the “ slaves . 55 It is merely a turn of the wheel of society 
 on the same old axis. 
 
 But my hour has expired. I must hasten to a close; 
 and, I think, I have answered your second question. Re- 
 volution betw r een North and South is inevitable. It must 
 come. Every pulsation of the human heart tends to its 
 speedy commencement. It may be one, two, five, or even 
 ten years. But come it must and will. Neither is it to 
 be dreaded, as some think. On the contrary, it is as 
 necessary as a thunder-storm is to cool and purify the 
 infected atmosphere. There is a grandeur and a sublimity 
 in the consequences to follow such a conflict, as fills the 
 heart with the greatest ambition. The Northern hordes, 
 although composed of many types of the human species — • 
 
140 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 and therefore, quite dissimilar — are yet an unit on the 
 subject of this warfare ; and as an unit, they fully enjoy 
 the sublimity and magnificence of the engagement. Let 
 the Southern people feel likewise. Let them prepare for 
 it, and, instead of being any longer the conservators of a 
 dis-united Union, let them, as an unit, sever the cable, and 
 the ship will float free and easy, ready for the fight. 
 
 The best mode of doing this is comprised in your third 
 question ; and I will answer you on that point the first 
 leisure hour. 
 
 The pang of death, which was the “ union in senti- 
 ment,” has already been felt; and has expanded itself 
 in words and threats. The practical consummation of the 
 separation, for the first few years to come, will be merely 
 political financiering. 
 
 “ The “ platform ” or “ declaration,” set forth by the 
 Convention which has lately nominated Mr. A. Lincoln 
 (at Chicago, Illinois) as their candidate for the next Pre- 
 sident, is a clear and emphatic “declaration of war against 
 the Constitution of the United States!” It cannot he 
 interpreted in any other light. In fact, such are its words 
 and resolves from beginning to the end. Surely no honest 
 lover of Government under the American Constitution 
 can for a moment entertain the idea of casting his vote on 
 the side of such a declaration of war ! Let the Southern 
 States accept this declaration of war by the Puritans — not 
 with sword in hand, hut by quietly withdrawing from a 
 Union which has ceased to exist. An alliance, by the 
 South, immediately with all Christian nations of Europe 
 will further tend to avert blood, at least till she shall have 
 time to be the better prepared. Let the South throw 
 open her ports to foreign nations and the remaining 
 States. 
 
 Now, in order for the Southern mind to arrive at this 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 141 
 
 course of procedure, they must cease brooding over the 
 « point of attack,” pointed at by their Northern enemies, 
 which is slavery. As I have before said, this is a “ feint” 
 on the part of the Northern Generals. They are not 
 intending to attack slavery. The North may not espe- 
 cially crave black slaves , but they are more wedded to 
 slavery in the abstract than any other people, and would 
 no more give up slavery than they would their lives. 
 
 In fact, a system of “ indentured ” service among 
 whites — which is slavery under another name — must, from 
 the existing state of society in the North, be put into a 
 more extensive and a more practical shape in a very short 
 time. The “ poor-houses,” “ alms-houses,” “ houses of 
 correction,” and last, not least, the “ insane asylums,” 
 must all very soon be merged into a system of slavery, by 
 which the poor and needy, the wayward and perverse, 
 shall be supplied and kept in subjection. The insanity, 
 too, in six cases out of eight, results from a destitution, 
 and an utter inability to self-government and self-control. 
 
 Just think of one State alone having two hundred 
 thousand of destitute poor ! and, at the same time, twenty- 
 seven thousand of insane ! making a total of two hundred 
 and twenty-seven thousand of inferior creatures demand- 
 ing a state of servitude ! Voluntary contributions will do 
 very well to talk about, but not be practised to a great 
 extent. The remedy — the only remedy, is in the entire 
 transfer of the body, the time, the intellect of the inferior 
 to the superior. Nowhere do you find such insanity 
 among slaves, whether black or white. 
 
 But want of time bids we close for the present. 
 
 Your brother, 
 
 Parmenas. 
 
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 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The following very pertinent and truthful remarks we 
 find in the North Western Church , of February 15, 1863. 
 As it is a little piece of history, touching Puritans, we 
 append it to what has been said concerning them in the 
 foregoing letters : — 
 
 “ Mr. Editor, — These are inquiring times ; men are 
 searching, on all hands, for solutions to many questions 
 that were once supposed settled. A great many hoary old 
 shams that have imposed on them are getting rapidly 
 pitched into the gutter. A great many things they had 
 supposed true are turning out false. The thing must go 
 on. I design doing my small share, then, to help. 
 
 “ The Americans have a certain distinct type of 
 national character. . We have certain clearly-defined 
 national ideas. Where do we get them ? Last month, 
 on ‘ Forefather’s day,’ a thousand voices answered, ‘ We 
 got them all from Plymouth Rock. They all came over in 
 the e Mayflower.’ A noble band of pilgrims fleeing from 
 persecution in wicked old Europe, came over to the desert 
 New World, and established here freedom to worship 
 God, free schools, free presses, universal suffrage, and 
 every noble thing there is in America.’ 
 
 “That was the answer at all the £ pilgrim dinners’ in 
 December. It is also the answer in half our school readers, 
 and so-called school histories. The innocent children of 
 all Americans are taught that they, poor little things, are 
 descended from £ our forefathers’ of the ‘ Mayflower that 
 all the people of this broad continent came from the loins 
 of the Rev. Mr. Robinson and his congregation; that 
 the gentlemen in steeple-crowned hats, in short, made 
 America. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 143 
 
 “ Let us look at it. In the first place, then, the Puritan 
 emigration was but a drop in the bucket; it formed scarcely 
 the hundredth part of the original emigration. It was not 
 the first emigration, either. Flourishing colonies were 
 planted years before in various parts of the country. There 
 were English in Virginia ; Swedes and Fins coming into 
 New Jersey; Dutch in New York; French Huguenots 
 into Carolina. As near as I can make out, the proportion 
 of people now in the United States of English descent is 
 about six millions ; of these, about two millions are of 
 Puritan descent. 
 
 “ Now, Avhat did the Puritans come to America for ? 
 Mrs. Hemans says, to establish ‘ freedom to worship God.’ 
 Mr. Beecher, et id omne genus, says, to establish this, and 
 escape persecution. What does history say ? They came 
 simply to better their condition. They emigrated from 
 precisely the motive that caused emigration then, and 
 causes it now, and ever will cause it — the prospect of 
 larger material benefits. They emigrated from Holland, 
 not from England. They certainly were not persecuted 
 in Holland. I deny that they were persecuted in England ; 
 at all events, they were not troubled on account of their 
 religion, in Holland. Europe did not drive them out. 
 They were doing well among the Dutch. But mark the 
 Puritans. ‘ It grieved their hearts that the Dutch would 
 not reform their church according to the pure word of 
 God.’ They left Holland because they could not compel 
 the Dutch to turn Puritans. That is their own word. 
 Well, in 1620 , being then in Leyden, and being satisfied 
 they couldn’t turn Dutchmen into Puritans, they concluded 
 to leave, and asked James I. for a grant of land. James, 
 an Episcopal king, gave them a grant, the exclusive right 
 to the soil, to the fisheries, and to the trade. That, cer- 
 tainly, is not persecution. 
 
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 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 “ They came for the land, the fisheries, and the trade ; 
 and we find, as a specimen of Puritan gratitude, that the 
 first row they got into was a fight with their old hosts the 
 Dutch, because they trespassed on these same fisheries. 
 
 “ Now, what did they bring, and what did they leave ? 
 Separation of Church and State ? Edward Everett, a very 
 fine talker, says yes. Judge Story, a man of more brains, 
 and less fine writing, says : ‘ The fundamental error of our 
 ancestors, an error which began with their settlement of 
 this colony (Massachusetts), was a doctrine which has been 
 happily exploded, I mean the necessity of a union of 
 Church and State. To this they clung, as to their ark of 
 safety. In fact, tithes were abolished finally in Massa- 
 chusetts in 1834.’ 
 
 “ Toleration is an American idea. Did they leave us 
 that? Did they bring that ‘Freedom to worship God?’ 
 In 1658 they cut off the ears of three Quakers. In 1659 
 they hung a dozen or so, and would not allow their friends 
 to bury them. In 1660 they ‘suspended’ a few more; a 
 poor old woman, who had to be carried to the gallows, 
 among the rest. Even in 1^39 they ‘ drummed’ Mr. Finlay, 
 a distinguished Presbyterian divine, out of the colony. 
 They hanged Roman Catholics. They cut the tongues out 
 of Quakers. They whipped Presbyterians. They fined a 
 man for using the Episcopal Prayer-book. All this is 
 matter of history. 
 
 “ But the reply is, ‘ This was the fault of the times.’ 
 Of course, then, the argument is given up. They were 
 really no better than the wicked, these pious Puritans. 
 But it was not the fault of the times. They were behind 
 the times. They persecuted after all the world ceased to 
 persecute. They were hanging and slitting tongues for 
 fifty years, against the world’s remonstrances. The last 
 death for religion in Old England took place in 1612, 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 145 
 
 before the landing on Plymouth Rock. In 1660, forty- 
 eight years after, the Puritans were hanging Quakers in 
 New England. Before they left Europe, death for religion 
 had ceased; Europe had given up fire and faggot, and 
 these delightful Puritans came hither, and revived and 
 stuck to the cast-off barbarities of the Old World. In 
 1720, in Massachusetts, they enacted a law of death 
 against a Roman Catholic. In 1774, they sent a formal 
 protest against the ‘ Quebec Act/ by which the British 
 Parliament tolerated that religion in Canada. In England, 
 if a man absented himself from public worship, he was 
 fined one shilling ; in Massachusetts he was fined five ; 
 and in Plymouth, where the ‘ Rock 5 is, he was fined ten. 
 For non-conformity to established Congregationalism, the 
 fine was forty shillings a month, and if the men were 
 1 incorrigible/ the law said death. The people of England 
 remonstrated — even Puritans in England. Vane remon- 
 strated. Salstonstall remonstrated; ‘ These rigid ways have 
 laid you low in the hearts of the faithful in England.’ 
 Mark the answer, thoroughly Puritan, { God forbid our 
 love for truth should grow so cold that we should tolerate 
 such errors.’ £ In this persecuting policy,’ says Judge 
 Story, ‘ our ancestors persevered against every remon- 
 strance at home and abroad.’ Their own words are, 
 'Toleration is a sin in rulers.’ The facts of history are, 
 that the Puritans of New England persecuted when the 
 world was crying out in horror ; that they defended their 
 bitter bigotry and narrow bloodthirsty intolerance when 
 the whole civilized world had dropped persecution for 
 opinion’s sake in shame. Cotton Mather wrote the last 
 words that were ever written in the English tongue in 
 defence of religious persecution. The last blood shed by 
 Saxon hands for religion’s sake they shed, one hundred 
 years after England had dropped that devil’s work for 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 ever. And the only blood ever shed on this continent for 
 religion’s sake was shed in Plymouth and Massachusetts 
 colonies. It is time that fact was distinctly known. 
 
 “ The Roman Catholics in Maryland, the Episcopalians 
 in Virginia, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Dutch in 
 New York, did establish and practice ‘ liberty of con- 
 science,’ hut never the Puritans of New England. The 
 bitterest fault they ever found with Charles II. was that 
 he interfered, by royal pardon, to save from the stake 
 some Anabaptists whom the Puritans were bound to burn. 
 That, in their eyes, was the crime of his life. They 
 tolerate ! Why, Story says that in 1676 five-sixths of all 
 the inhabitants of Massachusetts were disfranchised, not 
 to be tried as freemen, or have freemen’s rights, because 
 the law of that colony required every voter to be a Con- 
 gregationalist ! 
 
 “ I have examined historically those two points, and 
 there is the result. To the Puritans we do not owe our 
 toleration, nor our separation of Church and State. I am 
 not aware that we owe them any of our American ideas. 
 The only presses gagged on this continent Puritans gagged. 
 The most restricted suffrage exercised was in Puritan 
 Massachusetts. The narrowest and most illiberal repres- 
 sion of opinion has been there. They, and only they, 
 came to this country with ideas which our American life 
 has swept utterly away. The notions every American 
 condemns, the practices every American instinctively 
 abhors, are all Puritan notions and Puritan practices, and 
 came over in the c Mayflower.’ ” 
 
 I am compelled to leave out of this little volume many 
 letters which I had hoped to be able to insert ; but it was 
 not in my power to obtain the manuscript, because hostile 
 and contending armies cut off all intercourse with the 
 persons who have the originals. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 147 
 
 For the same reason I am compelled to leave out the 
 interesting description of Mormons and Mormonism, 
 which is mentioned in one of the preceding letters. I 
 regret this, also, because the writer gives a most clear 
 demonstration of the fact that Puritanism is also the foun- 
 dation of Mormonism. Truly is this one of those cases, 
 not rare in the world, where the extremes of fanaticism 
 meet ! 
 
 I will close this book, however, with extracts from 
 the late speech, in Congress, of that most profound states- 
 man and Christian patriot, the Hon. C. L. Vallandigham, 
 of Ohio, on the condition of the American nation, delivered 
 before the House on the 14th January, 1863. Historv 
 hath already recorded it, and it will be read by millions 
 yet unborn, whose voices will one day be raised to execrate 
 and denounce the most infamous fiends that ever acquired 
 office of trust only to destroy the same, and who now sit 
 in state at Washington city, exulting in the ruin, blood, 
 and carnage which they, and they alone, have produced. 
 It will be recollected that a couple of months before 
 Mr. Yallandigham made this speech, elections had taken 
 place throughout the Western States — Ohio among others, 
 — in which that gentleman had been endorsed by his con- 
 stituents by heavy majorities, and in all other States, the 
 popular vote had been most condemnatory of the Execu- 
 tive and his Cabinet. 
 
 It is on this account that one dare to deliver the fol- 
 lowing speech. No doubt exists but that fear of the 
 populace caused the Executive and his Cabinet to let pass 
 in silence Mr. Yallandighanr’s most truthful remarks. 
 
148 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 The State of the Union. — Speech of C. L. Vallandigham, 
 of Ohio } delivered in the United States House of 
 Representatives, January 14 th, 1863. 
 
 Mr. Vallandigham. Indorsed at the recent election 
 within the same district for which I still hold a seat on this 
 floor, by a majority four times greater than ever before, I 
 speak to-day in the name and by the authority of the 
 people, who, for six years, have intrusted me with the 
 office of a Representative. Loyal, in the true and highest 
 sense of the word, to the Constitution and the Union, 
 they have proved themselves devotedly attached to, and 
 worthy of, the liberties to secure which the Union and the 
 Constitution were established. With candor and freedom, 
 therefore, as their representative, and with much plainness 
 of" speech, but with the dignity and decency due to this 
 presence, I propose to consider the state of the Union to- 
 day, and to inquire what the duty is of every public man, 
 and every citizen, in this the very crisis of the Great 
 Revolution. 
 
 It is now two years, sir, since Congress assembled 
 soon after the Presidential election. A sectional anti- 
 slavery party had just succeeded, through the forms of the 
 Constitution. For the first time a President had been 
 chosen upon a platform of avowed hostility to an institu- 
 tion peculiar to nearly one-half of the States of the Union, 
 and who had himself proclaimed that there was an irre- 
 pressible conflict because of that institution between the 
 States; and that the Union could not endure “part slaves 
 and part free.” Congress met, therefore, in the midst of 
 the profoundest agitation, not here only, but throughout 
 the entire South. Revolution glared upon us. Repeated 
 efforts for conciliation and compromise were attempted in 
 Congress and out of it. All were rejected by the party 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 149 
 
 just coming into power, except only the promise in the 
 last hour of the session, and that, too, against the consent 
 of a majority of that party, both in the Senate and House — 
 that Congress (not the executive) should never be autho- 
 rised to abolish or interfere with slavery in the States where 
 it existed. South Carolina seceded; Georgia, Alabama, 
 Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas speedily fol- 
 lowed. The Confederate Government was established. 
 The other slave States held back. Virginia demanded a 
 peace congress — the commissioners met, and, after some 
 time, agreed upon terms of final adjustment; but, neither 
 in the Senate nor the House, were they allowed even a 
 respectful consideration. The President elect left his 
 home in February, and journeyed towards this capital, 
 jesting as he came, proclaiming that the crisis was only 
 artificial, and that “ nobody was hurt.” He entered this 
 city under cover of night, and in disguise. On the 4th of 
 March he was inaugurated, surrounded by soldiery; and, 
 swearing to support the Constitution of the United States, 
 announced in the same breath that the platform of his 
 party should be the law unto him. From that moment 
 all hope of peaceable adjustment fled. But for a little 
 while, either with unsteadfast sincerity, or in premeditated 
 deceit, the policy of peace was proclaimed, even to the 
 evacuation of Sumpter and the other Federal forts and 
 arsenals in the seceded States. Why that policy was sud- 
 denly abandoned, time will fully disclose. But, just after 
 the Spring elections, and the secret meeting in this city of 
 the Governors of the several Northern and Western States, 
 
 a fleet of * vessels, carrying men, was sent down 
 
 ostensibly to provision Fort Sumpter. The authorities of 
 South Carolina eagerly accepted the challenge, and bom- 
 barded the fort into surrender, while the fleet fired not a 
 gun ; but, just so soon as the flag was struck, bore away 
 
150 
 
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 and returned to the North. It was Sunday, the 14th day 
 of April, 1861; and that day the President, in fatal 
 haste, and without the advice or consent of Congress, 
 issued his proclamation, dated the next day, calling out 
 seventy-five thousand militia for three months, to re-possess 
 the forts, places, and property seized from the United 
 States, and commanding the insurgents to disperse in 
 twenty days. Again the gauge was taken up by the South, 
 and thus the flames of a civil war, the grandest, bloodiest, 
 and saddest in history, lighted up the whole heavens. 
 Virginia forthwith seceded ; North Carolina, Tennessee, 
 and Arkansas followed ; Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, 
 and Missouri were in a blaze of agitation, and, within a 
 week from the proclamation, the line of the Confederate 
 States was transferred from the cotton States to the 
 Potomac, and almost to the Ohio and the Missouri, and 
 their population and fighting men doubled. 
 
 In the North and West, too, the storm raged with the 
 fury of a hurricane. Never in history was anything equal 
 to it. Men, women, and children, native and foreign 
 born, Church and State, clergy and laymen, were all swept 
 along with the current. Distinction of age, sex, station, 
 party, perished in an instant. Thousands bent before the 
 tempest ; and here and there only was one found bold 
 enough — fool-hardy enough, it may have been — to bend 
 not, and upon him it fell as a consuming fire. The spirit 
 of persecution for opinion’s sake, almost extinct in the 
 Old World, now, by some mysterious transmigration, 
 appeared incarnate in the New. Social relations were 
 dissolved ; friendships broken up ; the ties of family and 
 kindred snapped asunder. Stripes and hanging were 
 everywhere threatened, sometimes executed. Assassi- 
 nation was invoked ; slander sharpened his tooth; false- 
 hood crushed truth to the earth ; reason fled ; madness 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 151 
 
 reigned. Not justice only escaped to the shies, but peace 
 returned to the bosom of God, whence she came. The 
 gospel of love perished ; hate sat enthroned, and the 
 sacrifices of blood smoked upon every altar. 
 
 But the reign of the mob was inaugurated only to be 
 supplanted by the iron domination of arbitrary power. 
 Constitutional limitation was broken down ; habeas corpus 
 fell ; liberty of the press, of speech, of the person, of 
 mails, of travel, of one’s own house, and of religion ; the 
 right to bear arms, due process of law, judicial trial, trial 
 by jury, trial at all ; every badge and muniment of freedom 
 in republican government or kingly government — all 
 went down at a blow ; the chief law officer of the Crown 
 — I beg pardon, sir, but it is easy to fall into this courtly 
 language — the Attorney-General, first of all men, pro- 
 claimed in the United States the maxim of Roman ser- 
 vility : Whatever pleases the President, that is law ! 
 Prisoners of State were then first heard of here. Midnight 
 and arbitrary arrests commenced ; travel was interdicted ; 
 trade embargoed ; passports demanded ; Bastiles were 
 introduced ; strange oaths invented ; a secret police 
 organised; “ piping” began; informers multiplied; spies 
 now first appeared in America. The right to declare war, 
 to raise and support armies, and to provide and maintain 
 a navy was usurped by the Executive ; and in a little more 
 than two months a land and naval force of over three 
 hundred thousand men was in the field or upon the sea. 
 An army of public plunderers followed, and corruption 
 struggled with power in friendly strife for the mastery at 
 home. 
 
 On 4th of July, Congress met: not to seek peace; 
 not to rebuke usurpation nor to restrain power ; not 
 certainly to deliberate ; not even to legislate, but to 
 register and ratify the edicts and acts of the Executive ; 
 
152 
 
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 and in your language, sir, upon the first day of the session, 
 to invoke an universal baptism of fire and blood amid the 
 roar of cannon and the din of battle. Free speech was 
 had only at the risk of a prison, possibly of life. Oppo- 
 sition was silenced by the fierce clamour of “ disloyalty.” 
 All business not of war was voted out of order. Five 
 hundred thousand men, an immense navy, and two hundred 
 and fifty millions of money, were speedily granted. In 
 twenty, at most int sixy days, the rebellion was to be 
 crushed out. To doubt it was treason. Abject submission 
 was demanded. Lay down your arms, sue for peace, 
 surrender your leader — forfeiture, death — this was the 
 only language heard on this floor. The galleries responded ; 
 the corridors echoed ; and contractors, and placemen, and 
 other venal patriots everywhere gnashed upon the friends 
 of peace as they passed by. In five weeks seventy-eight 
 public and private acts and joint resolutions, with declara- 
 tory resolutions, in the Senate and House, quite as 
 numerous, all full of slaughter, were hurried through with- 
 out delay and almost without debate. 
 
 Thus was civil war inaugurated in America. Can any 
 man to-day see the end of it ? 
 
 And now pardon me, sir, if I pause here a moment to 
 define my own position at this time upon this great ques- 
 tion. 
 
 Sir, I am one of that number who have opposed aboli- 
 tionism, or the political development of the anti-slavery 
 sentiment of the North and West, from the beginning. 
 In school, at college, at the bar, in public assemblies, in 
 the Legislature, in Congress, boy and man, as a private 
 citizen and in public life, in time of peace and in time of 
 war, at all times and at every sacrifice, I have fought against 
 it. It cost me ten years’ exclusion from office and honour, 
 at that period of life when honours are sweetest. No 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 153 
 
 matter : I learned early to do right and wait. Sir, it is but 
 the development of the spirit of intermeddling, whose 
 children are strife and murder. Cain troubled himself 
 about the sacrifice of Abel, and slew him. Most of the 
 wars and contentions, and litigation and bloodshed, from 
 the beginning of time, have been its fruits. The spirit of 
 non-intervention is the very spirit of peace and concord. 
 I do not believe that if slavery had never existed here we 
 would have had no sectional controversies. This very 
 civil war might have happened fifty, perhaps a hundred 
 years later. Other and stronger causes of discontent and 
 of disunion, it may he, have existed between other States 
 and sections, and are now being developed every day into 
 maturity. The spirit of intervention assumed the form 
 of abolitionism because slavery was odious in name and 
 by association to the Northern mind, and because it was 
 that which most obviously marks the different civilisations 
 of the two sections. The South herself, in her early and 
 later efforts to rid herself of it, had exposed the weak and 
 offensive parts of slavery to the world. Abolition inter- 
 meddling taught her at last to search for and defend the 
 assumed social, economic, and political merit and value of 
 the institution. But there never was an hour from the 
 beginning when it did not seem to me as clear as the sun 
 at broad noon, that the agitation in any form in the North 
 and West of the slavery question must sooner or later end 
 in disunion and civil war. This was the opinion and pre- 
 diction for years of Whig and Democratic statesmen alike ; 
 and after the unfortunate dissolution of the Whig Party 
 in 1854, and the organisation of the present Republican 
 party upon an exclusively anti-slavery and sectional basis, 
 the event was inevitable ; because, in the then existing 
 temper of the public mind, and after the education 
 through the press and by the pulpit, the lecture, and the 
 
154 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 political canvass for twenty years, of a generation taught 
 to hate slavery and the South, the success of that party, 
 possessed, as it was, of every engine of political, business, 
 social, and religious influence, was certain. It was only 
 a question of time, and short time. Such was its strength, 
 indeed, that I do not believe that the union of the Demo- 
 cratic Party in 18G0 on any candidate, even though he 
 had been supported also by an entire so-called Conserva- 
 tive or anti-Lincoln vote of the country, would have 
 availed to defeat it ; and if it had, the success of the 
 abolition party would only have been postponed four years 
 longer. The disease had fastened too strongly upon the 
 system to be healed until it had run its course. The doc- 
 trine of the £s irrepressible conflict” had been taught too 
 long, and accepted too widely and earnestly to die out, 
 until it should culminate in secession and disunion ; and, 
 if coercion were resorted to, then in civil war. I believed 
 from the first that it was the purpose of some of the 
 apostles of that doctrine to force a collision between the 
 North and the South, either to bring about a separation 
 or to find a vain but bloody pretext for abolishing slavery 
 in the States. In any event, I knew, or thought I knew, 
 that the end was certain collision and death to the 
 Union. 
 
 ****** 
 Believing thus, I have for years past denounced those 
 who taught that doctrine with all the vehemence, the 
 bitterness, if you choose — I thought it a righteous, a 
 patriotic bitterness — of an earnest and impassioned nature. 
 Thinking thus, I forewarned all who believed the doctrine, 
 or followed the party which taught it, with a sincerity and 
 a depth of conviction as profound as ever penetrated the 
 heart of man. And when, for eight years past, over and 
 over again, I have proclaimed to the people that the sue- 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 155 
 
 cess of a sectional anti-slavery party would be the begin- 
 ning of disunion and civil war in America, I believed it. 
 I did. I had read history, and studied human nature, and 
 meditated for years upon the character of our institutions 
 and form of government, and of the people South as well 
 as North ; and I could not doubt the event. But the 
 people did not believe me, nor those older and wiser and 
 greater than I. They rejected the prophecy, and stoned 
 the prophets. The candidate of the republican party was 
 chosen President. Secession began. Civil war was immi- 
 nent. It was no petty insurrection; no temporary combi- 
 nation to obstruct the execution of the laws in certain 
 States; but a Revolution, systematic, deliberate, deter- 
 mined, and with the consent of a majority of the people 
 of each State which seceded. Causeless it may have been ; 
 wicked it may have been ; but there it was ; not to be 
 railed at, still less to be laughed at, but to be dealt with 
 by statesmen as a fact. No display of vigour or force 
 alone, however sudden or great, could have arrested it 
 even at the outset. It was disunion at last. The wolf 
 had come. But civil war had not yet followed. In my 
 deliberate and most solemn judgment, there was but one 
 wise and masterly mode of dealing with it. Non-coercion 
 would avert civil war, and compromise crush out both 
 abolitionism and secession. The parent and the child 
 would thus both perish. But a resort to force would at 
 once precipitate a war, hasten secession, extend disunion, 
 and, while it lasted, utterly cut off all hope of compromise. 
 I believed that war, if long enough continued, would be 
 final, eternal disunion. I said it: I meant it; and, accord- 
 ingly, to the utmost of my ability and influence, I exerted 
 myself in behalf of the policy of non-coercion. It was 
 adopted by Mr. Buchanan’s administration, with the 
 
156 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 almost unanimous consent of the Democratic and Consti- 
 tutional Union parties in and out of Congress; and, in 
 February, with a concurrence of a majority of the Repub- 
 lican party in the Senate and this House. But that party, 
 most disastrously for the country, refused all compromise. 
 How, indeed, could they accept any? That which the 
 South demanded and the Democratic and Conservative 
 parties of the North and West were willing to grant, and 
 which alone could avail to keep the peace and save the 
 Union, implied a surrender of the sole vital element of the 
 party and its platform — of the very principle, in fact, upon 
 which it had just won the contest for the Presidency; not, 
 indeed, by a majority of the popular vote — the majority 
 was nearly a million against it — but under the form of the 
 Constitution. Sir, the crime, the “high crime” of the 
 Republican party w r as not so much its refusal to compro- 
 mise, as its original organisation upon a basis and doctrine 
 wholly inconsistent with the stability of the constitution 
 and the' peace of the Union. 
 
 But to resume : The session of Congress expired. 
 The President elect was inaugurated ; and now, if only the 
 policy of non-coercion could be maintained, and war thus 
 averted, time would do its work in the North and the 
 South, and final peaceable adjustment and reunion be 
 secured. Some time in March it was announced that the 
 President had resolved to continue the policy of his pre- 
 decessor, and even go a step further, and evacuate 
 Sumpter and the other Federal forts and arsenals in the 
 seceded States. His own party acquiesced; the whole 
 country rejoiced. The policy of non-coercion had 
 triumphed, and, for once, sir, in my life, I found myself 
 in an immense majority. No man then pretended that a 
 Union founded in consent could be cemented by force. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 157 
 
 Nay, more, the President and the Secretary of State went 
 further. Said Mr. Seward, in an official diplomatic letter 
 to Mr. Adams : 
 
 “For these reasons he [the President] would not be 
 disposed to reject a cardinal dogma of theirs [the seces- 
 sionists], namely, that the Federal Government could not 
 reduce the seceding States to obedience by conquest, 
 although he were disposed to question that proposition. 
 But in fact the President willingly accepts it as true. 
 Only an imperial or despotic Government could subjugate 
 thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of 
 the State.” 
 
 Pardon me, sir, but I beg to know whether this con- 
 viction of the President and his Secretary is not the phi- 
 losophy of the persistent and most vigorous efforts made by 
 this administration, and first of all through this same Secre- 
 tary, the moment rear broke out and ever since till the late 
 elections, to convert the United Stales into an imperial or 
 despotic Government ? But Mr. Seward adds, and I agree 
 with him : 
 
 “This Federal republican system of ours is, of all forms 
 of Government, the very one which is most unfitted for 
 such a labour.” 
 
 This, sir, was on the 10th of April, and yet that very 
 day the fleet was under sail for Charleston. The policy 
 of peace had been abandoned. Collision followed ; the 
 militia was ordered out; civil war began. 
 
 Now, sir, on the 14th of April I believed that coercion 
 would bring on war, and war disunion. More than that, 
 I believed, what you all in your hearts believe to-day, that 
 the South could never be conquered — never. And not 
 that only, but I was satisfied— and you of the Abolition 
 party have now proved it to the world — that the secret 
 but real purpose of the war was to abolish slavery in the 
 States. In any event, I did not doubt that whatever 
 
158 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 might be the momentary impulses of those in power, and 
 whatever pledges they might make in the midst of the 
 fury for the Constitution, the Union, and the flag, yet the 
 natural and inexorable logic of revolutions would, sooner 
 or later, drive them into that policy, and with it to^its final 
 but inevitable result, the change of our present demo- 
 cratical form of Government into an Imperial despotism. 
 
 These were my convictions on the 14th of April. Had 
 I changed them on the 15th, when I read the President’s 
 Proclamation, and become convinced that I had been 
 wrong all my life, and that all history was a fable, and all 
 human nature false in its development from the beginning 
 of time, I would have changed my public conduct also. 
 But my convictions did not change. I thought that, if 
 war was disunion on the 14th of April, it was equally dis- 
 union on the 15th, and at all times. Believing this, I 
 could not, as an honest man, a Union man, and a patriot, 
 lend an active support to the war ; and I did not. I had 
 rather my right arm were plucked from its socket and cast 
 into eternal burnings, than, with my convictions, to have 
 thus defiled my soul with the guilt of moral perjury. Sir, 
 I was not taught in that school which proclaims that “ all 
 is fair in politics.” I loathe, abhor, and detest the exe- 
 crable maxim. I stamp upon it. No State can endure a 
 single generation whose public men practise it. Whoever 
 teaches it is a corrupter of youth. What we most want in 
 these times, and at all times, is honest and independent 
 public men. That man who is dishonest in politics is not 
 honest, at heart, in anything; and sometimes moral 
 cowardice is dishonesty. Do right; and trust to God, and 
 truth, and the people. Perish office, perish honour, perish 
 life itself; but do the thing that is right, and do it like a 
 man. I did it. Certainly, sir, I could not doubt what he 
 must suffer who dare defy the opinions and the passions. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 159 
 
 not to say the madness, of twenty million people. Had I 
 not read history ? Did I not know human nature ? But 
 I appealed to time, and right nobly hath the avenger 
 answered me. 
 
 I did not support the war; and to-day I bless God 
 that not the smell of so much as one drop of its blood is 
 upon my garments. Sir, I censure no brave man who 
 rushed patriotically into this war ; neither will I quarrel 
 with any one, here or elsewhere, who gave it an honest 
 support. Had their convictions been mine, I, too, would 
 doubtless have done as they did. With my convictions I 
 could not. But I was a Representative. War existed — 
 by whose act no matter — not mine. The President, the 
 Senate, the House, and the country, all said that there 
 should be war — war for the Union; a union of consent 
 and goodwill. Our Southern brethren were to be whipped 
 back into love and fellowship at the point of the bayonet. 
 Oh, monstrous delusion! I can comprehend a war to compel 
 people to accept a master; to change a form of Government; 
 to give up territory ; to abolish a domestic institution — - 
 in short, a war of conquest and subjugation ; but a war for 
 Union W T as the Union thus made? Was it ever thus 
 preserved ? Sir, history will record that after nearly six 
 thousand years of folly and wickedness in every form and 
 administration of Government, theocratic, democratic, 
 monarchic, olicharchic, despotic, and mixed, it was reserved 
 to American statesmanship in the nineteenth century of 
 the Christian era to try the grand experiment on a scale 
 the most costly and gigantic in its proportions, nf creating 
 love by force, and developing fraternal affection by war ; 
 and history will record, too, on the same page, the utter, 
 disastrous, and most bloody failure of the experiment. 
 
 But to return : the country was at war; and I belonged 
 to that school of politics which teaches that when we are 
 
1G0 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 at war, the Government — I do not mean the Executive 
 alone, but the Government — is entitled to demand and 
 have, without resistance, such number of men, and such 
 amount of money and supplies generally, as may be neces- 
 sary for the war, until an appeal can be had to the people. 
 Before that tribunal alone, in the first instance, must the 
 question of the continuance of the war be tried. This was 
 Mr. Calhoun’s opinion, and he laid it down very broadly 
 and strongly in a speech on the Loan Bill, in 1841. 
 Speaking of supplies, he said: 
 
 “ I hold that there is a distinction in this respect 
 between a state of peace and war. In the latter, the right 
 of withholding supplies ought ever to be held subordi- 
 nate to the energetic and successful prosecution of the 
 war. 1 go further, and regard the withholding supplies, 
 with a view of forcing the country into a dishonourable 
 peace, as not only to be, what it has been called, moral 
 treason, but very little short of actual treason itself.” 
 
 Upon this principle, sir, he acted afterwards in the 
 Mexican war. Speaking of that war in 1847, he said: 
 
 “ Every senator knows that I was opposed to the war; 
 but none knows but myself the depth of that opposition. 
 With my conception of its character and consequences, it 
 was impossible for me to vote for it.” 
 
 And again, in 1848 : 
 
 “ But, after war was declared, by authority of the 
 Government, I acquiesced in what I could not prevent, 
 and which it was impossible for me to arrest ; and I then 
 felt it to be my duty to limit my efforts to give such direc- 
 tion to the war as would, as far as possible, prevent the 
 evils and dangers with which it threatened the country and 
 its institutions.” 
 
 Sir, I adopt all this as my own position and my de - 
 fence ; though, perhaps, in a civil war, I might fairly go 
 further in opposition. I could not, with my convictions, 
 vote men and money for this war, and I would not, as a 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 161 
 
 Representative, vote against them. I meant that, without 
 opposition, the President might take all the men and all 
 the money he should demand, and then to hold him to a 
 strict accountability before the people for the results. 
 Not believing the soldiers responsible for the war, or its 
 purposes, or its consequences, I have never withheld my 
 vote where their separate interests were concerned. But 
 I have denounced from the beginning the usurpations and 
 the infractions, one and all, of law and Constitution, by 
 the President and those under him; their repeated and 
 persistent arbitrary arrests, the suspension of habeas corpus, 
 the violation of freedom of the mails, of the private house, 
 of the press, and of speech, and all the other multiplied 
 wrongs and outrages upon public liberty and private 
 right, which have made this country one of the worst des- 
 potisms on earth for the past twenty months ; and I will 
 continue to rebuke and denounce them to the end ; and 
 the people, thank God, have at last heard and heeded, and 
 rebuked them, too. To the record and to time I appeal 
 again for my justification. 
 
 And now, sir, I recur to the state of the Union to-day. 
 What is it ? Sir, twenty months have elapsed, but the 
 rebellion is not crushed out ; its military power has not 
 been broken ; the insurgents have not dispersed. The 
 Union is not restored, nor the Constitution maintained, 
 nor the laws enforced. Twenty, sixty, ninety, three 
 hundred, six hundred days have passed; a thousand mil- 
 lions been expended, and three hundred thousand lives 
 lost, or bodies mangled ; and to-day the Confederate flag 
 is still near the Potomac and the Ohio, and the Confederate 
 Government stronger, many times, than at the beginning. 
 Not a State has been restored, not any part of any State 
 has voluntarily returned to the Union. And has anything 
 been wanting that Congress, or the States, or the people 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 in their most generous enthusiasm, their most impassioned 
 patriotism, could bestow ? Was it power ? And did 
 not the party of the Executive control the entire Federal 
 Government, every State Government, every county, every 
 city, town, and village in the North and West? Was it 
 patronage? All belonged to it. Was it influence ? What 
 more ? Did not the school, the college, the church, the 
 press, the secret orders, the municipality, the corporation, 
 railroads, telegraphs, express companies, the voluntary as- 
 sociation, all, all yield it to the utmost ? Was it unanimity? 
 Never was an administration so supported in England or 
 America. Five men and half a score of newspapers made 
 up the opposition. Was it enthusiasm ? The enthusiasm 
 was fanatical. There has been nothing like it since the 
 Crusades. Was it confidence? Sir, the faith of the 
 people exceeded that of the patriarch. They gave up 
 Constitution, law, right, liberty, all at your demand for 
 arbitrary power, that the rebellion might, as you promised, 
 be crushed out in three months, and the Union restored. 
 Was credit needed? You took control of a country, 
 young, vigorous, and inexhaustible in wealth and resources, 
 and of a Government almost free from public debt, and 
 whose good faith had never been tarnished. Your great 
 national loan-bubble failed miserably, as it deserved to 
 fail ; but the bankers and merchants of Philadelphia, New 
 York, and Boston lent you more than their entire banking 
 capital. And when that failed, too, you forced credit, by 
 declaring your paper promises to pay a legal tender for all 
 debts. Was money wanted? You had all the revenues 
 of the United States, diminished indeed, but still in gold. 
 The whole wealth of the country, to the last dollar, lay at 
 a our feet. Private individuals, municipal corporations, 
 the State Governments, all in their frenzy gave you money 
 or means with reckless prodigality. The great Eastern 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 163 
 
 cities lent you $150,000,000. Congress voted, first, the 
 sum of $250,000,000, and next 500,000,000 more in 
 loans ; and then, first, $50,000,000, then $10,000,000, 
 next $90,000,000, and, in July last, $150,000,000 in Trea- 
 sury notes ; and the Secretary has issued also a ‘ £ paper 
 postage currency,” in sums as low as five cents, limited in 
 amount only by his discretion. Nay, more ; already since 
 the 4th of July, 1861, this House has appropriated 
 $2,400,000,000, almost every dollar without debate, and 
 without a recorded vote. A thousand millions have been 
 expended since the 15th of April, 1861 ; and a public debt 
 or liability of $1,500,000,000 already incurred. And, to 
 support all this stupendous outlay and indebtedness, a 
 system of taxation, direct and indirect, has been inaugurated 
 the most onerous and unjust ever imposed upon any but 
 a conquered people. 
 
 Money and credit, then, you have had in prodigal pro- 
 fusion. And were men wanted ? More than a million 
 rushed to arms ! Seventy-five thousand first (and the 
 country stood aghast at the multitude), then eighty-three 
 thousand more were demanded ; and three hundred and 
 ten thousand responded to the call. The President next 
 asked for four hundred thousand, and Congress, in its 
 generous confidence, gave him five hundred thousand ; 
 and, not to be outdone, he took six hundred and thirty- 
 seven thousand. Half of these melted away in their first 
 campaign ; and the President demanded three hundred 
 thousand more for the war, and then drafted yet another 
 three hundred thousand for nine months. The fabled 
 hosts of Xerxes had been outnumbered. And yet victory 
 strangely follows the standards of the foe. From Great 
 Bethel to Vicksburg, the battle has not been to the strong. 
 Yet every disaster, except the last, has been followed by a 
 call for more troops, and every time so far they have been 
 
 m 2 
 
164 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 promptly furnished. From the beginning the war has 
 been conducted like a political campaign, and it has been 
 the folly of the party in power that they have assumed 
 that numbers alone would win the field in a contest not 
 with ballots, but with musket and sword. But numbers 
 you have had almost without number — the largest, best 
 appointed, best armed, fed, and clad, host of brave men, 
 well organised and disciplined ever marshalled. A navy, 
 too, not the most formidable, perhaps, but the most 
 numerous and gallant, and the costliest in the world, 
 and against a foe almost without a navy at all. Twenty 
 million people, and every element of strength and force at 
 command — power, patronage, influence, unanimity, enthu- 
 siasm, confidence, credit, money, men, an army and a 
 navy the largest and the noblest ever set in the field or 
 afloat upon the sea ; with the support, almost servile, of 
 every State, county, and municipality in the North and 
 West; with a Congress swift to do the bidding of the 
 Executive ; without opposition anywhere at home, and 
 with an arbitrary power which neither the Czar of Russia 
 nor the Emperor of Austria dare exercise ; yet, after nearly 
 two years of more vigorous prosecution of war than ever 
 recorded in history ; after more skirmishes, combats, and 
 battles than Alexander, Caesar, or the first Napoleon ever 
 fought in any five years of their military career, you have 
 utterly, signally, disastrously — I will not say ignomini- 
 ously — failed to subdue ten millions of “ rebels, 5 ’ whom 
 you had taught the people of the North and West not 
 only to hate but to despise. Rebels, did I say. Yes ; 
 your fathers were rebels, or your grandfathers. He who 
 now before me on canvas looks down so sadly upon us, 
 the false, degenerate, and imbecile guardians of the great 
 Republic which he founded, was a rebel. And yet we, 
 cradled ourselves in rebellion, and who have fostered and 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 165 
 
 fraternised with every insurrection in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury everywhere throughout the globe, would now, for- 
 sooth, make the word “ rebel ” a reproach. Rebels cer- 
 tainly they are; but all the persistent and stupendous 
 efforts of the most gigantic warfare of modern times have, 
 through your incompetency and folly, availed nothing to 
 crush them out, cut off though they have been by your 
 blockade from all the world, and dependent only upon 
 their own courage and resources. And yet they were to 
 be utterly conquered and subdued in six weeks, or three 
 months ! Sir, my judgment was made up and expressed 
 from the first. I learned it from Chatham : “ My Lords, 
 you cannot conquer America.” And }mu have not con- 
 quered the South. You never will. It is not in the 
 nature of things possible : much less under your auspices. 
 But money you have expended without limit, and blood 
 poured out like water ; defeat, debt, taxation, sepulchres, 
 these are your trophies. In vain the people gave you 
 treasure and the soldier yielded up his life. “ Fight, tax, 
 emancipate, let these,” said the gentleman from Maine 
 (Mr. Pike), at the last session, “ be the trinity of our 
 salvation.” Sir, they have become the trinity of your 
 deep damnation. The war for the Union is, in your 
 hands, a most bloody and costly failure. The President 
 confessed it on the 22nd of September, solemnly, officially* 
 and under the broad seal of the United States. And he 
 has now repeated the confession. The priests and rabbis 
 of abolition taught him that God would not prosper such 
 a cause. War for the Union was abandoned ; war for the 
 negro openly begun, and with stronger battalions than 
 before. With what success ? Let the dead at Fredericks- 
 burg and Vickburg answer. 
 
 And now, sir, can this war continue? Whence the 
 money to carry it on ? Where the men ? Can you 
 
166 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 borrow? From whom? Can you tax more? Will the 
 people bear it? Wait till you have collected what is 
 already levied. How many millions more of “legal 
 tender ” — to-day forty-one per cent, below the par of gold 
 — can you float? Will men enlist now at any price? Ah, 
 sir, it is easier to die at home — I beg pardon ; but I trust 
 I am not “ discouraging enlistments.” If I am, then first 
 arrest Lincoln, Stanton, and Halleck, and some of your 
 other Generals, and I will retract; yes, I will recant. 
 But can you draft again ? Ask New England — New 
 York. Ask Massachusetts. Where are the nine hundred 
 thousand ? Ask not Ohio — the North-west. She thought 
 you were in earnest, and gave you all, all— more than you 
 demanded. 
 
 “ The wife whose babe first smiled that day, 
 
 The fair, fond bride of yester eve, 
 
 And aged sire and matron grey, 
 
 Saw the loved warriors haste away, 
 
 And deemed it sin to grieve.” 
 
 Sir, in blood she has atoned for her credulity ; and 
 now there is mourning in every house, and distress and 
 sadness in every heart. Shall she give you any more? 
 
 But ought this war to continue ? I answer — No, not a 
 day, not an hour. What then ? Shall we separate ? 
 Again I answer — No, no, no! What then? And now, 
 sir, I come to the grandest and most solemn problem of 
 statesmanship from the beginning of time; and to the 
 God of heaven, illuminer of hearts and minds, I would 
 humbly appeal for some measure, at least, of light and 
 wisdom and strength to explore and reveal the dark but 
 possible future of this land. 
 
 Can the Union of these States be Restored ? How 
 shall it be done ? 
 
 And why not? Is it historically impossible ? Sir, the 
 frequent civil wars and conflicts between the States of 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 167 
 
 Greece did not prevent their cordial union to resist the 
 Persian invasion ; nor did even the thirty years’ Pelopon- 
 nesian war, springing in part from the abduction of slaves, 
 and embittered and disastrous as it was — let Thucidides 
 speak — wholly destroy the fellowship of those States. 
 The wise Romans ended the three years’ social war after 
 many bloody battles, and much atrocity, by admitting the 
 States of Italy to all the rights and privileges of Roman 
 citizenship — the very object to secure which these States 
 had taken up arms. The border wars between Scotland 
 and England, running through centuries, did not prevent 
 the final union, in peace and by adjustment, of the two 
 kingdoms under one monarch. Compromise did at last 
 what ages of coercion and at tempted conquest h ad failed 
 to effect. '^England kept the crown, while Scotland gave 
 the king to wear it; and the memories of Wallace and 
 the Bruce of Bannockburn became part of the glories of 
 British history. 
 
 * >j: Jfi 
 
 Sir, the rivalries of the Houses of York and Lancaster 
 filled all England with cruelty and slaughter; yet compro- 
 mise and intermarriage ended the strife at last, and the 
 white rose and the red were blended in one. Who 
 dreamed a month before the death of Cromwell that in 
 two years the people of England, after twenty years of 
 civil war and usurpation, would, with great unanimity, 
 restore the House of Stuart in the person of its most 
 worthless Prince, whose father but eleven years before 
 they had beheaded? And who could have foretold in the 
 beginning of 1812, that, within some three years, Napo- 
 leon would be in exile upon a desert island, and the 
 Bourbons restored? Armed foreign intervention did it; 
 but it is a strange history. Or who then expected to see 
 
168 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 a nephew of Napoleon, thirty-five years later, with the 
 consent of the people, supplant the Bourbon, and reign 
 Emperor of France? Sir, many States and people, once 
 separate, have become united in the course of ages through 
 natural causes and without conquest; but T remember 
 a single instance only in history of States or people 
 once united, and speaking the same language, who have 
 been forced permanently asunder by civil strife or war, 
 unless they were separated by distance or vast natural 
 boundaries. The secession of the Ten Tribes is the 
 exception : these parted without actual war. 
 
 *■*-**** 
 
 But when Moses, the greatest of all statesmen, would 
 secure a distinct nationality and government to the 
 Hebrews, he left Egypt and established his people in a 
 distant country. In modern times, the Netherlands, three 
 centuries ago, won their independence by the sword; but 
 France and the English channel separated them from 
 Spain: So did our thirteen Colonies ; but the Atlantic 
 Ocean divorced us from England. So did Mexico, and 
 other Spanish colonies in America ; but the same ocean 
 divided them from Spain. Cuba and the Canadas still 
 adhere to the parent government. And who now, North 
 or South, in Europe or America, looking into history, 
 shall presumptuously say that because of civil war the 
 reunion of these States is impossible? War, indeed, while 
 it lasts is disunion, and, if it lasts long enough, will be 
 final, eternal separation first, and anarchy and despotism 
 afterward. Hence I would hasten peace now, to-day, by 
 every honorable appliance. 
 
 vj' vl. kp vt» 
 
 rf* V »T» 
 
 But if disunionists in the East will force a separation 
 of any of these States, and a boundary line purely con- 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 169 
 
 ventional, is at last to be marked out, it must and it will 
 be either from Lake Erie upon the shortest line to the 
 Ohio River, or from Manhattan to the Canadas. 
 
 And now, sir, is there any difference of race here, so 
 radical as to forbid reunion? I do not refer to the negro 
 race, styled now, in unctuous official phrase by the Presi- 
 dent, “Americans of African descent.” Certainly, sir, 
 there are two white races in the United States, both from 
 the same common stock, and yet so distinct — one of them 
 so peculiar — that they develop different forms of civili- 
 zation, and might belong, almost, to different types of 
 mankind. But the boundary of these two races is not at 
 all marked by the line which divides the slaveholding from 
 the non-slaveholding States. If race is to be the geo- 
 graphical limit of disunion, then Mason and Dixon’s can 
 never be the line- 
 
 sfc ^ 
 
 And now, sir, I propose to briefly consider the causes 
 which led to disunion and the present civil war ; and to 
 inquire whether they are eternal and ineradicable in their 
 nature, and at the same time powerful enough to over- 
 come all the causes and considerations which impel to 
 reunion. 
 
 Having two years ago discussed fully and elaborately 
 the more abstruse and remote causes whence civil com- 
 motions in all governments, and those also which are 
 peculiar to our complex and Federal system, such as the 
 consolidating tendencies of the general government, be- 
 cause of executive power and patronage, and of the tariff, 
 and taxation, and disbursement generally, all unjust and 
 burdensome to the West equally with the South, I pass 
 them by now. 
 
 What, then, I ask, is the immediate, direct cause of 
 disunion and this civil war? Slavery, it is answered. 
 
170 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 Sir, that is the philosophy of the rustic in the play — 
 “ that a great cause of the night, is lack of the sun.” 
 Certainly, slavery was in one sense — very obscure, indeed 
 — the cause of the war. Had there been no slavery here, 
 this particular war about slavery would never have been 
 waged. In a like sense, the Holy Sepulchre was the cause 
 of the war of the Crusades ; and had Troy or Carthage 
 never existed, there never would have been Trojan or 
 Carthagenian war, and no such personages as Hector and 
 Hannibal ; and no Iliad or iEneid would have been 
 written. But far better say that the negro is the cause of 
 the war ; for had there been no negro here, there would 
 be no war just now. What then ? Exterminate him ? 
 Who demands it ? Colonize him ? How? Where? When? 
 At whose cost? Sir, let us have an end of this folly. 
 
 But slavery is the cause of the war. Why ? Because 
 the South obstinately and wickedly refused to restrict or 
 abolish it at the demand of the philosophers or fanatics 
 and demagogues of the North and West. Then, sir, it 
 was abolition, the purpose to abolish or interfere with and 
 hem in slavery, which caused disunion and war. Slavery 
 is only the subject, but abolition the cause, of this civil 
 war. It was the persistent and determined agitation in 
 the free States of the question of abolishing slavery in the 
 South, because of the alleged “irrepressible conflict” be- 
 tween the forms of labour in the two sections, or in the 
 false and mischievous cant of the day, between freedom 
 and slavery, that forced a collision of arms at last. Sir, 
 that conflict was not confined to the Territories. It was 
 expressly proclaimed by its apostles, as between the States 
 also, against the institution of domestic slavery everywhere. 
 But, assuming the platforms of the Republican Party as 
 the standard, and stating the case most strongly in favour 
 of that party, it was the refusal of the South to consent 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 171 
 
 that slavery should be excluded from the Territories that 
 led to the continued agitation, North and South, of that 
 question, and finally to disunion and civil war. Sir, I will 
 not be answered now by the old clamour about “ the ag- 
 gressions of the slave power.” That miserable spectre, 
 that unreal mockery, has been exorcised and expelled by 
 debt and taxation and blood. If that power did govern 
 this country for the sixty years preceding this terrible 
 revolution, then the sooner this Administration and 
 Government return to the principles and policy of 
 Southern statesmanship, the better for the country ; and 
 that. Sir, is already, or soon will be, the judgment of the 
 people. But I deny that it was the “ slave-power ” that 
 governed for so many years, and so wisely and well. It 
 was the Democratic Party, and its principles and policy, 
 moulded and controlled, indeed, largely by Southern 
 statesmen. Neither will I be stopped by that other cry 
 of mingled fanaticism and hypocrisy, about the sin and 
 barbarism of African slavery. Sir, I see more of barbarism 
 and sin, a thousand times, in the continuance of this war, 
 the dissolution of the Union, the breaking up of this 
 Government, and the enslavement of the white race by 
 debt and taxes and arbitrary power. The day of fanatics 
 and sophists and enthusiasts, thank God, is gone at last ; 
 and though the age of chivalry may not, the age of prac- 
 tical statesmanship is about to return. Sir, I accept the 
 language and intent of the Indiana resolution to the full — 
 “ that in considering terms of settlement we will look only 
 to the welfare, peace, and safety of the white race, without 
 reference to the effect that settlement may have upon the 
 condition of the African.” And when we have done this, 
 my word for it, the safety, peace, and welfare of the 
 African will have been best secured. Sir, there is fifty- 
 fold less of anti-slavery sentiment to-day in the West than 
 
172 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 there was two years ago ; and, if this war be continued, 
 there will be still less a year hence. The people there 
 begin, at last, to comprehend that domestic slavery in the 
 South is a question, not of morals, or religion, or humanity, 
 but a form of labour, perfectly compatible with the dignity 
 of free white labour in the same community, and with 
 national vigour, power, and prosperity, and especially with 
 military strength. They have learned, or begin to learn, 
 that the evils of the system affect the master alone, or 
 the community and State in which it exists ; and that 
 we of the free States partake of all the material benefits 
 of the institution, unmixed with any part of its mischiefs. 
 They believe, also, in the subordination of the negro race 
 to the white where they both exist together, and that the 
 condition of the subordination, as established in the South, 
 is far better every way for the negro than the hard servi- 
 tude of poverty, degradation, and crime to which he is 
 subjected in the free States. All this, Sir, may be “ pro- 
 slaveryism,” if there be such a word. Perhaps it is ; but 
 the people of the West now begin to think it wisdom and 
 good sense. We will not establish slavery in our own 
 midst, neither will we abolish or interfere with it outside 
 of our own limits. 
 
 Sir, an anti-slavery paper in New York (the “Tribune”), 
 the most influential, and, therefore, most dangerous of all 
 that class — it would exhibit more of dignity, and command 
 more of influence, if it were always to discuss public ques- 
 tions and public men with a decent respect — laying aside 
 now the epithets of “secessionists” and “traitor,” has 
 returned to its ancient political nomenclature, and calls 
 certain members of this House “ pro-slavery.” Well, Sir, 
 in the old sense of the term as applied to the Democratic 
 party, I will not object. I said years ago, and it is a fitting 
 time now to repeat it : — 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 173 
 
 “ If to love my country ; to cherish the Union ; to 
 revere the Constitution ; if to abhor the madness and hate 
 the treason which would lift up a sacrilegious hand against 
 either; if to read that in the past, to behold it in the 
 present, to foresee it in the future of this land, which is of 
 more value to us and to the world for ages to come than 
 all the multiplied millions who have inhabited Africa from 
 the Creation to this day ! — if this is to be pro-slavery, then 
 is every nerve, fibre, vein, bone, tendon, joint, and ligament, 
 from the topmost hair of the head to the last extremity of 
 the foot, I am all over and altogether a pro-slavery man.” 
 
 And now, sir, I come to the great and controlling ques- 
 tion within which the whole question of union or disunion 
 is bound up. Is there “an irrepressible conflict” between 
 the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding States ? Must- 
 “ the cotton and rice-fields of South Carolina and the sugar- 
 plantations of Louisiana,” in the language of Mr. Seward, 
 “ be ultimately tilled by free labour, and Charleston and 
 New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise 
 alone, or else the rye-fields and wheat-fields of Massa- 
 chusetts and New York again be surrendered by their 
 farmers to slave culture and the production of slaves, and 
 Boston and New York become once more markets for 
 trade in the bodies and souls of men ?” If so, then there 
 is an end of all union and for ever. You cannot abolish 
 slavery by the sword; still less by proclamations, though 
 the President were to “proclaim” every month. Of what 
 possible avail was his proclamation of September ? Did 
 the South submit ? Was she even alarmed ? And yet he 
 has now fulminated another “ bull against the comet” — 
 brutum fulmen — and, threatening servile insurrection with 
 all its horrors, has yet coolly appealed to the judgment of 
 mankind, and invoked the blessing of the God of peace 
 and love ! But declaring it a military necessity, an essen- 
 tial measure of war to subdue the rebels, yet, with admi- 
 rable wisdom, he expressly exempts from incorporation 
 
174 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 the only States and parts of States in the South where he 
 has the military power to execute it. 
 
 Neither, sir, can you abolish slavery by argument. As 
 well attempt to abolish marriage or the relation of pater- 
 nity. The South is resolved to maintain it at every hazard 
 and by every sacrifice; and if “this Union cannot endure 
 part slave and part free,” then it is already and finally dis- 
 solved. Talk not to me of “ West Virginia.” Tell me 
 not of Missouri, trampled under the feet of your soldiery. 
 * * * * Sir, the destiny of those States must abide 
 
 the issue of the war. But Kentucky you may find tougher. 
 And Maryland — 
 
 “ Even in their ashes live their wonted fires.” 
 
 Nor will Delaware be found wanting in the day of trial. 
 
 But I deny the doctrine. It is full of disunion 
 and civil war, it is disunion itself. Whoever first 
 taught it ought to be dealt with as not only hostile to 
 the Union, but an enemy of the human race. Sir, the 
 fundamental idea of the Constitution is the perfect and 
 eternal compatibility of a union of States “ part slave and 
 part free else the Constitution never would have been 
 framed, nor the Union founded: and seventy years of suc- 
 cessful experiment have approved the wisdom of the plan. 
 In my deliberate judgment, a Confederacy made up of 
 slaveholding and non-slaveholding States is, in the nature 
 of things, the strongest of all popular Governments. 
 African slavery has been, and is, eminently conservative. 
 It makes the absolute political equality of the white race 
 everywhere practicable. It dispenses with the English 
 order of nobility, and leaves every white man, North and 
 South, owning slaves or owning none, the equal of every 
 other white man. It has reconciled universal suffrage 
 throughout the free States with the stability of Govern- 
 ment. I speak not now of its material benefits to the 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT 
 
 175 
 
 North and West, which are many and more obvious. But 
 the South, too, has profited in many ways by a union with 
 the non-slaveholding States. Enterprise, industry, self- 
 reliance, perseverance, and the other hardy virtues of a 
 people living in a higher latitude and without hereditary 
 servants, she has learned or received from the North. Sir, 
 it is easy, I know, to denounce all this, and to revile him 
 who utters it. Be it so. The English is, of all languages, 
 the most copious in words of bitterness and reproach. 
 “ Pour on : I will endure.” 
 
 Then, sir, there is not an “ irrepressible conflict ” 
 between slave labour and free labour. There is no con- 
 flict at all. Both exist together in perfect harmony in the 
 South. The master and the slave, the white labourer and 
 the black, work together in the same field or the same 
 shop, and without the slightest sense of degradation. 
 They are not equals, either socially or politically. And 
 why not, then, cannot Ohio, having only free labour, live 
 in harmony with Kentucky, which has both slave and 
 free ? Above all, why cannot Massachusetts allow the 
 same right of choice to South Carolina, separated as they 
 are a thousand miles, by other States who would keep the 
 peace and live in good will ? Why this civil war ? 
 Whence disunion ? Not from slavery — not because the 
 South chooses to have two kinds of labour instead of 
 one; but from sectionalism — always and everywhere a 
 disintegrating principle. Sectional jealousy and hate, — 
 these, sir, are the only elements of conflict between these 
 States, and, though powerful they are yet not at all 
 irrepressible. They exist between families, communities, 
 towns, cities, counties, and States ; and if not repressed 
 would dissolve all society and government. They exist 
 also between other sections than the North and South. 
 Sectionalism East, many years ago, saw the South and 
 
176 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 West united by the ties of geographical position, migra- 
 tion, intermarriage, and interest ; and thus strong enough 
 to control the power and policy of the Union. It found 
 us divided only by different forms of labour ; and, with 
 consummate but most guilty sagacity, it seized upon the 
 question of slavery as the surest and most powerful 
 instrumentality by which to separate the West from the 
 South, and bind her wholly to the North. Encouraged 
 every way from abroad by those who were jealous of our 
 prosperity and greatness, and who knew the secret of our 
 strength, it proclaimed the “ irrepressible conflict” be- 
 tween slave labour and free labour. It taught the people 
 of the North to forget both their duty and their interests ; 
 and, aided by the artificial ligaments and influence which 
 money and enterprise had created between the sea-board 
 and the North-west, it persuaded the people of that 
 section, also, to yield up every tie which binds them to 
 the great Valley of the Mississippi, and to join their 
 political fortunes especially wholly with the East. It 
 resisted the fugitive slave law, and demanded the exclusion 
 of slavery from all the Territories and from this District, 
 and clamoured against the admission of any more slave 
 States into the Union. It organised a sectional anti- 
 slavery party, and thus drew to its aid as well political 
 ambition and interest as fanaticism ; and after twenty-five 
 years of incessant and vehement agitation, it obtained 
 possession finally, and upon that issue, of the Federal 
 Government and of every State Government North and 
 West. And to-day, we are in the midst of the greatest, 
 most cruel, most destructive civil war ever waged. But 
 two years, sir, of blood and debt and taxation and incipi- 
 ent commercial ruin are teaching the people of the West, 
 and I trust of the North also, the folly and madness of 
 this crusade against African slavery, and the wisdom and 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 177 
 
 necessity of a union of the States, as our fathers made it, 
 “ part slave and part free.” 
 
 What, then, sir, with so many causes impelling to 
 reunion, keeps us apart to-day ? Hate, passion, antagonism, 
 revenge, all heated seven times hotter by war. Sir, these, 
 while they last, are the most powerful of all motives with 
 a people, and with the individual man ; but fortunately 
 they are the least durable. They hold a divided sway in 
 the same bosoms with the nobler qualities of love, justice, 
 reason, placability: and, except when at their height, are 
 weaker than the sense of interest, and always, in States at 
 least, give way to it at last. No statesman who yields 
 himself up to them can govern wisely or well ; and no 
 State whose policy is controlled by them can either pros- 
 per or endure. But war is both their offspring and their 
 aliment, and, while it lasts, all other motives are subordi- 
 nate. The virtues of peace cannot flourish, cannot even 
 find development in the midst of fighting ; and this civil 
 war keeps in motion the centrifugal forces of the Union, 
 and gives to them increased strength and activity every 
 day. But such, and so many and powerful, in my judg- 
 ment, are the cementing or centripetal agencies impelling 
 us together that nothing but perpetual war and strife can 
 keep us alwaj’s divided. 
 
 Sir, I do not under-estimate the power of the preju- 
 dices of section, or, what is much stronger, of race. Pre- 
 judice is colder, and, therefore, more durable than the 
 passions of hate and revenge, or the spirit of antagonism. 
 But, as I have already said, its boundary in the United 
 States is not Mason and Dixon’s line. The Ions standing 
 mutual jealousies of New England and the South do not 
 primarily grow out of slavery. They are deeper, and will 
 always be the chief obstacle in the way of full and abso- 
 
178 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 lute reunion. They are founded in difference of manners, 
 habits, and social life, and different opinions about politics, 
 morals, and religion. Sir, after all, this whole war is not 
 so much one of sections — least of all, between the slave- 
 holding and non-slaveholding sections — as of races, repre- 
 senting not difference in blood, but mind and its develop- 
 ment, and different types of civilization. It is the old 
 conflict of the Cavalier and the Roundhead, the Liberalist 
 and the Puritan ; or rather it is a conflict upon new issues 
 of the ideas and elements represented by those names. 
 It is a war of the Yankee and the Southron. Said a 
 Boston writer the other day, eulogising a New England 
 officer who fell at Fredericksburgh : “ This is Massaehu- 
 sets’ war; Massachusets and South Carolina made it.” 
 But in the beginning, the Roundhead outwitted the 
 Cavalier, and by a skilful use of slavery and the negro 
 united all New England first, and afterward the entire 
 North and West, and finally sent out to battle against 
 him Celt and Saxon, German and Knickerbocker, Catholic 
 and Episcopalian, and even a part of his own household 
 and of the descendants of his own stock. Said Mr. Jeffer- 
 son, when New England threatened secession some sixty 
 years ago: “No, let us keep the Yankees to quarrel with.” 
 Ah, sir, he forgot that quarrelling is always a hazardous 
 experiment; and, after some time, the countrymen of 
 Adams proved themselves too sharp at that work for the 
 countrymen of Jefferson. But every day the contest now 
 tends again to its natural and original elements. In many 
 parts of the North-west — I might add of Pennsylvania, 
 New Jersey, and New York city — the prejudice against 
 the “ Yankee ” has always been almost as bitter as in the 
 South. Suppressed for a little while by the anti-slavery 
 sentiment and the war, it threatens now to break forth in 
 one of those great and popular uprisings, in the midst of 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 179 
 
 which reason and justice are for the time utterly silenced. 
 I speak advisedly; and let New England heed, else she, 
 and the whole East, too, in their struggle for power, may 
 learn yet from the West the same lesson which civil war 
 taught to Rome, that evulyato imperii arcano posse, 
 principem alibi, quam Romce fieri. The people of the 
 AVest demand peace, and they begin to more than suspect 
 that New England is in the way. The storm rages ; and 
 they believe that she, not slavery, is the cause. The ship 
 is sore tried; and passengers and crew are now almost 
 ready to propitiate the waves by throwing the ill-omened 
 prophet overboard. In plain English — not very classic, 
 but most expressive — they threaten to “set New England 
 out in the cold.” 
 
 And now, sir, I, who have not a drop of New England 
 blood in my veins, but was born in Ohio, and am solely 
 of Southern ancestry — with a slight cross of Pennsyl- 
 vania Scotch- Irish — would speak a word to the men of 
 
 the AA r est and the South, in behalf of New England. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Sir, they who would exclude New England in any recon- 
 struction of the Union, assume that all New Englanders 
 are “Yankees” and Puritans; and that the Puritan or 
 pragmatical element, or type of civilization, has always 
 held undisputed sway. Well, sir, Yankees, certainly, they 
 are in one sense ; and so, to Old England, we are all 
 Yankees, North and South; and to the South, just now, 
 or a little while ago, we of the Middle and A\ r estern States, 
 also, are, or were, Yankees too. But there is really a very 
 large and most liberal and conservative non-Puritan element 
 in the population of New England, which, for many years, 
 struggled for the mastery, and sometimes held it. It 
 divided Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, and 
 once controlled Rhode Island whollv. It held the sway 
 
 n 2 
 
180 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 during the Revolution, and at the period when the Con- 
 stitution was founded, and for some years afterward. 
 Mr. Calhoun said very justly, in 1847, that to the wisdom 
 and enlarged patriotism of Sherman and Ellsworth, on the 
 slavery question, we were indebted for this admirable 
 Government, and that, along with Patterson, of New 
 Jersey, “ their names ought to be engraven on brass, and 
 live for ever.” And Mr. Webster, in 1830, in one of 
 those grand historic word-paintings, in which he was so 
 great a master, said of Massachusets and South Carolina : 
 “ Hand in hand they stood around the administration of 
 Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for 
 support.” Indeed, sir, it was not till some thirty years 
 ago, that the narrow, presumptuous, intermeddling, and 
 fanatical spirit of the old Puritan element began to re- 
 appear in a form very much more aggressive and destructive 
 than at first, and threatened to obtain absolute mastery in 
 church, and school, and State. A little earlier it had 
 struggled hard, hut the conservatives proved too strong 
 for it, and so long as the great statesmen and jurists of 
 the Whig and Democratic parties survived, it made but 
 small progress, though John Quincy Adams gave to it the 
 strength of his great name. But after their death it broke 
 in as a flood, and swept away the last vestige of the ancient, 
 liberal, and tolerating conservatism. Then, every form 
 and development of fanaticism sprang up in rank and most 
 luxuriant growth, till Abolitionism, the chief fungus of all, 
 overspread the whole of New England first, and then the 
 Middle States, and finally, every State in the North-west. 
 
 Certainly, sir, the more liberal or non-Puritan element 
 was mainly, though not altogether, from the old Puritan 
 stock, or largely crossed with it. But even within the 
 first ten years after the landing of the Pilgrims, a more 
 enlarged and tolerating civilization was introduced. Roger 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 181 
 
 Williams, not of the “ Mayflower,” though a Puritan him- 
 self, and thoroughly imbued with all its peculiarities of 
 cant and creed and form of worship, seems yet to have 
 had naturally a more liberal spirit ; and, first, perhaps, of 
 all men, some three or more years before “ The Ark and 
 the Dove 5 ’ touched the shores of the St. Mary’s, in Mary- 
 land, taught the sublime doctrine of toleration of opinion 
 and practice in religion. Threatened, first, with banish- 
 ment to England, so as to “ remove as far as possible the 
 infection of his principles;” and afterwards actually banished 
 beyond the jurisdiction of Massachusets, because, in the 
 language of the sentence of the General Court, “ he 
 broached and divulged divers new and strange doctrines 
 against the authority of magistrates,” over the religious 
 opinions of men, thereby disturbing the peace of the 
 colony. He became the founder of Rhode Island, and, 
 indeed, of a large part of New England society; and, 
 whether from his teaching and example, and in the persons 
 of his descendants and those of his associates, or from 
 other causes, and another stock, there has always been a 
 large infusion throughout New England of what may be 
 called the Roger Williams’ element, as distinguished from 
 the extreme Puritan, or Mayflower and Plymouth Rock 
 type of the New Englander ; and its influence, till late 
 years, has always been powerful. 
 
 Sir, I would not deny or disparage the austere virtues 
 of the old Puritans of England or America ; but I do 
 believe that, in the very nature of things, no community 
 could exist long in peace, and no Government endure 
 long alone, or become great, where that element in its 
 earliest or its more recent form holds supreme control. 
 And it is my solemn conviction that there can be no 
 possible or durable reunion of these States until it shall 
 have been again subordinated to other and more liberal 
 
182 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 and conservative elements, and, above all, until its worst 
 and most mischievous development, abolitionism, has been 
 utterly extinguished. Sir, the peace of the Union and of 
 this continent demands it. But, fortunately, those very 
 elements exist abundantly in New England herself; and 
 to her I look with confidence to secure to them the mastery 
 within her limits. In fact, sir, the true voice of New 
 England has for some years past been but rarely heard 
 here or elsewhere in public affairs. Men now control her 
 politics and are in high places, State and Federal, who, 
 twenty years ago, could not have been chosen as select 
 men in old Massachusets. But let her remember at last 
 her ancient renown ; let her turn from vain-glorious 
 admiration of the stone monuments of her heroes and 
 patriots of a former age, to generous emulation of the 
 noble and manly virtues which they were designed to 
 commemorate. Let us hear less from her of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers and the Mayflower and of Plymouth Rock, and 
 more of Roger Williams and his compatriots and his 
 toleration. Let her banish now and for ever her dreamers 
 and her sophists and her fanatics, and call back again into 
 her State Administration and into the national councils 
 <l her men of might, her grand in soul/’ — some of them 
 still live, — and she will yet escape the dangers which now 
 threaten her with isolation. 
 
 Then, sir, while I am inexorably hostile to Puritan 
 domination in religion or literature or politics, I am not in 
 favour of the proposed exclusion of New England. I 
 would have the union as it was ; and, first, New England 
 as she was. But if New England will have no Union 
 with slaveholders — if she is not content with “the Union 
 as it was” — then upon her own head be the responsibility 
 for secession. And there will be no more coercion now. 
 I, at least, will be exactly consistent. 
 
OX AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 183 
 
 And now, sir, can the central States, New York, New 
 Jersey, and Pennsylvania, consent to separation ? Can 
 New York city ? Sir, the trade of the South made her 
 largely what she is. She was the factor and the hanker 
 of the South — cotton filled her harbour with shipping and 
 her hanks with gold ; but in an evil hour the foolish — I 
 will not say bad — c; men of Gotham ” persuaded her 
 merchant princes — -against their first lesson in business — 
 that she could retain or force back the Southern trade by 
 war. War, indeed, has given her just now a new business 
 and trade greater and more profitable than the old ; but, 
 with disunion, that too must perish. And let not Wall 
 Street, or any other great interest, mercantile, manu- 
 facturing, or commercial, imagine that it shall have power 
 enough or wealth enough to stand in the way of reunion 
 through peace. Let them learn, one and all, that a public 
 man who has the people as his support is stronger than 
 they, though he may not be worth a million nor even one 
 dollar. A little while ago the banks said that they were 
 king, but President Jackson speedily taught them their 
 mistake. Next, railroads assumed to be king ; and cotton 
 once vaunted largely his kingship. Sir, these are only of 
 the royal family — princes of the blood. There is but one 
 king on earth. 
 
 But to return. New Jersey, too, is bound closely to 
 the South, and the South to her; and more and longer 
 than any other State, she remembered both her duty to 
 the Constitution and her interest in the Union. And 
 Pennsylvania, a sort of middle ground, just between the 
 North and the South, and extending, also, to the West, 
 is united by nearer, if not stronger ties, to every section, 
 than any other one State, unless it be Ohio. She was — 
 she is yet — the keystone in the great but now crumbling 
 arch of the Union. She is a border State; and, more 
 
184 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 than that, she has less within her of the fanatical or dis- 
 turbing element than any of the States. The people of 
 Pennsylvania are quiet, peaceable, practical, and enter- 
 prising, without being aggressive. They have more of the 
 honest old English and German thrift than any other. No 
 people mind more diligently their own business. They 
 have but one idiosyncrasy or specialty — the tariff; and 
 even that is really far more a matter of tradition than of 
 substantial interest. The industry, enterprise, and thrift 
 of Pennsylvania are abundantly able to take care of them- 
 selves against any competition. In any event, the Union 
 is of more value, many times, to her than any local 
 interest. 
 
 But other ties also bind these States — Pennsylvania 
 and New Jersey, especially — to the South, and the South 
 to them. Only an imaginary line separates the former 
 from Delaware and Maryland. The Delaware River, 
 common to both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, flows into 
 Delaware Bay. The Susquehanna empties its waters, 
 through Pennsylvania and Maryland, into the Chesapeake. 
 And that great watershed itself, extending to Norfolk, and, 
 therefore, almost to the North Carolina line, does belong, 
 and must ever belong, in common to the Central and 
 Southern States, under one Government; or else the line 
 of separation will be the Potomac to its head waters. All 
 of Delaware and Maryland, and the counties of Accomac 
 and Northampton, in Virginia, would, in that event, follow 
 the fortunes of the Northern Confederacy ! In fact, sir, 
 disagreeable as the idea maybe to many within their limits 
 on both sides, no man who looks at the map and then 
 reflects upon history and the force of natural causes, and 
 considers the present actual and the future probable posi- 
 tion of the hostile armies and navies at the end of this 
 war, ought for a moment to doubt that either the States 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 185 
 
 and counties which I have named must go with the North, 
 or Pennsylvania and New Jersey with the South. Mili- 
 tary force on either side cannot control the destiny of the 
 States lying between the mouth of the Chesapeake and 
 the Hudson. And if that bay were itself made the line, 
 Delaware, and the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia, 
 would belong to the North ; while Norfolk, the only capa- 
 cious harbour on the South-eastern coast, must he com- 
 manded by the guns of some new fortress upon Cape 
 Charles ; and Baltimore, the now’ queenly city, seated upon 
 the very boundary of tw'o rival, yes, hostile. Confederacies, 
 would rapidly fall into decay. 
 
 And now, Sir, 1 w r ill not ask whether the North-west 
 can consent to separation from the South. Never. Nature 
 forbids. We are only a part of the great Valley of the 
 Mississippi. There is no line of latitude upon which 
 to separate. The South -would not desire the old line 
 of 36° 36' on both sides of the river; and there is 
 no natural boundary east and u r est. The nearest to it 
 are the Ohio and Missouri rivers. But that line would 
 leave Cincinnati and St. Louis, as border cities, like Balti- 
 more, to decay, and, extending fifteen hundred miles in 
 length, would become the scene of an eternal border war, 
 fare without example even in the worst of times. Sir, w r e 
 cannot, ought not, will not, separate from the South. And 
 if you of the East, wdio have found this war against the 
 South and for the negro, gratifying to your bate, profitable 
 to your purse, will continue it till a separation be forced 
 between the slaveholding and your non-slaveholding States, 
 then, believe me, and accept it, as you did not the other 
 solemn warnings of years past, the day which divides the 
 North from the South, that self-same day decrees eternal 
 divorce between the West and the East. 
 
186 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 Sir, onr destiny is fixed. There is not one drop of 
 rain, which, descending from the heavens and fertilizing 
 our soil, causes it to yield an abundant harvest, but flows 
 into the Mississippi, and there, mingling with the waters 
 of that mighty x'iver, finds its way, at last, to the Gulf of 
 Mexico. And we must and will follow it with travel 
 and trade, not by treaty, but by right, freely, peaceably, 
 and without restriction or tribute, under the same govern- 
 ment and flag, to its home in the bosom of that gulf. 
 Six’, we will not remaixx, after separation from the South, 
 a pi'ovince or appanage of the East, to bear her bui’dens 
 and pay her taxes ; nor hemmed in and isolated as we 
 are, and without a sea coast, could we long remain a dis- 
 tinct confederacy. But wherever we go, mai’ried to the 
 Soxxth or to the East, we bi’ing with us three-fourths of 
 the tei'i’itoi'ies of that valley to the Rock Mountains, and 
 it may be to the Pacific — the gi-andest and most magni- 
 ficent dowry which bride ever had to bestow. Behold 
 to-day two sepai’ate governments in one country, and 
 withoxit a natui’al dividing line ; with two Pi*esidents and 
 Cabinets, and a double Congress ; and yet each under a 
 constitution so exactly similar, the one to the other, that 
 a stranger could scarce discei’n the diffei’ence. Was ever 
 folly and madness like this ? Sir, it is not in the natxire 
 of things that it shoxxld so continue long. 
 
 But why speak of ways or terms of reunion now? 
 The will is yet wanting in both sections. Union is con- 
 sent and good will and fraternal affection. War is force, 
 hate, revenge. Is the coxxntry tired at last of war ? Has 
 the experiment been tried long enough? Has sufficient 
 blood been shed, treasure expended, and misery inflicted 
 in both the North and the Soxxth? What then? Stop 
 fighting. Make an armistice, — no formal treaty. With- 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 187 
 
 draw your army from the seceded States. Reduce both 
 armies to a fair and sufficient peace establishment. De- 
 clare absolute free trade between the North and South. 
 Buy and sell. Agree upon a zollverein. Recall your 
 fleets. Break up your blockade. Reduce your navy. 
 Restore travel. Open up railroads. Re-establish the 
 telegraph. Reunite your express companies. No more 
 Monitors and iron-clads, but set your friendly steamers 
 and steamships again in motion. Visit the North and 
 West. Visit the South. Exchange newspapers. Mi- 
 grate. Intermarry. Let slavery alone. Hold elections 
 at the appointed times. Choose a new President in sixty- 
 four. And when the gospel of peace shall have descended 
 again from heaven into their hearts, and the gospel of 
 abolition and of hate been expelled, let your clergy and 
 the Chui'ches meet again in Christian intercourse, North 
 and South. Let the secret orders and voluntary associa - 
 tions everywhere reunite as brethren once more. In 
 short, give to all the natural and all the artificial causes 
 which impel us together their fullest sway. Let time do 
 his office — drying tears, dispelling sorrows, mellowing 
 passion, and making herb and grass and tree to grow 
 again upon the hundred battle-fields of this terrible war.. 
 
 “But this is recognition.” It is not formal recogni- 
 tion, to which I will not consent. Recognition now, and 
 attempted permanent treaties about boundary, travel, and 
 trade, and partition of Territories, would end in a war 
 fiercer and more disastrous than before. Recognition is 
 absolute disunion ; and not between the slave and the 
 free States, but with Delaware and Maryland as part of 
 the North, and Kentucky and Missouri part of the West. 
 But wherever the actual line, every evil and mischief of 
 disunion is implied in it. And for similar reasons, Sir, I 
 
188 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 would not at this time press hastily a convention of the 
 States. The men who now would hold seats in such a 
 convention would, upon both sides, if both agreed to 
 attend, come together full of the hate and bitterness 
 inseparable from a civil war. No, Sir; let passion have 
 time to cool, and reason resume its sway. It cost thirty 
 years of desperate and most wicked patience and industry 
 to destroy or impair the magnificent temple of this 
 Union. Let us be content if, within three years, we shall 
 be able to restore it. 
 
 But certainly what I propose is informal, practical 
 recognition. And that is precisely what exists to-day, 
 and has existed, more or less defined, from the first. 
 Flags of truce, exchange of prisoners, and all your other 
 observances of the laws, forms, and courtesies of the war 
 are acts of recognition. Sir, does any man doubt to-day 
 that there is a Confederate government at Richmond, 
 and that it is a “ belligerent ? ” Even the Secretary of 
 State has discovered it at last, though he has written 
 ponderous folios of polished rhetoric to prove that it is 
 not. Will continual war, then, without extended and 
 substantial success, make the Confederate States any the 
 ess a government in fact? 
 
 “ But it confesses disunion.” Yes, just as the surgeon, 
 who sets your fractured limb in splints, in order that 
 it may be healed, admits that it is broken. But the 
 government will have failed to “ crush out the rebellion.” 
 Sir, it has failed. You went to war to prove that we had 
 a government. With what result ? To the people of the 
 loyal States it has, in your hands, been the government 
 of King Stork but to the Confederate States, of King 
 Log. <£ But the rebellion will have triumphed.” Better 
 triumph to-day than ten years hence. But I deny it. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 189 
 
 The rebellion will at last be ci’usbed out in the only way 
 in which it e^er was possible. “ But no one will be hung 
 at the end of war.” Neither will there be, though the 
 war should last half a century, except by the mob or the 
 hand of arbitrary power. But really, sir, if there is to be 
 no hanging, let this administration, and all who have done 
 its bidding everywhere, rejoice and be exceedingly glad. 
 
 And now, sir, allow me a word upon a subject of very 
 great interest at this moment, and most important it may 
 be in its influence upon the future — foreign mediation. 
 1 speak not of armed and hostile intervention, which I 
 would resist as long as but one man was left to strike a 
 blow at the invader. But friendly mediation — the kindly 
 offer of an impartial power to stand as a daysman between 
 the contending parties in this most bloody and exhausting- 
 strife — ought to be met in a spirit as cordial and ready as 
 that in which it is proffered. It would be churlish to 
 refuse. Certainly, it is not consistent with the former 
 dignity of this government to ask for a mediation; 
 neither, sir, would it befit its ancient magnanimity to 
 reject it. As proposed by the Emperor of France, I 
 would accept it at once. Now is the auspicious moment. 
 It is the speediest, easiest, most graceful mode of sus- 
 „ pending hostilities. Let us hear no more of the mediation 
 of cannon and the sword. The day for all that has gone 
 by. Let us be statesmen at last. Sir, I give thanhs that 
 some, at least, among the republican party seem ready 
 now to lift themselves up to the height of this great 
 argument, and to deal with it in the spirit of the patriots 
 and public men of other countries, and of the better days 
 of the United States. 
 
 And now, sir, whatever may have been the motives 
 of England, France, and the other great powers of Europe, 
 
190 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 in withholding recognition so long from the Confederate 
 States, the South and the North are both indebted to 
 them for a great public service. The south lias proved 
 her ability to maintain herself by her own strength and 
 resources, without foreign aid, moral or material. And 
 the North and West — the whole country indeed — these 
 great powers have served incalculably, by holding back a 
 solemn proclamation to the world that the Union of these 
 States wns finally and formally dissolved. They have 
 left to us every motive and every chance for reunion ; and 
 if that has been the purpose of England especially — our 
 rival so loner ; interested more than any other in disunion 
 and the consequent weakening of our great naval and 
 commercial power, and suffering, too, as she has suffered, 
 so long and severely because of this war — I do not hesi- 
 tate to say that she has performed an act of unselfish 
 heroism without example in history. Was such indeed 
 her purpose? Let her answer before the impartial 
 tribunal of posterity. In any event, after the great 
 reaction in public sentiment in the North and West, to 
 be followed after some time by a like reaction in the 
 South, foreign recognition now of the Confederate States 
 could avail little to delay or prevent final reunion, if, as 
 I firmly believe, reunion be not only possible but in- 
 evitable. 
 
 Sir, I have not spoken of foreign arbitration. That is 
 quite another question. I think it impracticable, and fear 
 it as dangerous. The very powers, — or any other power, 
 — which have hesitated to aid disunion directly or by 
 force, might as authorized arbiters, most readily pro- 
 nounce for it at last. Very grand, indeed, would be the 
 tribunal before which the great question of the union of 
 these States and the final destiny of this continent for 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 191 
 
 ages would be beard, and historic through all time the 
 ambassadors who should argue it. And if both bellige- 
 rents consent, let the subjects in controversy be referred 
 to Switzerland, or Russia, or any other impartial and 
 incorruptible power or State in Europe. But at last, sir 3 
 the people of these several States here, at home, must be 
 the final arbiter of this great quarrel in America, and the 
 people and States of the North-west the mediators who 
 shall stand, like the prophet, betwixt the living and the 
 dead, that the plague of disunion may be stayed. 
 
 Sir, this war, horrible as it is, has taught us all some 
 of the most important and salutary lessons which ever a 
 people learned. 
 
 First, it has annihilated, in twenty months, all the false 
 and pernicious theories and teachings of abolitionism for 
 thirty years, and which a mere appeal to facts and 
 argument could not have untaught in half a century. 
 We have learned that the South is not weak, dependent, 
 unenterprising, or corrupted by slavery, luxury, and 
 idleness ; but, powerful, earnest, warlike, enduring, self- 
 supporting, full of energy, and inexhaustible in resources. 
 We have been taught, and nowconfess it openly, that 
 African slavery, instead of being a source of weakness 
 to theSouth is one of her main elements of strength ; 
 and hence the “ military necessity,” we are told of 
 abolishing slavery in order to suppress the rebellion. We 
 have learned, also, that the non- slaveholding white men 
 of the South, millions in number, are immovably attached 
 to the institution, and are its chief support ; and aboli- 
 tionists have found out to their infinite surprise and 
 disgust, that the slave is not “ panting for freedom,” nor 
 pining in silent but revengeful grief over cruelty and 
 oppression inflicted upon him, but happy, contented. 
 
192 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 attached deeply to his master, and unwilling — at least not 
 eager — to accept the precious boon of freedom which they 
 have proffered him. I appeal to the President for the 
 proof. I appeal to the fact that fewer slaves have escaped 
 even from Virginia in now nearly two years than Arnold 
 and Cornwallis carried away in six months of invasion 
 in 1781. Finally, sir, we have learner!, and the South, 
 too, what the history of the world ages ago, and our own 
 history might have taught us, that servile insurrection is 
 the least of the dangers to which she is exposed. Hence, 
 in my deliberate judgment, African slavery, as an institu- 
 tion, will come out of this conflict fifty-fold stronger than 
 when the war began. 
 
 The South, too, sir, has learned most important lessons ; 
 and among them, that personal courage *s a quality 
 common to all sections, and that, in battle, the men of 
 the North, and especially of the West, are their equals. 
 Hitherto there has been a mutual and most mischievous 
 mistake upon both sides. The South overvalued its own 
 jtersonal courage and undervalued ours, and we, too, 
 readily consented ; but at the same time she exaggerated 
 our aggregate strength and resources, and under-estimated 
 her own ; and we fell into the same error ; and hence the 
 original and fatal mistake or vice of the military policy of 
 the North, and which has already broken down the war 
 by its own weight — the belief that we could bring over- 
 whelming number and power into the field and up Co the 
 sea, and crush out the South at a blow. But t venty 
 months of terrible warfare have corrected many rrors, 
 and taught us the wisdom of a century. And no r , sir, 
 every one of these lessons will profit us all for ages to 
 come ; and, if we do but reunite, will bind us in a closer, 
 firmer, more durable union than ever before. 
 
ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 193 
 
 I have now, Mr. Speaker, finished what I desire to 
 say at this time upon the great question of the reunion 
 of these States. I have spoken freely and boldly — not 
 wisely, it may be, for the present, or for myself person- 
 ally, but most wisely for the future and for my country. 
 Not courting censure, I yet do not shrink from it. My 
 own immediate personal interests, and my chances just 
 now for the more material rewards of ambition, I again 
 surrender as hostages to that great hereafter, the echo 
 of whose footsteps already I hear along the highway of 
 time. Whoever, here or elsewhere, believes that war 
 can restore the Union of these States; whoever would 
 have a war for the abolition of slavery, or disunion ; and 
 he who demands Southern independence and final separa- 
 tion, let him speak, for him I have offended. Devoted to 
 the Union from the beginning, I will not desert it now 
 in this the hour of its sorest trial. 
 
 Sir, it was the day dream of my boyhood, the 
 cherished desire of my heart in youth, that I might live 
 to see the hundredth anniversary of our national indepen- 
 dence, and, as an orator of the day, exult in the expanding- 
 glories and greatness of ,he still United States. That 
 vision lingers yet before my .e.yes, obscured, indeed, by 
 the cloud and thick darkness and the blood of civil war. 
 Rut, sir, if the men of this generation are wise enough to 
 profit by the hard experience of the past two years, and 
 will turn their hearts now from bloody intents to the 
 words and art of peace, that day will find us again the 
 United States. And if not earlier, as I would desire and 
 believe, at least upon that day let the great work of 
 reunion be consummated ; that thenceforth, for ,ages, the 
 States and the people who shall fill up this mighty con- 
 tinent, united under one constitution, and in one Union, 
 
194 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE, &C. 
 
 and the same destiny, shall celebrate it as the birthday 
 both of Independence and of the Great Restoration. 
 
 Sir, I repeat it, we are in the midst of the very crisis 
 of this revolution.' If to-day we secure peace and begin 
 the work of reunion, we shall yet escape ; if not, I see 
 nothing before us but universal, political, and social 
 revolution, anarchy, and bloodshed, compared with which 
 the Reign of Terror in France was a merciful visitation. 
 
 HARRISON AND SONS, PRINTERS, ST. MaRTIN’s LANE, W.C. 
 

 «* 
 
Date Due 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 973,6 T955P 467153 
 
 Turnley 
 
 
 Private letters. 
 
 
 DATE 
 
 ISSUED TO 
 
 ■ 
 
 973.5 
 
 T955P 
 
 467153