North Shore, 11th February, 1861.
My Dear Pinkerton,
— Your letter of the 18th of January reached me in Boston while I was upon the
wing, where I have been ever since. I wanted to reply at once, but I was to
come to Philadelphia this evening, and I hoped to see you and say what was too
long to write. But it seems that I am so dangerous a fellow that no hall-owner
in Philadelphia will risk the result of my explosive words, and not a place can
be had for my fanatical and incendiary criticism of Thackeray; so I shall not see
you. Four words in Seward’s speech explain it, and especially “justify” it, as
you use the word, — “Concession short of principle.” Do you ask what and why we
should concede? Mr. Adams answers; he has learned from history and common sense
that no government does wisely which, however lawful, moderate, honest, and constitutional,
treats any popular complaint, however foolish, unnecessary, and unjustifiable,
with haughty disdain.
Those sentences of Seward and Adams furnish the key to our
position, and the wise triumphant policy of the new administration. You have no
fear of Lincoln, of course. Well, do you suppose that his secretary of state
makes such a speech at such a time without the fullest understanding with his
chief? Does any man think that the plan of the new government could wisely be
exposed in advance while the traitors had yet nearly two months of legal power?
Seward's speech indicates the spirit of the new government, a kindly spirit.
Special measures he does not mention, saying only no measure will compromise
the principle of the late victory. In his career of thirty-seven years you will
find that under every party name he has had but one central principle, — that
all our difficulties, including the greatest, are solvable under our Constitution
and within the Union. And the Union is not what slavery chooses to decree. It
is a word which has hitherto been the cry of a party which sought to rule or
ruin the government, without the slightest regard to its fundamental idea. Now
the people have pronounced for that idea, and now therefore, when a Republican
says Union, he means just what the fathers meant, — not union for union, but
union for the purpose of the union. But you say he subordinates his party to
the union. Yes, again, but why? Because (as he said two years ago, when, thanks
to Hickman and the rest, the Lecompton crime was prevented), because “the
victory is won,” the peculiar purpose of the party has been achieved, the
territories are free. Even South Carolina concedes that. The South allows that
we have beaten them in the territories, and they secede because they think we
must go on and emancipate in the District and navy yards, and then, from the
same necessity of progress to retain power, emancipate in the States. Remember
that by the bargain of 1850 New Mexico has a right to come in slave or free.
Mr. Adams proposes that she shall come now, if she wants to; that is all. And
he and Seward, and I suppose you and I, know perfectly well that she will come
free. Yet even Seward says that, while he would have no objection to voting for
such an enabling act, he is not quite sure that it could be constitutionally
done.
I shall not tire your soul out by going on, but if we could
sit for an evening in MacVeagh's office and smoke the calumet of explanation
and consideration, I am perfectly sure that I could make you feel that Seward
is greater at this moment than ever before. At least wait, wait until
something is done, before you believe that a man who is a Democrat in the only
decent sense, — who believes fully and faithfully in a popular government, who
for nearly forty years, under the stinging stress of obloquy and slander and
the doubt of timid friends, has stood cheerfully loyal to the great idea of
liberty, and has seen his country gradually light up and break into the day of
the same conviction, with the tragedies of Clay and Webster before him
perfectly comprehended by him, with a calmness and clearness of insight and a
radical political faith which they never had, — wait, I say, and do not think
that such a man has forsworn himself, his career, and his eternal fame in
history, until you have some other reason for believing it than that, when his
country is threatened with civil war, he says he will do all that he can to
avoid it except betray his principles.
All things are possible. Great men have often fallen in the
very hour of triumph. But my faith in great men survives every wreck, and I
will not believe that our great man is going until I see that he is gone.
Indeed, as I feel now, I should as soon distrust my own loyalty as Seward's,
and what can any individual say more?
Believe me, full of
faith, your friend,
George William Curtis
SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p.
141-4
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