From Boston, On The 27th Of November, My Wife Returned To England,
Leaving Me To Prosecute My Journey Southward To Washington By
Myself.
I shall never forget the political feeling which prevailed
in Boston at that time, or the discussions on the subject of
Slidell and Mason, in which I felt myself bound to take a part.
Up
to that period I confess that my sympathies had been strongly with
the Northern side in the general question; and so they were still,
as far as I could divest the matter of its English bearings. I
have always thought, and do think, that a war for the suppression
of the Southern rebellion could not have been avoided by the North
without an absolute loss of its political prestige. Mr. Lincoln
was elected President of the United States in the autumn of 1860,
and any steps taken by him or his party toward a peaceable solution
of the difficulties which broke out immediately on his election
must have been taken before he entered upon his office. South
Carolina threatened secession as soon as Mr. Lincoln's election was
known, while yet there were four months left of Mr. Buchanan's
government. That Mr. Buchanan might, during those four months,
have prevented secession, few men, I think, will doubt when the
history of the time shall be written. But instead of doing so he
consummated secession. Mr. Buchanan is a Northern man, a
Pennsylvanian; but he was opposed to the party which had brought in
Mr. Lincoln, having thriven as a politician by his adherence to
Southern principles.
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