The reason is, that we are now justly more tolerant
than we could safely have been then, circumstanced as we were. Your part
of the Union, though as absolutely republican as ours, had drunk deeper
of the delusion, and is therefore slower in recovering from it. The
aegis of government, and the temples of religion and of justice, have
all been prostituted there to toll us back to the times when we burnt
witches. But your people will rise again. They will awake like Samson
from his sleep, and carry away the gates and the posts of the city. You,
my friend, are destined to rally them again under their former banners,
and when called to the post, exercise it with firmness and with
inflexible adherence to your own principles. The people will support
you, notwithstanding the howlings of the ravenous crew from whose jaws
they are escaping. It will be a great blessing to our country if we can
once more restore harmony and social love among its citizens. I confess,
as to myself, it is almost the first object of my heart, and one to
which I would sacrifice every thing but principle. With the people I
have hopes of effecting it. But their Coryphaei are incurables. I expect
little from them.
I was not deluded by the eulogiums of the public papers in the first
moments of change.
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