Abraham Lincoln Papers: Incoming and Contextual Documents Document mal0571000

Hartford Daily Courant
Saturday Morning, January 19 1861

Letter from Henry Sherman to Senator Benjamin.
Hartford, January 3d, 1861.

Hon. J. P. Benjamin-
My Dear Sir:-I cannot express to you with how
much pain and regret I read the announcement that
you were an advocate for secession; and until I read
the telegraph report of your speech, I still hoped it
was not really so. You are, in my judgment, decidedly
in the wrong; and your argument, if I may
judge of it from what I have seen in the papers, does
not come up to your usual statesman-like ability and
dignity. I will suspend my opinion, however, till I
see a full report of it, which I trust you will send me.
I may say in passing, that, in all that has been alledged
and argued on your side, I have not yet seen
any positive, distinct, or tangible cause for dissatisfaction
on the part of the slave holding States, which
could not be removed by constitutional means within
the Union.
The great mistake you make, the great mistake all
your politicians make, is, in supposing "that the people
of the North hate the South." It is not true. -
They do not even hate slavery enough to engender
any such rankerous hostility towards your people.
In a lifelong intercourse and observation among all
classes, in almost all of the Eastern and Middle
States, I have never heard from man, woman, or
child, any expressions of hatred towards their Southern
brethren. In this our people are grossly abused
and misrepresented.
Another great mistake you labor under, is, in believing
that all who voted with the Republican party,
for Mr. Lincoln, are abolitionists or sectionalists. It
is not true, by a long shot. Reform yourselves, therefore,
of these errors, in which you do great dishonor
and injustice to many of the very best friends of the
South in our midst.
I think you will regret it all the days of your life,
if you urge and help on your State into secession
There is no such thing in the Constitution, or in the
theory of our government, even as respects the original
States, (which never were exclusively sovereign
in any part of their history;) and it cannot in any
event be made to consist with your senatorial oath.
You certainly have not forgotten the definition the
old law books give us of outlawry? There is an outlawry
of States and nations, as well as of individuals,
which is a fearful condition for a State or nation to
fall into. What is South Carolina to-day but an out-lawed
State, so far as her relations with our national
government and with civilized nations are concerned?
She is self-outlawed. Every one of her public fuctionaries,
and all the abettors of her secession, are
acting in violation of their own most solemn oaths of
allegiance to the Federal Constitution, and their most
sacred obligations to foreign powers who have formed
treaties of amity and commerce with the national
government. Will respectable governments, or civilized
nations, make treaties of amity and commerce
with outlaws? - or with any confederation of such?
Will the millions of American freemen who voted
for Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Bell,
tamely see such a confederacy wrest from them, their
government, their constitutional rights, their national
property, and their national honor? No, depend upon it, NO, NEVER.
But how are you to justify the secession of Louisiana?
Upon what ground do you establish her right
to withdraw from the Union? Was she ever out of
it, as a State organization? Did she accede to it as
such? Certainly not. The domain and sovereignty
of Louisiana, when first known to our government,
was imperial in France. She was a territorial dependency.
The government of the United States
purchased her in the territorial capacity, in her territorial
dependence. It purchased both, the domain,
and the imperial sovereignty of France over it; and
that territory became thenceforth the absolute property
of the United States. The people inhabiting it
became subject to the sovereign power of our national
government. They also became members of the
American Union. "Citizens," as the convention
with France stipulated, " of the United States," and
yet they were not a State. I say, as a territory and a
people they were in the Union, and yet they were not
a State. They possessed no attribute of independence
which entitled them to be called, or to become
a State. You will not say that they could have repudiated
their allegiance to the national government,
and have proclaimed themselves independent of its
sovereignty without becoming rebels? Would France
have sustained them in any such attempt at revolution?
Well then, tell me, if you can, when they
acquired and independence, or sovereignty as a State
organization, which gives them any such right of secession?
It was the national government of the
Union that nursed and trained their territorial infancy,
and led them up to the position of a State organization;

and gave them a State's rights, a State's
jurisdiction and government, within a State's precincts;
all of these rights still subject to the paramount
sovereignty, the paramount rights, and the
paramount powers of jurisdiction of the government
and laws of the United States. What preposterous
logic then, to say that they have now a right to throw
off their allegiance to this government, and to become
an independent sovereign nation, by a mere resolution,
or ordinance, of secession! - and that they can
call upon both France and the United States to recognize
them as such!
It is proposed in Congress, by way of conciliation,
to permit New Mexico to become a State organization,
and to take a position in the Union as such, on
the same footing with the other States. But for what
end? On your theory of secession, the moment this
is done she can repudiate her allegiance to the government
of the United States, declare herself independent
of its sovereignty, and become confederate
with the other seceding States in at empting to destroy
this Union. We, who do not believe in the
right of secession, say no; better to let New Mexico
remain as she is, until we settle the question whether
or not we have a national government which can
compel the allegiance which is its due.
Again: it is proposed in Congress by way of conciliation
to divide the present territory of the United
States by the old Missouri Compromise line, and
permit the people on either side to erect themselves
into a State organization, and as such to take
a position in the Union on the same footing with the
other States. But for what end? According to your
theory of secession, as soon as this is done, either or
both may declare themselves independent of the government
of the United State, disavow their allegiance
to its sovereignty, and become confederate with
the other seedling States in attempting to destroy this
Union. Again, we do not believe in secession,
say, no; better to let the territory remain as it is, in
unquestioned submission to the national sovereignty,
until we settle the question whether we have a national
government which can compel the allegiance which
is its due.
And yet again: it has proposed, and you have
advocated the proposition, that we purchase Cuba
from Spain, at an immense cost. Suppose we should?
You will admit that Cuba is thus in the Union, and
that her inhabitants have, in consequence, become
subject to the government of the United States.-
You must admit that they would owe to it the
same allegiance they previously owed to Spain.-
You must also admit that if they should repudiate
such allegiance they would become rebels, that they
should be treated as rebels,and must be subjugated as
rebels. But, on your theory of secession, all they
have to do is, to wait till they are permitted to erect
themselves into a State organization,and to take a position
in the Union as such on the same footing with
the other States ; and then they may throw off their
allegiance to the national government, declare themselves
wholly independent of its sovereignty, by a
simple resolution or ordinance of secession, and become
confederate with the other seceding States in
attempting to destroy this Union. And all this without
one word being said, or any reference made, to
slavery. Is it not plain how preposterous is your
logic? How subversive of all government and all
loyalty. Yet Cuba would be but an illustration of
what you are claiming for Louisiana. We who do
not believe in secession, say, no; let Cuba alone until
we settle the question whether we have a national
government which could compel the allegiance which
would be its due.
But again: How would your convention resolve
the State of Louisiana out of the Union? You cannot
adopt the ordinance of South Carolina, worthless
as it is. Would you resolve that the treaty between
France and the United States for the purchase of the
Louisiana Territory was void,and cancel it as respects
your State? You then become subjects of France.
And will France recognize your independence of the
United States and of herself too? Would you resolve
that the act of Congress permitting your people
to erect themselves into a State organization, and as
such to take a position in the Union on the same
footing with the other States, is void, and cancel it?
You then become a territorial dependency of the
United States, and if you rebel against its sovereignty
you will be treated as rebels. No, my dear Sir,
NO; there is not such thing as secession, peaceable
or otherwise. The seceding States become outlaws,
or rebels, in the eyes of the whole civilized world.
You cannot make it any more respectable by endeavoring
to complicate it with slavery. The position of
an honorable, upright, and respectable power on earth
cannot be gained, even among nations, by a violation
of good faith. Nor could it be upheld by men, or
States, who trample upon the sanctity of constitutional
obligations or Senatorial oaths, or who madly
resolve to overthrow the best and freest government
God ever permitted man to establish upon his footstool,
simply because its organism gives to a free
people power to elect whoever they may see fit, to the
high and responsible trust of administering its functions
and executing its laws.
You and I, my dear Sir, have known each other
long and well. From the time we first entered old
Yale together until now, I have watched your progress
through life with a pleasure, an interest, and
with a pride, which you and I can understand. I
shall grieve over it with unaffected sorrow, if a career
so brilliant as yours has been, shall end in an infamy
so foul as, to my mind, seems to wait on the
precipitate and persistent leaders and abettors of secession,
disunion and treason.
Yours, always truly, HENRY SHERMAN

It turns out that the contingent of U.S. arms for
the year 1861 has been distributed to the Southern
States in advance, the most shameful evidence of the
treason of Floyd yet produced.