"WASHINGTON, _March 3, 1861_.
"DEAR SIR,--Hoping that in a day or two the new President will have
happily passed through all personal dangers and find himself installed
an honored successor of the great Washington, with you as the chief of
his Cabinet, I beg leave to repeat in writing what I have before said
to you orally, this supplement to my printed 'views' (dated in October
last) on the highly disordered condition of our (so late) happy and
glorious Union.
"To meet the extraordinary exigencies of the times, it seems to me
that I am guilty of no arrogance in limiting the President's field of
selection to one of the four plans of procedure subjoined:
"1. Throw off the old and assume a new designation--the Union party.
Adopt the conciliatory measures proposed by Mr. Crittenden or the
peace convention--and my life upon it, we shall have no new case of
secession, but, on the contrary, an early return of many, if not of
all, the States which have already broken off from the Union. Without
some equally benign measure the remaining slave-holding States will
probably join the Montgomery Confederacy in less than sixty days,
when this city, being included in a foreign country, would require a
permanent garrison of at least 35,000 troops to protect the government
within it.
"I stop here to call your attention to the fact that Maryland did not
join the Montgomery Confederacy, and yet with Maryland on our side
to-night, it requires a garrison of 150,000 men to protect Washington.
"2. Collect the duties on foreign goods outside the ports of which this
government has lost the command, or close such ports by act of Congress
and blockade them.
"3. Conquer the seceded States by invading armies. No doubt this might
be done in two or three years by a young and able general--a Wolfe, a
Desaix, or a Hoche, with 300,000 disciplined men, estimating a third
for garrisons, and the loss of a yet greater number by skirmishes,
sieges, battles, and Southern fevers. The destruction of life and
property on the other side would be frightful, however perfect the
moral discipline of the invaders.
"The conquest completed at that enormous waste of human life to the
North and Northwest, with at least $250,000,000 added thereto, and
_cui bono_? Fifteen devastated provinces! not to be brought into
harmony with their conquerors, but to be held for generations, by heavy
garrisons, at an expense quadruple the net duties or taxes which it
would be possible to extort from them, followed by a protector or an
emperor.
"4. Say to the seceded States, Wayward sisters, depart in peace!
In haste, I remain,
"Very truly yours,
"WINFIELD SCOTT."
"_Hon. Wm. H. Seward, &c., &c., &c._"