"NEW YORK, _Feb. 28th, 1868_.
"MY DEAR SIR,--Two successive absences, between which I was in town but
one day and passed that ill in bed, have prevented an earlier answer to
your letters.
"I concur in your judgment that the paramount issue in the coming
election would be 'the restoration of the ten absent States to the
Union, with all the rights and privileges of the other States, and with
their local government in the hands of the white population; and that
all else must be subordinate and secondary.'
"Our position must be _condemnation and reversal of negro supremacy_ in
the ten States (added to that in Tennessee), created by the measures
of the Federal government--_first_, by disfranchising the whites and
overawing them by military force, and, _secondly_, by admitting the
blacks and organizing them through the Freeman's Bureau, not only
involving us in a partnership in self-government with a mass of voters
(in all the U. S. over 900,000), confessedly incompetent at the present
time to exercise the suffrage wisely or safely, and without any of the
training, habits, or aspirations of freemen, but, by thus obtaining
control of nearly one-third of the Senate and nearly one-quarter of the
House, establishing a practical dominion of the same character over the
great free States of the North and over the whole country.
"Associated with this issue are all those measures by which the Senate
is to be packed by the admission of new States--the subdivision of
the present States--added to the control of 20 from the ten States
and others constituting a Senatorial dynasty of long tenure, and the
usurpation by the Senate thus constituted of the opportunity, power,
and the absorption by it and the House of the rightful authorities of
the Executive and of the Judiciary.
"In my judgment, if we obscure or weaken this issue, we shall not only
fail to meet the necessities of the present condition of the country,
but we shall commit a great political blunder.
"On no other question can we be so unanimous among ourselves. On no
other question can we draw so much from the other side and from the
undetermined. It appeals peculiarly to the adopted citizens, whether
Irish or Germans; to all the working-men; to the young men just
becoming voters. The Republican party contains large numbers who are
naturally hampered by its position on this issue; and large numbers of
old Federal and old Whig antecedents, who do not think that any poor
man, white or black, ought to vote; and though they may go along with
their party on the theory that the blacks are a counterpoise to the
adopted citizens, their hearts misgive them. The pride of a superior
race and self-esteem, well founded in this case, are a universal power.
"The more we concentrate the public attention on this issue, so that
the people will act with reference to it, the better our chance of
success will be.
"Subordinate, but next in importance, is the financial question.
"The best aspect of that is its connection with the other issue. It
is now costing the country, directly and indirectly, 100 millions a
year--perhaps as much even as the whole interest on the public debt--to
carry on the reconstruction system and the measures associated with it.
The army expenses are now about 144 millions, exclusive of pensions.
"The best policy on the finances is a general attack on the prodigality
and corruption of the present governing power. Our promises should be
purification--reduction of the army and navy, diminution of expenses,
and remission of taxes.
"I inquired into the state and prospects of the finances when in
Washington, and am satisfied that the expenditures are now running at a
rate much larger than the public are aware of. And the tendency is to a
fall of the revenues. I do not--"(the rest wanting).