Quotes from Draft of Letter, November
1, 1860, Richard K. Call, Lake Jackson, to Mr. Hart (editor, Tallahassee
Sentinel newspaper), 12 pp., explicating at length his unionist, pro-slavery
views:
"(in response to) your remarks on the speech
delivered by me . . . on the 29th. . . I did not advocate resistance to
the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln. . . a measure which, if adopted, must
precipitate our country in to civil war. . . for which the South is . .
. unprepared. . . If Mr. Lincoln should be elected, it will not be by a
majority of the American people. It will be the result of fortuitous
circumstances . . . from the unhappy division of the Nation in to
four contending parties, of which his may chance to be the most numerous.
And although I shall regard him as a usurper . . . I hold the peace and
safety of the country too dear, and the preservation of our glorious union
too sacred, to place it in jeopardy, by one rash and precipitate action
. . . the principles of popular government, and the cause of civil and
religious liberty throughout the world, all depend on the result of our
deliberation, our decision and our action. . . If the conservative elements
will all combine, if the three defeated factions will all unite in the
holy cause of their country, if they will cease . . . to make war on each
other, and unite in opposition to the Black Republican Administration it
will be powerless. . . the principle of any southern man is favorable to
the institution of African Slavery. . . the Black Republican party [has]
perverted our Declaration of Independence, they have willfully .
. . misinterpreted our Constitution. They have applied the Declaration
of Independence to the African race; they have sought to make the
Constitution . . . yield to their false theory. . . while the Constitution
. . . recognizes our property in African slaves. . . they assert through
the principles of the Declaration of Independence that our slaves are born
free, that they are equals. . . Can any one doubt this design in this perversion
of the Declaration of Independence, which was intended by our fathers to
apply only to the white man, to our own Anglo Saxon race? . . . I am for
trying every honorable expedient to save the Union. . . but in the mean
time I am for making every preparation for war. War in the field
if it must be, war at the Ballot Boxes. . . manifest our firm determination
to maintain our Constitutional government in all its purity or perish
with it. . . I would suspend all social and commercial intercourse between
Florida and the North during the Administration of Mr. Lincoln. . . Let
the people of Florida will it, and it can be done. And if they do
not will it, let them cease to complain of the tribute they pay to
the North. . . the institution of African Slavery has become the
great agency of civilization . . . it is feeding the hungry, clothing
the naked, and administering to the wants and necessities of the whole
civilized world. . . it is sending commerce and civilization to barbarous
tribes and . . . carrying Christianity into heathen lands. . ."
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