The original is at the Houghton Library of Harvard University. From the Blagden Collection of Wendell Phillips Papers: 10 letters from M. Pinner to Wendell Phillips, 1860-1873, bMS Am 1953 (1006) [item 9].
Transcribed (by Doron Zeilberger) and posted on the web: November 2003.
By kind permission of the Houghton Library of Harvard University.
No. 191 Broadway
New York Aug. 1, 1866.
Wendell Phillips Esqr,
Boston, Mass.
My dear friend. Could you last Monday morning have witnessed my joy on receiving your letter of July 25th you would have been ashamed of your long silence, and you would also have learned to appreciate the value of friendship and the necessity of its occasional manifestation. Consciousness of guilt is the beginning of reform, and I therefore hope and pray for your complete recovery. Well, let there be peace between thee and me; let bygones be bygones, and as you plagued me so by your silence, and as I punished you by occasional doubts in your sincerity, let us say "quits", and believe me that I was in the fix of the forsaken damsel, who in spite of the sneers of her friends and the stubborn fact of the continued absence of her lover, occasionally doubted him, but in her heart of hearts believed and kept on believing, that some fine day he would turn up and gloriously shame his adversaries. Could you have recd but a tithe of the letters I have written to you - in thought, - could you at times have witnessed my misery at seeing even you apparently prove recreant to true manhood, you would not have pained me as you did. Well, you have written at last, the lion after befriending the mouse has proved once more the generosity of his nature, and all I can do is to thank you for that letter. The mountain of trouble and annoyances of all sorts, under which for the last few months I have groaned, has melted away like snow on mount so and so, and restored to joyfulness as I now am, I only with that you wee with me just now, that we may talk over the affairs of mankind, and "the days of auld lang Sayne [sic]". - The "South victorious", how terribly true! but instead of the above your should have called your lecture "The treachery and office-seeking radicality of the leading Republicans", and you should have come out with it just previous to the approaching Philadelphia Convention. I blamed you last winter for the harsh language you used against the President and his adherents, for I believe in the old hebrew adage: "Do not call a scoffer him who you want to correct, for he may hate you, but remind him of his wisdom and he will love you;" and I feel now pretty sure, that, had the progressive (and honest?_ portion of the Congress shown more wisdom and less party-office-seeking-spirit the President and all his Republican abettors might have been retained in the Radical ranks, and a lasting Constitutional amendt abolishing all distinction of race, color, nationality, religion, and even sex, before the law, might have been obtained. The Civil Right Bill and Freedman's Bureau Bill will (and ought to) kill the Repub'l. party, and there seems danger enough, that under the plea of Conservatism, sectional hatred and turmoil will be kept up, and that every truly progressive movement will be retarded. The Negroes, the Southern Whites, the Indians etc. can all take care of themselves, without any bogus special protection, and I should think it might be well for you to start the ball anew and to come back to first principles. Throw a firebrand into all the approaching Conventions, denounce Civil Rights and Freedmen's Bureau Bill and all special legislation, and insist upon a Constitutional amendt forbidding the States from making any of the above distinctions and receiving full amnesty in return. It is so sickening to see a Nation commit suicide, and to be heedless of the troubles in prospect on spite of the terrible lessons of the past. A quick and judicious move on your part may checkmate that hellish Philaa Convention yet.
Possibly it may be well for you to propose also a 2d Amendt equalizing throughout the country Citizenship and Suffrage, and to refute the Doolittles and Blairs with their pretended fear of centralisation you may show how they individually seek power and thus belie their own assertions, and how some sort of centralisation is necessary to prevent sectional antagonism causing anew troubles like those we passed through. The founders of the Govt with the best if intentions have partly caused a centralisation, and would have gone further with it but for the slave power; yet who would them of having intended centralisation as a means of oppression? Centralization is a source of great mischief and should be avoided if ever possible, but it is easy enough for s/on to show that the proposed Amendts although causing centralization to a certain degree, have only means of safety within them. - Work hard now, pray work!!!
You asked me what I think now of my friend Seward. Well, he is a cunning fox, who like your Gov. Andrew always tries to be in the winning side. He tries to be President and to appear a Liberator, between the two bundles of Hay he'll go down like the Ass. Weed and Raymond to his left, Anti-slavery telegrams to Europe with his right, what an inconsistency. Yet I do not believe he would willingly or knowingly betray the cause. He is blinded by ambition and errs from lack of heart. -
You rejoice over the victories of Prussia, I weep over it; for with a mock liberalism under the cover of Universal suffrage every progressive movement will now be crushed for a long time to come. It is enough to curse God and His Honor the Devil, to see mankind thus everlastingly belie its own convictions and insist upon forging its chains. - But enough of politics!
Why do you never write to me a word about Mrs Phillips? Do you or can you imagine that she is indifferent to me? Pray give her my very best regards and the enclosed rhyme on Jenny Carlyle and tell her also, that I one day intend to bring her the news of her husband's election to the Presidency of the U.S. and that I then expect her to act as Jenny did. But should she have confidence in a chap like me, I should be happy to accept the kiss in advance, and I swear that I shall bring the news honestly whenever the time comes. Have you no photographic card to spare on which your far better half and yourself are visible?
How about friend Garrison? The news of his injury pains me indeed. Pray let me know details about the prospects of his and Mrs G's recovery, and bring them and all their family my very best regards. In Fanny already married, and is she happy? The man who calls her his, must indeed be happy and I remember with pleasure her bright looks and mirthfulness on the particular evening when you took me to a party near the Commons and introduced me with two other [people], Robt Burns etc. Pray write soon again, pray write often and every time a good deal more than you always do, and pray be forever happy!
Yours --
Finished Aug, 8 M Pinner