Description:

A SOUTHERN MOTHER BEGS JAMES BUCHANAN NOT TO REINFORCE FORT SUMTER
A superb content A.L.S., anonymously signed, "A Carolinian" 4pp. 8vo., "South Carolina" [n.d., but c. January - Feb. 1861]: "If I was a clever woman President Buchanan I would address you to more purpose, but as it is, I have only a heart without much pretension to head... I feel I know that a wail from the bottom of your heart will ascend with the piteous cry of every agonized mother and fatherless child, for the misery which your silence if not your actions will eventually cause. Will you, can you, involve a whole nation in war, and subject millions of unoffending females and helpless infants to all the ruthless horrors of civil strife, and more than that to the bloody massacres of a servile war?...Will you, can you give pretext to unscrupulous bands of yankee ruffians to walk in broad daylight over the rights and privileges of good citizens North & South. Do not think I am afraid the blood that is in my veins was never known to run cold in time of danger. O President! what a noble destiny awaits you! I believe you are a good man and in this belief, I on my bended knees beg you to pause. Take back the power, yours by right, which you have given up to an irregular disorderly Congress. Restore peace to the Country, and to the hearts of millions who have been proud to call you father. So use your own words will you govern us if you conquer us? (which, by the way, is ____ible) Then why not let us our own way, in peace when nothing can be gained by coercion, but bloodshed and misery. How can [you] ask us to relinquish forts which will surely be used in the next administration against us instead of for the purpose for which they were built. O President Buchanan heed not the advice of Gen. Scott he is a man of war t'is his life. What cares the vulture for the screams of the motherless childless eagles? O President do you already hear the wail of anguish that goes up from the heart of a nation? Give up our property and let us alone. If we have chosen badly let us bear the penalty. Yankeedom says it is independent of us. If my friends knew I wrote this they would say I was suing to an enemy. But I am a woman and you can't refuse me." From the papers of Adam Glossbrenner who served as Buchanan's private secretary between 1860 and 1861. Usual folds, else fine condition.

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March 30, 2011 11:00 AM EDT
Stamford, CT, US

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