Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1860-1862, 1861-11-07

Prophecy Of DR.. r. =. Breekinrfdses
Some years ago, we think in 1916, DR..
Breckinridge addressed an able letter to Sem
ator Sumner, of Massachusetts,. If be had
written nothing since, the republication OF
this letter at this time would have immortal
ised him. From it we take the following ex-
tract. He says:
Now, sir, this means neither more nor
less than the edge of the sword. Lay aside
the rhetoric, and the simple sense is, grape
and canister, cold steel and stricken battle.
Believe me, Mr.. Sumner, when / state two
facts, one of which ! know better than you
do, and the other of which yon ought to
know better perhaps than do.
The fact that know better than you is,
that when the faintest indication of the set
tied purpose of the men of the North to
follow your advice becomes apparent to the
men of the fifteen slave States of this Union,
a million of armed men will be ready to re-
ceive you and your followers; and Il you
come not speedily thereafter to execute your
threats, your coming will not be waited for,
but they will seek you on the soil where you
now vainly suppose no danger will ever
come. The fact which you ought to know
better than do is, that after two or three
hundred thousand men are arr aged in battle
|
as to the probable result. whether one or the
other party has the greater reserve of physi-
cal force left out OF the battle, because. after
two or three hundred thousand fighting men,
| in the present state of the art of war, every
| thing depends merely on brains. The sum
| of these two facts is very clear: namely, if
| the North wishes to settle the slavery ques-
| ton by the edge of the sword, the North is
| in perfectly fair way to be perfectly graft
4 -. -I,f oh os1f-
! there is at least an exceeding great prob
| ability that the North will see reason to
/ change her mind very materially as to the
| wisdom of that method of settling that ques-
ton.
Moreover let IL not escape your attention
that many circumstances aggravate the con-
dact of the men of the North and exasperate
the hearts OF the men of the South In this
| whole business. all of them tending tc
| strengthen us and weaken you at every stage
| of the bloody struggle to which you are dli
| wing the country. For in the first place, lei
slavery be all that you assert it to be, the time
| is long past when il was either honest, wise
| or patriotic for you to take that ground, even
in an argument having merely ordinary pc
| lnical bearings, much less in one looking &c
bloodshed and conquest. All that was settled
between us before the old Confederation was
formed; il was again settled in the common
danger and common glory of our great Rev.
| olution; it was settled again in the Federal
Constitution. / say nothing about the IN
| Speakable folly of arguing as statesman
that slave State aud free State CANNOT
| tolerate each other in one Confederacy, sup
| posing the question TO be now for the first
/ time considered. What say is, that it is nc
/ longer possible for the men of the North to
open that question without revolution and
without disloyalty to every national act and
| movement of our past history; and what ]
| mean is, they cannot do this without so wea-
kening and disgracing themselves, and &c
/ strengthening and ennobling US, that God
posterity, fortune, and the hearts of the com.
| batants must feel the effects of the opposite
1 conduct of the parties. To which add, in the
second place, that this conduct of the men Of
the North, besides being bare political after
| thought, is a deliberate breach Of political
faith cemented by the blood of our fathers
an ignoble retraction OF plighted honor, and
truth, and Justice; a calculated sacrifice oil
those of their own race, and lineage, and
house, and blood, for those of strange kin
dred and CLINE, without any new elreum.
stance or additional reason for so atrocious
perfdy against nature and against plighted
troth. Add again, in the third place, the afro
city of the state of heart in which the North
presses this bloody arbitrament, under the
settled belief that she risks nothing thereby
| and that we risk everything: and the fervOl
| OF that state of soul in which the South, rous
ed by so much insult, injustice and danger
| does risk all, with sublime purpose. to the
last man, to win all And then, in the foairfl
place, add the sort of conviction with which
the two parties thus mutually range them
selves in that deadly strife; and, if you be al
wise as you are eloquent, you may compre
bend what as yet you seem to have wholly
| overlooked, the settled confidence of the en-
tire slave States that they are fully able t
make The men of the North repent that they
ever broke the Constitution, and forgot an
cestrsl ties, and outraged national obliga
tions, in order to ruin ten millions of the mos
elevated race on the face of the earth, upoI
the hazard, if not the pretext, of benefitine
the third part OF that number OF one of thu
. most degraded races in the word. You vii
have battle-and that without truce or com
promise, and that whenever you can reach Us
and that cntil the field is entirely won Flo
my part, sir, would gladly shun that battle
, | gladly give my blood to arrest it If it Were
begun. But there mingles with this profound
dread of shedding my brothers blood not on
apprehension of the result of the conflict
For whoever lives to see that battle fought
, will see one more example added to the mul
: titude which already crowd the annals G
: mankind. that they who boast themseive
when they grid their harness on. are ap
enough to wall when they come to put it OF