The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1868-09-24
Letter from Peter Cooper to Horatio
Seymour.
NEw-YoRK, August 18th, 1868.

NEW YoRK, August 18th, 1868.
To THE Hon. HoRATIo SEYMOUR:
My Dear Sr,-In the last letter had
the honor to address to you, / had the
pleasure to thank you for the prompt an.
swer to a former letter, and for the assurance
| received that ''we agreed in the end to
be realized, namely, the restoration Of the
Union and the preservation of the Con-
stitution." You will recollect that then
stated that was so deeply impressed with
the absolute necessity of maintaining the
Union and the Constitution that l desired
to see all powers that God and nature had
given to US brought into requisition to
save our country from being dcssevcred
and made the sport of foreign and domes
tic Saracens.
feared than, as | fear now, the dan
ger of our being drawn into error by men
who have no faith in real democratic
from of Government. In that letter |
stated that / was then, and I have still
continued, to the 18th year of my age, to
be q firm believer in truly democratic
republican form Of Government / mean
a government founded an those eternal
principles of truth and justice which our
father declared were self-evident, namely:
"That all men are created equal that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi-
ness that to secure these rights, govern
ments are instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the
governed"
I In the very first words Of the Constitu-
ton, formed by our fathers, it is declared
that ave, the people of the United States,
in order to form more perfect union estab-
lish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defence, promote
the general welfare, and secure the bles-
sings of liberty to ourselves and our pos
terity, do Orcldin and eSt0Jlishe this Con-
stitution for the United States Of Aneri-
ca"
Our fathers, in forming for US this
Constitution, believed that they had en-
bodied in the forms of law, the highest
wisdom, virtue, and Intelligence Of q aohOle
people. They meant to make the wisdom,
the virtue, and the intelligence of the
people the means to insure all the bless
sing required to make US nation with
all the powers necessary "to establish
justice" and "to promote the general
welfare"
To enable the people to do this in the
most convenient manner, they declared,
in the first article of the Constitution,
that "All legislative powers herein gran
ted shaH'Je rested IN a Congress Of the
United States, qchich shall consist Of q
Senate and House of Representatives."
They then describe the mode and man
ner by which the peoples representatives
shall be chosen, who are to make all laws
which shall be necessary and proper for
carrying into execution the powers Of
Congress, and all other powers vested by
the Constitution in the Government Of
the United States, or in any Department
thereof
Among these powers there is nothing
palmer than the intention of the trainers
of the Constitution to vest in the peoples
representatives the right to suspend the
writ of hdbedS corpus whenever in their
judgment "the public safety may require
it." to suppress rebellion or repcl invas-
ion.
/ have been led to address this letter
to you, as standing at the head of the
Democratic party-a party which con-
tinued to act so long as | believed it was
laboring to promote the greatest good of
our common country but when | became
thof ha nov,
with which / had been SO long connected,
was lending Its power and influence to
sustain men and measures that had so far
perverted the Constitution of our country
as to deny the rights of manhood to
4 100000 of human beings-and when L
was that | wasacting with party which was
lending its influence to men and measures
that were raising up in our country the
vilest from Of an aristocracy-an aristoc-
racy that claimed it as a right that "pro-
perty should own labor and claimed
the right to mix their blood with the
black race, and then sell their children to
be enslaved with their posterity, then |
consider it my duty to my country to
abandon party that had abandonn the
great principles of truth and justice.
What tongue can describe the horrors
of system that allowed father to sell
his child, who may have had seven
eighths of white blood in his veins, to a
brutal master, who had the power to con-
fine him on plantation, under more
brutal overseer; perhaps a Northern man,
with his conscience callous to every hu-
man feeling, and whose principal recon-
mendation might be that he could whip
out of the unprotected slave the greatest
of labor ..
Thomas Jefferson might we'll say, in
view Of such state of things, 81 tremble
for my country when remember that
God is just"
John Wesley has well declared that
such a system contains within itself the
cifJns of nlI viIlainy Pba anorn,itv of