Year: 1860

The following is the letter addressed bv
Gen. Shields to the Jackson (Amador)
Breckenridge Club:


SAN FRANCISCO, CAL, October 10, 1860.


GENTLEMEN Accept my thanks for your
polite note enclosing resolutions of the Jack
son Breckinridge Club, inviting me to visit
jackson, and address the people on the po-
litical topics of the day. 1 may as we'll say
at once that l mean to take no active part
in the present political contest in California
| am here to try to recruit my health, and
to do this at all ! must abstain from public
excitement. Besides, must frankly state
that am sick and tired of public life; and
the present condition of the Democratic
party is not calculated to remove this feel
ing. But as total silence on my part, in the
midst of party distraction, might subject me
to charge of indifference, beg leave to
assure you and the members of the Club,
that so far from being Indifferent, am at
this very moment deeply and seriously con.
cerned about the condition of the country
l do not speak of danger to our institutions,
because l would only be laughed to scorn
by the light and frivolous, and vain and
selfish, if l did, but of general political de-
moralization, which is rendering the strug-
giles of parties in this country almost as
shamefully selfish as the wretched struggles
of degenerate factions in Mexico. In this
state of affairs, which l see no way just now
to improve, snl: cannot help but think crit
ical, have carefully and thoughtfully con.
sidered the course which duty eDjoins me to
take, and here =. is in few words


l. will never help to impose North
ern man on the South as President, unless
am reasonably satisfied that he is accept
able to majority of the Southern people.


2. If the political contest degenerates
into sectional struggle, which the present
arrangement as well as the prospective
rearrangement Of the political parties seem
to psint to, my part will be taken with the
South. My reasons The South is acting
in self-defence. 1t is struggling solely and
simply to preserve its own institutions, but
not to disturb the institutions of the North,
while the struggle in the North is not to
improve Northern Institutions, but to inter-
fere with the institutions of the South. The
insolent injustice and inequality of such
struggle will decide me, without hesitation,
to act with the South.


8. would personally prefer Stephen A..
Douglas to any other man in the United
States for President, if be were acceptable
to majority of the Southern people, or
what is very much the same thing, was the
accepted candidate of the United Democra-
tic party; but to my regret be is not, and
therefore I cannot support him in this
canvass, and in this I consult my views of
duty and not my personal preference, this
casts me with John G. Breckenridge who,
if he can do nothing more, may rally enough
to reconstruct the Democratic party. These
are my views, frankly given, but as I have
no feeling on the subject, urge them on no
one, and would keep them to myself, but
that nay character obliges me to let my
friends know how l stand.


Yours sincerely,


JAMES SHIELDS.
To Arthur Speer, President and J. W. Arm
strong, Secretary of the jackson Breckin


ridOo Gluh.