the better to blister Douglas. With characteristic vividness and enthusiasm he wrote: Mr. Parker. Springfield, Ill., Oct. 30, 1855. Dear Sir: It has been some time since I wrote to you; and you can well afford to be "pestered" once in a long while. This is especially so from your western friend. First: We in Illinois are now just commencing a systematic organization of Republicanism, and hope to see it inaugurated into a vital, eternal, political power in the State, which shall cover us as nature wraps up her modest flower or gigantic mountain. In this part or central portion of the State we are backward, timid and cowardly The reason is this: Most of us are from the South and I among them, yet so far as the slavery question is concerned we are most emphatically opposed to it, its aggressions, or its spread. Another cause is, that our able politicians are waiting to see the reverse side and the obverse picture, and because they flinch or draw back the people are not disposed to move, but it strikes me there was or is no better time than last year or this; because I intuitively feel, if not see, that the people are ready and anxious to leap into an organization that has justice and equity wrought into vital activity. This is the scrupulous, timid fault of wary politicians who are seeking equilibrium, they know not where, and the people who are accustomed to be led and not to lead, do not want to go forward; and so between the cowardice of some and the want of confidence in others, this political rest or static power in the mass follows. I hope to see them dynamical, vital, active, soon. Mr. Douglas was here a few weeks since and addressed us in one of his speeches, known for power of a peculiar nature; namely, energy, duplicity and dexterity, driven by an abandon fired by rum-in short, a low, base, hellish effort at renaissance. It may be seen in his face, that conscious ruin has seized him and like Milton's hero in Paradise Lost he will do all he can to regain his blissful seat. You can picture the sight. You may think I hate the man. I can say I do not; yet I do loathe him, and I cannot help it. If I love man, his progress; if I look upward and outward, and hope for man, let me ask you the question: How can I do otherwise? Has he not tried to sell me and man, in the individual and species, to this same Slave Power which I hate and yet fear; and if this is so, how can I help my feelings? Mr. Douglas is generally followed by Lyman Trumbull, his equal in many particulars, but not in the low specialties. Mr. Lincoln sometimes follows. Illinois is the battle ground for the Slave Power and for the Republicans too. Here is to be the fight. Mr. Giddings was here soon after Mr. Douglas, and spoke in the Metropolitan Hall, yet he did not speak with eloquence and power. He spoke very calmly and truthfully, but for the crowd it was not what it ought to be. I suppose he was cramped, not knowing how to feel out for the sentiment of the mass. I may be mistaken, but I do candidly believe the speakers miss the mark by shooting too low, under the cross in the target, and therefore do not win. Excuse the Western figure. There is a great ground-swell, an under-current, a wave from the infinite, the older politicians do not feel it seems to me. We had Henry Ward Beecher here a few nights since: he is a man. He spoke upon the progressive and conservative man or age, and if I know what eloquence, not of the highest and grandest order, is, he certainly had it. He was intense in his passages of sympathy and energetic in his reprobation of conservative cowardice; and as a general rule his views were correct, just and lofty, yet it seemed to me he hung fire did not say all he felt. Is he not of your faith and is he not too cowardly to come out — speak out like a brave man? It seems to me so. He will do good. He looks a man and I suppose his Heaven-warrant does not deceive. The crowd was wrapped up in H. Ward Beecher. He is hopeful, somewhat ideal. As I wrote you once before, we got badly beaten in our temperance move, and the reason is that human rights float in the bubbles of whiskey which swim upon the fire surface. Though defeated we are not conquered. It is very hard to overcome interest, appetite, habit, and the low demagogue who rules the synod in the grocery. I am glad to see Sumner publishing the third volume of speeches. They are eloquent, chaste, classic. I admire Mr. Sumner very much: he is a man all over, inward and outward, from head to foot. I speak of him at a distance, for I am not personally acquainted with him. I see that Emerson is publishing his English notes. They will be a rich treat to us young men; they will be eloquent and grand, poetic, ideal. I sometime since got your two recent volumes of speeches, etc., and the one at Abingdon is a prophecy fulfilled. The Tribune is exactly where it was placed. Kane in that or an other is placed where it was predicted. Slavery by judicial legerdemain is sought to be made national. Will it triumph? The spirit within says no. Has not slavery gone too far done too much been too imperious? I think it has. Let it die and rot in the tropic heats! Yours, We had Mr. Millburn, the blind preacher, here last night and will have him again tonight: his subjects, "Young America," and "The Rifle, Axe and Saddle Bags." He speaks handsomely, beautifully. Can you not come and see Illinois some time this winter and give us a lecture or so? Friend Greeley did well here. Beecher did well. Can you not come out? W. H. HERNDON. Like so many men of his ardent and idealistic type, Herndon seems to have believed in the nobility of the human race as a whole and in the total depravity of many of its individual members. But, as one of his friends said, he was "violently all right." He lacked that judicial sense which discriminates between varying shades of good and ill, so that all things appeared either white or black. That was not so bad as the moral blindness which confounds white and black; yet it involved some measure of injustice, and generally rubbed the fur the wrong way. But he had nerves in his intellect, red blood in his moral passion, and fire in his soul; and in these respects he resembled Parker, who replied one month later: Mr. Herndon, Boston, Mass., Nov. 30, 1855. Dear Sir:-Your kind note of 30th ult. came to Boston when I was in the West and so I have had no moment to answer it until this and now only a brief minute. I intend next autumn, say October or November, to visit the farther part of the Western States, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, etc. I should like to speak at Springfield. I wish we had a dozen men like Beecher. What a noble fellow he is a live minister. A minister who believes in making men manly and thinks religion is noble life! I take it the North will have two candidates in the next Presidential election, one Republican, one Know-Nothing; the latter will get the most votes but will be defeated. But good will be done the "American Party" is bringing out men in the South who have been disfranchised hitherto. They are - the "poor white:" they have no newspapers, no organization, no self-respect. The Know-Nothings enable them to meet and act together. By and by this Southern element will help us. I expect another violent slavery President with a strong opposition in the House and before long in the Senate. Mexico will fall into our hands even, I think, before 1860. Then in 1860 comes the real struggle between the North and South. Freedom and Slavery! I think not before. I have just got my defense out. It makes an 8vo volume of 250 pages. Yours hastily but truly, THEO. PARKER. By the time he replied Herndon had read the "Defense,' which he pronounced a masterpiece, as he did nearly everything that Parker wrote. As usual his letter throbs with his hatred of slavery, but is touched with love for the people of the South, his kinsmen, many of whom he knew to be Abolitionists at heart, or at least opposed to slavery. He thinks it probable that the South will absorb Mexico after the Union is dissolved, not before. Both men are full of prophecies of distant calamity, while Lincoln and men of his type were looking at the nearer scene, content to take one step at a time. But many of their predictions were tragically fulfilled: Mr. Parker. Springfield, Ill., Feb. 16, 1856. Dear Sir: I received your favor some time since, and would have answered but was busy in our Supreme Court attending to business. I hardly think with you in respect to the action of the North. My opinion is, that the North will now endure no more of Southern insolence and wrong; and further, I think I know the Southern blood, and from that knowledge I know they will, when the fighting point comes, cringe and crawl away. They can bluster and swagger; but there is an unboastful, serene calmness in Northern bravery which paralyzes their heated and inflated courage. I have been a boy, and have often quailed before this spirit. This is universal to all men, and the South are no exceptions to the universals of humanity. I am proud of my adopted section, for her philosophical, mathematic courage, that knows no cold, no heat, but eternal justice. The North, thank the stars, is erect, that is, men of the North, showing they have not forgotten principles, the only thing that is permanent or beautiful; all else rots in time. I think the action and courage exhibited in the election of Banks show which way we may now look for the true moral courage. I think the charm is shivered "like thin glass." The prestige of the South is gone, and I pray God never to return. Her institutions are wrong - ridiculously unjust, Heaven-defying; and if the recent lesson can teach her only justice to the North, and the rights of man, I will be more than pleased. Another illustration is the men of Lawrence; their coolness, bravery, and a sense of justice, awed a drunken rabble incited by a drunken politician. The North are up. I hate slavery: one word long years ago did it. My father was asked in my presence why he left Virginia, and then Kentucky. He answered: That "my labor should never be degraded by competition with slave-labor." must, however, confess that it, the hate, grows - develops as principles are understood, as duty and obligation to humanity are opened to me; as my soul expands to its responsibilities. I once said to you that I did not go so far as some did. I move, not backward. Is there any safe, great everlasting position this side of principle? Where is that point? Shall it stop with class? Shall it like truth sheet the universe of man? These are questions which stare a man in the face. I love the South, and cannot help it; there is something open, manly, chivalrous to draw me. But I hope I can draw a line between an institution and men. From my own knowledge there are a great number of men in the South that silently pray for Northern success dare not say it aloud. Not only the poor whites, but many others who are rich but do not and will not own slaves, are with us in feeling. I know this. I have heard them curse us Northern men most heartily when we would "cave in," as they called it. Let me say here, that in so saying, they would look around the room to see if any spies were looking or if any hired negro heard it. Slavery is the most terrible thing in the world. I say that I love the South, and will never injure her. I love her men and cannot help it. I draw a line between her citizens and her institutions. When I wrote you to come out here and lecture I did not know you were in Chicago, but learned so a few days after I wrote. I was really sorry when I received the news of your prior engagement. I hope you will come out in Octo |