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may turn the very arms we put in their hands against ourselves, as a part of the oppressing white race?
The reading of history so familiar to your Excellency, will tell you the bitterest cause of complaint which our fathers had against Great Britain in the war of the Revolution, was the arming by the British Ministry of the red man with the tomahawk and the scalping-knife against the women and children of the colonies, so that the phrase, “May we not use all the means which God and nature have put in our power to subjugate the colonies?”
has passed into a legend of infamy against the leader of that Ministry who used it in Parliament.
Shall history teach us in vain?
Could we justify ourselves to ourselves?
Although with arms in our hands amid the savage wildness of camp and field, we may have blunted many of the finer moral sensibilities in letting loose four millions of worse than savages upon the homes and hearths of the South.
Can we be justified to the Christian community of Massachusetts?
Would such a course be consonant with the teachings of our holy religion?
I have a very decided opinion upon the subject, and if any one desires, as I know your Excellency does not, this unhappy contest to be prosecuted in that manner, some instrument other than myself must be found to carry it on. I may not discuss the political bearings of this topic.
When I went from under the shadow of my roof free, I left all politics behind me, to be resumed only when every part of the Union is loyal to the flag, and the potency of the Government through the ballot box is established.
Passing the moral and Christian view, let us examine the subject as a military question.
Is not that State already subjugated which requires the bayonets of those armed in opposition to its rulers, to preserve it from the horrors of a servile war?
As the least experienced of military men, I would have no doubt of the entire subjugation of a State brought to that condition.
When, therefore — unless I am better advised — any community in the United States, who have met me in honorable warfare, or even in the prosecution of a rebellious war in an honorable manner, shall call upon me for protection against the nameless horrors of a servile insurrection, they shall have it, and from the moment that call is obeyed, I have no doubt we shall be friends and not enemies.
The possibilities that dishonorable means of defence are to be taken by the rebels against the Government, I do not now contemplate.
If, as has been done in a single instance, my men are to be attacked by poison, or as in another, stricken down by the assassin's knife, and thus murdered, the community using such weapons may be required to be taught that it holds within its own border a more potent means for deadly purposes and indiscriminate slaughter than any which it can administer to us.
Trusting that these views may meet your Excellency's approval, I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
--N. Y. Times, May 16.
