Record Data
Source citation
William Wheeler, Letter from William Wheeler, November 11, 1860, Letters of William Wheeler of the Class of 1855, Yale College, Privately published, 1875, p. 468.
Type
Letter
Date Certainty
Exact
Transcriber
Michael Blake
Transcription date
Transcription
The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
. . . . This has been a very important and exciting week; we Republicans have done the deed, and now the great question must be settled one way or the other, and I don't think it makes much difference in which. If the Southerners simply blow, and boast, and threaten for a while, and then acquiesce in the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, we shall have peace, which is a good thing enough in its way, and the material interests of commerce and manufactures will not be much deranged. If secession does really take place, and hostilities are commenced, so much the better. There will be misery and bloodshed for a while, and all the horrors of civil strife, but it will only hasten on the great result which must sooner or later be reached, only assist to throw more light on the problem which must one day be solved. And then the country will emerge from that chaos of fire and blood, fresh and free, its dross purged away, and its great sin expiated. May I live to see that day.