Howell Cobb to Alexander H. Stephens - 06/17/1857

Dear Stephens, I have this moment placed your letter in the hands of Joseph Baker, Collector at Philadelphia, who promises me to obtain and have forwarded to you at an early day the information you want about the vote last fall in Pa. If he fails let me know; but he will not fail as I have impressed upon him the importance of attending to it promptly.
From what you write and what I see in the papers I fear that Walker’s inaugural address is to do us harm in the South. That part that you object to I never saw or heard of until I read it in the papers. It could have been omitted without injuring the object which I think he had in mind. I confess that I did not like the argument or presentation of the question by him. My opinion is that he thought at the time he wrote it that Kansas would come in as a slave state and his object was to satisfy the other side that they would have a fair chance to be heard. This is my reading of it though I never heard anything from him on that point before he left.
The point made by the Constitutionalist against submitting the constitution to the people I do not think is well taken. The true policy is to say nothing about slavery in the constitution, and let the state be admitted as it is, and the question of slavery can be decided by them afterwards. That is my idea, and I believe the correct one, and will in the end be adopted by the convention if our friends there act wisely. Now that the principle of the Kansas bill is fully and thoroughly recognized by the administration, just as our own people demanded it, it would be a hard blow to lose the whole benefit of it by having a false issue made before the country. I write this hasty note with constant interruptions and no time to look over what I have written.