DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.57119#0011
5, ROYAL OPERA ARCADE
dating from nth February 1848 to i8i/i October 1866, and
covering no less than 541 pages 8vo and 4to. £65
This highly interesting and Extensive Correspondence deals
with a great variety of subjects, including politics, canals,
slavery, money and legal matters. Inter alia, American Rail-
roads and the State of America just before and during the
Civil War.
The following is a very brief resume of a few of the topics commented
upon :
The early idea of a “ ship railway ” across Florida and Tehuantepec
to the Pacific, the Erie and Kalamazos Rail Road, with details of its
length, capital, terms of its lease to the Southern Rail Road Co., its
extension through Indiana along the South shore of Lake Erie
and connecting Buffalo with Chicago ; the Pacific Rail Road “ the
greatest of all our undertakings. . . . It is to be the great national
Measure of our day.”
“ The Nation [British] which brought the African slave to the Colonies
should be the last to arraign us for the condition and extension of the
negro race on this continent." In 1857 Hunt refers to ‘‘ this tremen-
dous crash in our financial system . . . gold is coming from
California.” He attributes the confusion, deadlock and financial
derangement to “ the vast and short-sighted speculations in rail
roads,’’ the long parallel lines of Rail Roads in the west reaching
beyond the farthest borders of settlement; the Canals and the
competition they suffer from the Rail Roads, the latter by running
steamers on the Lakes, have taken more than half the Canal freights,
tolls should be levied on the Rail Roads which should be forbidden
to embark on Lake shipping or to extend their operations beyond
the State. “ Slavery is an evil . . . while conceding to other
States the rights to manage it in their own way.” On Nov. 21, i860,
a few months before the outbreak of the Civil War, Hunt wrote:
‘ ‘ The prospect is dark and my heart is filled with grief and anxious
solicitude when I contemplate the future of our country. The
evil day has come . . . our Republic is to be destroyed by the
madness of human passions. The more moderate men of the
South are trying to ward off the danger by a general Southern
Convention ... if rejected the whole South will then unite
in the act of separation. ... It is a striking fact that the
Federal Judge, the Governor and Chief Justice of the State
[Mississippi] are foremost in the work of disunion.” References
to the flax-cotton Industry, “the rebels have us at a disadvantage
in Missouri. I fear that General Fremont is not the right man in
the right place.” Writing in 1863 “ the War will continue . . .
there will be no pacification till this Administration is finished.
The President [Lincoln] has put it wholly out of his power to make
peace." Etc.
“ The more I reflect on the proposed track from Ocean to Ocean
the more profoundly I am impressed.”
Washington Hunt, the writer, was elected to Congress in 1842.
He was Comptroller of New York in 1849, and Governor of that
State in 1850. Hunt afterwards declined a democrat nomination
7
dating from nth February 1848 to i8i/i October 1866, and
covering no less than 541 pages 8vo and 4to. £65
This highly interesting and Extensive Correspondence deals
with a great variety of subjects, including politics, canals,
slavery, money and legal matters. Inter alia, American Rail-
roads and the State of America just before and during the
Civil War.
The following is a very brief resume of a few of the topics commented
upon :
The early idea of a “ ship railway ” across Florida and Tehuantepec
to the Pacific, the Erie and Kalamazos Rail Road, with details of its
length, capital, terms of its lease to the Southern Rail Road Co., its
extension through Indiana along the South shore of Lake Erie
and connecting Buffalo with Chicago ; the Pacific Rail Road “ the
greatest of all our undertakings. . . . It is to be the great national
Measure of our day.”
“ The Nation [British] which brought the African slave to the Colonies
should be the last to arraign us for the condition and extension of the
negro race on this continent." In 1857 Hunt refers to ‘‘ this tremen-
dous crash in our financial system . . . gold is coming from
California.” He attributes the confusion, deadlock and financial
derangement to “ the vast and short-sighted speculations in rail
roads,’’ the long parallel lines of Rail Roads in the west reaching
beyond the farthest borders of settlement; the Canals and the
competition they suffer from the Rail Roads, the latter by running
steamers on the Lakes, have taken more than half the Canal freights,
tolls should be levied on the Rail Roads which should be forbidden
to embark on Lake shipping or to extend their operations beyond
the State. “ Slavery is an evil . . . while conceding to other
States the rights to manage it in their own way.” On Nov. 21, i860,
a few months before the outbreak of the Civil War, Hunt wrote:
‘ ‘ The prospect is dark and my heart is filled with grief and anxious
solicitude when I contemplate the future of our country. The
evil day has come . . . our Republic is to be destroyed by the
madness of human passions. The more moderate men of the
South are trying to ward off the danger by a general Southern
Convention ... if rejected the whole South will then unite
in the act of separation. ... It is a striking fact that the
Federal Judge, the Governor and Chief Justice of the State
[Mississippi] are foremost in the work of disunion.” References
to the flax-cotton Industry, “the rebels have us at a disadvantage
in Missouri. I fear that General Fremont is not the right man in
the right place.” Writing in 1863 “ the War will continue . . .
there will be no pacification till this Administration is finished.
The President [Lincoln] has put it wholly out of his power to make
peace." Etc.
“ The more I reflect on the proposed track from Ocean to Ocean
the more profoundly I am impressed.”
Washington Hunt, the writer, was elected to Congress in 1842.
He was Comptroller of New York in 1849, and Governor of that
State in 1850. Hunt afterwards declined a democrat nomination
7
