Colonel Baldwin and Mr. Stuart, was: "Then what would become of my tariffs?" He was shrewd enough to see that the just and liberal free-trade policy proposed by the Montgomery Government would speedily build up, by the help of the magnificent Southern staples, a beneficent foreign commerce through Confederate ports; that the Northern people, whose lawless and mercenary character he understood, could never be restrained from smuggling across the long open frontier of the Confederacy; that thus the whole country would become habituated to the benefits of free-trade, so that when the schism was healed [as he knew it would be healed in a few years by the policy of Virginia], it would be too late to restore the iniquitous system of sectional plunder by tariffs, which his section so much craved. Hence, when Virginia offered him a safe way to preserve the Union, he preferred to destroy the Union and preserve his tariffs. The war was conceived in duplicity, and brought forth in iniquity.
The calculated treason of Lincoln's Radical advisers is yet more glaring. When their own chosen leader, Seward, avowed that there was no need for war, they deliberately and malignantly practiced to produce war, for the purpose of overthrowing the Constitution and the Union, to rear their own greedy faction upon the ruins. This war, with all its crimes and miseries, was proximately concocted in Washington city, by Northern men, with malice prepense.
Official Correspondence of Governor Letcher, of Virginia.
The following letters are of interest and value as illustrating the history of the times. Their originals, kindly presented to the Society by Governor Letcher, constitute a valuable addition to our collection of autographs.
Upon a request of Governor Letcher that Lieutenant-Colonel Hardee, United States Army, be allowed to come to Richmond to drill the Virginia cavalry then encamped at the Fair Grounds, General Scott wrote the following letters.
General Hardee complied with the request, and drilled the cavalry several days.
His Excellency John Letcher, Governor of Virginia:
My Dear Sir—I have caused a copy of your letter to be forwarded to Lieutenant-Colonel Hardee, who is, I think, still at West Point, though relieved from duty there. It is not competent for a
