{"id":3379,"date":"2010-11-19T13:26:25","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T18:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=3379"},"modified":"2010-11-29T09:50:37","modified_gmt":"2010-11-29T14:50:37","slug":"election-of-1860-william-wilkins-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2010\/11\/19\/election-of-1860-william-wilkins-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"Election of 1860 – William Wilkins Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> William Wilkins<\/a>\u2019 letter to James Webb<\/a>, editor and publisher of the New York Courier and Enquirer<\/em>, reveals an interesting view on some of the political perspectives that existed on the eve of the 1860 election. Wilkins, who graduated from Dickinson College<\/a> in 1802, was a Pennsylvania Democratic politician who also served as Secretary of War in President John Tyler\u2019s<\/a> administration. While Wilkins had originally \u201cintended to have told you something of myself,\u201d he noted <\/a>that Webb\u2019s political \u201cpamphlet has driven all such things out of my head and set if off \u2018a wool gathering.\u2019\u201d Wilkins\u2019 was not happy with Webb\u2019s take on slavery. George Washington \u201cnever dreaming he was fighting for kidnapped Africans of the Lowest order of human beings,\u201d Wilkins argued. Wilkins also believed that southerners should be allowed to bring slaves into any territory. \u201cWhere is the great right of migration?,\u201d Wilkins asked. Yet Wilkins was careful to note that he did not count Webb among the radical abolitionists. \u201cYou must not suppose I include you\u2026in [the] certain mad, fanatical category as full of political wickedness as was John Brown<\/a>,\u201d Wilkins explained. Wilkins hoped that sectional tensions would be resolved without resorting to disunion, as there could be no \u201csecession, without pulling down the entire wonderfully and wildly constructed fabric\u201d of the Union. While Wilkins\u2019 wife asked him \u201cto burn\u2026this horrible letter,\u201d he refused and sent it onto Webb. You can read the full text of this letter online at House Divided<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William Wilkins\u2019 letter to James Webb, editor and publisher of the New York Courier and Enquirer, reveals an interesting view on some of the political perspectives that existed on the eve of the 1860 election. Wilkins, who graduated from Dickinson College in 1802, was a Pennsylvania Democratic politician who also served as Secretary of War […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,172],"tags":[169,4756],"class_list":["post-3379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antebellum-1840-1861","category-letters-diaries","tag-carlisle-dickinson","tag-contests-elections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3379"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3390,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3379\/revisions\/3390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}