Dear Tom : . . . The fact that Congress did not admit Kansas must be a disappointment to you all, but the certainty of her giving a Republican vote was too much for a Democratic Congress, with the almost certainty of the election going into the House. Down here no one thinks of Lincoln. The struggle will be between Douglas and Breckenridge; the latter will win. . . If Lincoln should win I don’t know but that something would turn up to my liking, but it won’t do for me to say Lincoln down here. The devil himself would be a more welcome guest than a Black Republican, yet I have no fears myself of the election of anybody; if our form of government will not endure any man as president it is not a fit machine and should break up; but of course I know that no man would now disturb property in slaves; as to the limitation of its sphere, that is comparatively a small matter. . .
adapted from General W.T. Sherman as College President, A Collection of Letters …. (1912).
“William T. Sherman to Thomas Ewing, Jr., July 22, 1860,” House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/32609.