Washington City, 22 May, 1860.
Dear Col., … I was extremely gratified at the result of your meeting in Macon and was happy to find your name among the delegates. It is the most important party convention that ever assembled in Ga. I intend if possible to be there myself. I shall be appointed a delegate from Clarke county and unless detained here by some insuperable cause I shall be in Milledgeville on the 3d. June. It is extremely inconvenient for me to leave my office whilst Congress is in session but I shall not allow any ordinary consideration to detain me. From all I can learn the Douglas faction will be whipt badly in the state. We shall have some trouble with our own friends to get them to consent to be represented at Baltimore. But when they see that unless we send true men, there will be a bogus delegation, I think they should give in to our policy. My programme is to send the old delegates, and by endorsing their past action we give the best instructions for their future conduct, as I said in my letter.
My opinion now is that our friends at Baltimore will be able to defeat Douglas and get both a good man and a sound platform. Whilst my individual choice is still for Hunter yet I believe that old Joe Lane is the best man to make the fight on, both in the convention and before the people. He is as true as steel and then he has “fought, bled and died for his country.” I believe that the best chance now is to take a northern man—any of them will be acceptable after we get clear of Douglas.
I am glad you are going to have another paper in Macon. It will at least be a check upon the Telegraph. If it is Ben Martin (Benning’s brother-in-law), he is a good and true friend of mine and was in 1850, though Benning was against me. . . .
I will have sent to you speeches of Toombs, Benjamin and others, which will give you all the points on Douglas. In this morning’s Constitution you will find an article which fills up the asterisks in Stephens’s letter where he quotes from his Augusta speech. Douglas endorsed the letter. He is now asked if he will endorse it with the asterisks filled up.
I sent an editorial to the Federal Union, headed “The true issue” in which I have discussed the Dred Scott decision and non-intervention. If they publish it as I sent it, it will put the gentlemen who have been writing letters against our line in a tight place, though I don’t name any of them. It ought to be in next Tuesday’s paper.
Do write me how matters are progressing in the different counties around you. All send love to John A. and yourself.
[P. S.] —I call your attention particularly to Benjamin’s speech. The [trooper?] articles are admirable and will make a capital document for circulation. Send them all over the State.
From Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911.
Howell Cobb was an American political figure. A southern Democrat, Cobb was a five-term member of the United States House of Representatives and Speaker of the House from 1849 to 1851. He also served as the 40th Governor of Georgia and as a Secretary of the Treasury under President James Buchanan. Cobb is, however, probably best known as one of the founders of the Confederacy, having served as the President of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States.