细节
FILLMORE, Millard. Autograph letter signed ("Millard Fillmore"), as President, to a Committee from Lowell, Massachusetts, Washington City, 9 May 1851. 2 pages, 4to, double matted and framed.
FILLMORE HOPES "THE STORM WHICH THREATENED...TREASONABLE & FRATRICIDAL STRIFE, HAS PASSED AWAY" THOUGH "THE WATERS ARE STILL AGITATED"
A vivid Presidential ALS in which Fillmore's charged language conveys the mood of pervasive crisis in Washington. With sectional passions still raging in the aftermath of the passage, in September, of the 1850 Compromise Bill, President Fillmore thinks it wise to stay in the Capital and declines a visit to Lowell, Massachusetts: "...I feel that my first duty is due to the country; and that to this I am bound to sacrifice every consideration of personal convenience or pleasure. I trust that the storm which threatened to overwhelm the government and array section against section and brother against brother in treasonable & fratricidal strife, has passed away. But the waters are still agitated and it will yet take some time for the elements to subside..."
He tells the Lowell men that he has already obligated himself to mark the opening of the New York and Erie Railroad, but that he will be immediately coming back to Washington once that ceremony is finished. "I shall still hope to be able to visit your beautiful & flourishing city during the summer. But at what time I cannot say...."
FILLMORE HOPES "THE STORM WHICH THREATENED...TREASONABLE & FRATRICIDAL STRIFE, HAS PASSED AWAY" THOUGH "THE WATERS ARE STILL AGITATED"
A vivid Presidential ALS in which Fillmore's charged language conveys the mood of pervasive crisis in Washington. With sectional passions still raging in the aftermath of the passage, in September, of the 1850 Compromise Bill, President Fillmore thinks it wise to stay in the Capital and declines a visit to Lowell, Massachusetts: "...I feel that my first duty is due to the country; and that to this I am bound to sacrifice every consideration of personal convenience or pleasure. I trust that the storm which threatened to overwhelm the government and array section against section and brother against brother in treasonable & fratricidal strife, has passed away. But the waters are still agitated and it will yet take some time for the elements to subside..."
He tells the Lowell men that he has already obligated himself to mark the opening of the New York and Erie Railroad, but that he will be immediately coming back to Washington once that ceremony is finished. "I shall still hope to be able to visit your beautiful & flourishing city during the summer. But at what time I cannot say...."