“I know thousands and millions of good people who, at simple notice, would come to North Alabama and accept the elegant houses and plantations now there. If the people of Huntsville think different, let them persist in war three years longer, and then they will not be consulted. Three years ago, by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well, last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late; all the powers on earth cannot restore to them their slaves any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit, ought to know the consequences. Many, many people, with less pertinacity than the South, have been wiped out of national existence. “My own belief is, that even now the non-slaveholding classes of the South are alienating from their associations in war. Already I hear criminations. Those who have property left, should take warning in time. “Since I have come down here I have seen many Southern planters who now hire their negroes, and acknowledge that they knew not the earthquake they were to make by appealing to Secession. They thought that the politicians had prepared the way, and that they could depart in peace. They now see that we are bound together as one nation in indissoluble ties, and that any interest or any people that set themselves up in antagonism to the nation must perish. “While I would not remit one jot or tittle of our nation’s right in peace or war, I do make allowances for past political errors and false prejudices. Our national Congress and Supreme Courts are the proper arenas in which to discuss conflicting opinions, and not the battle-field. “You may not hear from me again, and if you think it will do any good call some of the better people together and explain these my views. You may even read to them this letter and let them use it, so as to prepare them for my coming. “To those who submit to the rightful law and authority, all gentleness and forbearance, but to the petulant and persistent secessionists, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better. Satan, and the rebellious saints of heaven, were allowed a continuance of existence in hell, merely to swell their just punishment. To such as would rebel against a Government so mild and just as ours was in peace, a punishment equal would not be unjust.