Doctor Who Blood and Hope Iain McLaughlin

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.Out of respect for the lady and her obvious madness, both Claire and I have agreed to keep the matter quiet for now.In truth, I fear this has less to do with you than with the unease and tension caused by last month's election.I'm sure you shall hear as many rumors and stories in South Carolina as we hear in Massachusetts, but I spoke with Pa today.No matter what the rumors say, he reckons there's no way Lincoln being voted President will split the country like some folks are saying.Pa says there'll be some politics talked over the next few weeks and everything will be hammered out.I reckon he's right.We won't split.We sacrificed too much in becoming a country for it to be all broken up now.The politicians will sit down and sort this out.Hell, we can't split.Claire and me are looking forward too much to seeing Abby's Pa making you squirm.And I guess I'd best warn you – next time she sees you Claire's got a heap of questions she's planning on throwing at you and nothing at West Point has prepared you for that.I'm glad I'm not the one Abby's set her stall for.Guess I'll see you after Christmas.Pass my best respects to your folks.WillLetter from Paul LeVal to Will JohnsonLyon Ridge, South CarolinaDecember 19th, 1860My friend,I will admit to surprise at receiving your letter.In fact, I will admit that your letter has surprised me several times over.The first surprise is the speed with which the letter arrived, although you were wrong in suggesting that the letter should arrive before I did.I was home a full hour before the letter was delivered.Surely this must be a record for letters between our homes?I know I have no need to write this but I will echo Abby's pleas that you say naught to anyone about her and me.And yes, I do say her and me with reason.While I am not surprised that a sluggardly fellow like you did not notice the time Abby and I had been spending in each other's company, I must confess that we were surprised that no one had made note of the fact.Surprised, and in the present situation, relieved.Had relations between North and South been more amicable I would have asked Abby's father for permission to court her before returning home this Christmas.As you surmised, our decision to wait was political.I will freely confess that I love Abby more than I thought possible but the time was not right to broach the subject with her father.Did you ever think to hear that politics should complicate a romance so? In my heart I hope you and your father are correct in your opinion that the nation will not split.But the South has changed, even in the past few months we have been at West Point.Where the resentment to Northern interference in our affairs simmered beneath the surface, it is now being spoken openly on the street, in railway carriages and, most surprisingly to me, in the newspapers.Many of them see the election of someone as openly hostile to the Southern way of life as Mr Lincoln as the last straw.You know well that I have no love for slavery.I feel a deep unease at the thought of one man owning another, regardless of skin color or land of origin.You and I, we both played with slave children when we were young.We didn't care about the color of their skin.But yet we always hid these childhood friends from our parents.I know full well that you felt the same discomfort as I when our friends bowed their heads to our parents.Father and I have argued back and forth many times the moral rights and wrongs of slavery and the only thing we can agree is that we are unlikely to ever agree on the subject.However, I can well understand why Mr Lincoln's stated intention of finding a way of abolishing slavery has caused so much anger.The economy of the South is almost entirely dependent upon cotton production and the slaves are currently an integral part of that task.I'm told that the slaves currently held have the worth of around two billion dollars.Most businesses believe that our economy could never survive the removal of this 'asset' (I use the word only because I could not think of another).This feeling has passed into the public, who fear economic disaster for the South should slavery be abolished.Men fear that they will have no work and be unable to feed their families.And men with such a fear seek to lash out.But there is more to this than just slavery.All through the train journey, I heard men, old and young alike, talk with anger of interference from the North, of the North taxing the South to death while stamping on its traditional way of life.The journey was one filled with such resentment.I desperately hope that politicians will see sense and find a way of bringing this tension to an end.May God forgive me for saying as much, but I would consider it an acceptable compromise to continue slavery for ten or twenty or fifty years more until our economy was no longer so dependent upon slaves for cotton production.I feel a great shame at appearing to set more stock by finance than the worth of human lives, but I see no other option that can bring any kind of calm to the Union.I hear that tomorrow there is to be a state convention in Charleston, South Carolina.President Buchanan is perceived as being friendlier to the South than Mr Lincoln.Perhaps he has found a middle ground for us all to inhabit peacefully before his successor takes office.I resolutely hope so, but in my heart I fear that the people here so resent the election of Mr Lincoln that the breach between the two halves of our nation may be too great for any man to bridge.If that is so, then I may not be able to return for some time.If this turns out to be the case, then I would ask you to take care of Abigail for me.I know you will do so without any word from me, but I am asking nonetheless.I dearly hope that in a week or two we will meet at your home before heading back to West Point and laugh ourselves sore for having thought so badly of ourselves and our fellow Americans.I so hope that saner heads than those I encountered on my journey will prevail.After all, we are all Americans.Before I close and turn in for the night, I must comment upon your deductions about Abigail and me.You may feel a self-righteous pride at having discovered our little secret, but I feel that I should in turn let you in on a secret, cousin.I am not the only one with a female admirer [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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