Between the Covers

Two remarkable holograph letters by Edward McMillan, Presbyterian minister and President of the College for Young Ladies in Tennessee: “one of the best men that God ever made” according to President Abraham Lincoln. Written to fellow abolitionist Conway Wing, a New York-born pastor in Huntsville, Alabama, the first letter from November, 1846 opens the correspondence and addresses both men’s theological views. The second letter is given over entirely to the increasing tensions between North and South over the abolition of slavery, and to answering the question put forth by McMillan: “how are we to terminate it without bringing greater evil on all concerned?”

Both letters are densely written in McMillan’s neat, small hand, on large folio sheets, a total of 10 fully legible pages. Light dust soiling at the envelope folds on the final page of each letter with small remnants of the original wax seal, near fine.

Though a slaveholder himself who had inherited enslaved persons on his estate, “Gemini Fontes,” McMillan considered slavery “a great public evil”. Having set forth his motivating theological views, McMillan brings them to bear on his “declaration of facts” in favor of the abolition of slavery, but not at the present moment:

“The ministry and churches of this section of our country have long been traduced on the subject of slavery … we now feel ourselves called upon … to submit the following declaration of facts, and of the principles by which we are governed in regard to this most difficult subject … we do regard the system of slavery now tolerated among us has having its origin in unrighteousness and oppression, that we not only believe, but daily feel and see, that it is a great public evil, and that we desire its termination; and we do believe that at least three fourths of the whole population of this section of our country would hail this event with joy: but as yet we have been unable to see how this can be done without bringing still greater evil on all concerned …”

Having granted Wing “all liberty … to alter, abridge, expand, and reject” his argument, he sets it forth in detail, and concludes:

“Many slaveholders … find it impossible, North or South, to secure to them [the enslaved] in a state of emancipation as much protection and liberty as they can afford them in their present condition … Many of the slaves themselves, especially the more intelligent, greatly prefer to remain as they are, until the prejudices of the white population against them shall have subsided at the North or the South, or until they can be removed beyond their influence. What but ignorance of these facts … can have induced so many at the North to declare for the excommunication of all slaveholders as such? …”

When Civil War threatened, McMillan moved his family to Carlinville, Illinois and stated from the pulpit: “We don’t fight to free the slaves, but we free the slaves to stop the fight.” This proclamation caught the attention of President Lincoln who responded: “This is the finest statement of the issue I have ever heard.” With the outbreak of war McMillan joined the Union Army, serving as Chaplain of the 32nd Illinois Infantry, until his death from fever in August, 1864. A remarkable and historically important pair of letters, rich in content.

Item #462838