Letter from James Phelan to Mississippi Governor William L. Sharkey; June 16, 1865

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Letter from James Phelan to Mississippi Governor William L. Sharkey; June 16, 1865

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People

Clifton, Casswell R.Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875 Phelam, William D.Phelan, James Sharkey, William Lewis, 1798-1873

Events

Conventions Conventions--Southern Convention (1850 : Nashville, Tenn.)Criminal Procedure Criminal Procedure--Pardon Secession. American Civil War

Organizations

Alabama--Supreme Court United States--Congress

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Newspaper editors

Places

Alabama Mississippi--Hinds County. Jackson Mississippi--Monroe County. Aberdeen Tennessee--Davidson County. Nashville

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African Americans African Americans--Enslaved people Christians Orphans

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Death Disease and illness

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[Seal]

Aberdeen
June 16/65

Hon^l W^m L.Sharkey:—
Gov^r of Miss:—

Dear Sir:—

Enclosed I Send you my application for pardon. I trust it may be consistent with your feelings to approve it. I have no claims upon your kindness, originating in the intimacies of personal friendship;—and only rely upon that palliation which Sincerity and uprightness of intention, may always plead in exenuation of harm or wrong, resulting from our acts, but against our design. I should not thus open my heart to a stranger. Conscious of having attempted to fulfil,—in all that I have Said or done—the character of a true man—a Christian—and a patriot—I should calmly await—if it needs must be,—the untimely fate of those unhappy men, over whose Sad end, both you and I have mourned in other times. But you are not a "man of blood"—time has, long since, softened the asperities of your nature;—you are the patriarch of the profession of which I am an humble member, and, of whose fame, we have all been proud;—a protracted life of judicial

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labor must have attempered your thoughts and feelings to mercy for man's infirmities;—you are a citizen of my State and can appreciate the character and conduct of the many noble spirits, who if they acted not wisely, erred in this. That they loved our country but too well;—and you will not attribute to craven fear or a pusilanimous spirit, the appeal I now make, for forgiviness for the past. Motive is the test of time. A suspicion of guilt, or insincerity, or selfishness, has never, for an instant crossed my mind. I had every thing to lose, and nothing to gain, by the separation—even if successful! I owned neither land nor slaves, the pro-perty alledged to be endangered by Northern policy—and tariffs, government patronage— navagation laws, & c personally, affected me not a trifle. I never felt the prickings of ambition, beyond a desire to be respectable in my profession. I felt a repugnance to all political position; and never ran for any such station in my life. I had a happy, peaceful home, adorned by the presence of a gentle wife, and sweet children,— surrounded by competence and comfort—and in the reasonable enjoyment of all that earth—miserable at best—can furnish.

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why should I have decried, to behold this beau-tiful fabric shattered beneath the stampings of red-battle's foot? But wealth was in my grasp at no distant day, should the Union be preserved! I may assert that, as the date of the Secession of Miss, my=self and partner, were realizing as large pecuniary gains, from Northern clients as any man in this State. All this, I knew must instantly, come to an end. But I gave it up, without a thought or a sigh. I wanted peace—peace—so long affrighted from our land by the eternal and discordant clamors of angry and Sectional political parties. I did not doubt on principle, the right of the Southern States to withdraw from the Union; and I was willing to make any sacrifice to avert the anarchy, and bloodshed, which I thought, a longer continuance of the two Sections, under one government, was rapidly inaugurating. Fatal blindness!—but God will forgive it, I know, whatever punishment man's ma=lice, engendered by my weakness may inflict upon me. I came to the State in 1849; a young man—a stranger—with a wife and two small children—without friends, fortune or influence—in miserable health—

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resolved to devote myself, to the noble profess=sion ^to^ which I had aspired against many repelling influences. I scorned politics and all that "wordy strife, which makes men mad." Amid the agitation which swelled thro the State in 1850. I read no papers—heard no speech—attended no as=semblage. I supposed the popular tu=mult to be only one of those occasional or periodical turmoils, which, as in the past, would soon pass away and be forgotten. But in Miss events began to betaken some solemn drama; in which no man, not passive as a stone, could fail to be aroused. Friends began to call my attention to the "signs of the times," and to criticise my supineness, at a moment so critical in the history of my adopted State. Casswell R. Clifton of Jackson, a bosom friend of my family, and once the law partner of my brother, W^m D Phelan, of the Ala. Supreme Court, pointed me to the leading men of Miss, known to himself who believed that the interests of the State ^were in danger^ and who were determned to take some marked action in regard to the future position of Miss, either in or out of the Union, addresses from Committees & Conventions, I

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Congressmen, which I cannot, and need not, recal, were placed in my possession, all signed by prominent men, and ladened with the most cogent and alarming argu=ment. The day did appear pregnant with great events; but I still shrunk from an abandoment of the quiet walk, the even tenor of which I had resolved to read. But, when a Con-vention of the Southern States was assembled at Nashville, under the auspices of your own venerable and illustrious name—a character revered by every [tyro?] in our profession—it gave an impulse to politial study— quickness the energies—and decided the destiny of hundreds of high-spirited young men in our State of your vast influence over whom, it is alleged, your unaffective modesty of nature, has ever kept you in ignorance. I was among them. I am now too old to flatter— too fear=less to fawn—and should despise myself worse, than you ought to de=spise me, if I ^could^ refer to the event to awaken your sympathy or elicit your influence in my behalf, in the unhappy situation to which I am now reduced. I do so because

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I feel—know—it to be true; and, if so, may, properly, be ~~appealed to~~ ^stated^ in the secrecy of private correspondence,—in such an hour as this,—to an aged and distinguished man, upon whose discretion, to a great extent, depends on life itself, or all that ador^ns or can render it desirable. The thought and study-earnest, intense and severe—in relation to the whole question of our governmental organ-ization, in which I engaged afer the call for the Nashville Convention, can never be erased from my mind. "What that has made me, I must be" I became convinced, then, that a State had the right to secede from the Union, an that the peace & prosperity of the two sections would be promoted by sep=aration—and that bloodshed would be the ultimate result of continued Union. The two first propositions I still believe; and the great thought arises in the mind had we dissolved the Union in 1851, would ~~not~~ the late carnage & bloodshed not have been spared? I am as fully convinced of it as I am that I have a soul to save! Oh!

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that your ^own^ giant mind and hand at that day, had continued in the work of national peace, so nobly begun. But, my esteemed sir, I know I weary you. Let these saddened thoughts come to an end. I have addressed you in the freedom of an unreserved confidence, not justified, perhaps, by our personal relations;—but you are an old man reputed not to stickle about the technical conventionalities, where frank-hearted sincerity, is obeying its im=pulses, or giving utterence to its feel=ing^s. I have made a candid statement to the President of all that truth permitted or demanded. My struggles in early life, would have touched a chord, that must have found a response in his own bosom;—but such an appeal, however effectual, would have made me contemptible in my own estimation—a fate more to be dreaded, not the block or the gibbet. Not only so—^but^ when nearly the whole South was denouncing him for his doctrine about the free-basis for political representation, as the editor of a little paper, I gave

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him my earnest support. I cant surmise what may be your feelings toward me, but having written thus far, with freedom, I may suggest, that if consistent with your views, a reference to these facts, on your part would deserve my gratitude.

There is one other point to which I desire to allude; but dare not. So far, I hope I have said nothing inconsisent with perfect self=respect—nothing maudlin—craven—or purillcinemiousy Should I trust myself to speak at length, of the condition of my two little motherless children. I feel that the father, would merge the man, and torture me to indulge in expressions, too servile for the dignity of a true manhood. I present them to you. "Do unto them or seemeth to your good." I crave your pardon for my long epistle.

May God give you wisdom, once more to restore to our State the blessing of peace, and to put on end to the anarchy and misrule, under which our "people mourneth".

With sincere respect

James Phelan