Macon, Nathaniel:

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LETTERS TO CHAS. O'CONOR. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE UNION IS EMANCIPATION. THE STATUS OF SLAVERY. THE RIGHTS OF THE STATES AND TERRITORIES [cover title]. Correspondence by Nathaniel Macon to Charles O'Conor, written from Alabama between August and October 1860, detailing his opposition to the end of slavery (on primarily legal and constitutional grounds), his ideas about slavery in the territories, and his rather interesting thoughts on the idea of Civil War. Macon argues that the dissolution of the Union would in fact be the death blow to the institution of slavery, for "The Union has done more for slavery than slavery has done for the Union...It is the Union which covers it with that kind of shield which protects it alike from enemies within or without. I see no possible condition of things by which slavery can be benefitted by physical conflict....its life and security have been imparted to it almost wholly by the moral power of the Federal Union; and that in beating down the latter it is doing more for Abolitionism...than its combined enemies could otherwise have accomplished in a century."The authors of these letters is not to be confused with the famous North Carolina politician Nathaniel Macon (likely his namesake), who was likewise a staunch defender of slavery but passed away some twenty years prior. The recipient, New York Democrat and lawyer, Charles O'Conor, was senior legal counsel to Jefferson Davis and made efforts to secure his parole after the war. A variant iss

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