I have not had the pleasure to hear from you, litterally [sic] for years. I have often thought of this with deep regret & the more because I fear this non-intercourse was caused was caused by a letter from me which perhaps you read with distaste & disapprobation - you could not, I am very sure, have considered it as designedly offensive - our long & intimate & confidential intercourse, forbids a conclusion so painful to me, & so foreign to my heart. I am most anxious now to commune freely with you on the all important topic of the times - the integrity of the federal Union. I know well what your opinions & feelings were on this momentous subject & I trust they have not changed. I am for the Union as it is - under the federal compact - the Constitution of the United States & am ready, should need be, which God forbid! to draw my sword in its defence. But, in truth, I have never thought the Union in serious danger, notwithstanding the fanatics & malignant demagogues of the North & their Hotspur coadjutors of the South. I have full confidence in the patriotism & good sense of the people - the masses high & low - fanatics & free Negroes, in the North, may fume & preach & threaten & denounce the laws, the Constitution, the Christian religion & the very foundations of civilized society -- & Southern Nullifiers, professing hatred & Scorn to their Northern allies, yet laboring with them for the same purpose of public ruin, may rant & roar about grasping & unprincipaled majorities & the downfal [sic] of Southern Supremacy brought about by the trickery & dishonesty of northern politicians - & at last even venture to recommend openly disunion - as the only remedy left to the South "