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regard it as a great favor, and I will return the book so soon as I have informed myself. Sam Houston. Colonel R. E. Lee. 1 Governors' Lette1·s (1860); also Executive Records, 1859-1861, p. 221, Texas State Library.
To GEORGE WASHINGTON CRAWFORD 1
Austin, 8th September, 1860. My Dear General :-Your favor has this moment been received, and I as frankly reply as you wrote to me. Personally, I like Breckinridge more that either of the other candidates in the field, and it is because he is an amiable gentleman as well as a man of fine intelligence, and I think him quite as honest as either of the other candidates. My wish and object is to beat Lincoln with any man in the field. The question is, how is this to be done? If Breckinridge alone were in the field opposed to Lincoln, could he do it? I think not. Now! why not? Because if he were to get all the Southern States, as he would do, could that elect him? No!! Could he certainly get any free State? I think not, brought forward as he was by Yancey-Rhett-Keitt and the disunion in- fluence, and supported by these men and others equally odious to the national feeling. His friends, too, of the New York Heral,d, Colonel Orr, and others, concede that he stands no chance of election. If a Union ticket is supported North and-South, it can be elected, I think, and let the electors only be pledged to cast their votes for the strongest man against Lincoln, and in this way he may be defeated, otherwise I think that Lincoln will be elected by the electoral colleges. By voting for a Union ticket it will not exclude Mr. Breckinridge, if he stands on the Union principle, and if he does not, no one ought to vote for him or any other man who cannot stand there. By voting for men, as electors, who are pledged to principle, and not to this or that individual, the design of the Constitution will be answered. It is certainly as safe for the country to rely on the discretion and judgment of electors, acting under the responsibility of a Constitutional obligation, as it is to rely on the members of a Convention to nominate a can- didate, and, therefore, I am willing to rely on the honesty and discretion of the electors, if any should be elected on the Union ticket, so to act and vote, if they can, to defeat Lincoln. This is
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