" To Bridge, after the book
was out, he wrote much more confidentially and strongly. "I tried to
persuade Pierce that I could not perform it as well as many others; but
he thought differently, and of course, after a friendship of thirty
years, it was impossible to refuse my best efforts in his behalf, at the
great pinch of his life." In this letter, also, he states that before
undertaking the work, he resolved to "accept no office" from Pierce;
though he raises the query whether this be not "rather folly than
heroism." In discussing this point, he says, touching Pierce:--
"He certainly owes me something; for the biography has cost me hundreds
of friends here at the North, who had a purer regard for me than Frank
Pierce or any other politician ever gained, and who drop off from me
like autumn leaves, in consequence of what I say on the slavery
question. But they were my real sentiments, and I do not now regret that
they are on record."
These have to do with Hawthorne's attitude during the war. Speaking of
Pierce's indorsement of the Compromise, both as it bore hard on Northern
views and exacted concessions from the South thought by it to be more
than reciprocal, he says:--
"It was impossible for him not to take his stand as the unshaken
advocate of Union, and of the mutual steps of compromise which that
great object unquestionably demanded. The fiercest, the least
scrupulous, and the most consistent of those who battle against slavery
recognize the same fact that he does.
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