[Extract of a Letter from F. W. Newman to John Nicholson.]

[undated; ca. September 1864]

        I now understand that the darkest moment for the North—the repulse of Burnside at Fredericsburgh—was the only thing that at last decided Mr. Lincoln to issue his proclamation of freedom. . . . He has been born and bred under a slave-owner's interpretation of the Constitution and of the negro-temperament, and . . . seems to persist in his publicly avowed preference of gradual abolition. Could he have had his way, I predicted, and would still predict, twenty years of misery, confusion, with probably new war unfavourable to the North. Garrison has done his worst to aid the President, but Sumner and Wendell Phillips have (as I now take courage to believe) checkmated him. He will NEVER get his Louisiana and Arkansas reconstruction approved by Congress, and colour-legislation will be declared to be a violation of "Republicanism." . . . Yet Mr. Lincoln is a better President every half-year, and I fully count will at last give way to truth and necessity with a good grace.

        I have been actively working up my Handbook of Arabic. I also design a skeleton dictionary of Arabic-English. I have got a valuable book from Algiers (if it had but vowel points!). But I cannot publish until I have money to spare. Meanwhile I work hard to mature and perfect.