Note 80 — Chapter XVII · 1860—December.

This mass of private letters is so great, and so fully represents various classes of the community, that I have felt entirely warranted in treating it as the best evidence of the currents of public opinion, as they were setting immediately after the publication of the message. The President could do nothing more with such a correspondence than to have each letter carefully read by a competent private secretary, and its contents duly noted for his information. The whole of it gave him the means of knowing the feelings of the people far better than he could know them by reading the public prints.