Congressman Howell Cobb’s letter to Georgia Unionists, February 17^th 1851

The dangers which so universally threatened a few months ago the peace and quiet of the country, including the very existence of the Union, have been avoided and turned aside.

A Northern majority threatened to execute the passage of that odious measure, the Wilmot Proviso.

In the series of adjustment measures passed at the last session of Congress on the various Branches of the slavery question is found the record of a fair, just and honourable settlement of this alarming question.

It only now needs to be considered final, and then final I will grant that the danger is entirely over. But unfortunately this settlement is not regarded in that light by a large portion of the people. At the North a clamor has been raised for the

repeal of the fugitive slave law by the abolitionists. In the South the spirit of opposition is equally violent and determined. The open disunionists of South Carolina and the Southern Rights party of Georgia consider the action of the

government as violative of their rights and honour.

I offered my hand and my heart in the good cause of the Union.