Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children

by Dorie Mccullough Lawson

  Nor ought it to be one of the least of your excitements toward exerting every power and faculty of your mind, that you have a parent who has taken so large and active a share in this contest, and discharged the trust reposed in him with so much satisfaction as to be honourd with the important Embassy, which at present calls him abroad.

  I cannot fulfill the whole of my duty toward you, if I close this Letter, without reminding you of a failing which calls for a strict attention and watchful care to correct. You must do it for yourself. You must curb that impetuosity of temper, for which I have frequently chid you, but which properly directed may be productive of great good. I know you capable of these exertions, with pleasure I observed my advice was not lost upon you. If you indulge yourself in the practise of any foible or vice in youth, it will gain strength with your years and become your conquerer.

  The strict and inviolable regard you have ever paid to truth, gives me pleasing hopes that you will not swerve from her dictates, but add justice, fortitude, and every Manly Virtue which can adorn a good citizen, do Honor to your Country, and render your parents supreemly happy, particuliarly your ever affectionate Mother,

  AA

  THOMAS JEFFERSON TO

  MARTHA “PATSY” JEFFERSON

  “. . . do what is right and you will

  find it the easiest way . . .”

  In 1787 the Minister to France, Thomas Jefferson, toured southern France and northern Italy for three months. He was a forty-four-year-old widower, and of his six children, only two were still living. Here he writes to fifteen-year-old “Patsy” about the impending arrival from Virginia of her only remaining sibling, nine-year-old Maria, or “Polly.” It had been more than two years since the girls had seen each other.

  Toulon April 7. 1787.

  My Dear Patsy

  I received yesterday at Marseilles your letter of March 25. and I received it with pleasure because it announced to me that you were well. Experience learns us to be always anxious about the health of those whom we love. I have not been able to write to you so often as I expected, because I am generally on the road; and when I stop any where, I am occupied in seeing what is to be seen. It will be some time now, perhaps three weeks before I shall be able to write to you again. But this need not slacken your writing to me, because you have leisure, and your letters come regularly to me. I have received letters which inform me that our dear Polly will certainly come to us this summer. By the time I return it will be time to expect her. When she arrives, she will become a precious charge on your hands. The difference of your age, and your common loss of a mother, will put that office on you. Teach her above all things to be good: because without that we can neither be valued by others, nor set any value on ourselves. Teach her to be always true. No vice is so mean as the want of truth, and at the same time so useless. Teach her never to be angry. Anger only serves to torment ourselves, to divert others, and alienate their esteem. And teach her industry and application to useful pursuits. I will venture to assure you that if you inculcate this in her mind you will make her a happy being in herself, a most inestimable friend to you, and precious to all the world. In teaching her these dispositions of mind, you will be more fixed in them yourself, and render yourself dear to all your acquaintance. Practice them then, my dear, without ceasing. If ever you find yourself in difficulty and doubt how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and you will find it the easiest way of getting out of the difficulty. Do it for the additional incitement of increasing the happiness of him who loves you infinitely, and who is my dear Patsy your's affectionately,

  TH: JEFFERSON

  DANIEL WEBSTER TO EDWARD WEBSTER

  “All that can be done for you by others will amount

  to nothing unless you do much for yourself.”

  Daniel Webster, statesman and distinguished lawyer, was known as the “Defender of the Constitution.” His total devotion to the Union and fear that slavery might one day tear the country apart led him, more than thirty years before the Civil War, to deliver the now famous line “Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever.”

  Here he writes to his thirteen-year-old son, Edward, who was just beginning at Phillips Exeter Academy. Webster had planned to take his son to Exeter himself, but a lengthy congressional session on banking kept the senator in Washington longer than expected. Edward's twenty-year-old brother, Fletcher, escorted him instead.

  Washington, June 23, 1834.

  My Dear Son:

  Fletcher wrote me from Exeter the next day after your arrival, and informed me that you had been so fortunate as to be received at Colonel Chadwick's, and was commencing your studies. I am glad you are so well situated, and trust you will make progress in your studies.

  You are now at a most important period of your life, my dear son, soon growing up to be a young man and a boy no longer, and I feel a great anxiety for your success and happiness.

  I beseech you to be attentive to all your duties, and to fulfill every obligation with cheerfulness and punctuality. Above all, remember your moral and religious concerns. Be constant at church, and prayers, and every opportunity for worship. There can be no solid character and no true happiness which are not founded on a sense of religious duty. Avoid all evil company and every temptation, and consider that you have now left your father's house and gone forth to improve your own character,—to prepare your own mind for the part you are to lead in life. All that can be done for you by others will amount to nothing unless you do much for yourself. Cherish all the good counsel which your dear mother used to give you, and let those of us who are yet alive have the pleasure of seeing you come forward as one who gives promise of virtue, usefulness, and distinction. I fervently commend you to the blessing of our Heavenly Father.

  I wish you to make my best respects to Dr. Abbot, and remember me to Colonel and Mrs Chadwick and their family. If I do not hear from you sooner, I shall expect to find a letter from you when I reach Boston.

  Your affectionate father,

  Daniel Webster

  P.S. Since writing this I have received your letter, and am very glad to hear from you.

  Give my love to your friend Upham. I remember the great tree, and know exactly where your room is. Charles sends love.

  WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON TO

  WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, JR.

  “May you never go with the multitude to do evil,

  but be willing to stand alone, if need be . . .”

  “I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation . . . I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I WILL BE HEARD,” wrote William Lloyd Garrison in the 1831 inaugural issue of his antislavery periodical The Liberator. Controversial, self-righteous, impractical, he was a reformer in the extreme with an ability to antagonize even his supporters. Yet his position as the courageous and steadfast early leader of the American antislavery movement is secure.

  He was the father of seven children, two of whom died in infancy. Here, at the age of fifty-three and thirty years into his battle for emancipation, Garrison writes to his son, who is about to turn twenty-two years old.

  Boston, Dec. 31, 1858.

  Dear William:

  Though it is the last day of the year, there is no reason why I, and your mother, and Fanny and Franky, should not wish you a happy new year. May you be happily preserved from all “the ills that flesh is heir to,” and continue daily to “grow in knowledge and in grace.” May you ever keep in the right path, shun the very appearance of evil, be superior to every evil temptation, and reverently seek to know and do the will of God. May your moral vision ever be clear to discern the right from the wrong, your conscience ever clean and vital, your heart ever tender and affectionate, your spirit ever pure and elevated. May you be prudent and economical without being parsimonious, and generous and philanthropic without being credulous and inconsiderate. May your interest in all the reforms of the day,—especially in the cause of the imbru
ted slave,—grow more and more vital, impelling you to the performance of high moral achievements in behalf of suffering humanity, and making your life a blessing to the world. May you be delivered from “that fear of man which bringeth a snare,” in sustaining what is just, following what is good, and adhering to what is right. May you never go with the multitude to do evil, but be willing to stand alone, if need be, with God and the truth, even if it bring you to the cross or the stake. May you be known for your integrity of character, and aim at perfection in all noble qualities. My heart-felt benediction, mingled with your mother's, is upon you; and may the benediction of “our Father in heaven” be added thereto!

  Thus far, my happiness in my children has been without alloy. George has always been circumspect and exemplary in his conduct, to a remarkable degree; and I feel that he may be safely trusted, even at the far West, where great temptations beset young men, though I would much prefer to have him with us at home. Wendell has always been a model boy, mature beyond his years, unexceptionable in deportment, amiable and affectionate in spirit, and full of promise for the future. Fanny is a dear child, specially dear because she is the only daughter, of a most generous and loving nature, full of sensibility, and promising to make a noble woman. Franky is the Benjamin of the flock, around whom my heartstrings very closely twine, gentle, conscientious, most affectionate, laudably ambitious, studious and thoughtful, sensitive to blame, with a large brain and a large heart for a little boy. As for yourself, I am delighted with your ingenuousness, kindness of heart, self-forgetfulness, loving disposition, and generous regard for every member of the family. In a few days you will complete your twenty-first year, and take upon yourself the responsibilities of manhood. Let us have a little celebration of the event, at home, that evening, if you can leave seasonably, or on the subsequent evening, (Saturday,) remaining with us till Monday. Do not fail to come.

  I send the accompanying volume to Mr. Mudge, with a letter accompanying it, to which no written reply is needed.

  Your loving father,

  Wm. Lloyd Garrison.

  SIDNEY LANIER TO CHARLES D. LANIER

  “. . . I admire the sight of a man fighting his own small failings, as a good knight who never ceases to watch, and war against, the least blemish or evil . . .”

  Confederate soldier, prisoner of war, accomplished musician and poet, Sidney Lanier spent his entire creative life fighting poverty and illness. That music and poetry were his calling he was completely sure. “Psalm of the West,” “Evening Song,” and “Sunrise” are today among his most well-known poems.

  By July 1881 Lanier was thirty-nine years old. He was the father of four young boys and he was losing his long battle with tuberculosis. He struggled through his final summer moving about the North Carolina mountains from one “tent-camp” to another in hopes of benefiting from the pure, high-altitude air. Determined to continue with his work, Lanier dictated poetry from his sickbed when he had breath enough to speak. The following letter, to his eldest son, twelve-year-old Charley, was one of only two letters he managed to write in his own hand during that last summer.

  Asheville, N.C.

  July 20, 1881.

  My dear Son Charley:

  I have been for several weeks lying at the very gates of death—so close that I could almost peep in upon the marvels of that mysterious country—and it has been long since I could write a letter with my own hand; but your mother has read me Mrs. Maxwell's report of your ever-increasing manfulness and of your gentle disposition toward your brothers, and this has brought me such deep gratification that I cannot help devoting a part of my very little strength this morning to the pleasant work of sending you this brief line of thanks and love which will enable you to share my pleasure with me. It would require a great many more pages than I can now write for me to tell you how earnestly I admire the sight of a man fighting his own small failings, as a good knight who never ceases to watch, and war against, the least blemish or evil: you may therefore fancy how my heart warms with loving pride in you and for you as I learn from Miss Mary the patience and generosity and large conduct which you daily exhibit toward your brothers, the gentlemanly thoughtfulness which you show for the comfort of all about you, and the general advance and growth which your whole nature appears to be achieving.

  This makes me much more easy in mind when I think of the possibility that death may at any time compel me to leave my dear wife and my three beautiful boys (you should see Robin at this moment! with his great shining blue eyes and his milk-and-roses complexion, and magnificent limbs, he is like a young inhabitant of a morning-star just caught among the rhododendrons of these mountains) in your charge as head of the family; for I well know that as long as you behave like a man you will never lack men for your friends.

  But,—over and above all this,—I take the gravest pleasure in seeing you unfold what I know to be your natural qualities; I have always known that your character is strong and fine, but I have feared that your beautifully-sympathetic disposition would sometimes be apt to persuade you that you liked people or things which were really unworthy of you, and that you might have trouble with entanglements or stains thus arising, even after you had yourself perceived the unworthiness: but I rejoice to find in you a reasonableness and good judgment which I think will always bring you out safely at the end.

  This is but a dry and didactic letter: nor will you know how much pleasure, how much hope, and how much affection go with it, until you yourself, my dear, dear boy, shall have a son who seems as fine as my Charley and whom you love as loves

  your own

  father.

  THEODORE ROOSEVELT TO

  KERMIT ROOSEVELT

  “I would rather have a boy of mine stand high in his studies than high in athletics, but I could a great deal rather have him show true manliness of character than show either intellectual or physical prowess . . .”

  A dedicated sportsman, the young and vigorous President Theodore Roosevelt boxed in the White House, played football on the lawn, led groups of children on Sunday “scrambles” through Rock Creek Park, and rode horseback at every opportunity. In the fall of 1903, his second and somewhat frail son, fourteen-year-old Kermit, had just made the Groton football team and the president was leading a very difficult fight to gain full rights for America to build a canal on the Colombian isthmus at Panama.

  The White House

  Washington, DC

  October 2, 1903.

  Dear Kermit:

  I was very glad to get your letter. Am glad you are playing foot ball. I should be very sorry to see either you or Ted devoting most of your attention to athletics, and I haven't got any special ambition to see you shine overmuch in athletics in college, at least (if you go there), because I think it tends to take up too much time; but I do like to feel that you are manly and able to hold your own in rough, hardy sports. I would rather have a boy of mine stand high in his studies than high in athletics, but I could a great deal rather have him show true manliness of character than show either intellectual or physical prowess; and I believe you and Ted both bid fair to develop just such character.

  There! You will think this a dreadfully preaching letter! I suppose I have a natural tendency to preach just at present because I am overwhelmed with my work. I enjoy being President, and I like to do the work and have my hand on the lever. But it is very worrying and puzzling, and I have to make up my mind to accept every kind of attack and misrepresentation. It is a great comfort to me to read the life and letters of Abraham Lincoln. I am more and more impressed every day, not only with the man's wonderful power and sagacity, but with his literally endless patience, and at the same time unflinching resolution.

  Mother and I had a nice ride yesterday, Yagenka behaved well, but upon my word Renown is more nervous and given to shying than ever. “Age cannot still nor custom wither” the infinite variety of that particular fool's folly. He is worse about automobiles than he ever was, and as they swarm in and around Washington a ride
upon him is a live experience.

  Allan has gone to be trained. Ronald has won golden opinions of all the people around here, as he is very well trained. He sits up beside the driver in the wagon, and follows every one obediently round. He seems to be an excellent city dog.

  Quentin is the proud possessor of two white rabbits with pink eyes, in which he and Archie revel. Ethel and Archie played tennis yesterday.

  Your loving father,

  Theodore Roosevelt

  W. E. B. DU BOIS TO YOLANDE DU BOIS

  “The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes

  and skin—the ability to do, the will to conquer,

  the determination to understand and know this

  great, wonderful, curious world.”

  At thirty-five years old, W. E. B. Du Bois soared to prominence with the 1903 publication of The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of essays exposing the extent of racial prejudice in America. His challenge of the undisputed African-American leader of the time, Booker T. Washington, caused particular sensation. Du Bois criticized Washington especially for shifting “the burden of the Negro problem to the Negro's shoulders . . . when in fact the burden belongs to the nation.”

  As a founder of the NAACP, historian, professor, and the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard, Du Bois knew the opportunity afforded by vigorous study. Here he writes to his only daughter, Yolande, a nearly fourteen-year-old student at the Besales School in England.

  New York, October 29, 1914

  Dear Little Daughter:

  I have waited for you to get well settled before writing. By this time I hope some of the strangeness has worn off and that my little girl is working hard and regularly.

  Of course, everything is new and unusual. You miss the newness and smartness of America. Gradually, however, you are going to sense the beauty of the old world: its calm and eternity and you will grow to love it.