JS, Letter, , Hancock Co., IL, to , Fort Hill, Pickens Co., SC, 2 Jan. 1844. Version drafted 2 Jan. 1844; handwriting of ; docket and notation in handwriting of ; eleven pages; JS Collection, CHL.
when some vile persons who regarded not man, nor <neither> feard the Lord of <the> Vineyard, rose up suddenly and robbed these meek men and drove them from their possessio◊◊ Killing many. This barbarous act made no small stir among the men of the vineyard and all that portion who were attached to that part of the vine<yard> where the men <were> robbed, rose up in the grand council with their chief man, who had firstly ordered the deed to be done, atthehead and made a covenant to <not> pay for the cruel deed <but to> and keep the spoil, and never let those meek men set their feet on that soil again neither recompence them for it. Now these meek men, who [illegible] <in their> distress, wisely sought red[r]ess of those wicked men in every possible manner and got none. They then supplicated the chief men who held the vineyard at pleasure <and who had the power to sell and defend it,> for redress and redemption, and those men, loving the fame of and favors of the multiude, more than the glory of their Lord of the vineyard, answered, your cause is Just, but we can do nothing for you, because we have no power. Now when the Lord of the vineyard saw that virtue and innocense was [p. [9]]