I have just received your favor of yesterday and am glad to hear of Dr. Webb’s safe return and of your encouragement from Kansas.

I am satisfied that the movement Westward of European and New England or Atlantic emigrants will be very great next year & probably for some years to come. The advantages in climate etc. are so great that I do not believe it will want a large expenditure to coax it Southward, either towards Arkansas or Texas. For the South to undertake to occupy Neosho next summer is to surrender Missouri, to greatly endanger Arkansas, and to weaken Texas.

The hard times will make Mr. Buchanan reluctant to recommend the railroad projects which are a necessary part of Walker’s Neosho scheme and it is altogether such a hazardous thing to attempt, as the South is situated, that in my opinion, it will be given up for the present. Yet the longer it is postponed, if it is ever to [be] opened to settlement, the better the chances of the North will be. And this they must see.

Walker’s project of slicing off the Southern half of Kansas to add to the Indian territory, I take it will be given up, without doubt, since the election has shown the free soil strength there.

Have you noticed how weak Arkansas is in Slave population? Less than one to a square mile, or half the proportion to area of Missouri in 1850: and the increase very slow, showing that the natural drift of emigration Neosho-ward is very weak.

I am very much puzzled to know how to treat the matter in the article intended for the Atlantic Monthly. Mr. Underwood writes me that they can not get it into the December number, and that for the January number it must be ready 1st December—that is before the President’s message is out. Between that and January something will have turned up to show the Southern designs, probably, and our policy must be re-shaped to meet them.

Do you think there would in any case be any harm in showing the strength of Northern emigrating movement and the consequent requirement of the North for Neosho, and the weakness of the South and its inability to make use of Neosho, if it opened to Slavery? At the same time showing the great fertility & attractiveness of Neosho and the consequent probability of a rush thitherward from the North, as soon as it shall be opened?

Is there any chance of my seeing General Pomeroy here?

You speak of preparations to settle “the Neosho”—if Walker’s project proceeds. I hope you don’t mean the Neosho river country merely. That will take care of itself. You should concentrate everything between the Arkansas [455] and the Red River. One of the first things to be done is to get a clever resident correspondent at Van Buren—a spy and shipping agent. Van Buren is a St. Louis in futuro.

Do you see rumors that the missionaries among the Choctaws are to be expelled or ought to be expelled for their unsoundness on the goose? Trusty men can probably be found among the missionaries from whom important information, if not secret assistance, can be obtained.

Excuse these abrupt suggestions. I am extremely occupied.

With best regards to Dr. Webb—to whom I should be gratified, if he could find time to write a little of any new facts he got about Neosho.

I am, my dear doctor,