● ● ● they found themselves in league with the conservative interests of both North and South.
In 1840–41 the younger Baker had some correspondence with the great John C. Calhoun himself regarding a dispute between Maine and Georgia over the return of fugitive slaves, and Calhoun wrote him expressing cordial admiration of the report he drew up on the subject. Moreover, as chairman of a special committee on slavery in the legislature, Baker succeeded in having resolutions passed which all but reversed the antislavery statement of 1820. So far as her family was concerned, Mary Baker heard nothing but the case against the abolitionists;103 slavery itself was regarded by them as a lesser evil than national disunion.
Mary remained at the edge of all these affairs, but the stir and bustle of politics entered into her view of life and she never lost her interest in them even though she later lost her partisanship.104 There were letters and visits from Albert, reports of his speeches and discussions of his views in the Patriot, exciting glimpses of a world where big issues were at stake. Nor did Albert neglect his family. His letters to the temperamental George show brotherly concern:
I am sorry to find your mind in such a state of excitement. Is it possible that you can converse daily with the shades of such sages as Shakespeare and Cobbet and Stewart, and not learn philosophy? . . . One would think from the style of your letter, that all the furies were at work within you. . . . My rule at all times, is, to do the best I can, and whatever happens, if it cannot be avoided, to submit cheerfully. Is not this true philosophy?105
103 In an article entitled “Reformers,” Mrs. Eddy mentions that as a child she had heard the awful story that William Lloyd Garrison “helped ‘niggers’ kill the white folks” and contrasts that with her mature admiration for the man. Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 237–238. Mark may have met Garrison personally, though it is unlikely that the latter literally visited the Baker homestead. Mark’s antipathy to the abolitionists persisted down to the Civil War.
104 See Eddy, Miscellany, p. 276.
105 Albert Baker to George Sullivan Baker, 23 November 1837, 1919.001.0037. LMC. Earlier he had written George, “I would not live in such a continual fever as you are in, for all Connecticut, onions and everything.” [Albert Baker to George Sullivan Baker, 15 October 1837, 1919.001.0038, LMC.]