Cooper, an inventor and philanthropist, replies to a letter from Sherman, a United States Representative from Ohio. Referring to the pending possibility of Civil War, states " I infer ... that there is much doubt that an arrangement will be made in time to secure the adhesion of the border states ... I am surprised and astonished when I see how little our Republican friends are aware of the widespread ruin that must attend a breaking up of a government, when all its parts must be thrown into the greatest possible doubt and uncertainty about the mode by which an reorganization can be affected. Theirs will be rendered doubly ruinous and difficult in a country like ours where three quarters of all the property is subject to mortgage and entangled with debt ... From such a height of prosperity our fall as a nation must be terrible ... Having myself voted for Fremont and also for Lincoln I have felt exceedingly desirous that our Republican friends in Congress would pursue such a course as will maintain the good opinion of the thousands of Democrats who like myself desire to secure the best interest of our common country."