to call attention to this most extraordinary fact that there are men in the community so lost to patriotism, so bound up in the traditions of party, so selfish, as to be willing to tamper with Great Britain in order to bring about the separation of this country.

It is the most alarming fact that I have yet seen. I had rather see a hundred thousand men set in the field on the rebel side-aye, I had rather see Great Britain armed against us openly, as she is covertly-than to be forced to believe that there are amongst us such men as these, lineal descendants of Judas Iscariot, intermarried with the race of Benedict Arnold.

It has shown me a great danger with which we are threatened, and I call upon all true men to sustain the government to be loyal to the government. As you, sir, were pleased to say, the present government was not the government of my choice-I did not vote for it, or for any part of it--but it is the government of my country, it is the only organ by which I can exert the force of the country to protect its integrity; and so long as I believe that government to be honestly administered I will throw a mantle over any mistakes that I may think it has made and support it heartily, with hand and purse, so help me God!

I have no loyalty to any man or men; my loyalty is to the government; and it makes no difference to me who the people have chosen to administer the government as long as the choice has been constitutionally made and the persons so chosen hold their places and powers. I am a traitor and a false man if I falter in my support. This is what I understand to be loyalty to a government; and I was sorry to learn, as I did the other day, that there was a man in New York who professed not to know the meaning of the word loyalty. I desire to say here that it is the duty of every man to be loyal to the government, to sustain it, to pardon its errors and help to rectify them, and to do all he can to aid it in carrying the country on in the course of glory and grandeur in which it was started by our fathers.

Let me say to you, my friends-to you, young men, that no man who opposed his country in time of war ever prospered. The Tory of the Revolution, the Hartford

Conventionist of 1812, the immortal seven who voted against the supplies for the Mexican War-all history is against these men. Let no politician of our day put himself in the way of the march of this country to glory and greatness, for whoever does so will surely be crushed. The course of our nation is onward, and let him who opposes it beware.

"The mower mows on-though the adder may writhe,

Or the copperhead coil round the blade of his scythe."

It only remains, sir, for me to repeat the expression of my gratitude to you and the citizens of New York here assembled for the kindness with which you and they have received me and listened to me, for which please again accept my thanks.

JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN

LAST SPEECH: SLAVERY

[John C. Calhoun, known in history as the father of a principle subversive of the American Union, yet lauded for his personal virtues, was born in the Calhoun settlement, district of Abbeville, S. C., in 1782. He began the study of law at Litchfield, Conn., and continued it at Charleston, being admitted to the bar in 1807. His progress through the legislature to a seat in Congress was accomplished in three years. Taking his seat in November, 1811, in the special session designed to precipitate the war with Great Britain, he was placed upon the committee of foreign relations and drafted its policy. Later he passed to the chairmanship. His success in Congress was so marked that the speakership was within his power on the resignation of Clay in 1814, but he declined the appointment. From the House of Representatives he entered President Monroe's cabinet as secretary of war, becoming after eight years the Vice-President with John Quincy Adams. After a quarrel with Jackson he resigned the office of Vice-President. He was elected at once to the Senate. He resigned from the Senate in 1843 and looked forward to the nomination to the presidency, but received little support outside his own state. His last days were spent in the Senate, where he chiefly defended the cause of slavery. He died March 31, 1850. The following speech was his last public effort. It shows clearly his fixed ideas on the subject of slavery, and was delivered in the Senate in 1850.]

I

HAVE, senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. Entertaining this opinion, I have, on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of both of the two great parties which divide the country, to adopt some such measure to prevent so great a disaster, but without success. The agitation has been permitted to proceed, with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a period when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in

danger. You have thus had forced upon you the greatest and the gravest question that ever can come under your consideration: How can the Union be preserved?

To give a satisfactory answer to this mighty question, it is indispensable to have an accurate and thorough knowledge of the nature and the character of the cause by which the Union is endangered. Without such knowledge it is impossible to pronounce, with any certainty, by what means it can be saved; just as it would be impossible for a physician to pronounce, in the case of some dangerous disease, with any certainty, by what remedy the patient could be saved, without similar knowledge of the nature and character of the cause of the disease. The first question, then, presented for consideration, in the investigation I propose, in order to obtain such knowledge, is, What is it that has endangered the Union?

To this question there can be but one answer: that the immediate cause is, the almost universal discontent which pervades all the states composing the Southern section of the Union. This widely extended discontent is not of recent origin. It commenced with the agitation of the slavery question, and has been increasing ever since. The next question is, What has caused this wide-diffused and almost universal discontent?

It is a great mistake to suppose, as is by some, that it originated with demagogues, who excited the discontent with the intention of aiding their personal advancement; or with disappointed, ambitious individuals, who resorted to it as the means of raising their fallen fortunes. There is no foundation for this opinion. On the contrary, all the great political influences of the section were arrayed against excitement, and exerted to the utmost to keep the public quiet. The great mass of the people of the South were divided, as in the other section, into Whigs and Democrats. The leaders and the presses of both parties in the South were very solicitous to prevent excitement, and restore quiet; because it was seen that the effects of the former would necessarily tend to weaken, if not destroy, the political ties which united them with their respective parties in the other section. Those who know the strength of party ties will readily appreciate the immense force which this

cause exerted against agitation, and in favor of preserving quiet. But, as great as it was, it was not sufficiently so to prevent the widespread discontent which now pervades the section. No; some cause far deeper and more powerful must exist, to produce a discontent so wide and deep, than the one inferred. The question then recurs, What is the cause of this discontent? It will be found in the belief of the people of the Southern States, as prevalent as the discontent itself, that they cannot remain, as things now are, consistently with honor and safety, in the Union. The next question, then, to be considered is, What has caused this belief?

One of the causes is, undoubtedly, to be traced to the long-continued agitation of the slave question on the part of the North, and the many aggressions which they have made on the rights of the South, during that time. I will not enumerate them at present, as it will be done hereafter in its proper place.

There is another, lying back of it, but with which this is intimately connected, that may be regarded as the great and primary cause. It is to be found in the fact that the equilibrium between the two sections in the government, as it stood when the Constitution was ratified, and the government put in action, has been destroyed. At that time there was nearly a perfect equilibrium between the two, which afforded ample means to each to protect itself against the aggression of the other; but as it now stands, one section has exclusive power of controlling the government, which leaves the other without any adequate means of protecting itself against its encroachment and oppression. To place this subject distinctly before you, I have, senators, prepared a brief statistical statement, showing the relative weight of the two sections in the government under the first census of 1790, and the last census of 1840.

According to the former, the population of the United States, including Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee, which then were in their incipient condition of becoming states, but were not actually admitted, amounted to 3,929,827. Of this number, the Northern States had 1,977,899, and the Southern, 1,952,072, making a difference of only 25,827 in favor of the former states. The number of states,