nary general prosperity, are the result | erty is more equally divided than anyof the whole. Sir, I have done with Massachusetts. I do not praise the old Bay State" of the Revolution; I only present her as she is.

REMARKS ON THE POLITICAL COURSE OF

MR. CALHOUN, IN 1838.

FROM THE SAME SPEECH.

HAVING had occasion, Mr. President, | paper describing political operations, and

to speak of nullification and the nulli-
fiers, I beg leave to say that I have not
done so for any purpose of reproach.
Certainly, Sir, I see no possible connec-
tion, myself, between their principles or
opinions, and the support of this meas-
ure. They, however, must speak for
themselves. They may have intrusted
the bearing of their standard, for aught
I know, to the hands of the honorable
member from South Carolina; and I
perceived last session what I perceive
now, that in his opinion there is a con-
nection between these projects of gov-
ernment and the doctrines of nullifica-
tion. I can only say, Sir, that it will
be marvellous to me, if that banner,
though it be said to be tattered and
torn, shall yet be lowered in obeisance,
and laid at the footstool of executive
power. To the sustaining of that power,
the passage of this bill is of the utmost
importance. The administration will
regard its success as being to them, what
Cromwell said the battle of Worcester
was to him, "a crowning mercy."
Whether gentlemen, who have distin-
guished themselves so much by their
extreme jealousy of this government,
shall now find it consistent with their
principles to give their aid in effecting
this consummation, remains to be seen.
The next exposition of the honorable
gentleman's sentiments and opinions is
in his letter of the 3d of November.
This letter, Sir, is a curiosity. As a
1 The Sub-Treasury.

exhibiting political opinions, it is with-
out a parallel. Its phrase is altogether
military. It reads like a despatch, or a
bulletin from head-quarters. It is full
of attacks, assaults, and repulses. It
recounts movements and counter-move-
ments; speaks of occupying one posi-
tion, falling back upon another, and
advancing to a third; it has positions
to cover enemies, and positions to hold
allies in check. Meantime, the celerity
of all these operations reminds one of
the rapidity of the military actions of
the king of Prussia, in the Seven Years'
war. Yesterday, he was in the South,
giving battle to the Austrian; to-day he
is in Saxony, or Silesia. Instantly he
is found to have traversed the Elector-
ate, and is facing the Russian and the
Swede on his northern frontier.
look for his place on the map, before
you find it he has quitted it. He is
always marching, flying, falling back,
wheeling, attacking, defending, surpris-
ing; fighting everywhere, and fighting
all the time. In one particular, how-
ever, the campaigns described in this
letter are conducted in a different man-
ner from those of the great Frederick.
I think we nowhere read, in the narra-
tive of Frederick's achievements, of his
taking a position to cover an enemy,
or a position to hold an ally in check.
These refinements in the science of tac-
tics and of war are of more recent dis-
covery.

If you

Mr. President, public men must cer

tainly be allowed to change their opin- | the flight of the German school; for he

appears to have fallen suddenly in love, not with strangers, but with opponents. Here we all had been, Sir, contending against the progress of executive power, and more particularly, and most strenuously, against the projects and experiments of the administration upon the currency. The honorable member stood among us, not only as an associate, but as a leader. We thought we were making some headway. The people ap

ions, and their associations, whenever they see fit. No one doubts this. Men may have grown wiser; they may have attained to better and more correct views of great public subjects. It would be unfortunate, if there were any code which should oblige men, in public or private life, to adhere to opinions once entertained, in spite of experience and better knowledge, and against their own convictions of their erroneous character. Nevertheless, Sir, it must be acknowl-peared to be coming to our support and edged, that what appears to be a sudden, as well as a great change, naturally produces a shock. I confess that, for one, I was shocked when the honorable gentleman, at the last session, espoused this bill of the administration. And when I first read this letter of November, and, in the short space of a column and a half, ran through such a succession of political movements, all terminating in placing the honorable member in the ranks of our opponents, and entitling him to take his seat, as he has done, among them, if not at their head, I confess I felt still greater surprise. All this seemed a good deal too abrupt. Sudden movements of the affections, whether personal or political, are a little out of nature.

Several years ago, Sir, some of the wits of England wrote a mock play, intended to ridicule the unnatural and false feeling, the sentimentality of a certain German school of literature. In this play, two strangers are brought together at an inn. While they are warming themselves at the fire, and before their acquaintance is yet five minutes old, one springs up and exclaims to the other, "A sudden thought strikes me! Let us swear an eternal friendship!" This affectionate offer was instantly accepted, and the friendship duly sworn, unchangeable and eternal! Now, Sir, how long this eternal friendship lasted, or in what manner it ended, those who wish to know may learn by referring to the play.

But it seems to me, Sir, that the honorable member has carried his political sentimentality a good deal higher than

our assistance. The country had been roused, every successive election weakening the strength of the adversary, and increasing our own. We were in this career of success carried strongly forward by the current of public opinion, and only needed to hear the cheering voice of the honorable member,

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!"

and we should have prostrated for ever this anti-constitutional, anti-commercial, anti-republican, and anti-American policy of the administration. But instead of these encouraging and animating accents, behold! in the very crisis of our affairs, on the very eve of victory, the honorable member cries out to the enemy, not to us, his allies, but to the enemy: "Hollo! A sudden thonght strikes me! I abandon my allies! Now I think of it, they have always been my oppressors! I abandon them, and now let you and me swear an eternal friendship!" Such a proposition, from such a quarter, Sir, was not likely to be long withstood. The other party was a little coy, but, upon the whole, nothing loath. After proper hesitation, and a little decorous blushing, it owned the soft impeachment, admitted an equally sudden sympathetic impulse on its own side; and, since few words are wanted where hearts are already known, the honorable gentleman takes his place among his new friends amidst greetings and caresses, and is already enjoying the sweets of an eternal friendship.

In this letter, Mr. President, the writer says, in substance, that he saw,

Mr. President, stripped of its military language, what is the amount of all this, but that, finding the administration weak, and likely to be overthrown, if the opposition continued with undimiuished force, he went over to it, he joined it; intending to act, himself, upon nullification principles, and to compel the Southern members of the administration to meet him on those principles ?in other words, to make a nullification administration, and to take such part in it as should belong to him and his friends. He confesses, Sir, that in thus abandoning his allies, and taking a position to cover those in power, he perceived a shock would be created which would require some degree of resolution and firmness. In this he was right. A shock, Sir, has been created; yet there he is.

at the commencement of the last ses- | party to occupy the ground of which he sion, that affairs had reached the point proposes to take possession, to wit, the when he and his friends, according to ground of the old State-rights party. the course they should take, would reap They will have, he says, no other alterthe full harvest of their long and arduous native. struggle against the encroachments and abuses of the general government, or lose the fruits of all their labors. At that time, he says, State interposition (viz. Nullification) had overthrown the protective tariff and the American system, and put a stop to Congressional usurpation; that he had previously been united with the National Republicans; but that, in joining such allies, he was not insensible to the embarrassment of his position; that with them victory itself was dangerous, and that therefore he had been waiting for events; that now (that is to say, in September last) the joint attacks of the allies had brought down executive power; that the administration had become divested of power and influence, and that it was now clear that the combined attacks of the allied forces would utterly overthrow and demolish it. All this he saw. But he saw, too, as he says, that in that case the victory would inure, not to him or his cause, but to his allies and their cause. I do not mean to say that he spoke of personal victories, or alluded to personal objects, at all. He spoke of his cause.

He proceeds to say, then, that never was there before, and never, probably, will there be again, so fair an opportunity for himself and his friends to carry out their own principles and policy, and to reap the fruits of their long and arduous struggle. These principles and this policy, Sir, be it remembered, he represents, all along, as identified with the principles and policy of nullification. And he makes use of this glorious opportunity by refusing to join his late allies in any further attack on those in power, and rallying anew the old State-rights party to hold in check their old opponents, the National Republican party. This, he says, would enable him to prevent the complete ascendency of his allies, and to compel the Southern division of the administration

This administration, Sir, is represented as succeeding to the last, by an inheritance of principle. It professes to tread in the footsteps of its illustrious predecessor. It adopts, generally, the sentiments, principles, and opinions of General Jackson, proclamation and all; and yet, though he be the very prince of nullifiers, and but lately regarded as the chiefest of sinners, it receives the honorable gentleman with the utmost complacency. To all appearance, the delight is mutual; they find him an able leader, he finds them complying followers. But, Sir, in all this movement he understands himself. He means to go ahead, and to take them along. He is in the engine-car; he controls the locomotive. His hand regulates the

steam, to increase or retard the speed at his discretion. And as to the occupants of the passenger-cars, Sir, they are as happy a set of gentlemen as one might desire to see of a summer's day. They feel that they are in progress; they hope they shall not be run off the track; and when they reach the end of their journey, they desire to be thankful!

The arduous struggle is now all over. Its richest fruits are all reaped; nullification embraces the sub-treasuries, and oppression and usurpation will be heard of no more.

On the broad surface of the country, Sir, there is a spot called "the Hermitage." In that residence is an occupant very well known, and not a little remarkable both in person and character. Suppose, Sir, the occupant of the Hermitage were now to open that door, enter the Senate, walk forward, and look over the chamber to the seats on the other side. Be not frightened, gentlemen; it is but fancy's sketch. Suppose he should thus come in among us, Sir, and see into whose hands has fallen the chief support of that administration, which was, in so great a degree, appointed by himself, and which he fondly relied on to maintain the principles of his own. If gentlemen were now to see his steady military step, his erect posture, his compressed lips, his firmly-knitted brow, and his eye full of fire, I cannot help thinking, Sir, they would all feel somewhat queer. There would be, I imagine, not a little awk- | ward moving and shifting in their seats. They would expect soon to hear the roar of the lion, even if they did not feel his paw.

Sir, the spirit of union is particularly liable to temptation and seduction in moments of peace and prosperity. In war, this spirit is strengthened by a sense of common danger, and by a thousand recollections of ancient efforts and ancient glory in a common cause. But in the calms of a long peace, and in the absence of all apparent causes of alarm, things near gain an ascendency over things remote. Local interests and feelings overshadow national sentiments. Our attention, our regard, and our attachment are every moment solicited to what touches us closest, and we feel less and less the attraction of a distant orb. Such tendencies we are bound by true patriotism and by our love of union to resist. This is our duty; and the noment, in my judgment, has arrived,

when that duty should be performed. We hear, every day, sentiments and arguments which would become a meeting of envoys, employed by separate governments, more than they become the common legislature of a united country. Constant appeals are made to local interests, to geographical distinctions, and to the policy and the pride of particular States. It would sometimes appear as if it were a settled purpose to convince the people that our Union is nothing but a jumble of different and discordant interests, which must, erelong, be all resolved into their original state of separate existence; as if, therefore, it was of no great value while it should last, and was not likely to last long. The process of disintegration begins by urging as a fact the existence of different interests.

Sir, is not the end to which all this leads us obvious? Who does not see that, if convictions of this kind take possession of the public mind, our Union can hereafter be nothing, while it remains, but a connection without harmony; a bond without affection; a theatre for the angry contests of local feelings, local objects, and local jealousies? Even while it continues to exist in name, it may by these means become nothing but the mere form of a united government. My children, and the children of those who sit around me, may meet, perhaps, in this chamber, in the next generation; but if tendencies now but too obvious be not checked, they will meet as strangers and aliens. They will feel no sense of common interest or common country; they will cherish no common object of patriotic love. If the same Saxon language shall fall from their lips, it may be the chief proof that they belong to the same nation. Its vital principle exhausted and gone, its power of doing good terminated, the Union itself, become productive only of strife and contention, must ultimately fall, dishonored and unlamented.

The honorable member from Carolina himself habitually indulges in charges of usurpation and oppression against the government of his country. He daily denounces its important measures, in the