Fort Hill 15th June 1847
MY DEAR SIR, Your
views in reference to our political condition and affairs is so good, that I
have little to add. I regard my position the best that it could be, in the
present state of our affairs. By having done my duty fully in reference to the
Mexican war, as it relates both to its origin and the mode it ought to have been
conducted, I stand free of all responsibility, and independent of both parties,
and their entanglement. It is difficult to say, which is most so in reference
to the war; the administration and its party, as its Authors, or the Whigs for
the folly and weakness of having voted for a war, which they had in discussion
pronounced to be unconstitutional and unprovoked.
I regard everything
in reference to the war and its consequences as still uncertain. Whether
victorious, or defeated our situation is bad. If the former, it would seem
impossible almost to stop short of the Conquest of the country; and then comes
the question; What shall we do with it? to annex it would be to overthrow our
Government, and, to hold it as a Province, to corrupt and destroy it. The
farther we advance, the more appearent the folly and wantoness of the war; and
the more fully will the wisdom and patriotism of my course be vindicated.
Indeed, already have the assaults on me terminated, except from the Would be
Lieu General. But his ravings prove not only his wounded pride, and his spite,
but that he regards my position as strong.
SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, pp. 733-4
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