Washington [ga.,] Feb. 16th, 1845.
[dear S]tephens,1 I received
your letter of 9th and hardly know [what to] write you about my prospects of
getting to Taliaferro. [ I tell m]yself every five or six days that I am
getting well [but the] slightest exercise or labour brings back the pains [in]
my shoulders, arms and legs. I hope to get there but I fear I shall not
be able, tho' I should dislike to be able and not have you there. Therefore
unless very inconvenient I wish you would come. My physician thinks that I am
clear of rheumatism and that my present pains are the result of spinal irritation
which he says frequently succeeds as severe attacks as mine. I doubt he is
right about it. I am generally free from pain when at rest but the slightest
motion even writing a letter is accompanied with pain. I am thus particular
that you may judge somewhat for yourself.
I have not answered
the Times because I am wholly unequal to the labour. Except my letters to you I
have not written as much as a sheet of paper since I was taken sick, until day
before yesterday I wrote about half that amount to Berrien. As soon as I am
able I shall give him a touch. The Whigs generally, indeed universally except
Jenkins, as far as I have seen or heard from them, are satisfied with the
course of yourself and Clinch on the Texas question. My means of knowing their
opinions are of course limited. I have heard of no single man who objects to
the terms of annexation embraced in the resolutions. A good man[y
differ] with you as to the mode, but you are a sufficient judge] of the
popular mind that the mode [exerts] no influence upon the people
generally. Man[y who dif]fer with you as to the mode think that y[our
own] course will have a good effect upon the state [of opinion] here by killing
it off as a party question. It [may] have that effect, but I am not without my
misgiving[s.] If Berrien could have voted with you I think such would likely
have been the case, but his voting the other way, connected with the fact that
the measure will be lost by the votes of slaveholding Senators will I
think prevent that result. From that state of facts I fear it will still be a
party question in the South. In that event the divisions of the Whig party even
on the mode of annexation must needs be an element of weakness and not
of strength. The terms of annexation are certainly very favourable to
the South, better than I ever supposed could pass either branch of Congress;
and I deeply regret that the form in which they come up prevents their passage
through the Senate. I see nothing but evil to our party and the country that
can come out of this question in future. You ought to send copies of your
speech to all of our editors for immediate publication. It will put you right
before the country. Your speech is a good one, tho' I have rarely found myself
differing with [you on] so many points. I concur with you in but one of [your
re]asons for desiring annexation and that is that [it will] give power to the
slave states. I firmly believe [that in] every other respect it will be an
unmixed evil to us [ ] and not without natural disadvantages as
well as [advanta]ges. Tho' I can not bring myself to concur with [you] on the
constitutional question, I shall not commit myself publicly on that point
without further time and a more full investigation. It strikes me that a
satisfactory answer to your argument drawn from the admission of N. Carolina
and R. Island is to be found in the Constitution itself. Altho' the government
was to go into operation on the ratification of nine states the other states
could by the very terms of the Constitution come in at any time afterwards. I
hope and trust the question will take such a direction in the Senate as not to
bring our friends even in apparent collision. Archer's report2 gave
me the backache to read it. Its style is really ridiculous. It is either a long
ways behind or before the age. He “writes bombast and calls it a style.”
Write me as soon as you get this whether you will come to T. Court. Come if you
can and let us talk over these matters. For I can not write. We must commence
the spring campaign early and vigorously.
_______________
1 Corner of the original letter mouse-eaten.
2 William S. Archer, of Virginia, chairman of
the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, had presented a report, Feb. 4, 1845,
contending that Texas could be annexed only by treaty, and not by act of
Congress.
SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual
Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The
Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p.
63-5
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