Monday, April 9, 2018

Robert Toombs to Alexander H. Stephens, February 16, 1845

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.
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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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