Washington, D. C, Ho. or Reps., Feb. 6, 1846.
Dear Crawford,
I received your letter of the 31st ult. last night. Lest you may not receive
the speech I first sent, I send you another by this mail. The authorities on
the Galphin claim to [which] you refer I will consult in a few days. I think
from your statement of the case it is “in pint.” This is a very bad body before
which to argue such a question, but if it can be got through the Senate and is
backed by a strong report in this House I think it could be got through without
much difficulty. A majority report favourable would certainly settle it,
but the committees of this House are very badly constituted for any just
purpose. They [are] nearly as rabid against all sorts of claims as the Locos in
the Georgia legislature. They have promised a good deal in the way of reform,
and instead of honestly retrenching actual abuses, which they have neither the
honesty or the firmness to do, they desire to retrench by defeating all sort of
claims, honest as well as dishonest, against the government.
I suppose you have the defective receipts sent you by Mr.
Stephens. You will perceive from the nature of the objections that it [is]
impossible ever to settle with the government without legislation, and I am
decidedly of opinion that a gross appropriation for a full settlement will be
the very best we can do, if we can carry it. If you can get the Secretary of
War to recommend or acquiesce in it, it can I think be carried, and I very much
wish you could bring him to that point. Without it I see little or no chance of
ever getting any considerable portion of the remaining claim, if indeed we can
get anything more.
I am glad to hear from you that you will not be obliged “to
stop” during your administration. I had supposed your only resource against
such a calamity would be in the act of 1843 authorizing you to raise money to
pay off that debt by new 6 per cents. You will probably recollect at that time
I favoured that policy in any event. I don't care to pay that debt. I would
much prefer letting it remain the 25 or 30 years, when I doubt not its interest
and much of the principal can be paid from the road,1 and the
experience of the last five years is very conclusive that all railroads
judiciously located will pay, and I think ours will be one of the very best in
the South. I perceive from the newspapers that you are adopting the policy of
raising the wind by means of the 6 per cents. If they are pressed gradually on
the market they will rise, unless we have war.
I do not think a war in the least probable. Mr. Polk never
dreamed of any other war than a war upon the Whigs. He is playing a low
grog-shop politician's trick, nothing more. He would be as much surprised and
astonished and frightened at getting into war with England as if the Devil were
to rise up before him at his bidding. The Democratic Party had declared our
title to “all Oregon” “clear and unquestionable.” Mr. Polk adopted and asserted
the same thing in his inaugural speech. Both moves were political blunders. It
became necessary to retrieve them. He was bound to offer 49°. He supposed as
the British Gov[ernment] had refused that proposition when made with more
advantageous additions than were embraced in his proposition that that Gov[ernment]
would do so again. It was an affectation of moderation when he knew that it was
the best we could ever get. He withdraws the proposition and begins his game of
“bluster,” with the full conviction that the Whig Party, true to their fatality
to blunders, would raise the shout of peace, peace, and which would make him,
the vilest poltroon that ever disgraced our Government, the head of the war
party. His party were already committed to him to 54° 40', they would stand by
him, and he expected finally to be forced by the British Whigs and Southern
Calhoun men to compromise; but he greatly hoped that he would not be forced
even to this alternative until he had “all Oregon” on every Democratic banner
in the Union for his “second heat.” I have not the least doubt but that he
fully calculated that the “notice” would be rejected by a combination between
the Whigs and Calhoun men of this Congress, and then he could have kept it open
for a new presidential campaign. That these were the objects of the
Administration I have not the least doubt. Hence I urged the Whigs to stand up
and give him the power to give the notice whenever he thought proper,
which would have “blocked” him. But they would save themselves and their party
for the same reason that the lad did in scripture, “because” their friends “had
much goods.” Wall street howled, old Gales was frightened into fits at the
possibility of war, and the Whig press throughout the country screamed in
piteous accents peace, peace, with the vain foolish hope of gaining popular
confidence by their very fears, and like the magnetic needle, they expected to
tremble into peace. Nothing could be more absurd. If we have peace they are
disarmed, and whatever may be the terms of accommodation they will be stopped
from uttering a word of complaint. If war comes, no people were ever foolish enough
to trust its conduct to a “peace party,” for very good sufficient reasons. If
the country should be beaten and dishonored they will be called upon to patch
up a dishonorable peace, but in no other event.
There is another view of this question, purely sectional,
which our people don't seem to understand. Some of our Southern papers seem to
think we are very foolish to risk a war to secure anti-slave power. They look
only at the surface of things. If we had control of the government and could
control this question, I have not the least doubt that Calhoun is right in
saying that his “masterly inactivity” policy is the only one which ever could
acquire “all Oregon”. It can never be done in any other way except to give the
notice and stand still, which would effect the same object rightfully; but
notice and action never will secure all Oregon. Mark the prediction.
Notice will force an early settlement. That settlement will be upon or near the
basis of 49°, and therefore a loss of half the country. Now one of the
strongest private reasons which governs me is that I don't [care] a fig about any
of Oregon, and would gladly get ridd of the controversy by giving it all to
anybody else but the British if I could with honor. The country is too large
now, and I don't want a foot of Oregon or an acre of any other country, especially
without “niggers.” These are some of my reasons for my course which don't
appear in print.
I deeply regret that the Whigs, especially of the Senate,
have given and will give a different direction to the question. If Polk wants
war he can make it in spite of any let or hindrance from them. If he does not
want [it], he will not need their aid to keep out of it; but they “gabble” and “chatter”
about the peace of the country and the horrors of war as if they had any real
power over either question. . . .
P. S. — We are still on Oregon. The question will be taken
on Monday. “Notice” will pass this time, in what form is doubtful, but I think
unqualified. Negotiations are undoubtedly renewed and are now pending on the
subject.
_______________
1 The Western & Atlantic Railroad.
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.
72-5
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