Tuesday, May 22, 2018

John P. King* to Congressman Howell Cobb, May 7, 1846

Augusta, Ga., May 7, 1846.

. . . P. S. — Exciting news from Mexico this morning; this only could be reasonably expected. I have (entre nous) never seen any reasons of expediency for sending Taylor to the Rio Grande. Why insultingly beard this poor feeble distracted people? They have been hardly dealt with, and why not give them some decent chance to cover up their humiliation, which they certainly would have done by negociation ere long if our cannon had been kept out of their sight. I should not be much surprised if we were on the eve of a long and distracting war with all the attendant evils of debts, taxes, tariff, and the finale of all ambitious Republics — a military despotism. I hope to God that we may not yet have cause to wish that both Texas and Oregon had been ingulphed before they were heard of by the people of the United States.
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* United States Senator from Georgia, 1833-1837, president of the Georgia Railroad & Banking Co., 1841-1878.

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. 75

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