Savannah [ga.], 21st June, 1848.
My Dear Cousin,
Since the reception of your last letter I have been so constantly occupied with
some vexatious law business which has kept me on the run in Savannah and taken
me up into the country, that I have actually been unable to find the letter to
reply to it. I have not said so much in opposition to the Calhoun clique as was
my disposition, because I did not think it altogether a prudent course. With
reference to those papers of the Dem. party in Georgia that had advocated the
Florida and Alabama resolution, I have not sought a collision, either with the
Constitutionalist or the Telegraph, because I thought the probabilities strong
that both of these papers, if let alone, would eventually come out warmly for
Cass, should he be the nominee of the Convention. I did not think that angry
collision would operate beneficially for the party. Therefore I contented
myself with simply expressing my own views fully and firmly. As events have
proved, both the Constitutionalist and Telegraph are out for Cass, and are
consequently thrown into opposition themselves to the Calhoun, Yancey and
Charleston Mercury clique. I think it better that this should be so than that
they should have been excited into animosity by a general onslaught upon them
on the part of the other presses of the State.
But in the name of all that is rational, what induced the
Georgia delegates in the national convention to vote for that resolution of Yancey's1
After having voted for the nomination of Cass, how could they vote for
the resolution (a pack of nonsense in itself) with the interpretation put upon
it by Yancey himself? Did they not perceive that it would operate prejudicially
to us in Georgia? And how could they at any rate vote for such outrageous
nonsense?
My views always have coincided with yours upon this subject.
I am as clear as daylight in my ideas upon it. Gen. Cass is right throughout.
He has suggested the only ground upon which a Southern man can stand, and I am
convinced that reflection will bring all Southern Democrats (not disposed to
quit the party at any rate) to his zealous support . . .
_______________
* A lawyer, editor, and Democratic politician of Savannah,
Ga., judge of the superior court of Georgia (eastern circuit), 1849-1853,
brigadier-general in the Confederate army.
1 Yancey had offered the following as an
amendment to the report of the committee on resolutions at the Baltimore
convention: “Resolved, That the doctrine of non-interference with the rights of
property of any portion of this confederation, be it In the States or in the
Territories, by any other than the parties interested In them. is the true
republican doctrine recognized by this body.” This resolution was defeated, 246
to 38.
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.
110-1
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