Senator John C. Calhoun to Thomas G. Clemson, March 10, 1850

Washington 10th March 1850

MY DEAR SIR, I answered Anna's last letter by the last steamer; I hope she has received my letter.

Since then, my health continues to improve and my strength is so far returned, that I am able to take my seat in the senate and a part in the discussions of the body.

I send you a copy of my speech on the great question of the day. My friends insisted, that I should not undertake to deliver it, as it might overtax my strength. In conformity to their wishes, I wrote it out and had it read by a friend, I being present.¹ It has made a decided impression. Since then, Mr Webster delivered his views.² He took grounds more favourable to the South, than Mr Clay, but still far short of a permanent settlement of the question. His speech, however, shows a yielding on the part of the North, and will do much to discredit Mr Clay and other Southern Senators who have offered less favourable terms of settlement. If he should be sustained by his constituents and N. England generally, it is not improbable, that he will take still stronger grounds; and that the question may be adjusted, or patched up for the present, to brake out again in a few years. Nothing short of the terms I propose, can settle it finally and permanently. Indeed, it is difficult to see how two peoples so different and hostile can exist together in one common Union.

I wrote some time ago to Col Pickens and asked him to inform me, whether the arrangement, which you stated in your last letter to place our bond in his hand, had be[en] carried out, and whether, if the bond was in his hand, he would feel himself authorised to receive the interest and credit it on the bond; and, if the bond was not placed in his hands, to let me know, if he knew, in whose hands it was. I have not yet heard from him.

I am happy to say that, I think, neither my late attack, nor the prevailing influenza, which I took in my convalescent state, and which so much retarded the restoration of my health, has left any permanent derangement of my system. The weather is now becoming mild, which will permit me to take exercise in the open air, and which only is required to a full restoration of my strength.

My love to Anna and the children. Kiss the children for their grandfather.³

_______________

¹ Calhoun's great speech of March 4, 1850, on the Compromise measures, was read from proofs by Senator James M. Mason of Virginia. For the speech, see Works, IV, 542–573.

² The Seventh of March Speech.

³ This is the last of Calhoun's letters which has come under the notice of the present editor He died March 31, 1850.

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, p. 783-4