Richard Rush to Senator James M. Mason, March 12, 1850

SYDENHAM, [PA.], March 12, 1850.

Accept my thanks, my dear Sir, for the copy of Mr. Calhoun's speech you were so good as to send me. I have read it with deep interest. Pages 7, 8 and 9, deserve to be considered by the whole country more, I fear, than they will be. To the three first paragraphs on page 10, the allusions to Washington are beautiful, logical too, as it strikes me. But I will stop specifying, my marks being on almost every page. It is a very powerful speech, and I think very patriotic.

I beg you to offer my friendly respects to him. I rejoice at the improvement of his health. I regretted my inability to see him when in Washington lately, except once. I should have been truly glad to hear him converse on European affairs; the more, as I found myself agreeing with him on the little there was at one time for him to say when I visited him.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 106