Fort Hill 23d June 1849
MY DEAR ANDREW, I read the account of your proceedings with
reference to the Slave question with pleasure. Both tone and substance are
good. The time is rapidly approaching when we shall have to take our stand, and
we must begin to prepare for it. You see that Benton has openly deserted and
that he pours out his venom against me.1 I am averse to touching
him, and, if his aim had been against me exclusively, I would not notice him.
But such is not the fact. He strikes at the South and its cause through me; and
I have concluded to repel his attack against myself, to the extent that it is
necessary to repel it against the South. His whole speech is a mass of false
statements, illogical conclusions and contradictions. I expect to appear in the
Messenger, in the number succeeding the next. Neither he, or his cause will
gain anything by the attack. . . .
_______________
1 Benton's bitter speech of May 26, 1849. Niles, LXXV, 390-396.
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. 768-9
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