NORFOLK, [VA.],
August 18th, 1850.
MY DEAR SIR: Upon
receipt of your kind letter of the 10th Inst[ant], I immediately commenced such
a reply to it as I thought you wished to have and I myself best approved. I
soon discovered, however, that my inclination had imposed upon me a task
surpassing my physical ability to perform; and I was so constrained to desist.
The attempt has been renewed several times since, with no better success. Age has
so dimed my sight and stiffened my fingers, that I now write with much
difficulty and generally with some pain.
Hence, nothing but
absolute necessity induces me ever to touch a pen. But in the pleasing hope,
that by complying with your request I might give you some proof of my continued
respect, esteem and confidence, and feebly disburthen my own mind of the sad
forebodings that sometimes oppress it, I forgot the infirmities of age and
commenced such a letter as I have described. I wrote con amore, but I had not proceeded far, when I was obliged to acknowledge
to myself, that altho’ the spirit was still willing the flesh was no longer
able to aid it; and with some mortification, I reluctantly abandoned a subject,
which, in my mode of treating it, threatened to expand into a volume.
I was a little
consoled under this compulsory abandonment of my first design, by reading in
our newspapers, that while I had been writing most of the subjects I was
discussing were no longer open questions (as the lawyers say) but had passed
into res judicatae, so far at least
as the body of which you are a member is concerned. Mr. Clay's Compromise Bill
had been rejected as a whole, altho' many of the parts of which this whole was
compounded had been approved by the Senate. The votes by which these results
had been brought about, show so clearly the motive power that had produced
them, as to leave no doubt upon the mind of any, I suppose, that what remains
will meet with like approbation. Therefore, to continue the discussion of questions
already decided, and so decided too, would be a labour painful to myself and
quite profitless to you. I will not deny myself the pleasure of saying to you,
however, that I concur with you entirely in every opinion you have expressed
and in every vote you have given in regard to any and all of the several
subjects involved in the so called Compromise Bill, so far as these votes and
opinions are known to me. In saying this, I believe I express the sentiments of
a very great majority of the Citizens of Virginia. But, my friend, while you
and your Colleague may both rest assured that the course you have pursued meets
the cordial approbation of a very large proportion of the people of Virginia at
present, neither of you should flatter yourselves with the hope that these
opinions will be permanent here.
Throughout the
U[nited] S[tates] patent causes have been silently operating for some time past
to produce a radical change in their Government; and the future action of these
causes must be greatly aided and facilitated by the measures recently adopted
by the Senate. It was my purpose, at first, to enumerate these causes, to trace
them to their sources and to show to what results they must inevitably lead,
even if not designed to produce such effects. But, as I have said, I am no
longer able to perform such a task. I can give you only a birds-eye view of the
principles the Senate has asserted, in some of their votes, of the practices
they have established to serve as precedents for themselves and their successors
hereafter, of the influence these precedents must have upon the destiny of the
U[nited] S[tates] both abroad and at home, and of the cause that has effected
all this mischief. I am not able to complete the picture, but must leave it to
you to fill up the outline.
By the admission of
California into the Union, under the circumstances existing when she presented
herself, the Senate have decided that the unknown dwellers and sojourners in a
territory recently conquered, while they are still subject to the strict
discipline of a military rule, may, without even asking the permission of their
Conquerors, put off this rule, erect themselves into a sovereign state,
appropriate to their own use such part of the conquered territory as they
please, and govern it thereafter as they think proper. That for such acts of
mutinous insurrection and open rebellion against the legitimate authority of
their conquerors, instead of meeting the censure and punishment which existing
laws denounce, they shall be rewarded. Provided they will take care to insert
as a condition in their Organic law, that none of the slaves belonging to the
citizens of one half of the states of the Union shall ever be introduced within
the limits they have chosen.
By the purchase of a
large portion of the territory admitted to belong to Texas, which purchase the
Senate have authorized to be made, they have asserted the doctrine that it is
competent to the Federal Government to buy up the whole or any part it may wish
to acquire of one of the Confederated States of the Union.
By the proposed
annexation of the territory to be bought from Texas to a portion of the
conquered country of New Mexico, the narrow limits of the latter will be
expanded into a territory of a respectable size, many of the free citizens of
Texas will be degraded into territorial subjects of the Government of the
U[nited] S[tates]; and when to escape from this state of vassalage, they shall
hereafter ask to be admitted into the union like California, you may rely upon
it, that this boon will be refused, unless like California they will exclude
all Southern Slaves from their limits, by their Organic law.
The Statesman must
be deficient in political sagacity, I think, who does not foresee that all the
nations holding territories adjacent to the U[nited] S[tates] must feel anxiety
for the safety of their dominions, when such principles if not openly avowed
are acted upon systematically by the Government of the U[nited] S[tates]; and
that the portion of the great family of civilized nations can regard with
indifference the effects of these new doctrines interpolated into the public
law.
Of their effects
upon the slave holding states of the Union, I have neither space enough left to
express more than a brief remark. These states have long accustomed themselves
to regard the Senate of the U[nited] S[tates] as the only body upon which any
reliance could be placed for the conservation of their political rights and
interests. They will now see, I suppose, that this was mere delusion; that
these rights and interests have been wantonly sacrificed by members of that
body in whom they had good reason to repose confidence; and like the dying
Caesar, struck down at the foot of Pompey's statute by the daggers of pretended
friends, they may well cry out et tu
quoque Brute. It is neither necessary or proper for me to say any thing now
as to the course which, I think, they ought and will adopt under present
circumstances. The measures which the Senate have recommended and sanctioned by
their votes have not yet received the assent of the other Departments of the
Government; and altho' to indulge the anticipation of any different result in
these quarters may be hoping against hope, yet while a single chance remains,
however remote it may be, prudence would seem to indicate that the slave
holding States should abstain from any hypothetical declaration of their
purpose. Whatever that purpose may be, I am sure it will not be influenced by
any craven fears, and so far as Virginia is concerned, I hope it will be worthy
of her character. For my own part, whatever that purpose may be I will abide by
it. I have often invoked my God to witness the solemn pledge I willingly gave
to be "faithful and true" to her; and when I forget the sacred
obligation of this vow of allegiance, may that God forget me.
Accept this long
letter, (which I have written with difficulty) as a testimonial of the high
consideration in which I hold you, I commit it to your discretion, to be used
as you please, provided always that it shall not reach the newspapers. Altho' I
have no care to conceal any thing that I have ever thought said or done in my
whole life, yet I have ever felt a morbid horror at becoming a subject of
notoriety.
* One of the early
followers of John C. Calhoun; representative in Congress from Virginia,
1800-1801; Senator in Congress from Virginia, 1824-1832; governor of Virginia,
1834-1836.
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. 115-8
