Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/596

 590 CALHOUN tending that all petitions ought to be received and referred to their appropriate committees ; but still they were as well satisfied as their op- ponents to avoid or escape debate. Calhoun did not sympathize in this feeling. From a letter written in 1847 it appears that he had been from the beginning in favor of forcing the slavery issue on the North, believing that de- lay was dangerous, and that the South was rel- atively stronger, both morally and politically, than she would ever be again. He now offered a series of resolutions having the spine object in view. The chief debate was on the fifth, which declared that the intermeddling of any state or states, or their citizens, to abolish sla- very in the territories or the District of Colum- bia, on the ground that it was immoral or sin- ful, or the passage of any measure by congress with that view, would be a direct and danger- ous attack on the institutions of all the slave- holding states. Mr. Clay moved as a substitute two resolutions, one applying to the district, the other to the territories. These resolutions omitted all reference to the moral or religious character of slavery. For "intermeddling" they substituted "interference." The aboli- tion of slavery in the district was pronounced a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by Maryland and Virginia, and its abolition in any territory a breach of good faith toward the inhabitants, and a ground of just alarm to the slaveholding states, tending to disturb and en- danger the Union. Calhoun, though not favor- ing this amendment, perceiving that the senate would go no further, voted for it. In the course of this debate he stated, in reference to the Mis- souri compromise, that when it was made he was in favor of it, but that he had since been led en- tirely to change his opinion, and to regard it as a dangerous measure. He also denied any con- nection with or knowledge of the existence of any party aiming at disunion. On the contrary, he was seeking to preserve the Union, by op- posing injustice and oppression against the weakest and most exposed section of it, in which it was his lot to be cast. He had now become an advocate of the leading measures of the administration, and gave his support to Van Buren as a candidate for reelection, and induced the state of South Carolina to vote for him. To the measures brought forward by the whigs on their accession to power, consequent upon the defeat of Van Buren, he gave his decided op- position, attending, for the first time since his breach with Gen. Jackson, the private caucuses of the democratic members. In an elaborate speech he defended the veto power from the attack made upon it by Mr. Clay, in conse- quence of President Tyler's veto of the bills for chartering a United States bank. He de- nounced the tariff of 1842 as not only a viola- tion of the compromise agreed upon in 1833, but, in its details, exceedingly oppressive, and in the circumstances of its enactment worse even than the tariff of 1828. He voted for the Webster- Ashburton treaty with England, and defended the clauses in relation to the boun- dary of Maine, and those which referred to the suppression of the slave trade. He opposed the bill for the occupation of Oregon, urging that we had but to wait, and with the progress of our population Oregon would be occupied for us by adventurous settlers ; or should there be a struggle, delay was for our benefit, as we were constantly growing relatively stronger. With March 4, 1843, Mr. Calhoun's senatorial term came to an end. His two great rivals had previously withdrawn from the senate, Webster by accepting a seat in the cabinet, and Clay by resigning. Calhoun had declined a reelection, and did not appear in the next congress. He had been brought forward by his friends as a candidate for the democratic nomi- nation for the presidency, to which party he now considered himself to belong ; but he still remained an object of suspicion and dislike to a large section of the party. Instructions having been given to a majority of the dele- gates to the approaching nominating conven- tion to vote for Van Buren, Calhoun, in Feb- ruary, 1844, addressed a letter to his political friends, severely criticising the principles on which that convention was to be constituted, and refusing to allow his name to go before it. Meanwhile, toward the last of March, 1844, he was unexpectedly called by President Tyler to fill the place of secretary of state. From that office Webster had been ejected as preparatory to a negotiation for the annexation of Texas, and it had again become vacant by the sudden death of Mr. Upshur. The latter had already set the negotiation on foot, and in fact had nearly arranged informally the terms. The Texans had, however, insisted, as preliminary to a formal treaty, upon a pledge that if, pend- ing its negotiation or before its ratification, they should be invaded by Mexico, with which country an armistice had been arranged, the army and navy of the United States should be employed to defend them. This pledge, given by the American minister in Texas, President Tyler had refused to ratify, on the ground that it exceeded his constitutional powers ; but as the Texan commissioners positively refused to treat upon any other terms, Mr. Calhoun re- newed it. It took but a few days to put the treaty in form, and immediately upon its sig- nature, which took place on April 12, detach- ments of the army and navy were sent to the frontiers of Texas and the coast of Mexico. The ground of the invitation extended to Texas to renew her application, already three times rejected, for union with the United States, was the apprehension of interference on the part of the British government to pro- cure the abolition of slavery in Texas, as a step toward its abolition in the United States. The facts on which these apprehensions were based had first been brought to the notice of Presi- dent Tyler through the agency of Calhoun, who was thus the real author of the annexation movement. Lord Aberdeen, in disclaiming