vocates for constituting the Convention as they propose. They have not diminished the force of my objections. I propose to notice the most prominent.

That which they have urged with the greatest confidence, is, that each State has a right to appoint delegates as she pleases. I meet it, by utterly denying that there is any such right. That each State has the right to act as it pleases in whatever relates to itself exclusively, no one will deny; but it is a perfectly novel doctrine, that any State has such a right, when she comes to act in concert with others in reference to what concerns the whole. In such cases it is the plainest dictate of common sense, that whatever affects the whole should be regulated by the mutual consent of all, and not by the discretion of each. That the appointment of delegates to the proposed Convention is a case of this description, I trust I have conclusively shown. I have, I also trust, shown more; that the supposed right is perfectly deceptive; for while it claims for each State the right to appoint delegates as it pleases, it in reality gives the larger States the right to dictate how the others shall appoint. If, for example, the Empire State, as it is called, adopts the mode of appointing (as she has) which will concentrate her whole strength, what discretion would she leave to others, if they go into Convention, but to appoint as she has appointed, or to be ruled by her? It is, then, neither more nor less than a claim to dictate, under the garb of a right; and such its exercise has proved in the present case. It has left no option, but to conform to her course, or be overruled, or refuse to go into the Convention.

I regret this, because I sincerely desire to preserve the harmony of the party. I had strong hope that the rally, after the defeat of 1840, would be exclusively on principle. The hope was greatly strengthened by the truly republican stand taken at the extra session, and the earlier portion of the succeeding regular session. During that period of rigid

adherence to principle, perfect harmony pervaded the ranks of the party. I beheld it with joy. I believed the moment highly favorable for the thorough reformation of the Government, and the restoration of the Constitution. To the republican party, I looked for the accomplishment of this great work and I accordingly felt the deepest solicitude, that the stand taken, and the harmony which existed, should be preserved. In order that it should, I made up my mind to waive the objection, which I have long entertained, to any intermediate body, unknown to the Constitution, between the people and the election of the President, in the hope that the proposed Convention would be so constituted, that I might, consistently with my principles, give it my support. In this I have been disappointed, and being so, I am compelled to decide as I have done. The same motives which impelled me to separate from the administration of Gen. Jackson, in the plenitude of its power, and to come to the rescue of Mr. Van Buren's at its greatest depression, compels me now to withhold my name from the proposed Convention.

Having now assigned my reasons for refusing to permit my name to go before the Baltimore Convention, it rests with you who have placed it before the people, and assented to abide by a Convention fairly constituted, to determine what course you will pursue.

Be your decision what it may I shall be content. But I regard it as due to the occasion, to you and myself, to declare that under no circumstances whatever, shall I support any candidate, who is opposed to free trade, and in favor of the protective policy, or whose prominent and influential friends and supporters are. I hold the policy to be another name for a system of monopoly and plunder, and to be thoroughly anti-republican and federal in its character. I also hold that, so long as the duties are so laid as to be, in fact, bounties to one portion of the community, while they operate

as oppressive taxes on the other, there can be no hope that the Government can be reformed, or that its expenditures will be reduced to the proper standard.

Were I, with the evidence before me, to say otherwise of my course, it would be, practically, to declare that I regard the protective policy to be an open question, so far as the party is concerned; which I would consider, on my part, a virtual abandonment of the cause of Free Trade. That can never be. I have done and suffered too much for it, when its friends were few and feeble, to abandon it now— now, when the auspices every where, on this and the other side of the Atlantic, proclaim the approaching downfall of protection, and the permanent triumph of Free Trade. I, who upheld it against monopoly and plunder, in the worst of times, and braved the menaces of Administration and Opposition, when backed but by a single State,-will not-cannot abandon the glorious cause now, when its banner waves in proud triumph over the metropolis of the commercial world. No, I shall maintain immovably the ground I have so long occupied, until I have witnessed its great and final victory, if it shall please the Disposer of Events to spare my life so long. It will be, indeed, a victory—the harbinger of peace to the world, and a new and brighter and higher civilization.

Much less, still, can I give my support to any candidate who shall give his aid or countenance to the agitation of abolition in Congress or elsewhere; or whose prominent and influential friends and supporters shall. I doubt the sincerity of any man, who declares he is no abolitionist, whilst, at the same time, he aids or countenances the agitation of the question, be his pretext what it may. If we have a right to our slaves, we have the right to hold them in peace and quiet. If the Constitution guarantees the one, it guarantees the other; and if it forbids the one from being attacked, it equally forbids the other. Indeed, the one stands to the

other as means to an end, and is so avowed by the abolitionists; and on the plainest principles of morals, if the end be prohibited, the means of effecting it also are. Of the two, I regard the deluded fanatic far less guilty and dangerous than he, who for political or party purposes, aids or countenances him in what he knows is intended to do that which he acknowledges to be forbidden by the Constitution.

It is time that an end should be put to this system of plunder and agitation. They have been borne long enough. They are kindred and hostile measures, as far, at least, as one portion of the Union is concerned. While the tariff takes from us the proceeds of our labor, abolition strikes at the labor itself. The one robs us of our income, while the other aims at destroying the source from which that income is derived. It is impossible for us to stand patiently much longer under this double operation, without being impoverished and ruined. JOHN C. CALHOUN,

Feb. 1844.

LETTER

In relation to the mode of appointing Electors of President and Vice-President.

FORT HILL, Nov. 1846.

GENTLEMEN :-I am in the receipt of your note of the 14th ult., in which you expressed a desire to have my views in relation to the proposed change in our State Constitution, in reference to the election of the President and Vice-President. In compliance with your request, I herewith enclose a communication, in which they are briefly sketched. To have done full justice, in reference to the many and important questions involved in the subject, would have made. any communication too prolix.

I have given it the present shape, rather than that of a

formal letter in reply to your note, because it left me at liberty to arrange my views in conformity to the order which the subject required.

With great respect, I am, &c., &c., &c.

J. C. CALHOUN,

Messrs. JAMES L. ORR, WILLIAM SLOAN, A. EVINS, and F W. SYMMES.

LETTER

It would seem, from the public prints, that a large majority of those who are disposed to change the present mode of appointing Electors of President and Vice-President of the United States are in favor of a general ticket, in lieu of the present mode of appointing them by the Legislature. They rest their opposition to the latter, and support of the former, on the broad principle that all power belongs to the people; that they should exercise it directly, without the intervention of any intermediate agency, whenever they can properly do so; and that, whenever they can so exercise it, it would be an act of usurpation, on the part of the Government, to withhold it.

From this, they conclude that the power of appointing Electors should be given to the people directly, and that the mode of appointing should be to elect them by a general ticket. Those, on the contrary, who are opposed to the proposed change, or the mode proposed to be substituted in lieu of the present, admit the principle, but deny that it would give the appointment to the people to elect them by a general ticket, or that, if it would, they could properly exercise it in this case.

The difference, then, between them, is reduced to two questions: Would the adoption of the general ticket give the power to the people, in reality, to appoint Electors? And, if it would, is this a case in which it could be properly exercised? On their decision, it is manifest, the propriety of adopting the general ticket must depend. If it should