March Thirtieth
In discussing the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, Senator Hale warned Senator Toombs that the North would fight. The Georgian answered: “I believe nobody ever doubted that any portion of the United States would fight on a proper occasion.... There are courageous and honest men enough in both sections to fight. There is no question of courage involved. The people of both sections of the Union have illustrated their courage on too many battlefields to be questioned. They have shown their fighting qualities shoulder to shoulder whenever their country has called upon them; but that they may never come in contact with each other in a fratricidal war should be the ardent wish and earnest desire of every true man and honest patriot.”
Pleasant A. Stovall
Texas readmitted to the Union, 1870
March Thirty-First
CALHOUN’S NATIONALISM
At the peace of 1815 the Government was $120,000,000 in debt; its revenues were small; its credit not great, and the effort to raise money by direct taxation brought it in conflict with the States.... Mr. Calhoun came forward and devised a tariff, which not only gave large revenues to the Government, but gave great protection to manufacturers. Mr. Calhoun received unmeasured abuse for his pains from the North, where the interests were then navigation, and Daniel Webster was the great apostle of free trade.... Under Mr. Calhoun’s tariff the New England manufacturers prospered rapidly.... Success stimulated cupidity, and the “black tariff” of 1828 marked the growth of abuse.... It was then that Mr. Calhoun again stepped forth. He stated that the South had cheerfully paid the enormous burden of duties on imports when Northern manufactures were young and the Government weak; the manufacturers had become rich, and the Government strong—so strong that State rights were being merged into its overshadowing power; he therefore demanded a recognition of State rights, and an amelioration of those burdens that the South had so long borne.
Thomas Prentice Kettell
(New York)
John C. Calhoun dies, 1850