Mr. Calhoun. I never wrote such a letter as that!
Mr. Benton. I have not said so.
Mr. Calhoun. I take this occasion to say that I never exercised the slightest influence over that paper. I never had the slightest connection with it. I never was a subscriber to it, and I very rarely read it.
Mr. Benton. It was the work of one of the organs of the administration, not John Jones, not the Madisonian; and the instruction was followed by three hundred newspapers in the pay of the Department of State.
I have now finished what I proposed to say, at this time, in relation to the authorship of this war. I confine myself to the official words and acts of the senator, and rely upon them to show that he, and not Mr. Polk, is the author of this calamity. But, while thus presenting him as the author of the war, I do not believe that war was his object, but only an incident to his object; and that all his conduct in relation to the admission of Texas refers itself to the periods of our presidential elections, and to some connection with those elections, and explains his activity and inactivity on those occasions. Thus, in May, 1836, when he was in such hot and violent haste for immediate admission, the election of that year was impending, and Mr. Van Buren the democratic candidate; and if the Texas question could then have been brought up, he might have been shoved aside just as easily as he was afterwards, in 1844. This may explain his activity in 1836. In 1840, the senator from South Carolina was a sort of a supporter of Mr. Van Buren, and might have thought that one good turn deserves another; and so nothing was said about Texas at that election—dangerous as was the least delay four years before; and this may explain the inactivity of 1840. The election of 1844 was coming on, and the senator from South Carolina was on the turf himself; and then the Texas question, with all its dangers and alarms, which had so accommodatingly postponed themselves for seven good years, suddenly woke up; and with an activity and vigor proportioned to its long repose. Instant admission, at all hazards, and at the expense of renewing hostilities between Mexico and Texas, and involving the United States in them, became indispensable—necessary to our own salvation—a clear case of self-defence; and then commenced all those machinations which ended in the overthrow of Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Clay for the presidency, and in producing the present war with Mexico; but without making the senator President. And this may explain his activity in 1844. Now, another presidential election is approaching; and if there is any truth in the rule which interprets certain gentlemen's declarations by their contraries, he will be a candidate again: and this may explain the reasons of the production of that string of resolutions which the senator laid upon the table last week; and upon which he has required us to vote instantly, as he did in the sudden Texas movement of 1836, and with the same magisterial look and attitude. The Texas slave question has gone by—the Florida slave question has gone by—there is no chance for it now in any of its old haunts: hence the necessity for a new theatre of agitation, even if we have to go as far as California for it, and before we have got California. And thus, all the senator's conduct in relation to Texas, though involving his country in war, may have had no other object than to govern a presidential election.
Our northern friends have exceeded my hopes and expectations in getting themselves and the Union safe through the Texas and Florida slave questions, and are entitled to a little repose. So far from that, they are now to be plunged into a California slave question, long before it could arise of itself, if ever. The string of resolutions laid on the table by the senator from South Carolina is to raise a new slave question on the borders of the Pacific Ocean, which, upon his own principles, cannot soon occur, if ever. He will not take the country by conquest—only by treaty—and that treaty to be got by sitting out the Mexicans on a line of occupation. At the same time, he shows that he knows that Spanish blood is good at that game, and shows that they sat it out, and fought it out, for 800 years, against the Moors occupying half their country. By-the-by, it was only 700; but that is enough; one hundred years is no object in such a matter. The Spaniards held out 700 years against the Moors, holding half their country, and 300 against the Visigoths, occupying the half of the other half; and, what is more material, whipped them both out at the end of the time. This is a poor chance for California on the senator's principles. His five regiments would be whipped out in a fraction of the time; but no matter; men contend more violently for nothing than for something, and if he can get up a California slave question now, it will answer all the purposes of a reality, even if the question should never arise in point of fact.
The Senator from South Carolina has been wrong in all this business, from beginning to ending—wrong in 1819, in giving away Texas—wrong in 1836, in his sudden and hot haste to get her back—wrong in all his machinations for bringing on the Texas question of 1844—wrong in breaking up the armistice and peace negotiations between Mexico and Texas—wrong in secretly sending the army and navy to fight Mexico while we were at peace with her—wrong in secretly appointing the President of Texas president-general of the army and navy of the United States, with leave to fight them against a power with whom we were at peace—wrong in writing to Mexico that he took Texas in view of all possible consequences, meaning war—wrong in secretly offering Mexico, at the same time, ten millions of dollars to hush up the war which he had created—wrong now in refusing Mr. Polk three millions to aid in getting out of the war which he made—wrong in throwing the blame of this war of his own making upon the shoulders of Mr. Polk—wrong in his retreat and occupation line of policy—wrong in expelling old Father Ritchie from the Senate, who worked so hard for him during the Texas annexation—and more wrong now than ever, in that string of resolutions which he has laid upon the table, and in which, as Sylla saw in the young Cæsar many Mariuses, so do I see in them many nullifications.
In a picture of so many and such dreadful errors, it is hard to specify the worst, or to dwell upon any one to the exclusion of the rest; but there is one feature in this picture of enormities which seems entitled to that distinction: I allude to the pledge upon which the armistice and the peace negotiations between Mexico and Texas were broken up in 1844, and those two countries put back into a state of war, and ourselves involved in the contest. The story is briefly told, and admits of no dispute. The letter of 17th of January is the accusing record, from which there is no escape. Its awful words cannot be read now without freezing up the blood: "It is known to you that an armistice exists between Mexico and Texas, and that negotiations for peace are now going on under the mediation of two powerful sovereigns, mutually friendly. If we yield to your solicitation to be annexed to the United States, under these circumstances, we shall draw upon ourselves a fresh invasion from Mexico, incur the imputation of bad faith, and lose the friendship and respect of the two great mediating powers. Now, will you, in the event of our acceding to your request, step between us and Mexico and take the war off our hands?" This was the letter, and the terrible question with which it concluded. Mr. Upshur, to whom it was addressed, gave it no answer. In the forty days that his life was spared, he gave it no answer. Mr. Nelson, his temporary successor, gave it an answer; and, speaking for the President of the United States, positively refused to take annexation on the awful terms proposed. This answer was sent to Texas, and put an end to all negotiation for annexation. The senator from South Carolina came into the Department of State, procured the reversal of the President's decision, and gave the pledge to the whole extent that Texas asked it. Without, in the least denying the knowledge of the armistice, and the negotiations for peace, and all the terrible consequences which were to result from their breach, he accepts the whole, and gives the fatal pledge which his predecessors had refused: and follows it up by sending our troops and ships to fight a people with whom we were at peace—the whole veiled by the mantle of secrecy, and pretexted by motives as unfounded as they were absurd. Now, what says morality and Christianity to this conduct? Certainly, if two individuals were engaged in strife, and two others should part them, and put them under an agreement to submit to an amicable settlement: and while the settlement was going on, another man, lying behind a hedge, should secretly instigate one of the parties to break off the agreement and renew the strife, and promise to take the fight off his hands if he did: what would morality and Christianity say to this? Surely the malediction of all good men would fall upon the man who had interfered to renew the strife. And if this would be the voice of all good men in the case of mere individuals, what would it be when the strife was between nations, and when the renewal of it was to involve a third nation in the contest, and such a war as we now have with our sister republic of Mexico? This is the feature which stands out in the awful picture: this is the question which now presents itself to the moral sense of the civilized world, in judging the conduct of the senator from South Carolina in writing that letter of the 11th of April, 1844, aggravated by now throwing upon another the blame of a war for which he then contracted.