Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

1 Letter to James Slaughter, June 15, 1858.

2 John Caldwell Calhoun, of South Carolina, always appears in history as the central figure of a group of politicians who, almost forty years ago, adopting the disunion theories put forth by a few Virginians, like John Taylor, of Caroline, and used by Jefferson and his friends for the temporary purpose of securing a political <*>arty victory at the close of the last century, began, in more modern times, the work of destroying the nationality of the Republic. With amazing intellectual vigor and acumen, Mr. Calhoun crystallized the crude elements of opposition to that nationality, found in so great abundance, as we have observed, in Virginia, during Washington's Administration, that it drew from him his great plea for union in his Farewell Address to, his countrymen. Calhoun reduced these elements :to compact form, and, by the consummate use of the most subtle sophistry, of which he was complete master, he instilled the most dangerous disintegrating poison, known as the .doctrine of Supreme State Sovereignty, into the public mind of the Slave-labor States, for the purpose of meeting a contingency which he contemplated as early as the year. 1812. The now [1865] venerable Rear-admiral Stewart, in a letter to George W. Childs, of Philadelphia, relates a conversation between himself and Mr. Calhoun, in Washington City, in the winter of 1812:--“You in the South,” said Stewart, “are decidedly the aristocratic portion of this Union; you are so, in holding persons in perpetual slavery; you are so, in every domestic quality; so in every habit of your lives, modes of living, and action. You neither work with your hands, head, nor any machinery, but live. and lave your being, not in accordance with the will of your Creator, but by the sweat of slavery; and yet you assume all the attributes, professions, and advantages of Democracy.” Mr. Calhoun replied:--“I admit your conclusions in respect to us Southerners. That we are. essentially aristocratic, I cannot deny. But we can, and do, yield much to Democracy. This is our sectional policy. We are, from, necessity, thrown upon and solemnly wedded to that party,. however it may occasionally clash with our feelings, for the conservation of our interests. It is through our affiliation with that party, in the Middle and Western States, that we hold power. But when we cease thus to control this nation, through a disjointed Democracy, or any material obstacle in that party shall tend to throw us out of that rule and control, we shall resort to a dissolution, of the Union. The compromises of the Constitution, under the circumstances, were sufficient for our fathers; but under the altered condition of our country, from that period, leave $o the South no resource but dissolution.”

This avowal of Mr. Calhoun, then a leading Democratic member of Congress, that the politicians of the South were determined to rule the Republic, or ruin it, was made. forty-eight years before the great rebellion occurred. Under the lead of Calhoun, the politicians of South Carolina. attempted a rebellion about thirty years before, but failed.