Websters March 7th Speech/Secession | Page 6

can get rid of it [the union] the better."[5] The conclusion of both Blair of Kentucky and Winthrop[6] of Massachusetts, that "Calhoun and his instruments are really solicitous to break up the Union", was warranted by Calhoun's own statement.
[3] Bennett, Dec. 1, 1848, to Partridge, Norwich University. MS. Dartmouth.
[4] Houston, Nullification in South Carolina, p. 141. Further evidence of Webster's thesis that abolitionists had developed Southern reaction in Phillips, South in the Building of the Nation, IV, 401-403; and unpublished letters approving Webster's speech.
[5] Calhoun, Corr., Amer. Hist. Assoc., Annual Report (1899, vol 11.), pp. 1193-1194.
[6] To Crittenden, Dec. 20, 1849, Smith, polit. Hist. Slavery, I. 122; Winthrop MSS., Jan. 6, 1850.
Calhoun, desiring to save the Union if he could, but at all events to save the South, and convinced that there was "no time to lose", hoped "a decisive issue will be made with the North". In February, 1850, he wrote, "Disunion is the only alternative that is left us."[7] At last supported by some sort of action in thirteen Southern states, and in nine states by appointment of delegates to his Southern Convention, he declared in the Senate, March 4, "the South, is united against the Wilmot proviso, and has committed itself, by solemn resolutions, to resist should it be adopted". "The South will be forced to choose between abolition and secession." "The Southern States . . . cannot remain, as things now are, consistently with honor and safety, in the Union."[8]
[7] Calhoun, Corr., p. 781; cf. 764-766, 778, 780, 783-784.
[8] Cong. Globe, XXI. 451-455, 463; Corr., p. 784. On Calhoun's attitude, Ames, Calhoun, pp. 6-7; Stephenson, in Yale Review, 1919, p. 216; Newbury in South Atlantic Quarterly, XI. 259; Hamer, Secession Movement in South Carolina, 1847-1852, pp. 49-54.
That Beverley Tucker rightly judged that this speech of Calhoun expressed what was "in the mind of every man in the State" is confirmed by the.approval of Hammond and other observers; by their judgment that "everyone was ripe for disunion and no one ready to make a speech in favor of the union"; by the testimony of the governor, that South Carolina "is ready and anxious for an immediate separation"; and by the concurrent testimony of even the few "Unionists" like Petigru and Lieber, who wrote Webster, "almost everyone is for southern separation", "disunion is the . . . predominant sentiment". "For arming the state $350,000 has been put at the disposal of the governor." "Had I convened the legislature two or three weeks before the regular meeting," adds the governor, "such was the excited state of the public mind at that time, I am convinced South Carolina would not now have been a member of the Union. The people are very far ahead of their leaders." Ample first-hand evidence of South Carolina's determination to secede in 1850 may be found in the Correspondence of Calhoun, in Claiborne's Quitman, in the acts of the assembly, in the newspapers, in the legislature's vote "to resist at any and all hazards", and in the choice of resistance-men to the Nashville Convention and the state convention. This has been so convincingly set forth in Ames's Calhoun and the Secession Movement of 1850, and in Hamer's Secession Movement in South Carolina, 1847-1852, that there is need of very few further illustrations.[9]
[9] Calhoun, Corr., Amer. Hist. Assoc., Annual Report (1899, vol. II), pp. 1210-1212; Toombs, Corr., (id., 1911, vol. II), pp. 188, 217; Coleman, Crittenden, I. 363; Hamer, pp. 55-56, 46-48, 54, 82-83; Ames, Calhoun, pp. 21-22, 29; Claiborne, Quitman, H. 36-39.
That South Carolina postponed secession for ten years was due to the Compromise. Alabama and Virginia adopted resolutions accepting the compromise in 1850-1851; and the Virginia legislature tactfully urged South Carolina to abandon secession. The 1851 elections in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi showed the South ready to accept the Compromise, the crucial test being in Mississippi, where the voters followed Webster's supporter, Foote.[10] That Petigru was right in maintaining that South, Carolina merely abandoned immediate and separate secession is shown by the almost unanimous vote of the South Carolina State Convention of 1852,[11] that the state was amply justified "in dissolving at once all political connection with her co-States", but refrained from this "manifest right of self-government from considerations of expediency only".[12]
[10] Hearon, Miss. and the Compromise of 1850, p. 209.
[11] A letter to Webster, Oct. 22, 1851, Greenough MSS., shows the strength of Calhoun's secession ideas. Hamer, p. 125, quotes part.
[12] Hamer, p. 142; Hearon, p. 220.
In Mississippi, a preliminary convention, instigated by Calhoun, recommended the holding of a Southern convention at Nashville in June, 1850, to "adopt some mode of resistance". The "Resolutions" declared the Wilmot Proviso "such a breach of the federal compact as . . . will make it the duty . . . of the slave-holding states to treat