South Carolina must perceive the embarrassments of her situation.  She must be desirous,—­it is unnatural to suppose that she is not,—­to remain in the Union.  What! a State whose heroes in its gallant ancestry fought so many glorious battles along with the other States of this Union,—­a State with which this confederacy is linked by bonds of such a powerful character!  I have sometimes fancied what would be her condition if she goes out of this Union; if her five hundred thousand people should at once be thrown upon their own resources.  She is out of the Union.  What is the consequence?  She is an independent power.  What then does she do?  She must have armies and fleets, and an expensive government; have foreign missions; she must raise taxes; enact this very tariff, which has driven her out of the Union, in order to enable her to raise money, and to sustain the attitude of an independent power.  If she should have no force, no navy to protect her, she would be exposed to piratical incursions.  Their neighbor, St. Domingo, might pour down a horde of pirates on her borders, and desolate her plantations.  She must have her embassies; therefore she must have a revenue.  And, let me tell you, there is another consequence, an inevitable one.  She has a certain description of persons recognized as property South of the Potomac, and West of the Mississippi, which would be no longer recognized as such, except within their own limits.  This species of property would sink to one half of its present value, for it is Louisiana and the southwestern States which are her great market.

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If there be any who want civil war, who want to see the blood of any portion of our countrymen spilt, I am not one of them.  I wish to see war of no kind; but, above all, I do not desire to see a civil war.  When war begins, whether civil or foreign, no human sight is competent to foresee when, or how, or where it is to terminate.  But when a civil war shall be lighted up in the bosom of our own happy land, and armies are marching, and commanders are winning their victories, and fleets are in motion on our coast, tell me if you can tell me, if any human being can tell its duration?  God alone knows where such a war would end.  In what a state will our institutions be left?  In what state our liberties?  I want no war; above all, no war at home.

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=_John C. Calhoun, 1782-1850._= (Manual, p. 486.)

From his “Speech on the Bill to regulate the Power of Removal.”

=_82._= DANGERS OF AN UNLIMITED POWER OF REMOVAL FROM OFFICE.