[Illustration:  John C. Calhoun]

JOHN C. CALHOUN,

OF SOUTh CAROLINA (BORN 1782, DIED 1850.)

ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION,

SENATE, MARCH 4, 1850

I have, Senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion.  Entertaining this opinion, I have, on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of both the two great parties which divide the country to adopt some measure to prevent so great a disaster, but without success.  The agitation has been permitted to proceed, with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a point when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in danger.  You have thus had forced upon you the greatest and the gravest question that can ever come under your consideration:  How can the Union be preserved?

To give a satisfactory answer to this mighty question, it is indispensable to have an accurate and thorough knowledge of the nature and the character of the cause by which the Union is endangered.  Without such knowledge it is impossible to pronounce, with any certainty, by what measure it can be saved; just as it would be impossible for a physician to pronounce, in the case of some dangerous disease, with any certainty, by what remedy the patient could be saved, without similar knowledge of the nature and character of the cause which produced it.  The first question, then, presented for consideration, in the investigation I propose to make, in order to obtain such knowledge, is:  What is it that has endangered the Union?

To this question there can be but one answer:  That the immediate cause is the almost universal discontent which pervades all the States composing the southern section of the Union.  This widely-extended discontent is not of recent origin.  It commenced with the agitation of the slavery question, and has been increasing ever since.  The next question, going one step further back, is:  What has caused this widely-diffused and almost universal discontent?

It is a great mistake to suppose, as is by some, that it originated with demagogues, who excited the discontent with the intention of aiding their personal advancement, or with the disappointed ambition of certain politicians, who resorted to it as a means of retrieving their fortunes.  On the contrary, all the great political influences of the section were arrayed against excitement, and exerted to the utmost to keep the people quiet.  The great mass of the people of the South were divided, as in the other section, into Whigs and Democrats.  The leaders and the presses of both parties in the South were very solicitous to prevent excitement and to preserve quiet; because it was seen that the effects of the former would necessarily tend to weaken, if