The North Star (Rochester)/1848/01/14/John C. Calhoun
JOHN C. CALHOUN.
This bold senatorial defender of slavery, and faithful sentinel upon its bloody ramparts, ever vigilant, unwearied, and undeviating in his devotion to the American slave system, has recently betrayed his fears in the senate, as to the effect which the present false, foul, and infernal war, waged against Mexico, will have upon what he terms the "peculiar institutions" of our republican government. In the speech before us, and which may be found on the first page of out present number, he stoutly opposes the further prosecution of the war, with its present aims and designs; counsels the withdrawal of our army to a line which he does not designate; scouts the idea of taking inhabited and cultivated lands as indemnity from Mexico; explains the motives which led him to propose peace resolutions last winter; demonstrates the absurdity of that miserable pretence of "conquering a peace;" shows that the more victories gained the more difficulties we shall find in making peace; shows, also, that we have been defeated by our own success; argues the impossibility of a free government springing up under the care of a conquering nation; argues the inferiority of the Mexican people; deprecates with much apparent solemnity the extinction of the Mexican government; and thinks the incorporation of her people with those of the United States, would be a deathblow to our "free institutions."
In reading this speech, the question naturally arises, What has given this new and singular shape to his policy? What terrible signs in the firmament, moral and political, has this prophet of tyranny discovered? Why does he abandon, or seem to abandon his notions of extending slavery in Mexico? From whence come those gloomy apprehensions which he so eloquently sets forth in the Senate? Happily for us, we need not long remain in doubt. A little reflection supplies the required information. Mr. Calhoun is a slaveholder. Slaveholding has been for years the very sun of his political system. Not a measure has been proposed or adopted by by him, but has been thoroughly examined in the red light of slavery. In this light he regards men as well as measures. It is his great test of character. Unite with him in this, and he will forget all other differences; differ from him in this, and he forgets and repudiates all other points of agreement. He regards Slavery as the very "corner-stone of our republican institutions,"—as the "most safe and stable basis of free institutions in the world;" and so far from being in any sense an evil, he considers it a positive good. He speaks as coolly about a man in fetters as he would of a horse in harness. The condition of the former is to his mind as proper as that of the latter. His iron heart is yet to throb the first time in pity for the heart-broken slave; and his lips have yet to confess the first sting of a guilty conscience.
What Mr. Calhoun has been, we may well presume he now is; and on the truth of this presumption will depend the correctness of the solution of his motives for opposing the war and abandoning his system of slavery propagandism. He either sees or apprehends danger to slavery, in the prosecution of the war, and the consequent blotting out of the Mexican republic. He begins to see, that to subjugate, and fasten slavery upon a people and territory already free, is a move altogether too bold, and one that must only react against his darling institution. For once, this brass-browed manstealer seems checked in his nefarious designs, by the well-expressed opinions of foreign nations. For once he makes a pause, to learn what the world think of his diabolical movements; and when he hears the adverse report, like the whiskered pirate who prowls along the African coast, when pursued, he counsels his infernal crew to "lay low"—abide their time. Such is Mr. Calhoun's policy. His boldest word is "defence," and his wisest counsel, "masterly inactivity." He does not abandon his prey, but his mode of catching it. He would still the roar of our cannon, which has opened the eye of nations upon as; he would lull them to deep with songs of peace, that he may do by stealth what seems too hazardous to be done openly. He combines in his composition the boldness of the lion and the cunning of the fox; and as he grows old, the latter quality predominates. The time was when he was boldest among the bold; when defying all opposition, he boldly marched unceremoniously to his object. But age has come upon him, teaching him that cunning must supply the place of strength. But we warn him and his companions in crime, that neither strength nor cunning will much longer avail them; their strength shall be broken, their cunning confounded, and their whip-scared victims released from their chain. God speed the day!