Tyler's and John C. Calhoun's example for the justification of President Grant's acts! To set up John Tyler and John C. Calhoun as the great models after which President Grant shaped his policy! The distress must indeed be extreme when such a refuge is resorted to. If you looked over the whole history of the United States for the names of men whom you would like to quote in justification of your own acts, I suppose John Tyler and John C. Calhoun would be the very last. It is very strange company into which gentlemen have introduced General Grant; and, I am sorry to say, even that company begs to be excused.
If you look carefully at the records of history you will find that even the conduct of Tyler and Calhoun cannot in any important particular serve as a precedent for the usurping act of General Grant. In the first place, President Tyler did not order the military and naval forces of the United States to sustain by acts of war the then existing Government of the republic of Texas, either against foreign aggression or against revolutionary movements set on foot by its own citizens. President Tyler sent certain naval and military forces to the Gulf of Mexico and to the Texan frontier merely for purposes of observation.
Now, let us compare the documents in the two cases. First, I will read a dispatch addressed by John C. Calhoun to Mr. Shannon, referred to yesterday by the Senator from Indiana. He said it was too long to read it. Had it been read in its full length, things would have appeared which might not have agreed very well with the Senator's argument. John C. Calhoun says in his dispatch to Mr. Shannon:
The President has fully and deliberately examined the subject, and has come to the conclusion that honor and humanity,
