University of Virginia Library

TO EDWARD COLES.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

You have certainly presented your views of the subject
with great skill & great force.[154] But you have not
sufficiently adverted to the position I have assumed,
and which has been accorded, or rather assigned
to me by others, of being withdrawn from party

agitations, by the debilitating effects of age and
disease.

And how could I say that the present exciting
questions in which you expect me to engage, are not
party questions? How could I say that the Senate
was not a Party, because representing the States, and
claiming the support of the people; or that the other
House representing the people and confiding in their
support, with the Executive at their head, was less
than a Party? How could I say that the former
is the Nation, and the latter but a faction.

What a difference again between my relation to
the Resolutions of 98–99, charged on my individual
responsibility, and my common relation only to the
Constitutional questions now agitated, to which
might be added the difference of my present condition,
from what it was at the date of my published
exposition of those Resolutions, and the habit now
of invalidating opinions emanating from me by a
reference to my age & infirmities?

Would not candour & consistency oblige me in denouncing
the heresies, of one side, not to pass in
silence those of the other? For claims are made by
the Senate in opposition to the principles & practice
of every Administration, my own included, and
varying materially, in some instances, the relations
between the Great Departments of the Government.
A want of impartiality in this respect, would enlist
me into one of the parties, shut the ear of the other;
and discredit me with those, if there be now such,
who are wavering between them.

How, in justice or in truth, could I join in the
charge agst. the P. of claiming a power over the public
money, including a right to apply it to whatever
purpose he pleased, even to his own? However
unwarrantable the removal of the deposits, or culpable
the mode of effectuating it, the act has been
admitted by some of his leading opponents, to have
been, not a usurpation as charged, but an abuse
only of power. And however unconstitutional the
denial of a Legislative power over the Custody of
the Public money, as being an Executive Prerogative,
there is no appearance of a denial to the Legislature
of an absolute and exclusive right to appropriate
the public money, or of a claim for the Executive
of an appropriating power, the charge nevertheless,
pressed with most effect against him. The distinction
is so obvious, and so essential, between a
Custody and an appropriation, that candor would
not permit a condemnation of the wrongful claim
of custody, without condemning at the same time,
the wrongful charge of a claim of appropriation.

Candour would require from me also a notice of
the disavowal by the President, doubtless real, tho'
informal, of the obnoxious meaning put on some of his
acts, particularly his Proclamation; a notice which
would detract from my credit with those who carefully
keep the disavowal out of view, in their strictures
on the Proclamation. When I remarked to
you my entire condemnation of the Proclamation, I
added "in the sense wch. it bore, but which it
appeared, had been disclaimed." In fact I have in

conversations, from wch. I apprehended no publicity,
frankly pointed at what, I regarded as heretical
doctrines on every side, my wish to avoid publicity
being prescribed by my professed as well as proper
abstraction from the polemic scene. I have accordingly,
in my unavoidable answers to dinner
invitations received from quarters adverse to each
other, but equally expressing the kindest regard for
me, endeavored to avoid involving myself in their
party views, by confining myself to subjects in which
all parties profess to concur, and to the proceedings
of Virga. generally referred to in the invitations, and
with respect to which my adherence was well known.

You call my attention with much emphasis to
"the principle openly avowed by the President & his
friends, that offices & emoluments were the spoils of
victory, the personal property of the successful
candidate for the Presidency, to be given as rewards
for electioneering services; and in general to be used
as the means of rewarding those who support, and
of Punishing those who do not support, the dispenser
of the fund." I fully Agree in all the odium you
attach to such a rule of action. But I have not seen
any avowal of such a principle by the President,
and suspect that few if any of his friends would openly
avow it. The first, I believe who openly proclaimed
the right & policy in a successful candidate for the
Presidency to reward friends & punish enemies, by removals
and appointments is now the most vehement,
in branding the practice. Indeed, the principle if
avowed without the practice, or practised without

the avowal, could not fail to degrade any Administration;
both together completely so. The odium
itself would be an antidote to the poison of the
example, and a security agst. the permanent danger
apprehended from it.

What you dwell on most is, that nullification is
more on the decline, and less dangerous than the
popularity of the President, with which his unconstitutional
doctrines is armed. In this I cannot
agree with you. His popularity is evidently and rapidly
sinking under the unpopularity of his doctrines.
Look at the entire States which have abandoned
him. Look at the increasing minorities in States
where they have not yet become majorities. Look
at the leading partizans who have abandoned and
turned against him; and at the reluctant and qualified
support given by many who still profess to adhere to
him. It cannot be doubted that the danger and
even existence of the parties which have grown
up under the auspices of his name, will expire with
his natural or his official life, if not previously to
either.

On the other hand what more dangerous than
Nullification, or more evident than the progress it
continues to make, either in its original shape or in
the disguises it assumes. Nullification has the
effect of putting powder under the Constitution &
Union, and a match in the hand of every party, to
blow them up at pleasure. And for its progress,
hearken to the tone in which it is now preached; cast
your eye on its increasing minorities in most of

the S. States without a decrease in any one of them.
Look at Virginia herself and read in the Gazettes,
and in the proceedings of popular meetings, the
figure which the anarchical principle now makes,
in contrast with the scouting reception given to it
but a short time ago.

It is not probable that this offspring of the discontents
of S. Carolina, will ever approach success,
in a majority of the States. But a susceptibility
of the contagion in the Southern States is visible;
and the danger is not to be concealed that the
sympathies arising from known causes, and the
inculcated impression of a permanent incompatibility
of interests between the South & the North,
may put it in the power of popular leaders aspiring
to the highest stations, and despairing of success
on the Federal theatre, to unite the South, on some
critical occasion, in a course that will end in creating
a new theatre of great tho' inferior extent. In pursuing
this course, the first and most obvious step is
nullification; the next secession; & the last, a farewell
separation. How near was this course being lately
exemplified? and the danger of its recurrence in the
same, or some other quarter, may be increased by an
increase of restless aspirants, and by the increasing
impracticability of retaining in the Union a large &
cemented section against its will. It may indeed
happen that a return of danger from abroad, or a
revived apprehension of danger at home, may aid
in binding the States in one political system, or that
the geographical and commercial ligatures, may

have that effect; or that the present discord of interests
between the North & the South, may give way
to a less diversity in the applications of labour, or
to the mutual advantage of a safe & constant interchange
of the different products of labour in different
sections. All this may happen, and with the exception
of foreign hostilities, hoped for. But in the
mean time local prejudices and ambitious leaders
may be but too successful, in finding or creating
occasions, for the nullifying experiment of breaking
a more beautiful China vase[155] than the British Empire
ever was, into parts which a miracle only could
reunite.

I have thought it due to the affectionate interest
you take in what concerns me to submit the observations
here sketched, crude as they are. The
field they open for reflection I leave to yours, and
to your opportunity which I hope will be a long one,
of witnessing the developments & vicissitudes of the
future.