WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1849
98
your cherished fund of"simplic-ity,"-whether you intend to hoard it with miserly affection, or to transfer a portion of it, with lavish liberality, for other uses. From your threatened disclosures, however, I am led to · infer the latter. I have no wish to interfere with you in the legitimate exercise of your rights touching the disposal of your property. Whether you use it in the menaced disclosure of pretended facts against me, as your language would seem to imply, or in support of your coadjutor in the cause of nullification, is a matter of indifference to me. If the former, I chal1enge and defy your disclosures!!! If the latter, the suppo1·t and the cause are mutually worthy of each other. They are happily wedded. together and ought not to be put asunder,-and happily, too, as cannot be doubted, the support will outlive the cause, and may revert to its original proprietor. You pretend to compare the nullifiers of the South with the Whigs of the revolution. From this I dissent. I cannot perceive the analogy which you suppose to exist between the nullifie1·s of today and the Whigs of the days of our fathers, and I contemn the presumption, and deny the justice of your comparison. The Whigs of the revolution sought to establish the Union of the States upon an imperishable basis. The nullifiers seek to destroy that Union. In this their efforts are directly opposed to the effort:s to those with whom they claim likeness. If, between the former and the latter, there exist any similarities in point of principle or object, it is because they differ,-not because they agree. A comparison instituted between the Abolitionists and the Nullifiers would have been more just, since one prominent object of each, is the same, viz-the dissolution of the Union. Hence it is not strange that the notorious Garrison and others- his colleagues in the cause of abolition, should express senti- ments so favorable to Mr. Calhoun and his principles, and hail with joy the erratic course pursued by that Gentleman, as a sure sign of the approaching destruction of our confederacy. The allusion to your venerable ancestor who fell a martyr to the cause of Independence, contained in your letter, cannot but be regarded, in such a connection, as peculiarly unfortunate. You are pleased to intimate, that I cannot be ignorant of his history, since it comes within the scope of "a common school education." To his memory, and to myself, I cannot but
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