Richmond Enquirer

may not be successful, I cannot but express my belief that South Carolina is not now ready for separate action, nor the Southern States for a Southern Convention.

I have always thought that immediately after the passage of the Tariff of 1812, the Legislature of South Carolina should have been convened and a Convention of her people called, to whom the question of immediate State interposition should have been submitted.

You are aware that I offered in the Convention which accepted the "compromise," a resolution solemnly reaffirming this high, sovereign right and declaring that our adherence to the Compromise was limited alone by the good faith with which it might be maintained by the Government of the Union. But this moment for efficient action was permitted to pass by, and our avowed reliance was placed on justice being done to the South through the pacific action of the legislation of Congress. Although I have not much hope of any relief from this source, yet I think we are bound to defer to the wishes of our friends in the other Southern States; and await the issue of the Presidential Election.' In other words, we ought to take no course calculated to embarrass our Democratic friends throughout the Union, or to deprive us of their sympathy. Let us, in one word without one cry of disunion, bring forth our cohorts to the field, and battle valiantly for the nominations at Baltimore. If victorious, we shall entitle ourselves to the gratitude of our allies, and all may be safe; and if defeated, our ranks will remain unbroken, our principle of confederation inviolate, and the most powerful and talented opposition this country has ever seen, organized for efficient action.

Although Mr. Polk carries his doctrine of discrimination farther than accords with your opinions and my own, yet we must be content for the present in the broad fact, that his views in relation to the subject of "protection," are so modified by the revenue principle, as to be exceedingly moderate, whilst the party which supports Mr. Clay, have just about the same notion of moderation in reference to levying of imposts, "that a blind man has of colors.'

My views, therefore, with great deference for the opinions of others. of the line of policy to be pursued at present, by the South, is to organize the great party of the Democracy of the Union—from the Potomac to the Sabine. Let us establish anti-Tariff and Annexation Associations, with active Committees of Correspondence, with the essential object of uniting to and with the South, the friends of free trade and annexation everywhere. We shall get up a momentum of public opinion, even if Mr. Clay is elected. which under his plighted faith to sustain his own Compromise, he cannot resist, and which must lead to a redress of our wrongs or a Convention of the Southern States. This measure must inevitably coerce the re-establishment of the "Compromise and the annexation of Texas. if the moral reason of the Senate of the U. S. should not have surrendered her to the policy of Great Britain, or given her up to the savage butcheries of a "Mexican invasion."

Let us, therefore. indulge in no unnecessary violence in language or action, but "bide our own time." It will come as surely as the appetite for plunder increases by what it feeds on.

I believe these views are in conformity with those of Mr. Calhoun. 1 know, with myself he desires ardently and sincerely the preservation of the Union on the terms of the solemn compact under which it was formed. Let us not. therefore, be prepared to give up his lead. He was our Palinurus in a starless night. the gifted Pilot who weathered the storm.

These opinions, my dear sirs, are expressed by a man who desires no misapprehension in relation to his position. Whenever South Carolina does move, whatever may be the depth of her error or the extremity of her peril. I return to her bosom to suffer or triumph with her sons.

But we owe it to our friends in the other States of the Union, to our friends more especially who are contending in this State with a Tariff' party who are as active and ultra as if they were set in motion by the power looms of Taunton and Lowell, to await the issue of the present struggle. and then to move as fate may cast the balance. with a power which, in preserving the Union of the States, will secure that justice which continues the only cement of its cohesion

I beg you to accept the assurances of the esteem and respect with which.

I am your sincere friend.

And devoted fellow-citizen

J HAMILTON

To Geo. P. Elliott, Geo. A. Allen. Wm H Wigg, Esq'rs Committee