Calhouns Final Speech to the US Senate,
March 4th 1850
How can the Union be saved? To this I answer,
there is but one way in which it can be and that is the southern section,
that they can remain in the Union consistently with their honour and their
safety
Do this, and discontent will cease harmony and kind feelings between
the sections be restored and every apprehension of danger to the Union
removed. The question, then, is How can this be done?
There is but one way
and that is, by a
full and final settlement, on the principle of justice, of all the questions at
issue between the two sections. The South asks for justice, simple justice and
less she ought not take. She has not compromise to offer, but the constitution;
and no concession or surrender to make. She has already surrendered so much
that she has little left to surrender. Such a settlement would go to the root
of the evil, and remove all cause of discontent, by satisfying the South, she
could remain honourably and safely in the Union, and
hereby restore the harmony and fraternal feelings between the sections, which
existed anterior to Missouri agitation. Nothing else can, with any certainty,
finally and for ever settle the questions at issue, terminate agitation, and save
the Union.
But can this be done? Yes, easily; not by the
weaker party, for it can of itself do nothing not even protect itself but
by the stronger. The North has only to will it to accomplish it to do justice
by conceding to the South an equal right in the acquired territory, and to do
her duty by causing the stipulations relative to fugitive slaves to be
faithfully fulfilled, to ease the agitation of the slave question, and to
provide for the insertion of a provision in the constitution, by an amendment,
which will restore the South, in substance, the power she possessed of
protecting herself, before the equilibrium between the sections was destroyed
by the action of the Government. There will be no difficulty in devising such a
provision one that will protect the South, and which, at the same time, will
improve and strengthen the Government, instead of impairing and weakening it.