Hosea7.html

Robert Hosea to Abraham Lincoln, February 7, 1861

Page 7

that from the very foundation of our government

absolute Free trade has been a favorite idea with

the staple states of the south; and the agitation

of the nullification times of 1833 by Jno. C.

Calhoun & others was but the natural result

and attempt to carry out their views; but Calhoun

himself, patriotic at heart did not dare broach

Secession as a remedy. His efforts were to

impress on the South the idea that this

Union, instead of being one and inseparable,

was but a league and compact to be broken

whenever it suited any of its component parts

to do so. This was the entering wedge. He was

aware that South Carolina, of all the states, would

probably be benefitted most by free trade, and

hence Charleston was chosen as the scene of the

attempt at Nullification. But he was met

by the firmness of Jackson and the common sense

of the united country, which was alarmed at such

an attempt of radical change, and he was obliged

to succumb.

Mr Calhoun was cunning; for fear of alarming

conservatives, he never denied but admitted the

right of government to levy duties on imports for revenue but

was successful in instilling into the minds of

the south, that the spirit of the constitution was

perverted by the north, who had organized a system

of duties on imports not for revenue only

but for the protection of the manufactures

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