Accept my thanks for the message of your Governor & the report of a Committee on the acts of South Carolina, they are well written & seem willing to lessen the oppressions of the south & show kind feelings for its suffering, but must have something, to maintain the tariff principle, which is not revenue: They forgot the doings of the British Government or omitted to notice them, that a triffling tax on tea, must be paid to settle the question. I am still for the union, no nullifier, nor an approver of the proclamation; believe that a state may quit the union when she pleases, provided she will pay her part of the public debt, if there be any, but ^how^ is she to get into it again, is not quite ^so^ easy to settle. The right to quit, is the best & almost the only guard against oppression.

The causes of the ruin of the south, are the funding System, Bank, pensions, tariff & internal improvements, you may remember, they were stated to the senate, but ^the^ stenographers never published them. A federal government founded on the opinion & good will cannot be kept together by force, conquest of only one of the parties puts an end to it.