Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/14

he spoke, sometimes negligently, yet always plainly and forcibly, and it is due to his own character, as well as to the public expec- tation, that his views should be presented in the plain and simple garb in which he left them. The granite statue, rough-hewn though it be, is far more imposing in its simple and stern, though rude proportions, than the plaster-cast,however elaborately wrought and gilded. Some few sentences have been transposed,—some repetitions omitted,—and some verbal inaccuracies, necessarily incident to hurried composition, corrected. With these excep- tions, and they are comparatively few,—the Work is as it came from the hands of the author; and is given to the public with no other comment than that made by himself in a letter dated the 4th of November, 1849—"I wish my errors to be pointed out. I have set down only what I believed to be true ; without yielding an inch to the popular opinions and prejudices of the day. I have not dilated,—but left truth, plainly announced, to battle its own way."

February 22d, 1851.