APPENDIX. 



1. Western Commentaries. 



In the remarks upon Mr. Russell s letter and duplicate, which 

 tvere submitted to the House of Representatives, I expressed the 

 most unqualified confidence in the justice of the West, and my en 

 tire conviction that however justly the inhabitants of that portion 

 of the Union might have been incensed against the majority of the 

 Ghent mission, upon the statements and representations of those 

 letters, yet that when the plain unvarnished tale of real fact should 

 be laid before them, they would not only acquit the majority of any 

 intended sacrifice of their interests, but would find in the measure 

 itself, distinctly disclosed to them in its own nature, nothing to dis 

 approve. In every part of this Union, when the whole truth can 

 once be exhibited to the people, there is a rectitude of public opi 

 nion which neither individual enmity, local prejudices, nor party 

 rancour can withstand or control. Upon this public virtue of my 

 country I have ever relied, nor has it now, nor ever disappointed me. 

 I have the satisfaction of knowing from various sources of informa 

 tion, public and private, that the general sentiment of the Western 

 Country, wherever the Remarks as well as the Letters have been 

 read, has done justice to the intentions of the majority, as well as 

 to the motives of Mr. Russell. 



Yet, since the communication of his Letters to the House of Re 

 presentatives, the uses for which it was supposed the production 

 of them was intended, and to which they were adapted, have 

 not been altogether abandoned in some parts of the Western 

 Country. The St. Louis Enquirer has pursued this purpose, in 

 the simplest form, by publishing the message of the President of 

 the United States to the House of Representatives of 7th May ; 

 and Mr. Russell s Private letter, and by suppressing the Duplicate 

 and the Remarks. 



In the Kentucky Reporter, published in Lexington, and in the 

 Argus of Western America, published at Frankfort, various publi 

 cations have appeared, exhibiting similar views of the subject, re 

 presenting the proposition made to the British plenipotentiaries, 

 on the 1st of December. 1314, as a very grievous offence, and 

 ascribing it exclusively to me. The subject has, however, been 



