James Madison to Joel R. Poinsett

I have received your favour of the 24th. ultimo—and thank you for the pamphlets accompanying it, which are from very able pens; and I have just had an opportunity of reading your speech on the 5th. inst. It is a powerful appeal to considerations, which can not fail to sink deep into every mind not shut against reflection by the violence of party feelings. I wish for so opportune an appeal all the success it ought to have, in arresting a course of measures which lead to a result necessarily humiliating to the state, or ruinous to a political system, justly deemed the hope of the world, and to which no state had heretofore been a more patriotic votary than South Carolina. With great & cordial esteem