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Updated: June 20, 2025
Every system is liable to run into abuse, and none more so than that under consideration; and measures can not be too soon taken by Congress to guard against this evil. Washington, February 29, 1844. SIR: It has become my most painful duty to announce to you the sudden and violent death of the Hon. Abel P. Upshur, late Secretary of State of the United States.
Abel P. Upshur, late Secretary of State, and the Hon. Thomas W. Gilmer, late Secretary of the Navy. This most lamentable occurrence transpired on board the United States ship of war the Princeton on yesterday at about half past 4 o'clock in the evening, and proceeded from the explosion of one of the large guns of that ship.
In the deepest grief the President of the United States has instructed the undersigned to announce to the Army that from the accidental explosion of a gun yesterday on board the United States steamship Princeton the country and its Government lost at the same moment the Secretary of State, the Hon. A.P. Upshur, and the Secretary of the Navy, the Hon. T.W. Gilmer.
Western Virginia indeed spoke on that occasion, through some of her delegates, the words of truth and humanity. But their counsels and warnings were unavailing; the majority turned away to listen to the bewildering eloquence of Leigh and Upshur and Randolph, as they desecrated their great intellects to the defence of that system of oppression under which the whole land is groaning.
Webster the Cabinet was reconstructed, but a few months later the bursting of a cannon on the war-steamer Princeton, while returning from a pleasure excursion down the Potomac, killed Mr. Upshur, the newly appointed Secretary of State, Mr. Gilmer, Secretary of the Navy, with six others, while Colonel Benton narrowly escaped death and nine seamen were injured.
When the treaty with the new republic was about concluded, Upshur was accidentally killed by the explosion of a gun on the ship Princeton. Calhoun, whose ardent candidacy for the Democratic nomination had failed, was called to the State Department to take up the unfinished work. Meanwhile the campaigns of the two great parties were already far advanced.
Tyler did not despair; when the great New Englander retired in 1842, like Clay, to private life, he invited Hugh S. Legaré, of Charleston, to the vacant place. A year later Abel P. Upshur succeeded to the office. All the while the President was seeking to guide the Administration into other channels than the old ones of tariff, bank, and internal improvements.
The treaty which Upshur and Calhoun negotiated with the Texan envoys in the spring of 1844 was presented to the Senate in April, and held in committee until after the two party conventions had met in Baltimore. The Whigs condemned it, as has been noted, and the Democrats accepted it.
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