your illustrious associates in the field and in the Cabinet, for the multiplied blessings that surround us, and for the very privilege which I now exercise in addressing you. This sentiment now fondly cherished by more than ten millions of people will be transmitted with unabated vigor down the tide of time through the countless millions who are destined to inhabit this continent to the latest posterity."

CHAPTER IX.

JOHN C. CALHOUN.

Difficulty in Writing of Him-Birth and Parentage-Close StudentGraduates at Yale College-President Dwight's Prediction-Secretary of War-Frequent Changes of Party Politics-Nullification Schemes -Hostility to President Jackson-Co-operates with the Whigs-Secretary of State for Tyler-Secures the Annexation of Texas-Schemes for Balance of Slave Power-Retaliation-Exemplary Private LifeReflections.

IT is pre-eminently the office of the historian to divest himself of all prejudice, and to give impartial facts. He who should do otherwise, or would lend his pen to record merely the accusations of focs or the flatteries of friends, has but a poor idea of his calling; and the result of his labors must be as short lived as the interests of the factions he may desire to scrve.

Of him who is the subject of this essay, it is difficult to write. Held in one section as an arch traitor, in another as the chief of statesmen, it is hard to treat his writings and opinions with impartiality. Indeed it would perhaps have been impossible to have done so at an carlier day; time, the leveller, must intervenc to soften asperities and to tone down extravagant praise before a just verdict can be recorded.

66

John Caldwell Calhoun was born in Abbeville, South Carolina, March 18, 1782. Like Andrew Jackson, his parents were of ScotchIrish descent, and he inherited the peculiar qualities of the old Presbyterian stock. Of rather slender means, he labored upon the farm until his nineteenth year, when he commenced the study of the law. It is almost needless to say that, from his earliest youth, like nearly every other eminent American, he had been a great reader to such an extent at times as to seriously impair his health. In 1802 he entered Yale College, graduating with distinction in 1804. Dr. Dwight, then president of that institution, remarked then that he had talent enough to be President of the United States." Returning home from college, he completed his law studies, was admitted to the bar and elected to the legislature in 1807. He was married to his second cousin, Florida Calhoun, in 1811, who was possessed of considerable property, and the same year he took a seat in seat in the United States Congress, to which he had been chosen. During the ensuing six years he took an active interest in and supported the re-establishment of the United States Bank; the introduction of an extensive system of internal improvements, and the tariff of 1816. In 1817 he became President Monroe's Secretary of War, and the rules he introduced in that bureau were so methodical and judicious that they were continued in force until the late war necessitated some changes.

In 1824, naving been elected Vice-President, he was known as Jackson Democrat, Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, then in coalition, being the leaders of the movement which resulted in the formation of the Whig party, and in 1828 he was again chosen Vice-President under Jackson.

The tariff question now became the absorbing one-the Eastern and Southern States wishing free trade, while the Middle States favored a protective tariff. Owing to the management and address of Mr. Van Buren, the tariff bill with excessive rates was passed over over the combined efforts of the Eastern States States and the South. Mr. Calhoun had been hitherto an advocate of the tariff, but now took the ground that it was injurious to the interests of his State, and resigning the Vice-Presidency, he was immediately returned to the United States Senate. At this time his famous South Carolina "Exposition" appeared, in which the ground was taken that the tariff was ruining the agricultural States for the benefit of the manufacturers, and that the remedy to be applied was "Nullification." South Carolina was to declare the obnoxious tariff "null and void," and to forbid the collection of the revenues in the State.

This was followed in 1832 by the Nullification Ordinance of South Carolina, in which the principles of the "Exposition" were substantially avowed, and it was further enacted that if the Federal government persisted in the collection.

of the revenue that South Carolina would withdraw from the Union.

This attempt at treason was promptly met by General Jackson, who at once took such measures as to insure the collection of the revenues, and to arrest any one who attempted to prevent it. Congress, then in session, sustained the President, and passed what has since been known as the "Force Bill," giving him the power to change the collector's office in Charleston, if necessary, to a position in the harbor, where it could not be interfered with.

Previous to this attempt at rullification, Mr. Calhoun had acted with the Democratic party; but he had avowed his determination to break with it whenever it ceased to carry out the measures which he deemed best for the interests of his State. His conduct thereafter can only be viewed as being inspired from sectional motives. Finding that his State could not secede without a conflict with the United States government, he henceforth devoted his attention to uniting the South against the North on the slavery basis. And his political efforts were directed in the future almost exclusively to the maintenance of the "balance of power" by the extension of slavery and the admisson of new States with slavery institutions. He was quite hostile to General Jackson, voting with Clay and Webster against all those measures which resulted in the withdrawal of the public money