Graduating with credit in 1804, he repaired to the famous Law School at Litchfield in Connecticut, where he remained a year and a half, and won general esteem. Tradition reports him a diligent student and an admirable debater there. As to his moral conduct, that was always irreproachable. That is to say, he was at every period of his life continent, temperate, orderly, and out of debt. In 1806, being then twenty-four years of age, he returned to South Carolina, and, after studying a short time in a law office at Charleston, he went at last to his native Abbeville to complete his preparation for the bar. He was still a law student at that place when the event occurred which called him into public life.
June 22d, 1807, at noon, the United States frigate Chesapeake, thirty-eight guns, left her anchorage at Hampton Roads, and put to sea, bound for the Mediterranean. The United States being at peace with all the world, the Chesapeake was very far from being in proper man-of-war trim. Her decks were littered with furniture, baggage, stores, cables, and animals. The guns were loaded, but rammers, matches, wadding, cannon-b.a.l.l.s, were all out of place, and not immediately accessible. The crew were merchant sailors and landsmen, all undrilled in the duties peculiar to an armed ship. There had been lying for some time at the same anchorage the British frigate Leopard, fifty guns; and this ship also put to sea at noon of the same day. The Leopard being in perfect order, and manned by a veteran crew, took the lead of the Chesapeake, and kept it until three in the afternoon, when she was a mile in advance. Then she wore round, came within speaking distance, lowered a boat, and sent a lieutenant on board the American ship. This officer bore a despatch from the admiral of the station, ordering any captain who should fall in with the Chesapeake to search her for deserters. The American commander replied that he knew of no deserters on board his ship, and could not permit a search to be made, his orders not authorizing the same. The lieutenant returned. As soon as he had got on board, and his boat was stowed away, the Leopard fired a full broadside into the American frigate. The American commodore, being totally unprepared for such an event, could not return the fire; and therefore, when his ship had received twenty-one shot in her hull, when her rigging was much cut up, when three of her crew were killed and eighteen wounded, the commodore himself among the latter, he had no choice but to lower his flag. Then the search was made, and four men, claimed as deserters, were taken; after which the Leopard continued her course, and the crippled Chesapeake returned to Hampton Roads. The American commander was sentenced by a court-martial to five years" suspension for going to sea in such a condition. The English government recalled the admiral who ordered, and deprived of his ship the captain who committed, this unparalleled outrage, but made no other reparation.
No words of ours could convey any adequate idea of the rage which this event excited in the people of the United States. For a time, the Federalists themselves were ready for war. There were meetings everywhere to denounce it, and especially in the Southern States, always more disposed than the Northern to begin the shedding of blood, and already the main reliance of the Republican party. Remote and rustic Abbeville, a very Republican district, was not silent on this occasion; and who so proper to draw and support the denunciatory resolutions as young Calhoun, the son of valiant Patrick, fresh from college, though now in his twenty-sixth year? The student performed this duty, as requested, and spoke so well that his neighbors at once concluded that he was the very man, lawyer as he was, to represent them in the Legislature, where for nearly thirty years his father had served them. At the next election, in a district noted for its aversion to lawyers, wherein no lawyer had ever been chosen to the Legislature, though many had been candidates, he was elected at the head of his ticket. His triumph was doubtless owing in a great degree to the paramount influence of his family. Still, even we, who knew him only in his gaunt and sad decline, can easily imagine that at twenty-six he must have been an engaging, attractive man. Like most of his race, he was rather slender, but very erect, with a good deal of dignity and some grace in his carriage and demeanor. His eyes were always remarkably fine and brilliant. He had a well-developed and strongly set nose, cheek-bones high, and cheeks rather sunken. His mouth was large, and could never have been a comely feature. His early portraits show his hair erect on his forehead, as we all remember it, unlike Jackson, whose hair at forty still fell low over his forehead.
His voice could never have been melodious, but it was always powerful.
At every period of his life, his manners, when in company with his inferiors in age or standing, were extremely agreeable, even fascinating. We have heard a well-known editor, who began life as a "page" in the Senate-chamber, say that there was no Senator whom the pages took such delight in serving as Mr. Calhoun. "Why?"--"Because he was so democratic."--"How democratic?"--"He was as polite to a page as to the President of the Senate, and as considerate of his feelings."
We have heard another member of the press, whose first employment was to report the speeches of Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, bear similar testimony to the frank, engaging courtesy of his intercourse with the corps of reporters. It is fair, therefore, to conclude that his early popularity at home was due as much to his character and manners as to his father"s name and the influence of his relatives.
He served two years in the Legislature, and in the intervals between the sessions practised law at Abbeville. At once he took a leading position in the Legislature. He had been in his seat but a few days when the Republican members, as the custom then was, met in caucus to nominate a President and Vice-President of the United States. For Mr.
Madison the caucus was unanimous, but there was a difference with regard to the Vice-Presidency, then filled by the aged George Clinton of New York, who represented the anti-Virginian wing of the party in power. Mr. Calhoun, in a set speech, opposed the renomination of Governor Clinton, on the ground that in the imminency of a war with England the Republican party ought to present an unbroken front. He suggested the nomination of John Langdon of New Hampshire for the second office. At this late day we cannot determine whether this suggestion was original with Mr. Calhoun. We only know that the caucus affirmed it, and that the nomination was afterwards tendered to Mr.
Langdon by the Republican party, and declined by him. Mr. Calhoun"s speech on this occasion was the expression of Southern opinions as to the foreign policy of the country. The South was then nearly ready for war with England, while Northern Republicans still favored Mr.
Jefferson"s non-intercourse policy. In this instance, as in so many others, we find the Slave States, which used to plume themselves upon being the conservative element in an else unrestrainable democracy, ready for war first, though far from being the worst sufferers from England"s piracy"s. We should have had _no_ war from 1782 to 1865, but for them. We also find Mr. Calhoun, in this his first utterance as a public man, the mouthpiece of his "section." He has been styled the most inconsistent of our statesmen; but beneath the palpable contradictions of his speeches, there is to be noticed a deeper consistency. Whatever opinion, whatever policy, he may have advocated, he always spoke the sense of what Mr. Sumner used to call the Southern oligarchy. If _it_ changed, _he_ changed. If he appeared sometimes to lead it, it was by leading it in the direction in which it wanted to go. He was doubtless as sincere in this as any great special pleader is in a cause in which all his powers are enlisted. Calhoun"s mind was narrow and provincial. He could not have been the citizen of a large place. As a statesman he was naturally the advocate of something special and sectional, something not the whole.
Distinguished in the Legislature, he was elected, late in 1810, by a very great majority, to represent his district in Congress. In May, 1811, he was married to a second-cousin, Floride Calhoun, who brought a considerable accession to his slender estate. November 4, 1811, he took his seat in the House of Representatives. Thus, at the early age of twenty-nine, he was fairly launched into public life, with the advantage, usually enjoyed then by Southern members, of being independent in his circ.u.mstances. Though unknown to the country, his fame had preceded him to Washington; and the Speaker, Mr. Clay, gave him a place on the Committee on Foreign Relations. This Committee, considering that Congress had been summoned a month earlier than usual for the express purpose of dealing with foreign relations, was at once the most important and the most conspicuous committee of the House.
Mr. Calhoun"s first session gave him national reputation, and made him a leader of the war party in Congress. We could perhaps say _the_ leader, since Mr. Clay was not upon the floor. After surveying the novel scene around him for six weeks, he delivered his maiden speech,--a plain, forcible, not extraordinary argument in favor of preparing for war. It was prodigiously successful, so far as the reputation of the speaker was concerned. Members gathered round to congratulate the young orator; and Father Ritchie (if he was a father then) "hailed this young Carolinian as one of the master spirits who stamp their names upon the age in which they live." This speech contains one pa.s.sage which savors of the "chivalric" taint, and indicates the provincial mind. In replying to the objection founded on the expenses of a war, he said:
"I enter my solemn protest against this low and "calculating avarice" entering this hall of legislation. It is _only fit for shops and counting-houses_, and ought not to disgrace the seat of power by its squalid aspect. Whenever it touches sovereign power, the nation is ruined. It is too short-sighted to defend itself. It is a compromising spirit, always ready to yield a part to save the residue. It is too timid to have in itself the laws of self-preservation.
Sovereign power is never safe but under the shield of honor."
This was thought very fine talk in those simple days among the simple Southern country members.
As the session progressed, Mr. Calhoun spoke frequently, and with greater effect. Wisely he never spoke. In his best efforts we see that something which we know not what to name, unless we call it _Southernism_. If it were allowable to use a slang expression, we should style the pa.s.sages to which we refer effective bosh. The most telling pa.s.sage in the most telling speech which he delivered at this session may serve to ill.u.s.trate our meaning. Imagine these short, vigorous sentences uttered with great rapidity, in a loud, harsh voice, and with energy the most intense:--
"Tie down a hero, and he feels the puncture of a pin; throw him into battle, and he is almost insensible to vital gashes. So in war. Impelled alternately by hope and fear, stimulated by revenge, depressed by shame, or elevated by victory, the people become invincible. No privation can shake their fort.i.tude; no calamity break their spirit. Even when equally successful, the contrast between the two systems is striking. War and restriction may leave the country equally exhausted; but the latter not only leaves you poor, but, even when successful, dispirited, divided, discontented, with diminished patriotism, and the morals of a considerable portion of your people corrupted. Not so in war. In that state, the common danger unites all, strengthens the bonds of society, and feeds the flame of patriotism. The national character mounts to energy. In exchange for the expenses and privations of war, you obtain military and naval skill, and a more perfect organization of such parts of your administration as are connected with the science of national defence. Sir, are these advantages to be counted as trifles in the present state of the world? Can they be measured by moneyed valuation? I would prefer a single victory over the enemy, by sea or land, to all the good we shall ever derive from the continuation of the Non-importation act. I know not that a victory would produce an equal pressure on the enemy; but I am certain of what is of greater consequence, it would be accompanied by more salutary effects to ourselves. The memory of Saratoga, Princeton, and Eutaw is immortal. It is there you will find the country"s boast and pride,--the inexhaustible source of great and heroic sentiments. But what will history say of restriction? What examples worthy of imitation will it furnish to posterity? What pride, what pleasure will our children find in the events of such times? Let me not be considered romantic. This nation ought to be taught to rely on its courage, its fort.i.tude, its skill and virtue, for protection. These are the only safeguards in the hour of danger. Man was endued with these great qualities for his defence. There is nothing about him that indicates that he is to conquer by endurance. He is not incrusted in a sh.e.l.l; he is not taught to rely upon his insensibility, his pa.s.sive suffering, for defence. No, sir; it is on the invincible mind, on a magnanimous nature, he ought to rely. Here is the superiority of our kind; it is these that render man the lord of the world. Nations rise above nations, as they are endued in a greater degree with these brilliant qualities."
This pa.s.sage is perfectly characteristic of Calhoun, whose speeches present hundreds of such inextricable blendings of truth and falsehood.
We have the written testimony of an honorable man, still living, Commodore Charles Stewart, U. S. N., that John C. Calhoun was a conscious traitor to the Union as early as 1812. In December of that year, Captain Stewart"s ship, the Const.i.tution, was refitting at the Washington Navy Yard, and the Captain was boarding at Mrs. Bushby"s, with Mr. Clay, Mr. Calhoun, and many other Republican members.
Conversing one evening with the new member from South Carolina, he told him that he was "puzzled" to account for the close alliance which existed between the Southern planters and the Northern Democracy.
"You," said Captain Stewart,
"in the South and Southwest, are decidedly the aristocratic portion of this Union; you are so in holding persons in perpetuity in slavery; you are so in every domestic quality, so in every habit in your lives, living, and actions, so in habits, customs, intercourse, and manners; you neither work with your hands, heads, nor any machinery, but live and have your living, not in accordance with the will of your Creator, but by the sweat of slavery, and yet you a.s.sume all the attributes, professions, and advantages of democracy."
Mr. Calhoun, aged thirty, replied thus to Captain Stewart, aged thirty-four:--
"I see you speak through the head of a young statesman, and from the heart of a patriot, but you lose sight of the politician and the sectional policy of the people. I admit your conclusions in respect to us Southrons. That we are essentially aristocratic, I cannot deny; but we can and do yield much to democracy. This is our sectional policy; we are from necessity thrown upon and solemnly wedded to that party, however it may occasionally clash with our feelings, for the conservation of our interests. It is through our affiliation with that party in the Middle and Western States that we hold power; but when we cease thus to control this nation through a disjointed democracy, or any material obstacle in that party which shall tend to throw us out of that rule and control, we shall then resort to the dissolution of the Union. The compromises in the Const.i.tution, under the circ.u.mstances, were sufficient for our fathers, but, under the altered condition of our country from that period, leave to the South no resource but dissolution; for no amendments to the Const.i.tution could be reached through a convention of the people under their three-fourths rule."
Probably all of our readers have seen this conversation in print before. But it is well for us to consider it again and again. It is the key to all the seeming inconsistencies of Mr. Calhoun"s career. He came up to Congress, and took the oath to support the Const.i.tution, secretly resolved to break up the country just as soon as the Southern planters ceased to control it for the maintenance of their peculiar interest. The reader will note, too, the distinction made by this young man, who was never youthful, between the "statesman" and the "politician," and between the "heart of a patriot" and "the sectional policy of the people."
Turning from his loathsome and despicable exposition to the Congressional career of Mr. Calhoun, we find no indication there of the latent traitor. He was merely a very active, energetic member of the Republican party; supporting the war by a.s.siduous labors in committee, and by intense declamation of the kind of which we have given a specimen. In all his speeches there is not a touch of greatness. He declared that Demosthenes was his model,--an orator who was a master of all the arts? all the artifices, and all the tricks by which a ma.s.s of ignorant and turbulent hearers can be kept attentive, but who has nothing to impart to a member of Congress who honestly desires to convince his equals. Mr. Calhoun"s harangues in the supposed Demosthenean style gave him, however, great reputation out of doors, while his diligence, his dignified and courteous manners, gained him warm admirers on the floor. He was a messmate of Mr. Clay at this time. Besides agreeing in politics, they were on terms of cordial personal intimacy. Henry Clay, Speaker of the House, was but five years older than Calhoun, and in everything but years much younger. Honest patriots pointed to these young men with pride and hope, congratulating each other that, though the Revolutionary statesmen were growing old and pa.s.sing away, the high places of the Republic would be filled, in due time, by men worthy to succeed them.
When the war was over, a strange thing was to be noted in the politics of the United States: the Federal party was dead, but the Republican party had adopted its opinions. The disasters of the war had convinced almost every man of the necessity of investing the government with the power to wield the resources of the country more readily; and, accordingly, we find leading Republicans, like Judge Story, John Quincy Adams, and Mr. Clay, favoring the measures which had formerly been the special rallying-cries of the Federalists. Judge Story spoke the feeling of his party when he wrote, in 1815:
"Let us extend the national authority over the whole extent of power given by the Const.i.tution. Let us have great military and naval schools, an adequate regular army, the broad foundations laid of a permanent navy, a national bank, a national bankrupt act,"
etc., etc. The strict-constructionists were almost silenced in the general cry, "Let us be a Nation." In the support of _all_ the measures to which this feeling gave rise, especially the national bank, internal improvements, and a protective tariff, Mr. Calhoun went as far as any man, and farther than most; for such at that time was the humor of the planters.
To the principle of a protective tariff he was peculiarly committed.
It had not been his intention to take part in the debates on the Tariff Bill of 1816. On the 6th of April, while he was busy writing in a committee-room, Mr. Samuel D. Ingham of Pennsylvania, his particular friend and political ally, came to him and said that the House had fallen into some confusion while discussing the tariff bill, and added, that, as it was "difficult to rally so large a body when once broken on a tax bill," he wished Mr. Calhoun would speak on the question in order to keep the House together. "What can I say?"
replied the member from South Carolina. Mr. Ingham, however, persisted, and Mr. Calhoun addressed the House. An amendment had just been introduced to leave cotton goods unprotected, a proposition which had been urged on the ground that Congress had no authority to impose any duty except for revenue. On rising to speak, Mr. Calhoun at once, and most unequivocally, committed himself to the protective principle.
He began by saying, that, _if the right to protect had not been called in question, he would not have spoken at all_. It was solely to a.s.sist in establishing _that_ right that he had been induced, without previous preparation, to take part in the debate. He then proceeded to deliver an ordinary protectionist speech; without, however, entering upon the questioner const.i.tutional right. He merely dwelt upon the great benefits to be derived from affording to our infant manufactures "immediate and ample protection." That the Const.i.tution interposed no obstacle, was a.s.sumed by him throughout. He concluded by observing, that a flourishing manufacturing interest would "bind together more closely our widely-spread republic," since
"it will greatly increase our mutual dependence and intercourse, and excite an increased attention to internal improvements,--a subject every way so intimately connected with the ultimate attainment of national strength and the perfection of our political inst.i.tutions."
He further observed, that "the liberty and union of this country are inseparable," and that the destruction of either would involve the destruction of the other. He concluded his speech with these words: "Disunion,--this single word comprehends almost the sum of our political dangers, and against it we ought to be perpetually guarded."
The time has pa.s.sed for any public man to claim credit for "consistency." A person who, after forty years of public life, can truly say that he has never changed an opinion, must be either a demiG.o.d or a fool. We do not blame Mr. Calhoun for ceasing to be a protectionist and becoming a free-trader; for half the thinking world has changed sides on that question during the last thirty years. A growing mind must necessarily change its opinions. But there _is_ a consistency from which no man, public or private, can ever be absolved,--the consistency of his statements with fact. In the year 1833, in his speech on the Force Bill, Mr. Calhoun referred to his tariff speech of 1816 in a manner which excludes him from the ranks of men of honor. He had the astonishing audacity to say:
"I am constrained in candor to acknowledge, for I wish to disguise nothing, that the protective principle was recognized by the Act of 1816. How this was overlooked at the time, it is not in my power to say. _It escaped my observation_, which I can account for only on the ground that the principle was new, and that my attention was engaged by another important subject."
The charitable reader may interpose here, and say that Mr. Calhoun may have forgotten his speech of 1816. Alas! no. He had that speech before him at the time. Vigilant opponents had unearthed it, and kindly presented a copy to the author. We do not believe that, in all the debates of the American Congress, there is another instance of flat falsehood as bad as this. It happens that the speech of 1816 and that of 1833 are both published in the same volume of the Works of Mr.
Calhoun (Vol. II. pp. 163 and 197). We advise our readers who have the time and opportunity to read both, if they wish to see how a false position necessitates a false tongue. Those who take our advice will also discover why it was that Mr. Calhoun dared to utter such an impudent falsehood: his speeches are such appallingly dull reading, that there was very little risk of a busy people"s comparing the interpretation with the text.
It was John C. Calhoun who, later in the same session, introduced the bill for setting apart the dividends and bonus of the United States Bank as a permanent fund for internal improvements. His speech on this bill, besides going all lengths in favor of the internal improvement system, presents some amusing contrasts with his later speeches on the same subject. His hearers of 1835 to 1850 must have smiled on reading in the speech of 1817 such sentences as these:--
"I am no advocate for _refined arguments_ on the Const.i.tution. The instrument was not intended as a thesis for the logician to exercise his ingenuity on. It ought to be construed with plain good-sense." "If we are restricted in the use of our money to the enumerated powers, on what principle can the purchase of Louisiana be justified?" "The uniform sense of Congress and the country furnishes better evidence of the true interpretation of the Const.i.tution than the most refined and subtle arguments."
Mark this, too:--
"In a country so extensive and so various in its interests, what is necessary for the common interest may apparently be opposed to the interest of particular sections. _It must be submitted to as the condition of our greatness_."
Well might he say, in the same speech:--
"We may reasonably raise our eyes to a most splendid future, if we only act in a manner worthy of our advantages. If, however, neglecting them, we permit a low, sordid, selfish, _sectional_ spirit to take possession of this House, this happy scene will vanish. We will divide; and, in its consequences, will follow misery and despotism."
With this speech before him and before the country, Mr. Calhoun had not the candor to avow, in later years, a complete change of opinion.
He could only go so far as to say, when opposing the purchase of the Madison Papers in 1837, that, "at his entrance upon public life, he had _inclined_ to that interpretation of the Const.i.tution which favored a lat.i.tude of powers." Inclined! He was a most enthusiastic and thorough-going champion of that interpretation. His scheme of internal improvements embraced a network of post-roads and ca.n.a.ls from "Maine to Louisiana," and a system of harbors for lake and ocean. He kindled, he glowed, at the spectacle which his imagination conjured up, of the whole country rendered accessible, and of the distant farmer selling his produce at a price not seriously less than that which it brought on the coast. On this subject he became animated, interesting, almost eloquent. And, so far from this advocacy being confined to the period of his "entrance upon political life," he continued to be its very warmest exponent as late as 1819, when he had been ten years in public life. In that year, having to report upon the condition of military roads and fortifications, his flaming zeal for a grand and general system of roads and ca.n.a.ls frequently bursts the bounds of the subject he had to treat. He tells Congress that the internal improvements which are best for peace are best for war also; and expatiates again upon his dazzling dream of "connecting Louisiana by a durable and well-finished road with Maine, and Boston with Savannah by a well-established line of internal navigation." The United States, he said, with its vast systems of lakes, rivers, and mountains, its treble line of sea-coast, its valleys large enough for empires, was "a world of itself," and needed nothing but to be rendered accessible. From what we know of the way things are managed in Congress, we should guess that he was invited to make this report for the very purpose of affording to the foremost champion of internal improvements an opportunity of lending a helping hand to pending bills.
Mr. Calhoun served six years in the House of Representatives, and grew in the esteem of Congress and the country at every session. As it is pleasing to see an old man at the theatre entering into the merriment of the play, since it shows that his heart has triumphed over the cares of life, and he has preserved a little of his youth, so is it eminently graceful in a young man to have something of the seriousness of age, especially when his conduct is even more austere than his demeanor. Mr. Clay at this time was addicted to gaming, like most of the Western and Southern members, and he was not averse to the bottle.
Mr. Webster was reckless in expenditure, fond of his ease, and loved a joke better than an argument. In the seclusion of Washington, many members lived a very gay, rollicking life. Mr. Calhoun never gambled, never drank to excess, never jested, never quarrelled, cared nothing for his ease, and tempered the gravity of his demeanor by an admirable and winning courtesy. A deep and serious ambition impelled and restrained him. Like boys at school, Clay and Webster were eager enough to get to the head of the cla.s.s, but they did not brood over it all the time, and never feel comfortable unless they were conning their spelling-book; while little Calhoun expended all his soul in the business, and had no time or heart left for play. Consequently he advanced rapidly for one of his size, and was universally pointed at as the model scholar. Accidents, too, generally favor a rising man.
Mr. Calhoun made an extremely lucky hit in 1815, which gave members the highest opinion of his sagacity. In opposing an ill-digested scheme for a national bank, he told the House that the bill was so obviously defective and unwise, that, if news of peace should arrive that day, it would not receive fifteen votes. News of peace, which was totally unexpected, did arrive that very hour, and the bill was rejected the next day by about the majority which he had predicted. At the next session, he won an immense reputation for firmness. An act was pa.s.sed changing the mode of compensating members of Congress from six dollars a day to fifteen hundred dollars a year. We were a nation of rustics then; and this harmless measure excited a disgust in the popular mind so intense and general, that most of the members who had voted for it declined to present themselves for re-election. Calhoun was one of the guilty ones. Popular as he was in his district, supported by two powerful family connections,--his own and his wife"s,--admired throughout the State as one who had done honor to it upon the conspicuous scene of Congressional debate,--even he was threatened with defeat. Formidable candidates presented themselves. In these circ.u.mstances he mounted the stump, boldly justified his vote, and defended the odious bill. He was handsomely re-elected, and when the bill was up for repeal in the House he again supported it with all his former energy. At the conclusion of his speech, a member from New York, Mr. Grosvenor, a political opponent, with whom Calhoun had not been on speaking terms for two years, sprang to his feet, enraptured, and began to express his approval of the speech in ordinary parliamentary language. But his feelings could not be relieved in that manner. He paused a moment, and then said:--
"Mr. Speaker, I will not be restrained. No barrier shall exist which I will not leap over for the purpose of offering to that gentleman my thanks for the judicious, independent, and national course which he has pursued in this House for the last two years, and particularly upon the subject now before us. Let the honorable gentleman continue with the same manly independence, aloof from party views and local prejudices, to pursue the great interests of his country, and fulfil the high destiny for which it is manifest he was born. The buzz of popular applause may not cheer him on his way, but he will inevitably arrive at a high and happy elevation in the view of his country and the world."
Such scenes as this enhance the prestige of a rising man. Members weak at home envied at once and admired a man who was strong enough to bring over his const.i.tuents to his opinion. He was fortunate, too, in this, that a triumph so striking occurred just before he left the House for another sphere of public life. He had what the actors call a splendid exit.
The inauguration of Mr. Monroe on the 4th of March, 1817, ushered in the era of good feeling, and gave to Henry Clay the first of his long series of disappointments. As Secretaries of State had usually succeeded their chiefs in the Presidency, the appointment of Mr. Adams to that office by Mr. Monroe was regarded almost in the light of a nomination to the succession. To add to Mr. Clay"s mortification, be was tendered the post of Secretary of War, which he had declined a year before, and now again declined. The President next selected General Jackson, then in the undimmed l.u.s.tre of his military renown, and still holding his Major-General"s commission. He received, however, a private notification that General Jackson would not accept a place in the Cabinet. The President then offered the post to the aged Governor Isaac Shelby of Kentucky, who had the good sense to decline it. There appear to have been negotiations with other individuals, but at length, in October, 1817, the place was offered to Mr. Calhoun, who, after much hesitation, accepted it, and entered upon the discharge of its duties in December. His friends, we are told, unanimously disapproved his going into office, as they believed him formed to shine in debate rather than in the transaction of business.
Fortune favored him again. Entering the office after a long vacancy, and when it was filled with the unfinished business of the war,--fifty million dollars of deferred claims, for one item,--he had the same easy opportunity for distinction which a steward has who takes charge of an estate just out of chancery, and under a new proprietor who has plenty of money. The sweeping up of the dead leaves, the gathering of the fallen branches, and the weeding out of the paths, changes the aspect of the place, and gives the pa.s.ser-by a prodigious idea of the efficiency of the new broom. The country was alive, too, to the necessity of coast and frontier defences, and there was much building of forts during the seven years of Mr. Calhoun"s tenure of place.
Respecting the manner in which he discharged the multifarious and unusual duties of his office, we have never heard anything but commendation. He was prompt, punctual, diligent, courteous, and firm.
The rules which he drew up for the regulation of the War Department remained in force, little changed, until the magnitude of the late contest abolished or suspended all ancient methods. The claims of the soldiers were rapidly examined and pa.s.sed upon. It was Mr. Calhoun who first endeavored to collect considerable bodies of troops for instruction at one post. He had but six thousand men in all, but he contrived to get together several companies of artillery at Fortress Monroe for drill. He appeared to take much interest in the expenditure of the ten thousand dollars a year which Congress voted for the education of the Indians. He reduced the expenses of his office, which was a very popular thing at that day. He never appointed nor removed a clerk for opinion"s sake. In seven years he only removed two clerks, both for cause, and to both were given in writing the reasons of their removal. There was no special merit in this, for at that day to do otherwise would have been deemed infamous.
Mr. Calhoun, as a member of Mr. Monroe"s Cabinet, still played the part of a national man, and supported the measures of his party without exception. Scarcely a trace of the sectional champion yet appears. In 1819, he gave a written opinion favoring the cession of Texas in exchange for Florida; the motive of which was to avoid alarming the North by the prospective increase of Slave States. In later years, Mr. Calhoun, of course, wished to deny this; and the written opinions of Mr. Monroe"s Cabinet on that question mysteriously disappeared from the archives of the State Department. We have the positive testimony of Mr. John Quincy Adams, that Calhoun, in common with most Southern men of that day, approved the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and gave a written opinion that it was a const.i.tutional measure. That he was still an enthusiast for internal improvements, we have already mentioned.
The real difficulty of the War Department, however, as of the State Department, during the Monroe administration, was a certain Major-General Andrew Jackson, commanding the Military Department of the South. The popularity of the man who had restored the nation"s self-love by ending a disastrous war with a dazzling and most unexpected victory, was something different from the respect which we all now feel for the generals distinguished in the late war. The first honors of the late war are divided among four chieftains, each of whom contributed to the final success at least one victory that was essential to it. But in 1815, among the military heroes of the war that had just closed General Jackson stood peerless and alone. His success in defending the Southwest, ending in a blaze of glory below New Orleans, utterly eclipsed all the other achievements of the war, excepting alone the darling triumphs on the ocean and the lakes. The deferential spirit of Mr. Monroe"s letters to the General, and the readiness of every one everywhere to comply with his wishes, show that his popularity, even then, const.i.tuted him a power in the Republic. It was said in later times, that "General Jackson"s popularity could stand anything," and in one sense this was true: it could stand anything that General Jackson was likely to do. Andrew Jackson could never have done a cowardly act, or betrayed a friend, or knowingly violated a trust, or broken his word, or forgotten a debt. He was always so entirely certain that he, Andrew Jackson, was in the right, his conviction on this point was so free from the least quaver of doubt, that he could always convince other men that he was right, and carry the mult.i.tude with him. His honesty, courage, and inflexible resolution, joined to his ignorance, narrowness, intensity, and liability to prejudice, rendered him at once the idol of his countrymen and the plague of all men with whom he had official connection. Drop an Andrew Jackson from the clouds upon any spot of earth inhabited by men, and he will have half a dozen deadly feuds upon his hands in thirty days.