Calhoun declined to receive it. He said he did not object that any act of the department should be known to his bitterest enemies: that he thought well of all about him, and did not desire to change his opinion; and all that he regretted was, that if there was any one near him who desired to communicate anything to any member, he did not ask for his permission, which he would freely have given. He felt conscious he was doing his duty, and dreaded no attack. In fact, he felt no wish that these attacks should be discontinued. He knew how difficult it was to reform longstanding and inveterate abuses, and he used the assaults on the department and the army as the means of reconciling the officers, who might be profiting by them, to the measures he had adopted for their correction, and to enlist them heartily in co-operating with him in their correction, as the most certain means of saving the establishment and themselves. To this cause, and to the strong sense of justice which he exhibited on all occasions, by the decided support he gave to all who did their duty, and his no less decided discharge of his duty against all who neglected or omitted it, is to be attributed the fact that he carried through so thorough a reform, where there was so much disorder and abuse, with a popularity constantly increasing with the army. Never did a secretary leave a department with more popularity or a greater degree of attachment and devotion on the part of those connected with it than he did.

In addition to the ordinary duties of the department, he made many and able reports on the subject of our Indian affairs, on the reduction of the army, on internal improvements, and others. He revived the Military Academy, which he found in a very disordered state, and left it if great perfection; he caused a minute and accurate survey to be made of the military frontier, inland and maritime, and projected, through an able board of engineers, a plan for their defence. In conformity with this plan, he commenced a system of fortification, and made great progress in its execution, and he established a cordon of military posts from the lakes around our northwestern and southwestern frontiers to the Gulf of Mexico. Another measure remains to be noticed, which will be regarded in aftertimes as one of the most striking and useful, although it has heretofore attracted much less attention than it deserves. In organizing the medical department, Mr. Calhoun, with those enlarged views and devotion to science which have ever characterized him, directed the surgeons at all the military posts extending over our vast country, to report accurately to the surgeon-general at Washington every case of disease, its character, its treatment, and the result, and also to keep a minute register of the weather, the temperature, the moisture, and the winds, to be reported in like manner to the surgeon-general. To enable them to comply with the order, he directed the surgeons at the various posts to be furnished with thermometers, barometers, and hygrometers, and the surgeon-general from time to time to publish the result of their observations in condensed reports, which were continued during the time he remained in the war department. The result has been, a vast mass of valuable facts, connected with the diseases and the climate of our widely-extended country, collected through the long period of nearly a quarter of a century. They have been recently collected and published in two volumes by Dr. Samuel Forney, of the United States army. The one is entitled "Medical Statistics," and the other "The Climate of the United States," in which many interesting facts are disclosed relative to the diseases and climate of the different portions of our country. This example has been already followed by England, on a still more enlarged scale, and will doubtless be imitated by all civilized nations, and will in time lead to most interesting discoveries in the sciences of medicine and meteorology generally. The honour of taking the first

step in this important matter, and the discoveries to which it will lead, will, under the enlightened policy of Mr. Calhoun, belong to our country. During the second term of Mr. Monroe's administration, the names of six candidates were presented to the people of the United States for the presidential office, Mr. Adams, Mr. Crawford, General Jackson, Mr. Clay, Mr. Lowndes, and Mr. Calhoun. The names of the two latter had beer brought forward, the former by South Carolina, and the latter by Penn sylvania, and both nearly at the same time, without its being known tc either that it was intended. They were warm and intimate friends, and had been so almost from their first acquaintance. They had both entered Congress at the same time, and had rarely ever differed in opinion on any political subject. Mr. Lowndes was a few years the oldest, and the first nominated. Mr. Calhoun's nomination followed almost immediately after. As soon as he heard of it, he called on Mr. L., and stated that it had been made without his knowledge or solicitation, and that he called to say that he hoped the position in which they had been placed by their friends towards each other would not affect their private and friendly relations. That he would regard it as a great misfortune should such be the effect, and was determined on his part to do everything to avoid it. Mr. Lowndes heartily reciprocated the same sentiment. It is unnecessary to state that they faithfully adhered to their resolution; and these two distinguished citizens of the same state, and nearly of the same age, set the noble and rare example of being placed by friends as rivals for the highest office in the gift of a great people, without permitting their mutual esteem and friendship to be impaired.

But, unfortunately for themselves, and, it may be said, for the country, the same harmony of feeling was not preserved between Mr. Calhoun and another of the candidates, Mr. Crawford. They had been long acquainted, and although residing in different states, they lived but a short distance apart, and had been long on friendly terms. It is difficult to trace the chain of causes by which they and their friends were brought into collision. Mr. Calhoun supported decidedly Mr. Monroe in his first election, when Mr. Crawford's name had been brought forward in opposi tion to him. He had acted as chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations, while Mr. Monroe was Secretary of State, during Mr. Madison's time, and had, from his frequent and intimate intercourse with him, formed a high estimate of his character for honesty, fidelity, and patriotism, to which, adding his sound judgment, long public service and experience, his age, and revolutionary claims, it was natural, without disparaging the high qualifications of Mr. Crawford, he should give him the preference. Mr. Crawford's friends relied on a Congressional caucus for a nomination, to which Mr. Calhoun was opposed, and against which he long stood out with the leading friends of Mr. Monroe in Congress. They finally assented reluctantly to go into one, to avoid a split in the party. Mr. Monroe was nominated by a small majority, when, in the opinion of his friends, the majority of the people was overwhelming in his favour. It is not extraordinary that he and many of his other friends, with this impression, should have been confirmed in their objections to a caucus nomination, as calculated to be influenced by improper considerations, and thus, instead of concentrating the will of the people, as it was originally intended to do, becoming capable of being made the instrument of defeating it, and of imposing on the country a President not of its choice.

When Mr. Crawford's friends brought forward his name the second time, they again relied on a caucus; while the friends of all the other candidates were in favour of leaving the election to a direct appeal to the sense of the people, as they all belonged to one party, and professed the

same political creed. With his decided impression against a caucus, strengthened, as has been stated, by what occurred at the first election of Mr. Monroe, it is not at all surprising that Mr. Calhoun's friends should take a prominent stand against another appeal to a Congressional caucus: that, together with the latent feelings on both sides (of which both were perhaps unconscious), growing out of the stand he made in favour of Mr. Monroe and against Mr. Crawford, probably led to the regretted division between their friends, which continued, as usual, long after the cause had ceased, with such mischievous influence on the politics of the country and the party to which both belonged.

Time and experience have decided against a Congressional caucus; but it must be admitted, looking back to the scenes of that day, that much might be said for and against it. It is certainly highly desirable that the people should act directly in voting for a President, uninfluenced by the address and management of powerful combinations of individuals acting through a small body, and who, in making a nomination, may respect their own interest and feelings much more than the voice of the people, or even the party they represent. But, on the other hand, without the intermediate agency of some such body in so large a country, and with so many prominent citizens from which to make a selection, the danger of discord in the ranks of the majority, and, through it, of the triumph of a minority in the election, is great. The chance is between discord with all its consequences, and the dictation of party leaders with all its effects. Each is pregnant with mischief. It is the weak point of the government, and unless it be guarded with the utmost vigilance, must end, on the one hand, in interminable confusion, or, on the other, in rendering the election by the people merely nominal. Without such vigilance, the real election would degenerate into the dictation of caucus. It was on this difficult point that the friends of these two distinguished citizens split, and it is left to time and experience yet to decide which were right.

In the progress of the canvass the talented and lamented Lowndes died, in the prime of life, and Mr. Calhoun's friends in Pennsylvania, with his acquiescence, withdrew his name, rather than subject the state to a violent contest between them and the friends of General Jackson. They had maintained throughout the canvass the most friendly relations, and were both decidedly opposed to the caucus. On his withdrawal, he was taken up by the friends both of General Jackson and Mr. Adams for the Vicepresidency.

This memorable canvass terminated in returning General Jackson, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Crawford to the House of Representatives, from which three, by the provisions of the Constitution, one was to be elected. The electoral votes received by each stood in the order in which their names are placed. Mr. Calhoun was elected by the people Vice-president by a large majority. The House, voting by states, on the first ballot elected Mr. Adams. Mr. Clay, who was then a member of the body, voted for him, against, as it was believed, the sense of a majority of his constituents. That impression, connected with his previous relations, personal and political, with Mr. Adams, caused much excitement, and a strong determination on the part of many to organize forthwith an opposition to the new administration. Mr. Calhoun discountenanced an immediate move, on the ground that, although, in his opinion, the vote belonged to the state, and should be given to the candidate the state would elect if left to its choice, yet he was not prepared to say whether there might not be circumstances under which a member might assume the high responsibility of voting otherwise, and, for the justification of his conduct, throw himself on the state; but he thought it indispensable that the member as

suming it should make out a strong case, and that he would owe it to himself and the country to place his relations and conduct towards the ad ministration of him whom he had elected above all suspicion. His advice induced his friends to wait the development of events; but when Mr. Clay afterward took office, and Mr. Adams adopted, in its full extent, Mr. Clay's American System, opposition to the administration from himself and his friends followed as a matter of course.

CHAPTER IV.

Including the Period during which he was Vice-president.

MR. CALHOUN took his seat in the Senate as Vice-president on the 4th of March, 1825, having remained in the war department a few months more than seven years. There never was a department left in more perfect order. It literally almost moved of itself. When he took charge of the department, it was difficult to discharge its duties with less than fourteen or fifteen hours of severe daily labour; but when he left it, the secretary had little to do beyond signing his name and deciding on such cases as were brought up by the subordinate officers, and were not embraced in the numerous and comprehensive rules provided for their government. He had not, indeed, been long in office before those who doubted his execu tive talents were disposed to place them even above his parliamentary, great as they were acknowledged to be. He united, in a remarkable degree, quickness with precision, firmness with patience and courtesy, and industry with the higher capacity for arrangement and organization; and to these he added exemption from favouritism, a high sense of justice and inflexible devotion to duty. Taken together, they formed a combination so fortunate, that General Bernard, who had been a favourite aid-de-camp of the Emperor Napoleon, and saw and knew much of him, and who was chief of the board of engineers while Mr. Calhoun was secretary, and had an equal opportunity of observing him, not unfrequently, it is said, compared his administrative talents to those of that extraordinary man.

The duties of the office of Vice-president, though it is one of high dignity, are limited, except giving a casting vote when the body is equally divided, to presiding in the Senate, which, in a body so small and courteous, and having so few and simple rules, affords but little opportunity for the display even of the peculiar talents necessary for Presidency in a deliberative body. The most eminent in filling such an office cannot leave much behind worth remembering. It is sufficient to say of him, that, as a presiding officer, he was impartial, prompt, methodical, and attentive to his duties. He always appeared and took his seat early in the session, and continued to preside till within a short time of its close; contrary to the practice of some of his immediate predecessors, who, by their long and frequent absence from their seat, had permitted the office to fall into some discredit. He was careful in preserving the dignity of the Senate, and raising its influence and weight in the action of the government. In putting questions, he changed the form of address from "Gentlemen" to the more simple and dignified address of "Senators," which has since been preserved, and adopted by the senators themselves in alluding to each other in debate. But the most important and memorable incident connected with the discharge of his duty as the presiding officer, and the most characteristic of the man, was the stand he took in favour of the rights of the body itself, and against his own power. He

decided, during a period of great excitement on the Panama Question, when party spirit ran high, and the debate was very warm and personal, that he had no right to call a senator to order for words spoken in debate. He rested his decision on the broad ground that, as the presiding officer, he had no power but to carry into effect the rules adopted by the body, either expressly or by usage, and that there was neither rule nor usage to authorize him to exercise the power in question. On the contrary, the rules of the Senate, by strong implication, limited the power of calling to order for words spoken in debate to the members themselves, to the exclusion of the presiding officer. And yet this decision, resting on so solid a foundation, subjected Mr. Calhoun to the fiercest attacks and the grossest abuse; and, what is more extraordinary, he was opposed by the members themselves, whose rights he maintained, with the exception of Mr. Macon, Mr. Tazewell, and a few others of the elder and more experienced, and his immediate personal friends. To understand how this should happen, it is necessary to advert to the existing state of the parties, and the circumstances under which the decision was made.

The circumstances under which Mr. Adams was elected, the part which Mr. Clay took in his election, and the prominent position to which he was appointed in his cabinet, laid the foundation of the opposition which finally overthrew his administration. This opposition was greatly strengthened by the bold Federal and consolidation doctrines avowed by Mr. Adams in his inaugural address, and by the wild measures of policy which he recommended. Among these was the project of sending commissioners to the Congress proposed to be convened at Panama of all the states that had grown up on the overthrow of the Spanish dominions on this Continent. This was a favourite measure of the administration. Mr. Calhoun was understood to be decidedly opposed to it, both on the ground. of unconstitutionality and inexpediency; and it was on that question that the first attack was made on the administration. It commenced in the Senate; and, as he had not disguised his disapprobation, he was regarded in a great measure as the adviser and author of the attack, which, of course, subjected him to the fierce and united assaults of the administration and its friends. At the same time, the opposition in the Senate, though united against the administration, and its doctrines and policy, consisted of individuals who had but a short time before held political relations with men far from being friendly. They consisted of the friends of Mr. Crawford, General Jackson, Mr. Calhoun, and such portion of Mr. Clay's as disapproved of his connexion with Mr. Adams. With the ex

ception of his own friends, and those of General Jackson, there was no indisposition, on the part of a large portion of the rest of the opposition, to see him sacrificed by the party in power. But as difficult and critical as was his position, it could not prevent him from a manly avowal of his opinion on a novel, and what he believed to be an important question, or from exposing himself to hazard when principle and duty required him to assert the rights of the body, though against his own power. But what added greatly to the excitement and abuse was the particular occasion upon which the decision was made. Mr. Randolph was then a member of the Senate, and gave full vent to his inimitably sarcastic power against the administration, and especially against the President and the Secretary of State, and their supporters in the body. It was too keenly felt by the last to permit them to do justice to the grounds on which Mr. Calhoun placed his decision, and the occasion was too favourable to be permitted to pass without a formal attack on him. A writer of great power (supposed to be the President himself) attacked his decision with much acrimony, under the signature of Patrick Henry. Finding it impossible