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He continued but a short time at the bar. While he was yet a student, after his return from Litchfield to Abbeville, an incident occurred which agitated the whole Union, and contributed to give to Mr. Calhoun's life, at that early period, the political direction which it has ever since kept-the attack of the English frigate Leopard on the American frigate Chesapeake. It led to public meetings all over the Union, in which resolutions were passed expressive of the indignation of the people, and their firm resolve to stand by the government in whatever measure it might think proper to adopt to redress the outrage. At that called in his native district, he was appointed one of the committee to prepare a report and resolutions to be presented to a meeting to be convened to receive them on an appointed day. Mr. Calhoun was requested by the committee to prepare them, which he did so much to their satisfaction, that he was appointed to address the meeting on the occasion before the vote was taken on the resolutions. The meeting was large, and it was the first time he had ever appeared before the public. He acquitted himself with such success that his name was presented as a candidate for the state Legislature at the next election. He was elected at the head of the ticket, and at a time when the prejudice against lawyers was so strong in the district that no one of the profession who had offered for many years previously had ever succeeded. This was the commencement of his political life, and the first evidence he ever received of the confidence of the people of the state-a confidence which has continued ever since constantly increasing, without interruption or reaction, for the third of a century; and which, for its duration, universality, and strength, may be said to be without a parallel in any other state, or in the case of any other public man.

He served two sessions in the state Legislature. It was not long after he took his seat before he distinguished himself. Early in the session an informal meeting of the Republican portion of the members was called to nominate candidates for the places of President and Vice-president of the United States. Mr. Madison was nominated for the presidency without opposition. When the nomination for the vice-presidency was presented, Mr. Calhoun embraced the occasion to present his opinion in reference to coming events, as bearing on the nomination. He reviewed the state of the relations between the United States and Great Britain and France, the two great belligerents which were then struggling for mastery, and in their struggle trampling on the rights of neutrals, and especially ours; he touched on the restrictive system which had been resorted to by the government to protect our rights, and expressed his doubt of its efficacy, and the conviction that a war with Great Britain would be unavoidable. "It was," he said, "in this state of things, of the utmost importance that the ranks of the Republican party should be preserved undisturbed and unbroken by faction or discord." He then adverted to the fact, that a discontented portion of the party had given unequivocal evidence of rallying round the name of the venerable vice-president, George Clinton (whose re-nomination was proposed), and of whom he spoke highly; but he gave it as his opinion, that should he be nominated and re-elected, he would become the nucleus of all the discontented portion of the party, and thus make a formidable division in its ranks should the country be forced into war. These persons, he predicted, would ultimately rally under De Witt Clinton, the nephew, whom he described as a man of distinguished talents and aspiring disposition. To avoid the danger, he suggested for nomination the name of John Langdon, of New-Hampshire, of whom he spoke highly both as to talents and patriotism.

It was Mr. Calhoun's first effort in a public capacity. The manner and matter excited great applause; and when it is recollected that these remarks preceded the declaration of war more than three years, and how events happened according to his anticipations, it affords a striking proof of that sagacity, at so early a period, for which he has since been so much distinguished. It at once gave him a stand among the most distinguished members of the Legislature.

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During the short period he remained a member, he originated and carried through several measures, which proved in practice to be salutary, and have become a permanent portion of the legislation of the state.

CHAPTER II.

Including the period from his entering Congress until his appointment as Secretary of War.

In the mean time, the growing difficulties in our foreign relations, especially with Great Britain, impressed the community at large with the belief that war with that formidable power was approaching. The impression naturally turned the attention of the people, in selecting candidates for Congress, to those whom they believed to be the most competent to serve them at so trying a period. The eyes of the congressional district in which Mr. Calhoun resided were turned towards him, and he was elected by an overwhelming majority over his opponent. This was in the fall of 1810, and he took his seat in the councils of the nation a year afterward, in the first session of the twelfth Congress, known as the war session, with his two distinguished colleagues, Mr. Cheves and Mr. Lowndes, who, like himself, had been elected in reference to the critical condition of the country. His reputation had preceded him, and he was placed second on the Committee of Foreign Relations, which, in the existing state of our relations with the two great belligerents, was regarded as the most important of the committees, and was, accordingly, filled by members selected in reference to the magnitude of its duties. The other distinguished individuals who composed it were Peter B. Porter, the chairman, and Felix Grundy, of Tennessee, on the Republican side, and John Randolph and Philip Barton Key on the other. It was, indeed, an eventful period of our history, and the duties which it imposed on the committee were of the most difficult and responsible character.

It is not easy, at this day, to estimate the magnitude of the crisis. Our present government had its origin just preceding the commencement of the great Revolution in France, which, in its progress, involved her in a war without example or parallel in the history of the world, taking into estimate its cause, extent, duration, the immensity of force brought into conflict, the skill which directed it, the variety and magnitude of its incidents, and the importance of the stake at issue. England was the great antagonist power to France in this mighty struggle, whose shocks reached even our distant shores. From the beginning, our mutual rights were invaded by both sides, and our peace endangered; but so recently had our government been established, so hazardous was it to put it to the test of war, and especially in such a struggle, and so advantageous to our commerce and prosperity was our position as a neutral power, while all Europe was at war, that it became the fixed policy of the government to preserve peace and bear wrongs, so long as the one could be preserved and the other endured without sacrificing the honour and independence of the country. This pacific and wise policy was, with some slight exceptions, steadily pursued for more than fifteen years. At length came the Berlin and Milan Decrees on the part of France, and the hostile orders in council on the part of England, which forced on our government the embargo and other restrictive measures, adopted from an anxious desire of preserving peace, and in the hope of obtaining respect for our rights from one or other of the two belligerents. Experience soon proved how impotent these measures were, and how fallacious was our hope. The encroachments on our rights and independence continued to advance, till England at length pushed her aggressions so far that our commerce was reduced to a state of dependance as complete as when we were her colonies, and our ships were converted, at the same time, into a recruiting-ground

to man her navy. Not a vessel of ours was permitted to reach Europe but through her ports, and more than 3000 of our hardy seamen were impressed into her service, to fight battles in which they had no interest. Our independence, as far as the ocean was concerned, had become an empty name; but so hazardous was it to take up arms in the unprepared state of the country, and to be drawn into a struggle apparently so fearful and interminable between the two first powers on earth, that the stoutest and boldest might well have paused at taking the step.

It was in such a crisis of our affairs that Mr. Calhoun took his seat in Congress. To him it was not unexpected. He had little confidence from the beginning in the peaceful measures resorted to for the redress of our wrongs, and saw beforehand that the final alternatives would be war or submission, and had deliberately made up his mind, that to lose independence, and to sink down into a state of acknowledged inferiority, depending for security on forbearance, and rot on our capacity and disposition to defend ourselves, would be the worst calamity which could befall the country. According to his opinion, the ability of the government to defend the country against external danger, and to cause its rights to be respected from without, was as essential as protection against violence within, and that, if it should prove incompetent to meet successfully the hazard of a just and necessary war, it would fail in one of the two great objects for which it was instituted, and that the sooner it was known the better. With these fixed opinions, his voice, on taking his seat, was for the most decisive

course.

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The President's Message, at the opening of the session, was, in its general features, warlike, and yet there were expressions of an ambiguous character, which led many to doubt what course of policy was really intended by the administration. The portion which related to our affairs with other powers was referred to the Committee of Foreign Relations. The excitement in the country was intense, and party spirit never ran higher. All eyes were turned on the proceedings of the committee. They reported, at an early period of the session, resolutions strongly recommending immediate and extensive preparations to defend our rights and redress our wrongs by an appeal to arms. debate was opened by the chairman, Mr. Porter, and he was followed on the same side by Mr. Grundy. It was allotted to Mr. Calhoun to follow Mr. Randolph, who, on the opposite side, succeeded Mr. Grundy in an able and eloquent speech. The discussion from the beginning excited profound interest, both in the body and the crowded audience daily assembled in the lobby and galleries, and this interest had increased as the discussion advanced. It was Mr. Calhoun's first speech in Congress, except a few brief remarks on the Apportionment Bill. The trial was a severe one; expectation was high. The question was of the greatest magnitude, and he to whom he had to reply, a veteran statesman of unsurpassed eloquence. How he acquitted himself, the papers of the day will best attest. The remarks of the Richmond Enquirer, then, as now, a leading journal on the Republican side, may be taken as an example. Mr. Ritchie, in his remarks on the speeches, after characterizing Mr. Randolph's, said: "Mr. Calhoun is clear and precise in his reasoning, marching up directly to the object of his attack, and felling down the errors of his opponent with the club of Hercules; not eloquent in his tropes and figures, but, like Fox, in the moral elevation of his sentiments; free from personality, yet full of those fine touches of indignation, which are the severest cut to the man of feeling. His speech, like a fine drawing, abounds in those lights and shades which set off each other the cause of his country is robed in light, while her opponents are wrapped in darkness. It were a contracted wish that Mr. Calhoun were a Virginian; though, after the quota she has furnished with opposition talents, such a wish might be forgiven us. We beg leave to participate, as Americans and friends of our country, in the honours of South Carolina. We hail this young

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Carolinian as one of the master-spirits who stamp their names upon the age in which they live."

When Mr. Calhoun sat down, he was greeted by the great body of the party for his successful effort, and thenceforward took rank with the ablest and most influential members of the body. But, as clear as it appeared to him that the period had arrived when a resort to arms could no longer be avoided without sacrificing the honour and interest of the country, such was far from being the feeling of many, even of the Republican members of the body. Many, who saw the necessity, hesitated; some from the great hazard of war, others from the want of preparation, or the difficulty of selecting between the belligerents, when both had so grossly violated our rights; and not a few from a lingering confidence in the Non-importation Act, and other restrictive measures, as the means of redressing our wrongs. Mr. Calhoun, although he approved of the motive which had led to a resort to those measures in the first instance, and regarded them as wise temporary expedients, never had any confidence in them as instruments of avenging or redressing the wrongs of the country. Believing that they had accomplished all they ever could, and that a latent attachment to them was one of the principal impediments to a resort to arms, he did not hesitate to attack the whole system.

To realize the boldness and hazard of such a step, it must be borne in mind that the support or opposition to the system had been for many years the main test of party fidelity, and that party spirit was never higher than at the time. But as strongly as he was attached to the administration, to the Republican party, and their general policy, and opposed as he was to the Federalists, he did not hesitate, young as he was, when he believed duty and the interest of the country required it, to place himself above all party considerations, and to expose manfully the defects of a system which had been so long cherished and defended by the party to which he belonged. The following extracts from a speech delivered against it will give in his own language some of the most prominent objections which he urged against the system, and afford, at the same time, a fair specimen of his powers of reasoning and eloquence at that early period, and of the lofty and patriotic sentiments which actuated him in the line of policy that he advocated.

"The restrictive system," he said, "as a mode of resistance, or as a means of obtaining redress, has never been a favourite one with me. I wish not to censure the motives which dictated it, or attribute weakness to those who first resorted to it for a restoration of our rights. But, sir, I object to the restrictive system because it does not suit the genius of the people, or that of our government, or the geographical character of our country. We are a people essentially active; I may say we are pre-eminently so. No passive system can -suit such a people; in action superior to all others, in patient endurance inferior to none. Nor does it suit the genius of our government. Our government is founded on freedom, and hates coercion. To make the restrictive system effective, requires the most arbitrary laws. England, with the severest penal statutes, has not been able to exclude prohibited articles; and Napoleon, with all his power and vigilance, was obliged to resort to the most barbarous laws to enforce his Continental system."

After showing how the whole mercantile community must become corrupt by the temptations and facilities for smuggling, and how the public opinion of the commercial community (upon which the system must depend for its enforcement) becomes opposed to it, and gives sanction to its violation, he proceeds

"But there are other objections to the system. It renders government odious. The farmer inquires why he gets no more for his produce, and he is told it is owing to the embargo, or commercial restrictions. In this he sees only the hand of his own government, and not the acts of violence and injustice which this system is intended to counteract. His censures fall on the govern

ment. This is an unhappy state of the public mind; and even, I might say, in a government resting essentially on public opinion, a dangerous one. In war it is different. Its privation, it is true, may be equal or greater; but the public mind, under the strong impulses of that state of things, becomes steeled against sufferings. The difference is almost infinite between the passive and active state of the mind. 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 fortitude; 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 on 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 fortitude, 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 shell; he is not taught to rely upon his insensibility, his passive 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. It is the destiny of his condition that nations rise above nations, as they are endued in a greater degree with these brilliant qualities."

But this is not the only instance in which Mr. Calhoun, at this early stage of his public life, manifested a spirit above party influence or control, that spirit which he has so often since exhibited, when duty and patriotism demanded it. No one appreciates more highly the value of party ties within proper limits, or adheres more firmly to his party within them, than he does. He never permits them to influence him beyond those necessary limits. Acting accordingly, he did not hesitate to give his cordial and warm support to a bill for the increase of the navy, reported by his able and distinguished colleague, who was then chairman of the Naval Committee, although, at and previous to that time, the great body of the Republican party was and had been opposed to it. It was owing to the decided support which it received from Mr. Cheeves, Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Lowndes, and Mr. Clay, and its brilliant achievements afterward (even then confidently anticipated by them), that it has since become with the whole Union the favourite arm of defence.

As prominent as was the situation of Mr. Calhoun at the commencement of this eventful session, as the second on the most important committee, it became

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