decided by the political leaders, friendly to both Jackson and Calhoun, that the latter should succeed the former in the Presidency. It was then well understood, even among the managers, that General Jackson was opposed to a second term, and the arrangement made at Harrisburg was taken as the best possible relief to a somewhat difficult condition of affairs. In four years the way would be clear and short for Mr. Calhoun. It was this that induced his friend, George M. Dallas, to withdraw his name for the Presidency, and propose the arrangement made by the convention.

Mr. Calhoun was easily elected, and his future advancement appeared certain. In March, 1825, he entered upon his duties as Vice-President, but his success in that office was not not very decided. decided. The election of Mr. Adams put off the consummation of his desires to a more remote and doubtful period. The best of plans among mice and men may miscarry. General Jackson was obliged to be President, and, of course, all that Mr. Calhoun could still do was to take the second place. He was readily re-elected in 1828, but he had reached the top of his ladder. His chances were gone forever. Political issues were changing; and it was gradually becoming apparent that Mr. Calhoun was drifting from the positions he was supposed at the North to occupy. The qualities of

the statesman were giving way before those of the impracticable sectional leader. His conflict with General Jackson greatly accelerated his downward movement, although it was then, and always has been, quite clear that the right was on his side.

Political busy-bodies were whispering mischief in

the vindictive and ignorant old man's ears. Mr. Crawford was unfortunately not yet dead, and it was in his heart to do what he could to check the career of a rival who had already so far distanced himself.

At a banquet given with the design of honoring Thomas Jefferson, on the 13th of April, 1830, in the full understanding that Mr. Calhoun was going to make it the occasion to announce his new false doctrine, General Jackson was led to give utterance to his memorable words, "Our Federal Union: it must be preserved."

This was unexpected, and from such a source would have caused a less bold man to hesitate, but Mr. Calhoun followed with his almost equally famous, but insidious "toast:"

:

"The Union next to Liberty, the most dear may we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States, and distributing equally the benefit and burden of the Union."

President Jackson, aware of the nullification designs of this meeting, had dealt Mr. Calhoun's sentiment a death-blow in advance, but even without this blow or anything that followed from the same source, the dangerous sentiment of itself startled the North, and at once dispelled his prospects of ever reaching the White House.

Of this affair, Thomas H. Benton, at different times the friend and deadly enemy of General Jackson, wrote:

"The toast touched all the tender parts of the new question, liberty before Union, only to be preserved, State rights, inequality of burdens and benefits. These phrases, connecting themselves with Hayne's speech, and with proceedings and pub

lications in South Carolina, unveiled nullification as a new and distinct doctrine in the United States, with Mr. Calhoun as its apostle, and a new party in the field of which he was the leader. The proceedings of the day put an end to all doubts about the justice of Mr. Webster's grand peroration, and revealed to the public mind the fact of an actual design tending to dissolve the Union."

Only a few weeks after this event Mr. Crawford wrote a letter to John Forsyth, in which he revealed the fact that Mr. Calhoun was the member of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet who favored the punishment of General Jackson for his outrageous conduct in Florida. The General sent a copy of the letter to Mr. Calhoun, and asked an explanation. The Vice-President made a manly reply at great length, when nobody would have questioned his right, or even the propriety of his declining to make the affairs of Mr. Monroe's private council matter of public controversy. And, at all events, the point which Mr. Crawford had meanly and unwisely revealed was, in itself, of no importance. No other President of the United States could have been guilty of attaching any importance to it. The members of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet had not only the right to entertain whatever opinions they believed just, but also to insist on carrrying them out if that appeared advisable for the country's good. Then, besides, Mr. Adams was the only member of that Administration who did approve or attempt to palliate Jackson's Florida business; and the General's notice of the matter in any way was unworthy of the position he held, and to no extent the act of a great man.

In the summer of 1830, Mr. Crawford wrote to John Quincy Adams, whose enemy he had always been, for information touching the meetings of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet in 1818, bearing on the conduct of Jackson in

the Seminole War. In January, 1831, Mr. Calhoun wrote to Mr. Adams for the purpose of drawing from him a statement on the same subject, which should be of benefit to him in his struggle with General Jackson. Both of these men had also written to William Wirt and Mr. Southard for a statement on the subject, and Mr. Crawford succeeded in drawing from W. B. Crowninshield a letter not very praiseworthy to Mr. Crowninshield, inasmuch as he was not in any of the Cabinet meetings of that time.

Mr. Calhoun pressed the matter upon Mr. Adams's notice by several letters, and, finally, through the hands of another, conveyed to Mr. Adams some of Crawford's letters, and those passed between the President and himself on the subject. Mr. Adams finally prepared an answer, and, on the 16th of February, 1831, Mr. Calhoun published a pamphlet containing the letters of Jackson and himself, and a strong defense of himself.

Crawford answered this, and then Mr. Calhoun issued a supplement to his pamphlet; and so this contemptible quarrel went on. But the conduct of Mr. Adams in the case greatly warmed up Mr. Calhoun's old feelings of respect for him, and the result was a meeting between them, proposed by Mr. Calhoun, at Mr. Adams's house. Mr. Calhoun there thought it proper to apologize, for the first time, for declining with his wife to dine with Mr. Adams during the winter of his discontent, the last of his Presidency.

In September, 1831, Mr. Adams put on record this opinion of Mr. Calhoun, in striking contrast with one he had written years before :

"Mr. Calhoun was a member of Mr. Monroe's Administration, and during its early part pursued a course from which I antici

pated that he would prove an ornament and a blessing to his country. I have been deeply disappointed in him, and now expect nothing from him but evil. His personal relations with me have been marked, on his part, with selfish and cold-blooded heartlessness. Yet, in his controversies of last winter, I sustained him as far as truth would warrant against the profligate falsehoods of Crawford. Since the publication of my Fourth of July oration he has published what he calls his views of nullification, but has not been explicit in his exposition of them. I propose, by sending him my two discourses, to give him an opportunity, if he pleases, to discuss with me the question on which we so essentially differ."

Early in the winter of 1832 Mr. Calhoun resigned the Vice-Presidency, and, on the 4th of January, 1833, took the seat in the United States Senate to which he had been elected. He mainly supported the acts of the opposition to the Administration, and even took the name of Whig, assumed by the National Republicans. He sided with Mr. Clay in the tariff compromise, giving strength to the measure in the quarter where it was most needed. But he opposed the “Enforcement Bill," and, in his speech against it, fairly announced his nullification creed.

In the spring of 1843, he resigned his seat in the Senate, and went into retirement. But just But just a year afterwards he was appointed and confirmed as Secretary of State in the Cabinet of John Tyler, where he had the pleasure of taking a conspicuous part in the annexation of Texas.

South Carolina had announced him for the Presidency, but this was all in vain; that dream had passed away. Soon after the inauguration of President Polk, Mr. Calhoun again entered the Senate to fill a short vacancy, and in 1846, was re-elected for a full term.

But his political fortunes were now broken, and