Calhoun

“ The once proud planter stays within doors—pacing from room to room, or around, the enclosed corridor—bending beneath a weight of woe, that has broken down his pride, and threatens to break his heart. Even strong paternal affection, cruelly bereaved, can scarce account for the groans, oft accompanied by muttered curses, that are heard to issue from his lips!
Calhoun rides abroad as of yore; making his appearance only at the hours of eating and sleeping, and not regularly then. ”

“ Calhoun sees that it is held there, and by the bridle-rein,—that, dragged over the pommel of the saddle, has become entangled around the stem of a mezquite!
“Caught at last! Thank God—thank God!”
He can scarce restrain himself from shout of triumph, as he spurs forward to the spot. He is only withheld by the fear of being heard from behind.
In another instant, he is by the side of the Headless Horseman—that spectral shape he has so long vainly pursued! ”

“ Is nothing left to your judgment? Do you say to me that if he keeps the freedom such as he has enjoyed, you'd punish him? Must the governor be as ruthless as his master? Look, your honour, I wouldn't impose that command—not till I'd taken his advice about the Maroons anyway. There's trouble brewing, and Mr. Calhoun knows it. He has warned you through the provost-marshal. I'd heed his warning, your honour, or it may injure your reputation as a ruler. No, I'd see myself in nethermost hell before I'd meddle with Mr. Calhoun. He's a dangerous man, when he's moved. ”

“ Poindexter drops from his saddle, and hastens up to the hut—close followed by Calhoun. Both go inside.
“Louises what means this? A wounded man! Is it he—Henry?”
Before an answer can be given, his eye falls upon a cloak and hat—Henry’s!
“It is; he’s alive! Thank heaven!” He strides towards the couch.
The joy of an instant is in an instant gone. The pale face upon the pillow is not that of his son. The father staggers back with a groan.
Calhoun seems equally affected. But the cry from him is an exclamation of horror; after which he slinks cowed-like out of the cabin. ”

“ Calhoun’s private character is pure and spotless. He never had any vicious habit of any sort, nor indulged in any vice. There are very few such public men in this nation, or even in this world, and there is no better one anywhere. Whether he belongs to any church, I do not know but that he practises all the christian virtues is certain. His hair is grey, but his step is strong and elastic, and his body like his mind is as strong and as active as it ever was. ”

“ He now received his final instructions from Morgan and Breckinridge.
It did not take Calhoun long to see that while these gentlemen were willing to use the order, they had the utmost contempt for it. All nations use traitors and despise them at the same time. The Knights of the Golden Circle were traitors to their section. Calhoun felt this, and loathed the men with whom he was to mingle; but if they could help the South to secure her independence, it was all he asked. He, like the noble Major André of Revolutionary fame, was willing to risk his life for the cause he loved. ”

“ Calhoun saw the south in a minority in all branches of the government, and he desired, by giving to the south a concurrent and distinct voice in the organism of our system, to secure her against invasion of her rights by a hostile majority, and thus to make her safe in the union. When the abolition party was small in numbers and weak in organization, and public men treated its menaces with contempt, Mr. Calhoun saw the cloud like a man's hand which was to overspread our political heavens. ”

“ Calhoun came into Congress at a time of deep and exciting interest—at a crisis of great magnitude. It was a crisis of peril to those who had to act in it, but of subsequent glory to the actors, and the common history of the country. The invincibility of Great Britain had become a proverbial expression, and a war with her was full of terrific issues. Mr. Calhoun found himself at once in a situation of high responsibility—one that required more than speaking qualities and eloquence to fulfil it. The spirit of the people required direction ”

“ Looking merely to the public career of Calhoun, the special pleader of the Southern aristocracy, we should expect to find him born and reared among the planters of the low country. The Calhouns, on the contrary, were up-country people,—farmers, Whigs, Presbyterians, men of moderate means, who wielded the axe and held the plough with their own hands, until enabled to buy a few "new negroes," cheap and savage ”

“ Calhoun's life and speeches form a substantive part of American history for near half a century. He was always in public life, and stamped the impress of his genius on every great public measure, either as debater or minister. ”

“ It is from an understanding of these circumstances, that Calhoun sees a chance of escape, that support him against despair; and, though he has started in a direct line for the Rio Grande, he intends, under cover of the chapparal, to flee towards the Llano Estacado.
He does not dread the dangers of this frightful desert; nor any others that may lie before him. They can be but light compared with those threatening behind. ”

“ The statue of Calhoun is full of power, simple, and majestic in attitude and expression. In busts Powers seems to me unrivalled; still, he ought not to spend his best years on an employment which cannot satisfy his ambition nor develop his powers. If our country loves herself, she will order from him some great work before the prime of his genius has been frittered away, and his best years spent on lesser things.
I saw at Florence the festivals of St. John, but they are poor affairs to one who has seen the Neapolitan and Roman people on such occasions. ”

“ General Anderson of Tennessee, coming in here, I left Mr. Calhoun with the most friendly impressions towards him, which will never wear off from my mind during my life-time. Devoid of all intrigue, he is too honest a man to compete with the little men, who have always opposed him. He will only be called for, when great and commanding powers of mind are imperiously demanded by some great emergency. Like a great lamp, he shines to give light for the benefit of others, who see by the aid of its lustre. Perhaps it is best that the greatest talents are unemployed, except in cases of emergency. ”

“ To figure as a defeated man before all the women of the settlement—above all in the eyes of her he adored, defeated by one whom he suspected of being his rival in her affections—a more nameless adventurer—was too much to be endured with equanimity. Even an ordinary man would have been pained by the infliction. Calhoun writhed under it. ”

“ It was that of the Headless Horseman.
But not as seen before—either by Calhoun himself, or any of the others. No. It was now altogether different. In shape the same; but in size it was increased to tenfold its original dimensions!
No longer a man, but a Colossus—a giant. No longer a horse, but an animal of equine shape, with the towering height and huge massive bulk of a mastodon! ”

“ A shower one day compelled him to take shelter in the shed of a blacksmith, who was charmed by his familiar conversation and the knowledge he exhibited of the mechanic arts. A naval officer was once asked, after a visit to Fort Hill, how he liked Mr. Calhoun. "Not at all," says he—"I never like a man who knows more about my profession than I do myself." A clergyman wished to converse with him on subjects of a religious nature, and after the interview remarked that he was astonished to find him better informed than himself on those very points wherein he had expected to give him information. ”

“ Calhoun, just before he died, remarked, "that although Webster had been his political opponent all his life, he had always been forced to approve in him, one striking moral peculiarity, namely, that he could not speak with power on any subject, if that subject did not command the entire consent of his intellectual judgment that it was right and true." Would to God that all our versatile statesmen and orators were alike incapacitated to argue without conviction of the truth of their theme! ”

“ The address which first challenged public attention, and that extensive interest which has rarely been withdrawn since, was an emphatic indorsement of the political philosophy of Mr. Calhoun and a glowing panegyric upon the character and principles of that immortal statesman and expounder. Unreservedly committing himself, then, he has steadfastly held to the States’ Rights creed, as the basis of his political faith and the guide of his public conduct. ”

“ It is not the Clay so much as the Calhoun interest which furnishes the venom. The General is turned round; he believes it to be Clay. I assure you, the enemy is a Calhoun coterie from South Carolina.”
“But what is their purpose?” I asked. “Calhoun is Vice-President; he will preside over the Senate and be part of the administration. Why should he seek to mar it?”
“Mark you, I do not say,” replied Noah, “that Calhoun, personally, so much as hears of these wrongs done in his name. Your friends will sometimes go farther in your cause than you will go for yourself. ”

“ Defence of Slavery. One other word must be said of Calhoun’s work; for he did much more than outline the principles of state sovereignty. In the thirties, when the South began to defend slavery as never before, Calhoun stepped forward as a leader; and hence-forward he was prepared to defend slavery as an institution and to use his theories concerning the Union to safeguard the institution at every turn. Here was the unnatural union: constitutional theory skilfully adapted to warding off intrusion was wedded to an economic, social, and moral condition of society. ”

“ The leaders of this war party were Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Clay was born in Virginia, but as a boy he had gone to Kentucky. He represented the spirit of the young and growing West. He was a true patriot and felt angry at the way the British spoke of America and Americans, and at the way they acted toward the United States. He was a very popular man and won men to him by his attractive qualities and by his energy. Calhoun was a South Carolinian who had been educated in Connecticut. He was a man of the highest personal character. ”

“ With equal alertness he undid his scarf of China crape; and stretched it around his sombrero—fixing it in such a way, that one edge was held under the bullion band, while the other dropped down over the brim—thus forming a silken visor for his face.
Before finally closing it, he turned once more towards the carriole; and, to his surprise, saw Calhoun still in the saddle. Humanity triumphed over a feeling of incipient aversion.
“Once again, sir, I adjure you to get inside! If you do not you’ll have cause to repent it. Within ten minutes’ time, you may be a dead man!” ”

“ But no longer is he permitted to ride in the rear. Without saying it, the old hunter has grown suspicious, and makes an excuse for keeping behind—with which his compagnon du voyage is compelled to put up.
The cavalcade advances slowly through the chapparal.
It approaches the open prairie.
At length the sky line comes in sight.
Something seen upon the distant horizon appears to impress Calhoun with a fresh feeling of fear; and, once more reining up, he sits considering.
Dread is the alternative that occupies his mind. Shall he plunge back into the thicket, and hide himself from the eyes of men? ”

“ Calhoun has become cautious. He no longer volunteers to point out the path. He hesitates to repeat his pioneering experiments—after such manifest and shameful failure.
A ten minutes’ discussion terminates in nothing. No one can suggest a feasible plan of proceeding. No one knows how to escape from the embrace of that dark desert, which appears to cloud not only the sun and sky, but the countenances of all who enter within its limits.
A flock of black vultures is seen flying afar off. They come nearer, and nearer. ”

“ Calhoun was appointed to the command of a body of rangers for the defence of the frontiers, in which he displayed great intrepidity and skill. He was the first member of the provincial legislature elected from the upper county of the state, and was afterwards elected to the state legislature, of which, with the intermission of a single term, he remained a member till his death. In the revolutionary war he took an active part on the patriot side. ”

“ Among those who listened with rapt attention to Mr. Webster was John C. Calhoun, his great compeer, who had risen with difficulty from the bed where he lay fatally sick, to hear the senator from Massachusetts. “A tall, gaunt figure, wrapped in a long black cloak, with deep, cavernous black eyes, and a thick mass of snow-white hair brushed back from the large brow,” he seemed like a visitant from the next world. It was his last appearance in the Senate. ”

“ But the bullet whistles harmlessly through the air; while in the opposite direction is heard a hishing sound—as from the winding of a sling—and a long serpent seems to uncoil itself in the air!
Calhoun sees it through the thinning smoke. It is darting straight towards him!
He has no time to draw trigger for a second shot—no time even to avoid the lazo’s loop. Before he can do either, he feels it settling over his shoulders; he hears the dread summons, “Surrender, you assassin!” he sees the red stallion turn tail towards him ”

“ It was not the look of a criminal, whatever the man might be—mutineer and murderer. As for mutineer, all that Calhoun had fought for had been at last admitted by the British Government, and reforms had been made that were due to the mutiny at the Nore. Only the technical crime had been done by Calhoun, and he had won pardon by his bravery in the battle at sea. Yes, he was a man of mark, even though a murderer.
Calhoun spoke slowly. “Your honour, you have said what you have a right to say to a man who killed Erris Boyne. But this man you accuse did not do it.” ”