whose family was devoted to the American cause, and some of whom were badly treated by the tories. By heredity, John Caldwell Calhoun was therefore entitled to manhood from his race, to vigorous convictions in faith, and to patriotic devotion to liberty and right. He was early taught to read the Bible, and trained in Calvinistic doctrines; and it is said that he was also devoted to history and metaphysics, but was compelled to desist from study because of impaired health.
His father was a member for many years, during and after the revolution, of the legislature of his state, and his counsels made a deep impression on his son, though he died when the latter was thirteen years of age. The son remembered hearing the father say that “that government was best which allowed the largest amount of individual liberty compatible with social order,” and that the improvements in political science would consist in throwing off many restraints then deemed necessary to an organized society. Until Mr. Calhoun was ready for college, he was under the instruction of his brother-in-law, the Rev. Dr. Waddell, a Presbyterian clergyman, and went to Yale in 1802. He evinced great originality of thought, devotion to study, and a lofty ambition, which won him the honors of his class, and the prophetic approval of President Dwight in the declaration, after an earnest dispute with him on the rightful source of political power, that he would reach the greatest eminence in life, and might attain the presidency. He studied law with H. W. Desaussure, of South Carolina, for a time, but was graduated at Litchfield, Conn., and was admitted to the bar in 1807. He took part in a meeting of the people denouncing the British outrage on the frigate “Chesapeake,” and was soon elected to the legislature, and entered the house of representatives in November, 1811, in his thirtieth year. Few men were better trained for the career before him. Simple and sincere in his tastes, habits, and manners, strict and pure in his morals, and incorruptible in his integrity, severe and logical in his style, analytic in his studies, and thorough in his investigations, with a genius to perceive and comprehend the mass of elements that entered into the solution of the problems of our political life, and with a capacity for philosophic generalization of principles unequalled by any contemporary, he began, continued, and ended his life, in the manifestation of the highest qualities for debate, for disquisitions upon constitutional government and free institutions, for discussions on foreign relations, for the investigation of political and social economy, and for the conduct with ability of the general affairs and even for the details of departmental administration.
When Calhoun entered congress, war with Great Britain was imminent. He was a member of the committee on foreign affairs. He drew a report which placed before the country the issue of war, or submission to wrong. He urged a declaration of war, and upheld the cause of his country with an eloquence that inspired patriotic enthusiasm, and with a logical force that gave fortitude and zeal to the army and navy as well as to the people. At the close of the war in 1815 the country was confronted with questions of currency, finance, commercial policy, and internal development, which offered to the genius of Calhoun fruitful subjects for his original and patriotic study. He pressed upon congress the bank bill, the tariff of 1816, and a system of roads and canals. On these questions he afterward modified his views very greatly, but defended his real consistency of thought, under the appearance of inconsistency, by saying that the remedies proper for one condition of things were improper for others. A question arose in the discussion of the act to carry into effect the treaty of peace, as to the relation of the treaty-making authority to the powers of congress. He maintained the supremacy of the treaty power; that it prevailed over a law of congress; and that congress was bound to pass a law to carry a treaty into effect. The celebrated William Pinkney, then in the zenith of his fame, declared that Mr. Calhoun had brought into the debate “the strong power of genius from a higher sphere than that of argument.” Its power was undoubted, though the truth of his theory may well be questioned.
In 1817 Mr. Monroe called Mr. Calhoun to the war department, which he filled until 1825. In this new field he won real fame; to this day the department, by the testimony of recent secretaries, feels the impress of his genius for organization and for the methodical adjustment of the functions of its various branches to each other and to its head. In his report to congress in 1823 he truly said that in a large disbursement of public money through a great number of disbursing agents, there had been no defalcation nor loss of a cent to the government; that he had reduced the expenses of the army from $451 to $287 per man, with no loss of efficiency or comfort. He organized the department by a bill that he drew for the purpose; and, under rules prescribed by him, introduced order and accountability in every branch of service, and established a system that has survived, in a large degree, to this day. Mr. Clay, in his eulogy on Mr. Calhoun, said: “Such was the high estimate I formed of his transcendent talents, that if, at the end of his service in the executive department under Mr. Monroe's administration, the duties of which he performed with such signal ability, he had been called to the highest office in the government, I should have felt perfectly assured that, under his auspices, the honor, the prosperity, and the glory of our country would have been safely placed.” During his service in the department, contention arose between him and Gen. Jackson as to the conduct of the latter in the Seminole war, which was the chief cause of the breach between them during Jackson's administration.
In 1824 there were four candidates for the presidency, which resulted in the election of John Q. Adams by the house of representatives. Mr. Calhoun was elected vice-president by a large majority. His vice-presidency marks the beginning of Mr. Calhoun's life as a constitutional statesman. He said in 1837: “The station, from its leisure, gave me a good opportunity to study the genius of the prominent measure of the day, called then the American system, by which I profited.” From that time he by profound study mastered the principles of our constitutional system, and may be said to have founded a school of political philosophy, of which the doctrines are maintained in his speeches, reports, and public writings. Mr. Clay's American system, to which Mr. Calhoun referred, was in full success. The bank, the protective policy, the internal improvement system, and the “general welfare” rule for constitutional construction, composed this celebrated policy. In 1828 Gen. Jackson was elected president and Mr. Calhoun re-elected vice-president. The Jackson administration was the period during which the democratic party under Jackson and the whig party under Clay were organized for their great struggle for ascendency.
Mr. Calhoun took from the beginning the most
