vacancy, and when it was filled with the unfinished business of the war, fifty million dollars of deferred claims, for one item, - he had the same easy opportunity for distinction which a steward has who takes charge of an estate just out of chancery, and under a new proprietor who has plenty of money. The sweeping up of the dead leaves, the gathering of the fallen branches, and the weeding out of the paths, changes the aspect of the place, and gives the passer-by a prodigious idea of the efficiency of the new broom. The country was alive, too, to the necessity of coast and frontier defences, and there was much building of forts during the seven years of Mr. Calhoun's tenure of place. Respecting the manner in which he discharged the multifarious and unusual duties of his office, we have never heard anything but commendation. He was prompt, punctual, diligent, courteous, and firm. The rules which he drew up for the regulation of the War Department remained in force, little changed, until the magnitude of the late contest abolished or suspended all ancient methods. The claims of the soldiers were rapidly examined and passed upon. It was Mr. Calhoun who first endeavored to collect considerable bodies of troops for instruction at one post. He had but six thousand men in all, but he contrived to get together several companies of artillery at Fortress Monroe for drill. He appeared to take much interest in the expenditure of the ten thousand dollars a year which Congress voted for the education of the Indians. He reduced the expenses of his office, which was a very popular thing at that day. He never appointed nor removed a clerk for opinion's sake. In seven years he only removed two clerks, both for cause, and to both were given in writing the reasons of their removal. There was no special merit in this, for at that day to do otherwise would have been deemed infamous. Mr. Calhoun, as a member of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet, still played the part of a national man, and supported the measures of his party without exception. Scarcely a trace of the sectional champion yet appears. In 1819, he gave a written opinion favoring the cession of Texas in exchange for Florida; the motive of which was to avoid alarming the North by the prospective increase of Slave States. In later years, Mr. Calhoun, of course, wished to deny this; and the written opinions of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet on that question mysteriously disappeared from the archives of the State Department. We have the positive testimony of Mr. John Quincy Adams, that Calhoun, in common with most Southern men of that day, approved the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and gave a written opinion that it was a constitutional measure. That he was still an enthusiast for internal improvements, we have already mentioned. The real difficulty of the War Department, however, as of the State Department, during the Monroe administration, was a certain Major-General Andrew Jackson, commanding the Military Department of the South. The popularity of the man who had restored the nation's self-love by ending a disastrous war with a dazzling and most unexpected victory, was something different from the respect which we all now feel for the generals distinguished in the late war. The first honors of the late war are divided among four chieftains, each of whom contributed to the final success at least one victory that was essential to it. But in 1815, among the military heroes of the war that had just closed General Jackson stood peerless and alone. His success in defending the Southwest, ending in a blaze of glory below New Orleans, utterly eclipsed all the other achievements of the war, excepting alone the darling triumphs on the ocean and the lakes. The deferential spirit of Mr. Monroe's letters to the General, and the readiness of every one everywhere to comply with his wishes, show that his popularity, even then, constituted him a power in the Republic. It was said in later times, that "General Jackson's popularity could stand anything," and in one sense this was true: it could stand anything that General Jackson was likely to do. Andrew Jackson could never have done a cowardly act, or betrayed a friend, or knowingly violated a trust, or broken his word, or forgotten a debt. He was always so entirely certain that he, Andrew Jackson, was in the right, his conviction on this point was so free from the least quaver of doubt, that he could always convince other men that he was right, and carry the multitude with him. His honesty, courage, and inflexible resolution, joined to his ignorance, narrowness, intensity, and liability to prejudice, rendered him at once the idol of his countrymen and the plague of all men with whom he had official connection. Drop an Andrew Jackson from the clouds upon any spot of earth inhabited by men, and he will have half a dozen deadly feuds upon his hands in thirty days. Mr. Calhoun inherited a quarrel with Jackson from George Graham, his pro tempore predecessor in the War Department. This Mr. Graham was the gentleman ("spy," Jackson termed him) despatched by President Jefferson in 1806 to the Western country to look into the mysterious proceedings of Aaron Burr, which led to the explosion of Burr's scheme. This was enough to secure the bitterest enmity of Jackson, who wholly and always favored Burr's design of annihilating the Spanish power in North America, and who, as President of the United States, rewarded Burr's followers, and covertly assisted Houston to carry out part of Burr's project. Graham had sent orders to Jackson's subordinates directly, instead of sending them through the chief of the Department. Jackson, after due remonstrance, ordered his officers not to obey any orders but such as were communicated by or through himself. This was a high-handed measure; but Mr. Calhoun, on coming into power, passed it by without notice, and conceded the substance of Jackson's demand, as he ought. This was so exquisitely pleasing to General Jackson, that he was well affected by it for many years towards Mr. Calhoun. Among the younger public men of that day, there was no one who stood so high in Jackson's regard as the Secretary of War. The Florida war followed in 1818. When the report of General Jackson's invasion of Florida, and of the execution of Arbuthnot and Armbrister reached Washington, Mr. Calhoun was the only man in the Cabinet who expressed the opinion that General Jackson had transcended his powers, and ought to be brought before a court of inquiry. This opinion he supported with ardor, until it was overruled by the President, who was chiefly influenced by Mr. Adams, the Secretary of State. How keenly General Jackson resented the course of Mr. Calhoun on this occasion, when, eleven years afterwards, he discovered it, is sufficiently well known. We believe, however, that the facts jus tify Calhoun and condemn Jackson. Just before going to the seat of war, the General wrote privately to the President, strongly recommending the seizure of Florida, and added these words: "This can be done without implicating the government. Let it be signified to me through any channel (say, Mr. J. Rhea) that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished." General Jackson dwells, in his "Exposition" of this matter, upon the fact that Mr. Calhoun was the first man in Washington who read this letter. But he does not say that Mr. Calhoun was aware that Mr. Rhea had been commissioned to answer the letter, and had answered it in accordance with General Jackson's wishes. And if the Rhea correspondence justified the seizure of Florida, it did not justify the execution of the harmless Scottish trader Arbuthnot, who, so far from "instigating" the war, had exerted the whole of his influence to prevent it. It is an honor to Mr. Calhoun to have been the only man in the Cabinet to call for an inquiry into proceedings which disgraced the United States and came near involving the country in war. We have always felt it to be a blot upon the memory of John Quincy Adams, that he did not join Mr. Calhoun in demanding the trial of General Jack. son; and we have not been able to attribute his conduct to anything but the supposed necessities of his position as a candidate for the succession. Readers versed in political history need not be reminded that nearly every individual in the Cabinet of Mr. Monroe had hopes of succeeding him. Mr. Adams had, of course; for he was the premier. Mr. Crawford, of course; for it had been "arranged" at the last caucus that he was to follow Mr. Monroe, to whose claims he had deferred on that express condition. Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and De Witt Clinton of New York, had expectations. All these gentlemen had "claims" which both their party and the public could recognize. Mr. Calhoun, too, who was forty-two years of age in Mr. Monroe's last year of service, boldly entered the lists; relying upon the united support of the South and the support of the manufacturing States of the North, led by Pennsylvania. That against such competitors he had any ground at all to hope for success, shows how rapid and how real had been his progress toward a first-rate national position. If our readers will turn to the letters of Webster, Story, Wirt, Adams, Jackson, and others of that circle of distinguished men, they will see many evidences of the extravagant estimation in which he was held in 1824. They appear to have all seen in him the material for a President, though not yet quite mature for the position. They all deemed him a man of unsullied honor, of devoted patriotism, of perfect sincerity, and of immense ability, so assiduously had he played the part of the good boy. - How the great popularity of General Jackson was adroitly used by two or three invisible wire-pullers to defeat the aspirations of these too eager candidates, and how from the general wreck of their hopes Mr. Calhoun had the dexterity to emerge Vice-President of the United States, has been related with the amplest detail, and need not be repeated here. Mr. Calhoun's position seemed then to combine all the advantages which a politician of forty-three could desire or imagine. By withdrawing his name from the list of candidates in such a way as to lead General Jackson to suppose that he had done so in his favor, he seemed to place the General under obligations to him. By secretly manifesting a preference for Mr. Adams (which he really felt) when the election devolved upon the House of Representatives, he had gained friends among the adherents of the successful candidate. His withdrawal was accepted by the public as an evidence of modesty becoming the youngest candidate. Finally he was actually Vice-President, as John Adams had been, as Jefferson had been, before their elevation to the highest place. True, Henry Clay, as Secretary of State, was in the established line of succession; but, as time wore on, it became very manifest that the re-election of Mr. Adams, upon which Mr. Clay's hopes depended, was itself exceedingly doubtful; and we accordingly find Mr. Calhoun numbered in the ranks of the opposition. Toward the close of Mr. Adams's Presidency, the question of real interest in the inner circle of politicians was, not who should succeed John Quincy Adams in 1829, but who should succeed |