of our condition. We must submit, humbly submit, crave pardon, and hug our chains. It is not wise to provoke where we cannot resist. But first let us be well assured of the hopelessness of our state before we sink into submission. On what do our opponents rest their despondent and slavish belief? On the recent events in Europe? I admit they are great, and well calculated to impose on the imagination. Our enemy never presented a more imposing exterior. His fortune is at the flood. But I am admonished by universal experience, that such prosperity is the most precarious of human conditions. From the flood the tide dates its ebb. From the meridian the sun commences its decline. Depend upon it, there is more of sound philosophy than of fiction in the fickleness which poets attribute to fortune. Prosperity has its weakness, adversity its strength. In many respects our enemy has lost by those very changes which seem so very much in his favor. He can no more claim to be struggling for existence; no more to be fighting the battles of the world in defence of the liberties of mankind. The magic cry of French influence' is lost. In this very hall we are not strangers to that sound. Here, even here, the cry of French influence,' that baseless fiction, that phantom of faction now banished, often resounded. I rejoice that the spell is broken by which it was attempted to bind the spirit of this youthful nation. The minority can no longer act under cover, but must come out and defend their opposition on its own intrinsic merits. Our example can scarcely fail to produce its effects on other nations interested in the maintenance of maritime rights. But if, unfortunately, we should be left alone to maintain

the contest, and if, which may God forbid, necessity should compel us to yield for the present, yet our generous efforts will not have been lost. A mode of thinking and a tone of sentiment have gone abroad which must stimulate to future and more successful struggles. What could not be effected with eight millions of people will be done with twenty. The great cause will never be yielded-no, never, never! Sir, I hear the future audibly announced in the past-in the splendid victories over the Guerriere, Java, and Macedonian. We, and all nations, by these victories, are taught a lesson never to be forgotten. Opinion is power. The charm of British naval invincibility is gone.'

"Such was the animated strain by which Mr. Calhoun roused the spirit of the government and country under a complication of adverse circumstances calculated to overwhelm the feeble and appal the stoutest. Never faltering, never doubting, never despairing of the Republic, he was at once the hope of the party and the beacon light to the country.

“But he did not limit his efforts to repelling the attacks of the opposition, and animating the hopes of the government and country. He saw that the very events which exposed us to so much danger, made a mighty change in the political and commercial relations of Continental Europe, which had been so long closed against foreign commerce, in consequence of the long war that grew out of the French Revolution, and of those hostile orders and decrees of the two great belligerents, which had for many years almost annihilated all lawful commerce between the Continent of Europe and the rest of the world. The events that

dethroned Bonaparte put an end to that state of things, and left all the powers of Europe free to resume their former commercial pursuits. He saw in all this that the time had come to free the government entirely from the shackles of the restrictive system, to which he had been so long opposed; and he, accordingly, followed up his speech by a bill to repeal the Embargo and the Non-importation Act. He rested their repeal on the ground that they were a portion of the restrictive policy, and showed that the ground on which it had been heretofore sustained was, that it was a pacific policy, growing out of the extraordinary state of the world at the time it was adopted, and, of course, dependent on the continuance of that state.

'It was. a

time,' he said, when every power on the Continent was arrayed against Great Britain, under the overwhelming influence of Bonaparte, and no country but ours interested in maintaining neutral rights. The fact of all the Continental ports being closed against her, gave to our restrictive measures an efficacy which they no longer had, now that they were open to her.' He admitted that the system had been continued too long, and been too far extended, and that he was opposed to it as a substitute for war, but contended that there would be no inconsistency on the part of the government in abandoning a policy founded on a state of things which no longer existed. But now,' said he, 'the Continental powers are neutrals, as between us and Great Britain. We are contending for the freedom of trade, and ought to use every exertion to attach to our cause Russia, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, and all other nations which have an interest in

the freedom of the seas. The maritime rights assumed by Great Britain infringe on the rights of all neutral powers, and if we should now open our ports and trade to the nations of the Continent, it would involve Great Britain in a very awkward and perplexing dilemma. She must either permit us to enjoy a very lucrative commerce with them, or by attempting to exclude them from our ports by her system of paper blockades she would force them to espouse our cause. The option which would thus be tendered her would so embarrass her as to produce a stronger desire for peace than ten years' continuance of the present system, imperative as it is now rendered by a change of circumstances."*

No one can now look back to that stirring period at which these words were uttered, uninfluenced by the passions and prejudices of the day, which it is but natural to suppose may have in some degree warped the best and wisest judgments, without being struck with the almost prophetic character of the remarks of Mr. Calhoun. His vision seemed to o'ertop passing events, and to take in at a single glance the future with all the valuable lessons, in the fulfilment as in the disappointment of hopes and expectations, which it had in store

*Memoir of Mr. Calhoun, 1843.

CHAPTER IV.

Reëlection of Mr. Calhoun-Results of the War-The Commercial Treaty-Course of Mr. Calhoun-His Speech-The United States Bank-Mr. Dallas' Bill-Opposition of Mr. Calhoun to this Measure -Its Defeat-Chairman of the Committee on the Currency-Report of a Bank Bill-Speech-Passage of the Bill.

So well pleased were the constituents of Mr. Calhoun with the manner in which he had discharged his duties as a member of Congress, during that important juncture in the affairs of the national government, the main incidents of which have been detailed, that he was returned without opposition, in the fall of 1812, and again in 1814, to the thirteenth and fourteenth Congresses.

Until the close of the war he remained the firm and steadfast advocate of decisive measures, yet when a favorable peace had been concluded he hailed it as the harbinger of good to the country, and especially as it was the signal of her release from the thraldom of foreign influence. The results of the contest were manifold, and in several important respects they af fected the political action and conduct of Mr. Calhoun. If strict chronological order were essential to be ob served, the subject of the charter of the United States Bank would be first in time, but as that is unnecessary, the Commercial Treaty with Great Britain and