We also find Mr. Calhoun, in this his first utterance as a
public man, the mouthpiece of his "section." He has been styled the
most inconsistent of our statesmen; but beneath the palpable
contradictions of his speeches, there is to be noticed a deeper
consistency. Whatever opinion, whatever policy, he may have advocated,
he always spoke the sense of what Mr. Sumner used to call the Southern
oligarchy. If _it_ changed, _he_ changed. If he appeared sometimes to
lead it, it was by leading it in the direction in which it wanted to
go. He was doubtless as sincere in this as any great special pleader
is in a cause in which all his powers are enlisted. Calhoun's mind was
narrow and provincial. He could not have been the citizen of a large
place. As a statesman he was naturally the advocate of something
special and sectional, something not the whole.
Distinguished in the Legislature, he was elected, late in 1810, by a
very great majority, to represent his district in Congress. In May,
1811, he was married to a second-cousin, Floride Calhoun, who brought
a considerable accession to his slender estate.
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