"
Probably all of our readers have seen this conversation in print
before. But it is well for us to consider it again and again. It is
the key to all the seeming inconsistencies of Mr. Calhoun's career. He
came up to Congress, and took the oath to support the Constitution,
secretly resolved to break up the country just as soon as the Southern
planters ceased to control it for the maintenance of their peculiar
interest. The reader will note, too, the distinction made by this
young man, who was never youthful, between the "statesman" and the
"politician," and between the "heart of a patriot" and "the sectional
policy of the people."
Turning from his loathsome and despicable exposition to the
Congressional career of Mr. Calhoun, we find no indication there of
the latent traitor. He was merely a very active, energetic member of
the Republican party; supporting the war by assiduous labors in
committee, and by intense declamation of the kind of which we have
given a specimen. In all his speeches there is not a touch of
greatness. He declared that Demosthenes was his model,--an orator who
was a master of all the arts? all the artifices, and all the tricks by
which a mass of ignorant and turbulent hearers can be kept attentive,
but who has nothing to impart to a member of Congress who honestly
desires to convince his equals.
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