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
Andrew Jackson in 1833; and already the choice was narrowing to two
men,--Martin Van Buren and John C. Calhoun.
During Mr. Calhoun's first term in the Vice-Presidency,--1825 to
1829,--a most important change took place in his political position,
which controlled all his future career. While he was Secretary of
War,--1817 to 1824,--he resided with his family in Washington, and
shared in the nationalizing influences of the place. When he was
elected Vice-President, he removed to a plantation called Fort Hill,
in the western part of South Carolina, where he was once more
subjected to the intense and narrow provincialism of the planting
States.
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