Calhoun
pushed him out of the witness-box, as though he were an idiot.
A survey of the last fifteen years of Calhoun's life discloses nothing
upon which the mind can dwell with complacency. On the approach of
every Presidential election, we see him making what we can only call a
_grab_ at a nomination, by springing upon the country some unexpected
issue designed to make the South a unit in his support. From 1830 to
1836, he exhausted all the petty arts of the politician to defeat
General Jackson's resolve to bring in Mr. Van Buren as his successor;
and when all had failed, he made an abortive attempt to precipitate
the question of the annexation of Texas. This, too, being foiled, Mr.
Van Buren was elected President. Then Mr. Calhoun, who had for ten
years never spoken of Van Buren except with contempt, formed the
notable scheme of winning over the President so far as to secure his
support for the succession. He advocated all the test measures of Mr.
Van Buren's administration, and finished by courting a personal
reconciliation with the man whom he had a hundred times styled a fox
and a political prostitute.
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