Webster put the
substance of his speeches in reply to Mr. Calhoun's ingenious defence
of his conduct in 1833.
The author concludes his essay by a prophetic glance at the future. He
remarks, that with regard to the future of the United States, as then
governed, only one thing could be predicted with absolute certainty,
and that was, that the Republic could not last. It might lapse into a
monarchy, or it might be dismembered,--no man could say which; but
that one of these things would happen was entirely certain. The
rotation-in-office system, as introduced by General Jackson, and
sanctioned by his subservient Congress, had rendered the Presidential
office a prize so tempting, in which so large a number of men had an
interest, that the contest would gradually cease to be elective, and
would finally lose the elective form. _The incumbent would appoint his
successor_; and "thus the absolute form of a popular, would end in the
absolute form of a monarchical government," and there would be no
possibility of even rendering the monarchy limited or constitutional.
Mr. Calhoun does not mention here the name of General Jackson or of
Martin Van Buren, but American readers know very well what he was
thinking of when he wrote the passage.
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