From the beginning of his public career there was a canker
in the heart of it; for, while his oath, as a member of Congress, to
support the Constitution of the United States, was still fresh upon
his lips, he declared that his attachment to the Union was conditional
and subordinate. He said that the alliance between the Southern
planters and Northern Democrats was a false and calculated compact, to
be broken when the planters could no longer rule by it. While he
resided in Washington, and acted with the Republican party in the
flush of its double triumph, he appeared a respectable character, and
won golden opinions from eminent men in both parties. But when he was
again subjected to the narrowing and perverting influence of a
residence in South Carolina, he shrunk at once to his original
proportions, and became thenceforth, not the servant of his country,
but the special pleader of a class and the representative of a
section. And yet, with that strange judicial blindness which has ever
been the doom of the defenders of wrong, he still hoped to attain the
Presidency. There is scarcely any example of infatuation more
remarkable than this.
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