In that day presidential electors were appointed by the State legislatures. Shortly after the session of this legislature to which Calhoun had been elected opened, there was an informal meeting of the republican members to make nominations for president and vice-president. The first was unanimously given to Madison. When the other was up, Calhoun declared his conviction that there was soon to be war with England. At such a time there should be no dissension in the party. He gave strong reasons why George Clinton should not be nominated, as had been proposed; and he suggested John Langdon of New Hampshire as the proper man. The thorough acquaintance with the grave situation which he manifested, the due respect he showed Clinton while opposing his nomination, and the ability with which he discussed the question, advanced him at once to a place among the most distinguished members of the legislature.
“Several important measures were originated by Mr. Calhoun while in the legislature which have become a permanent portion of the legislation of the State, and he soon acquired an extensive practice at the bar.”[44] He kept in the very midst of the political swim. His reputation as an honest, true, and able adviser had become so great and influential that the people, in their warm approval of the strong measures he advocated as preparation for the threatened war, pushed him out as their candidate for congress and elected him most triumphantly in October, 1810. The first session of this, the twelfth congress, commenced November 4, 1811. Clay, then speaker of the house, evidently expecting much of him, gave him the second place in the committee on foreign relations. There came before the house a measure contemplating an increase of the army in view of the war which appeared to many to be nearer than ever. John Randolph was against it. In March, 1799, a year before Calhoun started to school, Randolph, then not twenty-six years old, had fearlessly met the great Patrick Henry in stump discussion, and had, in the opinion of his auditors, got the better of it. He was elected to congress in this year. Steadily since then he had developed, until he was now one of the most prominent figures upon the national stage. While his powers of discussion of a subject were great, the power that especially characterized him was that of nonplussing his antagonist with a snub or a sarcasm. Randolph made an earnest speech. Calhoun replied. It is not enough to say of this speech that it evinces full mastery of the subject. It presents every important view most effectively, satisfactorily answering everything which had been said on the other side. And it is especially happy in the wise use made at each proper place of the commands of morality and patriotism.
Mr. Pinkney has instructively and entertainingly illustrated this speech by his excerpts.[45] To them I here add another, which I would have you consider,—Randolph had strenuously insisted that the cause of this war, said by the other side to be impending, should first be defined; and until this plain duty was done there should be no preparation. To this Calhoun said:
“The single instance alluded to, the endeavor of Mr. Fox to compel Mr. Pitt to define the object of the war against France, will not support the gentleman from Virginia in his position. That was an extraordinary war for an extraordinary purpose. It was not for conquest, or for redress of injury, but to impose a government on France which she refused to receive—an object so detestable that an avowal dared not be made.”
This is a thrust which Randolph especially could appreciate.
The more I examine this first speech of a very young member of congress upon a question of such transcendent importance to the people of the United States, the more sound, able, complete,—to sum up in one word,—the more statesmanly it appears. I am confident that whoever will weigh it carefully will agree with me. He will not be surprised to learn that it carried the house decisively. Even in Randolph’s own State it drew great praise. But its fame went abroad everywhere, and it was revealed to America that she had found among her public men another giant.
In the year 1800 Calhoun was a lad of eighteen, without even a complete common school education. Represent to yourself clearly what he had accomplished in the interval from the year last mentioned to December 12, 1811, when, not yet thirty, he made the speech we have just considered. If any public man of America, burdened with such disadvantages, has surpassed, or even equalled, this meteoric stride, I do not now recall him. I am not emphasizing especially that he got to congress in such a short while. What I do especially emphasize is that he so early won place as an eminent statesman. In these eleven years he lost no time at all in idleness, or probation, or waiting.
January 8, 1811, some three months after his election to congress, he married his cousin, Floride Calhoun—not a first cousin, but a daughter of a first cousin. His letters of courtship, not to her, but, in the old style, to her mother; his only letter to her, written shortly before the marriage; and other letters from and to him afterwards, all of which you can read in the Correspondence,—show him to be such a lover, father, brother, son-in-law, brother-in-law, grandfather, etc., as everybody wants. Some South Carolinian, adequately gifted, ought to tell befittingly the tale of Calhoun’s beautiful domestic life.
I must now mention some other facts which will further enlighten you as to the man.
I was fourteen when Calhoun died. For four or five years before, and afterwards until I went to the brothers’ war, I heard much of Calhoun from relatives in Abbeville county and the Court House. I still recall most vividly what a paternal uncle habitually said of the brightness and unexampled impressiveness of Calhoun’s eyes, and the charm and instructiveness of his conversation. In Georgia there was not a public man whose course in politics commended itself to all of my acquaintances. I had become accustomed to hearing much disparagement of Toombs and of Stephens, with whom I was most familiar. But my South Carolina relatives, and every man or woman of that State whose talk I listened to; every boy or girl with whom I talked myself, yea, all of the negroes,—always warmly maintained the rightfulness of Calhoun’s politics, national or State. I thought it a good hit when a Georgia aunt of mine dubbed the Palmetto State “The Kingdom of Calhoun,” and Abbeville Court House “its capital.” This universal political worship was a great surprise to me. But there was a still greater one to come. That was, that according to all accounts, and without any contradiction, in spite of his living away from home the most of his time, he yet gave his planting interests and all else appertaining the very best management, and with such unvarying financial success it would be unkind to compare Webster’s money-wasting and amateur farming at Marshfield. In this community, where he seemed to be known as well as he was before he removed to Fort Hill, some sixty miles distant, in 1825, he had become a far greater authority in business than he had even attained in politics. His acquaintances all sought his advice, which they followed when they got it; thus making this busiest of public servants their agricultural oracle.