Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/308

INTRODUCTION It is generally agreed that the United States engaged in a struggle for economic independence in CONDITION its second war with England, and proved OF THE to the world that it wished to protect its UNITED STATES own citizens. From that time on, the nation slowly grew in power until in 1817 when James Monroe became President, the treasury was well filled and the people had a feeling of prosperity. 1 Monroe offered the position of Secretary of War to four different men, before he appointed John CALHOUN C. Calhoun to fill that place in the APPOINTED AS cabinet. The President invited Henry SECRETARY Clay to take the post, but Clay declined, OF WAR rather offended because he was not made Secretary of State. He next thought of Andrew Jackson, Governor Shelby of Tennessee and William Lowndes of South Carolina, but they all refused. Finally he selected Calhoun, who had justified his appointment by his efforts in Congress to further the material advance- ment of the United States. 2 A brief sketch of Calhoun's congressional career from 1811 to 1817 is necessary before considering CALHOUN'S his Secretaryship. Coming into Con- WORK AS A gress as a young man, when the United CONGRESSMAN States was on the verge of a war, Cal- houn's patriotic enthusiasm led him to support defensive measures. On December 12, 1811, he gave his reasons for favoring a war. i Schouler, History of the United States. II, 499. "Partly by internal taxes, but chiefly by those upon imports, Congress and this administration planned a permanent revenue, sufficient for meeting all current expenses and interest, and so to apply an annual surplus besides of $10,000,000 towards discharging the principal. When the year 1817 opened all was auspicious for instituting such a policy; most of the treasury notes had been cancelled; nearly the whole national debt was refunded; cash to the amount of $10,000,000 lay in the treasury] direct taxation could at once be dispensed with and various obnoxious items of internal revenue besides." z Hunt, G. John C. Calhoun, 43.