Calhoun as a Lawyer and Statesman. once said to. her : "You may write my life across the sky: I have nothing to conceal." This sentiment and these words may well be predicated of Mr. Calhoun. He, too, like the grand preacher, Spurgeon, could well have said : " You may write my life across the sky; I have nothing to conceal." I agree cordially with Dr. James H. Carlisle, the venerable president of Wofford College, when he says : " I think it but right to bring these men fairly and fully before us, light and shade — their strength and weakness. We do not take pleasure in drawing ' their frailties from their dark abode,' but the lessons of their lives, as models and warnings, may be more profitable. By a singular coincidence, soon after reading your letter yesterday, I read this sentence, in a new book : ' It was not, on the whole, an unpleasant discovery, when the American people found out that Washington had a vigorous vocabulary.'" But what we do object to is unfair criti cism, — what we do object to is that in presenting us what purports to be a true portraiture, we have, instead, what may well pass for a caricature. What we do object to is damning a man with faint praise. In the short compass of this article, I can only notice two or three of the many criti cisms that have been passed upon Mr. Cal houn. Without further preliminary, I will proceed to consider the comments of Dr. Von Holst, who has written the life of John C. Calhoun, in the American Statesmen series. I am frank to admit that it is a wellwritten book, — fresh, interesting, and sug gestive from beginning to end. It gives to Mr. Calhoun a prominent place in the his tory of his country and it ascribes to him many excellent qualities. But, nevertheless and in spite of these good features, there runs through the entire work a vein of un fair comment and unjust criticism, so that one rises from its perusal feeling that Mr. Calhoun has been unkindly treated and un fairly dealt with. It falls too completely within the sphere of objectionable criticism
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outlined above, — it exhibits a want of sym pathy with its subject and it presents a distorted and perverted view of the great Carolinian. Throughout the entire work it is easy enough to see that its author is biased and prejudiced against his subject. And yet were he to read these lines, I have no doubt that he would sit back in his easy chair and, with a placid and self-satisfied manner, remark that he had anticipated just such treatment at the hands of some of his reviewers, and, to show you that this was the case, he would quietly turn to his book and, reading from the second page the sentences which I shall immediately quote, he would ask you to note what he thought the effect of the passage would be on the great majority of his readers: " In spite of his grand career, South Carolina's greatest son has had a more hapless fate than any other of the illustrious men in the history of the United States. With few exceptions it is probable that the readers of these pages will consider this a strange or even an absurd assertion, and thereby themselves will furnish another proof of its truth." And, because of my interest in a fellowSoutherner and my sympathy for him, I am sorry to say that Professor Trent of Sewanee University, in his chapter on Mr. Calhoun in his book entitled " Southern Statesmen of the Old Regime," follows entirely too closely in Mr. Von Holst's footsteps. Indeed, to a very considerable extent so far as it goes, its style of treatment of its subject and the con clusions reached are about the same as those of Mr. Von Holst. And it is but fair, too, to Mr. Trent to say that he wields a grace ful pen and presents a subject in an enter taining and attractive style. He is at times quite complimentary to Mr. Calhoun and attributes to him many high qualities. The entire article, however, is critical in style, and in the treatment of its subject is dispar aging in its general tone and character. I notice too, that its author refers to Mr. Von Holst's book in terms of approval and in the
