Calhoun as a Lawyer and Statesman. that his intellectual make-up was meta physical in its discriminating character and tendency, as compared for instance with the eminently practical turn of mind of Mr. Clay, or even that of Mr. Webster. When, however, we hear Mr. Calhoun spoken of as " a fanatic" and as " an impractical doc trinaire," and more especially when we find out that these charges are founded princi pally upon the fact that he believed in slavery, even thought it was a positive good, we are bound to raise our protest and call for the proof. If Mr. Calhoun was a fanatic because he believed in slavery and advocated that institution, then the whole South must be placed in the same category. With but few exceptions, the entire Southern people — its farmers, merchants, doctors, editors, preachers, jurists, and in fact men of every vocation, who dwelt in the South previous to the war, stood or fell with him. It has been said that an indictment will not lie against a whole people. If this is true and the indictment against the entire South will not stand, then Mr. Calhoun too must share in the relief granted, and go harmless of such charges. Nor did Mr. Calhoun devote his great life to a speculative, abstract idea, that was crushed into atoms with the destruction of slavery, as some would contend. They tell us that he played a part, and they even ad mit that it was an important part, — in a drama that is wholly past; that he will stand in history simply as the representative of an idea, — that his hapless and lurid fate will be held up as a warning; and that he does not deserve the gratitude of his country, and then they call upon us to see how a man, fitted for a noble part, may waste his life and bring ruin upon himself and his people in behalf of a monstrosity, and an extremely absurd one at that. Read what Mr.Von Holst says on the first page of his book : " A man endowed with an intellect far above the average, impelled by a high-soaring am bition, untainted by any petty or ignoble
375
passion, and guided by a character of ster ling firmness and more than common purity, yet, with fatal illusion, devoting all his men tal powers, all his moral energy and the whole force of his iron will to the service of a doomed and unholy cause, and at last sinking into the grave in the very moment when, under the weight of the top-stone, the towering pillars of the temple of his im pure idol are rent to their very base, — can anything more tragical be conceived?" Fortunately we do not all think alike; nor will we allow this foreigner to do our thinking for us. I was very much impressed with the able argument which Mr. Curry made in the great speech before the Univer sity of Chicago, to which I have already re ferred. He showed conclusively that the doctrine of State-rights, which Mr. Calhoun advocated, is not dead, — that its cardinal principles still live, save only one, the right of a State to withdraw from the Union, which was finally settled by the arbitrament of arms. Indeed, he goes even farther and contends that these principles have been approved by the Supreme Court of the United States, have become incorporated into our government, and that upon them depend in a large degree the safety and happiness of our people. To Mr. Calhoun he awards high praise for advocating and upholding so ably, so grandly, so eloquently, these principles, and furthermore he con tends that Mr. Calhoun, for his splendid work, merits the deepest gratitude and the warmest love of the American people. He asserts in eloquent language that the Consti tution is the sheet-anchor of our faith and he demolishes the shallow and superficial ideas of our government which Mr. Von Holst presents. To quote his language : "Let us cherish a reverential attachment to our written Constitution as the palladium of' American liberty, the truest security of the Union, the only solid basis for the public liberties, the substantial prosperity, and the permanence of our representative Federal Re
