William Campbell Preston. on the next night, Preston paid it back in characteristic style. McDuffie's last speech was closed with powerful effect, by his quoting, with all his passionate energy, the lines from Addison's Cato, • O Fortius, is there not some chosen curse. Some hidden thunder in the vault of Heaven, Red with uncommon wrath to blast the man, Who owes his greatness to his country's ruin! '"
Mr. Calhoun was Mr. Preston's colleague in the Senate, and there was a good deal of friction between them on some of the politi cal questions of the day. Mrs. Preston, the wife of the subject of this sketch, nke Miss Penelope Davis, kept a journal during the closing months of her stay in Washington. In it we find some interesting comments on the political situation at that time. In speaking of a dinner, where she met Mr. Webster, Mrs. Preston says: "Mr. Webster was allotted to me, and made him self very agreeable during our session. He tells me he is in a quandary, that in replying to Mr. Calhoun he wants to attack nullifica tion (for Mr. Calhoun has in some sort in volved subtreasury and nullification), but, as Mr. Preston is on his side (anti-sub), he docs not wish to worry Mr. Preston by at tacking nullification. I replied you must be aware, Mr. Webster, nullification has noth ing to do with the subtreasury scheme, that, though it might be Mr. Calhoun's wish to involve the two together, in point of fact there was no kinship, and why should he (Mr. Webster) cater to Mr. Calhoun's wish, and thereby place Mr. Preston in an awk ward position. To all of which Mr. Webster lent a polite and sensible hearing, and I do not think he will touch upon nullifica tion." She also refers to a speech which Preston made on the Texas resolutions as follows . "Mr. Preston spoke finely to-day, I under stand, with less ornament, and in a more argumentative style. Mr. Buchanan stepped up and said, ' I always knew you could make the finest figures of speech of anybody in
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the Senate, Mr. Preston, but I now see you can make the best argument.'" To a spirited debate in the Senate, in which Calhoun, Clay and Preston all took part, Mrs. Preston refers as follows: "To day Mr. Calhoun replied to Mr. Clay. The whole house, galleries and doorways pre sented nothing but masses of human heads, and, so excited was I, that I did not feel tired, though I sat from one till five. Mr. Calhoun made a grand speech — occasion ally his voice so choked with passion you could hardly hear him. Nothing personally insulting, but sometimes Mr. Calhoun twitted Mr. Clay as severely as Mr. Clay had him. Clay's reply was, for the most part, loose and disjointed, and right bald. However, now and then, his blows were both heavy and keen, and the sympathies of the galleries were with him, for they laughed at all his jokes. Mr. Clay wantonly assailed nullifica tion, and Mr. Preston, weak and exhausted as he was, rose and replied in the most earnest manner. He said he had before supposed Mr. Clay brought about the com promise between the government and our gallant little State from broad patriotism, and not from any narrow personal and petty view; but that the senator from Kentucky had been pleased to leave this high and holy position, and he must remain where he had placed himself. Mr. Preston rebuked him severely for saying that he had felt interested in saving from ignominious death such nullifiers as were in this city in reach of Jack son. Mr. Clay, in a few remarks, tried to do away with the taunting jests on South Carolina nullifiers, but we all still owe him a grudge." In another place in her journal Mrs. Preston makes the following interesting reference to Mr. Preston: "Nothing inter esting in the way of politics. The Georgia news seems to trouble Mr. Dawson. I told Mr. Clay that Mr. Preston would be killed in South Carolina, by having his name ap pended as vice-president on the Clay ticket.
