Some foolish editor has started it, and I be lieve it would be agreeable to the Whigs. My husband has no wish or say in the mat ter; but Mr. J. C. Calhoun and his friends are filled with jealousy towards him. If Mr. Calhoun had acted with magnanimity or justice toward Mr. Preston, he would have found himself nobly sustained by him, whenever there was a chance of Mr. Cal houn being elected." Although, at times, Mrs. Preston's journal is critical with reference to Mr. Calhoun, still, after all, there are a number of complimen tary allusions to him, and it is easy enough to read between the lines, that both Mrs. Pres ton and her husband held Mr. Calhoun in high regard as an orator, patriot and states man. I have always been impressed with the nobility of character and the magnanimity of soul displayed by Mr. Preston towards Mr. Calhoun, on one occasion, in the Senate. The Ashburton treaty was under considera tion by that body, and Mr. Calhoun had just made a great speech upon that subject. Pres ton and Calhoun were not on friendly terms at the time, but Mr. Preston had too big a heart to allow that to restrain him, — he felt bound to give expression to his patriotic emotions. After the death of Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Holmes, in the beautiful eulogy on Calhoun, which he delivered in the House of Representatives, made the following touch ing reference to this incident: "When the treaty was before the Senate, it was consid ered in secret session; and I never shall forget that, sitting upon yonder side of the House, the colleague of Mr. Calhoun — who at that time was not on social terms with him — my friend, the honorable Mr. Preston, whose heart throbbed with an en thusiastic love of all that is elevated — left his seat in the Senate and came to my seat in the House, saying, ' I must give vent to my feelings; Mr. Calhoun has made a speech which has settled the question of the northeastern boundary. All his friends —
nay, all the senators — have collected around to congratulate him, and I have come out to express my emotions, and declare that he has covered himself with a mantle of glory.'" When Mr. Preston found that he could not conscientiously support the views enter tained by South Carolina on national poli tics, the State favoring Van Buren's election to the presidency, while Mr. Preston was for Harrison, he resigned his seat in the Senate. That was about 1839 or 1840. He then returned to the bar and devoted him self to the practice of his profession. He was tired of politics and had no disposition ever to enter them again. In 1845, he was elected president of the South Carolina col lege. He was nominated for that high office by his friend and classmate, Judge O'Ncall. It was the very place for him. "The presidency of the South Carolina College suited better his time of life, his health, and his tastes. Though not an eru dite savant, he was better, for his position. His genial sympathy with young men won them to his influence; while the fascination he possessed for them, bringing him en rap port with all that was highest in their nature, conduced to its finest development." His administration was a successful one. Attracted by the splendid reputation which Preston had for eloquence, character, and scholarship, young men flocked to the South Carolina College from all parts of the South. In speaking of the election of Mr. Preston to the presidency of the South Carolina College at a time when the people of the State were opposed to his political views, the " Charleston Courier" of May 24, 1860, said : " It is, indeed, a singular circumstance of deserved felicity, on which the surviving friends of the great and gifted orator will dwell with pleasing recollections, that he outlived and conquered all political asperi ties and prejudices. Passing through an ordeal of unparalleled trial, and a political crisis in which a man's foes were, in manv
