and especially for the brief remainder of
an administration which had been continually under the ban of public
opinion, and which had not the slightest prospect of renewal. With
quick observation and keen insight, however, he perceived a great
opportunity to serve the South, and to serve the South was with
him not only a principle, but a passion. He realized, moreover,
that the hour was at hand for an historic revenge which the noblest
of minds might indulge. He saw intuitively that the Texas question
was one of vast importance, with untold possibilities. He saw with
equal clearness that it had never been presented in such manner as
to appeal to the popular judgment, and become an active, aggressive
issue in the struggle for the Presidency. A large section of the
Democratic party had looked favorably upon annexation ever since
1836, but the leaders had dared not to include the scheme in the
avowed designs of party policy. They had omitted it purposely in
making up the issues for the Van Buren campaign of 1840, and, up
to the hour when Mr. Calhoun entered the State Department, the
intention of the managers was to omit it in the contest of 1844
against Mr. Clay. Mr. Tyler's advocacy of Texas annexation had
injured rather than promoted it in the estimation of the Democratic
party; but when Mr. Calhoun, with his astute management, and his
large influence in the slave-holding States, espoused it, the whole
tenor of Southern opinion was changed, and the Democracy of that
section received a new inspiration.

Mr. Van Buren, aspiring again to the Presidency, desired to avoid
the Texas issue. Mr. Calhoun determined that he should meet it.
He had every motive for distrusting, opposing, even hating, Van
Buren. The contest between them had been long and unrelenting.
When Van Buren, as secretary of State, was seized with the ambition
to succeed Jackson, he saw Calhoun in the Vice-Presidency, strongly
intrenched as heir-apparent; and he set to work to destroy the
friendship and confidence that existed between him and the President.
The rash course of Jackson in the Seminole campaign of 1818 had
been severely criticised in the cabinet of Monroe, and Mr. Calhoun,
as secretary of War, had talked of a court of inquiry. Nothing,
however, was done and the mere suggestion had been ten years
forgotten, when Jackson entered upon the Presidency, entertaining
the strongest friendship, both personal and political, for Calhoun.
But the