enate in 1834
and in 1840, serving until 1843. From 1832 to 1837 he was a man without
a party. He attacked the "spoils system" inaugurated by President
Jackson, opposed the removal of the government deposits from the Bank of
the United States, and in general was a severe critic of Jackson's
administration. In this period he usually voted with the Whigs, but in
1837 he went over to the Democrats and supported the "independent
treasury" scheme of President Van Buren. He was spoken of for the
presidency in 1844, but declined to become a candidate, and was
appointed as secretary of state in the cabinet of President Tyler,
serving from the 1st of April 1844, throughout the remainder of the
term, until the 10th of March 1845. While holding this office he devoted
his energies chiefly to the acquisition of Texas, in order to preserve
the equilibrium between the South and the constantly growing North. One
of his last acts as secretary of state was to send a despatch, on the
3rd of March 1845, inviting Texas to accept the terms proposed by
Congress. Calhoun was once more elected to the Senate in 1845. The
period of his subsequent service covered the settlement of the Oregon
dispute with Great Britain and the Mexican War. On the 19th of February
1847 he introduced in the Senate a series of resolutions concerning the
territory about to be acquired from Mexico, which marked the most
advanced stand as yet taken by the pro-slavery party. The purport of
these resolutions was to deny to Congress the power to prohibit slavery
in the territories and to declare all previous enactments to this effect
unconstitutional.

In 1850 the Union seemed in imminent danger of dissolution. California
was applying for admission to the Union as a state under a constitution
which did not permit slavery. Her admission with two Senators would have
placed the slave-holding states in the minority. In the midst of the
debate on this application Calhoun died, on the 31st of March 1850, in
Washington.

Calhoun is most often compared with Webster and Clay. The three
constitute the trio upon whom the attention of students at this period
naturally rests. Calhoun possessed neither Webster's brilliant rhetoric
nor his easy versatility, but he surpassed him in the ordered method and
logical sequence of his mind. He never equalled Clay in the latter's
magnetism of impulse and inspiration of affection, but he far surpassed
him in clearness and directness and in tenaci