even thousand dollars; and he
ought by that time, after thirty years of most successful practice, to
have been independent of his profession. He was not, however; and
never would have been, if he had practised a century. Those habits of
profusion, that reckless disregard of pecuniary considerations, of
which we noticed indications in his early days, seemed to be part of
his moral constitution. He never appeared to know how much money he
had, nor how much he owed; and, what was worse, he never appeared to
care. He was a profuse giver and a careless payer. It was far easier
for him to send a hundred-dollar note in reply to a begging letter,
than it was to discharge a long-standing account; and when he had
wasted his resources in extravagant and demoralizing gifts, he deemed
it a sufficient answer to a presented bill to ask his creditor how a
man could pay money who had none.

It is not true, therefore, that the frequent embarrassments of his
later years were due to the loss of practice by his attendance in
Congress; because, in the years when his professional gains were
smallest, his income was large enough for the wants of any reasonable
man. Nevertheless, we cannot deny that when, in 1827, by his
acceptance of a seat in the Senate, he gave himself permanently to
public life, he made a sacrifice of his pecuniary interests which, for
a man of such vast requirements and uncalculating habits, was very
great.

But his reward was also very great. On that elevated theatre he soon
found an opportunity for the display of his talents, which, while it
honored and served his country, rendered him the foremost man in that
part of it where such talents as his could be appreciated.

All wars of which we have any knowledge have consisted of two parts:
first, a war of words; secondly, the conflict of arms. The war of
words which issued in the late Rebellion began, in 1828, by the
publication of Mr. Calhoun's first paper upon Nullification, called
the South Carolina Exposition; and it ended in April, 1861, when
President Lincoln issued his call for seventy-five thousand troops,
which excited so much merriment at Montgomery. This was a period of
thirty-three years, during which every person in the United States who
could use either tongue or pen joined in the strife of words, and
contributed his share either toward hastening or postponing the final
appeal to the sword. Men fight with one another, says Dr. Franklin,
because they have n