ralists, upon
its advantages and beauties: so that all that this receptive lad heard
of it at his father's fireside was of its value and necessity. We see
in his youthful orations that nothing in the history of the continent
struck his imagination so powerfully as the spectacle of thirty-eight
gentlemen meeting in a quiet city, and peacefully settling the terms
of a national union between thirteen sovereign States, most of which
gave up, voluntarily, what the sword alone was once supposed capable
of extorting. In all his orations on days of national festivity or
mourning, we observe that his weightiest eulogy falls upon those who
were conspicuous in this great business. Because Hamilton aided in it,
he revered his memory; because Madison was its best interpreter, he
venerated his name and deferred absolutely to his judgment. It was
clear to his mind that the President can only dismiss an officer of
the government as he appoints him, by and with the advice and consent
of the Senate; but he would not permit himself to think so against Mr.
Madison's decision. His own triumphs at the bar--those upon which he
plumed himself---were all such as resulted from his lonely broodings
over, and patient study of, the Constitution of his country. A native
of one of the smallest of the States, to which the Union was an
unmixed benefit and called for no sacrifice of pride, he grew up into
nationality without having to pass through any probation of States'
rights scruples. Indeed, it was as natural for a man of his calibre to
be a national man as it is for his own Monadnock to be three thousand
feet above the level of the sea.

The South Carolina Exposition of 1828 appeared to fall still-born from
the press. Neither General Jackson nor any of his nearest friends seem
to have been so much as aware of its existence; certainly they
attached no importance to it. Colonel Benton assures us, that to him
the Hayne debate, so far as it related to constitutional questions,
seemed a mere oratorical display, without adequate cause or object;
and we know that General Jackson, intimately allied with the Hayne
family and strongly attached to Colonel Hayne himself, wished him
success in the debate, and heard with regret that Mr. Webster was
"demolishing" him. Far, indeed, was any one from supposing that a
movement had been set on foot which was to end only with the total
destruction of the "interest" sought to be protected by it. Far was
any one from f