r land, to all the
good we shall ever derive from the continuation of the
Non-importation act. I know not that a victory would produce
an equal pressure on the enemy; but I am certain of what is
of greater consequence, it would be accompanied by more
salutary effects to ourselves. The memory of Saratoga,
Princeton, and Eutaw is immortal. It is there you will find
the country's boast and pride,--the inexhaustible source of
great and heroic sentiments. But what will history say of
restriction? What examples worthy of imitation will it
furnish to posterity? What pride, what pleasure will our
children find in the events of such times? Let me not be
considered romantic. This nation ought to be taught to rely
on its courage, its fortitude, its skill and virtue, for
protection. These are the only safeguards in the hour of
danger. Man was endued with these great qualities for his
defence. There is nothing about him that indicates that he
is to conquer by endurance. He is not incrusted in a shell;
he is not taught to rely upon his insensibility, his passive
suffering, for defence. No, sir; it is on the invincible
mind, on a magnanimous nature, he ought to rely. Here is the
superiority of our kind; it is these that render man the
lord of the world. Nations rise above nations, as they are
endued in a greater degree with these brilliant qualities."

This passage is perfectly characteristic of Calhoun, whose speeches
present hundreds of such inextricable blendings of truth and
falsehood.

We have the written testimony of an honorable man, still living,
Commodore Charles Stewart, U. S. N., that John C. Calhoun was a
conscious traitor to the Union as early as 1812. In December of that
year, Captain Stewart's ship, the Constitution, was refitting at the
Washington Navy Yard, and the Captain was boarding at Mrs. Bushby's,
with Mr. Clay, Mr. Calhoun, and many other Republican members.
Conversing one evening with the new member from South Carolina, he
told him that he was "puzzled" to account for the close alliance which
existed between the Southern planters and the Northern Democracy.

"You," said Captain Stewart,

"in the South and Southwest, are decidedly the aristocratic
portion of this Union; you are so in holding persons in
perpetuity in slavery; you are so in every domestic quality,
so in eve