ry habit in your lives, living, and actions, so in
habits, customs, intercourse, and manners; you neither work
with your hands, heads, nor any machinery, but live and have
your living, not in accordance with the will of your
Creator, but by the sweat of slavery, and yet you assume all
the attributes, professions, and advantages of democracy."

Mr. Calhoun, aged thirty, replied thus to Captain Stewart, aged
thirty-four:--

"I see you speak through the head of a young statesman, and
from the heart of a patriot, but you lose sight of the
politician and the sectional policy of the people. I admit
your conclusions in respect to us Southrons. That we are
essentially aristocratic, I cannot deny; but we can and do
yield much to democracy. This is our sectional policy; we
are from necessity thrown upon and solemnly wedded to that
party, however it may occasionally clash with our feelings,
for the conservation of our interests. It is through our
affiliation with that party in the Middle and Western States
that we hold power; but when we cease thus to control this
nation through a disjointed democracy, or any material
obstacle in that party which shall tend to throw us out of
that rule and control, we shall then resort to the
dissolution of the Union. The compromises in the
Constitution, under the circumstances, were sufficient for
our fathers, but, under the altered condition of our country
from that period, leave to the South no resource but
dissolution; for no amendments to the Constitution could be
reached through a convention of the people under their
three-fourths rule."

Probably all of our readers have seen this conversation in print
before. But it is well for us to consider it again and again. It is
the key to all the seeming inconsistencies of Mr. Calhoun's career. He
came up to Congress, and took the oath to support the Constitution,
secretly resolved to break up the country just as soon as the Southern
planters ceased to control it for the maintenance of their peculiar
interest. The reader will note, too, the distinction made by this
young man, who was never youthful, between the "statesman" and the
"politician," and between the "heart of a patriot" and "the sectional
policy of the people."

Turning from his loathsome and despicable exposition to the
Congressional career of Mr. Calhou