ty of coast and frontier defences, and there was much building
of forts during the seven years of Mr. Calhoun's tenure of place.
Respecting the manner in which he discharged the multifarious and
unusual duties of his office, we have never heard anything but
commendation. He was prompt, punctual, diligent, courteous, and firm.
The rules which he drew up for the regulation of the War Department
remained in force, little changed, until the magnitude of the late
contest abolished or suspended all ancient methods. The claims of the
soldiers were rapidly examined and passed upon. It was Mr. Calhoun who
first endeavored to collect considerable bodies of troops for
instruction at one post. He had but six thousand men in all, but he
contrived to get together several companies of artillery at Fortress
Monroe for drill. He appeared to take much interest in the expenditure
of the ten thousand dollars a year which Congress voted for the
education of the Indians. He reduced the expenses of his office, which
was a very popular thing at that day. He never appointed nor removed a
clerk for opinion's sake. In seven years he only removed two clerks,
both for cause, and to both were given in writing the reasons of their
removal. There was no special merit in this, for at that day to do
otherwise would have been deemed infamous.

Mr. Calhoun, as a member of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet, still played the
part of a national man, and supported the measures of his party
without exception. Scarcely a trace of the sectional champion yet
appears. In 1819, he gave a written opinion favoring the cession of
Texas in exchange for Florida; the motive of which was to avoid
alarming the North by the prospective increase of Slave States. In
later years, Mr. Calhoun, of course, wished to deny this; and the
written opinions of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet on that question mysteriously
disappeared from the archives of the State Department. We have the
positive testimony of Mr. John Quincy Adams, that Calhoun, in common
with most Southern men of that day, approved the Missouri Compromise
of 1820, and gave a written opinion that it was a constitutional
measure. That he was still an enthusiast for internal improvements, we
have already mentioned.

The real difficulty of the War Department, however, as of the State
Department, during the Monroe administration, was a certain
Major-General Andrew Jackson, commanding the Military Department of
the South. The popularity of the ma