est with
posterity is his Treatise on the Nature of Government. Written in the
last year of his life, when at length all hope of further personal
advancement must have died within him, it may be taken as the
deliberate record or summary of his political opinions. He did not
live to revise it, and the concluding portion he evidently meant to
enlarge and illustrate, as was ascertained from notes and memoranda in
pencil upon the manuscript. After the death of the author in 1850, the
work was published in a substantial and elegant form by the
Legislature of South Carolina, who ordered copies to be presented to
individuals of note in science and literature, and to public
libraries. We are, therefore, to regard this volume, not merely as a
legacy of Mr. Calhoun to his countrymen, but as conveying to us the
sentiments of South Carolina with regard to her rights and duties as a
member of the Union. Events since its publication have shown us that
it is more even than this. The assemblage of troublesome communities
which we have been accustomed to style "the South," adopted this work
as their political gospel. From this source the politicians of the
Southern States have drawn all they have chosen to present to the
world in justification of their course which bears the semblance of
argument; for, in truth, Mr. Calhoun, since Jefferson and Madison
passed from the stage, is almost the only thinking being the South has
had. His was a very narrow, intense, and untrustworthy mind, but he
was an angel of light compared with the men who have been recently
conspicuous in the Southern States.

This treatise on government belongs to the same class of works as
Louis Napoleon's Life of Caesar, having for its principal object one
that lies below the surface, and the effect of both is damaged by the
name on the title-page. The moment we learn that Louis Napoleon wrote
that Life of Caesar, the mind is intent upon discovering allusions to
recent history, which the author has an interest in misrepresenting.
The common conscience of mankind condemns him as a perjured usurper,
and the murderer of many of his unoffending fellow-citizens. No man,
whatever the power and splendor of his position, can rest content
under the scorn of mankind, unless his own conscience gives him a
clear acquittal, and assures him that one day the verdict of his
fellow-men will be reversed; and even in that case, it is not every
man that can possess his soul in patience. E