very page of the Life of
Caesar was composed with a secret, perhaps half-unconscious reference
to that view of Louis Napoleon's conduct which is expressed with such
deadly power in Mr. Kinglake's History of the Crimean War, and which
is so remarkably confirmed by an American eyewitness, the late Mr.
Goodrich, who was Consul at Paris in 1848. Published anonymously, the
Life of Caesar might have had some effect. Given to the world by
Napoleon III., every one reads it as he would a defence by an
ingenious criminal of his own cause. The highest praise that can be
bestowed upon it is, that it is very well done, considering the object
the author had in view.

So, in reading Mr. Calhoun's disquisition upon government, we are
constantly reminded that the author was a man who had only escaped
trial and execution for treason by suddenly arresting the treasonable
measures which he had caused to be set on foot. Though it contains but
one allusion to events in South Carolina in 1833, the work is nothing
but a labored, refined justification of those events. It has been even
coupled with Edwards on the Will, as the two best examples of subtle
reasoning which American literature contains. Admit his premises, and
you are borne along, at a steady pace, in a straight path, to the
final inferences: that the sovereign State of South Carolina
possesses, by the Constitution of the United States, an absolute veto
upon every act of Congress, and may secede from the Union whenever she
likes; and that these rights of veto and secession do not merely
constitute the strength of the Constitution, but _are_ the
Constitution,--and do not merely tend to perpetuate the Union, but are
the Union's self,--the thing that binds the States together.

Mr. Calhoun begins his treatise by assuming that government is
necessary. He then explains why it is necessary. It is necessary
because man is more selfish than sympathetic, feeling more intensely
what affects himself than what affects others. Hence he will encroach
on the rights of others; and to prevent this, government is
indispensable.

But government, since it must be administered by selfish men will feel
more intensely what affects itself than what affects the people
governed. It is, therefore, the tendency of all governments to
encroach on the rights of the people; and they certainly will do so,
if they can. The same instinct of self-preservation, the same love of
accumulation, which tempts individuals