to note these facts, and his opinion of Van Buren steadily rose,
while he set down Calhoun as an obdurate member of the "conspiracy."

Throughout the winter of 1829-30 the Calhoun and Van Buren factions
kept up a contest which daily became more acrimonious and open.
Already the clique around the President had secretly decided that in
1832 he must run again, with Van Buren as a mate, and that the New
Yorker should be the presidential candidate in 1836. Though irritated
by the Vice President's conduct in the Eaton affair and in other
matters, Jackson threw over the understanding of 1828 with reluctance.
Even when, on the last day of 1829, his friends, alarmed by the state
of his health, persuaded him to write a letter to a Tennessee judge
warmly commending Van Buren and expressing grave doubts about the
South Carolinian--a statement which, in the event of worst fears being
realized, would be of the utmost value to the Van Buren men--he was
unwilling to go the full length of an open break.

But Lewis and his coworkers were craftily laying the train of powder
that would lead to an explosion, and in the spring of 1830 they were
ready to apply the match. When the President had been worked up to the
right stage of suspicion, it was suddenly made known to him that it
was Calhoun, not Crawford, who in Monroe's Cabinet circle in 1818 had
urged that the conqueror of Florida be censured for his bold deeds.
This had the full effect desired. Jackson made a peremptory demand
upon the Vice President for an explanation of his perfidy. Calhoun
responded in a letter which explained and explained, yet got nowhere.
Whereupon Jackson replied in a haughty communication, manifestly
prepared by the men who were engineering the whole business, declaring
the former Secretary guilty of the most reprehensible duplicity and
severing all relations with him. This meant the end of Calhoun's
hopes, at all events for the present. He could never be President
while Jackson's influence lasted. Van Buren had won; and the
embittered South Carolinian could only turn for solace to the
nullification movement, in which he was already deeply engulfed.

Pursuing their plans to the final stroke, the Administration managers
forced a reconstruction of the Cabinet, and all of Calhoun's
supporters were displaced. Louis McLane of Delaware became Secretary
of the Treasury; Lewis Cass of Michigan, Secretary of War; Levi
Woodbury of New Hampshire, Secretary of the Navy;