. I lay claim in his name for
foresight beyond that of any man of his time. He made mistakes, but he
made them bravely, grandly, and consistently. Where his convictions were
enlisted, he had no reservations, and he used every means, every
available weapon, as I have shown. But he was never self-seeking, never
cheap, never insincere. A detester of all machine politicians, he was a
statesman worthy to be called the William Pitt of the United States. The
consistency of his career was a marvelous thing; because, though he
changed in his beliefs, he was first to recognize the changing
conditions of our country. He failed, and he is execrated. He won, and
he is forgot.

My chief, Mr. Calhoun, did not die until some six years after that
first evening when Doctor Ward and I had our talk with him. He was said
to have died of a disease of the lungs, yet here again history is
curiously mistaken. Mr. Calhoun slept himself away. I sometimes think
with a shudder that perhaps this was the revenge which Nemesis took of
him for his mistakes. His last days were dreamlike in their passing. His
last speech in the Senate was read by one of his friends, as Doctor Ward
had advised him. Some said afterwards that his illness was that accursed
"sleeping sickness" imported from Africa with these same slaves: It were
a strange thing had John Calhoun indeed died of his error! At least he
slept away. At least, too, he made his atonement. The South, following
his doctrines, itself was long accursed of this same sleeping sickness;
but in the providence of God it was not lost to us, and is ours for a
long and splendid history.

It was through John Calhoun, a grave and somber figure of our history,
that we got the vast land of Texas. It was through him also--and not
through Clay nor Jackson, nor any of the northern statesmen, who never
could see a future for the West--that we got all of our vast Northwest
realm. Within a few days after the Palo Alto ball, a memorandum of
agreement was signed between Minister Pakenham and Mr. Buchanan, our
secretary of state. This was done at the instance and by the aid of
John Calhoun. It was he--he and Helena von Ritz--who brought about that
treaty which, on June fifteenth, of the same year, was signed, and
gladly signed, by the minister from Great Britain. The latter had been
fully enough impressed (such was the story) by the reports of the
columns of our west-bound farmers, with rifles leaning at their wagon
seats