Union." Thirdly, an extract from the diary of disclosure of individual opinions in the cabinet Mr. John Quincy Adams, under date of the 3d of consultations. With others, and especially with March, 1820, stating that the President on that the political friends of Mr. Calhoun, they were day assembled his cabinet to ask their opinions received as full confirmation of his denial, and on the two questions mentioned-which the left them at liberty to accept his present opinwhole cabinet immediately answered unani- ions as those of his whole life, uninvalidated by mously, and affirmatively; that on the 5th he previous personal discrepancy, and uncountersent the questions in writing to the members acted by the weight of a cabinet decision under of his cabinet, to receive their written answers, Mr. Monroe: and accordingly the new-born to be filed in the department of State; and that dogma of no power in Congress to legislate on the 6th he took his own answer to the Pres- upon the existence of slavery in the territories ident, to be filed with the rest-all agreeing in became an article of political faith, incorporated the affirmative, and only differing some in as- in the creed, and that for action, of a large polisigning, others not assigning reasons for his tical party. What is now brought to light of opinion. The diary states that the President the proceedings in the Senate in '37-'38 show's signed his approval of the Missouri act on the this to have been a mistake-that Mr. Calhoun 6th (which the act shows he did), and request-admitted the power in 1820, when he favored ed Mr. Adams to have all the opinions filed in the compromise and blamed Mr. Randolph for the department of State.

Upon this evidence it would have rested without question that Mr. Monroe's cabinet had been consulted on the constitutionality of the Missouri compromise line, and that all concurred in it, had it not been for the denial of Mr. Calhoun in the debate on the Oregon territorial bill. His denial brought out this evidence; and, notwithstanding its production and conclusiveness, he adhered tenaciously to his disbelief of the whole occurrence; and especially the whole of his own imputed share in it. Two circumstances, specious in themselves, favored this denial: first, that no such papers as those described by Mr. Adams were to be found in the department of State; secondly, that in the original draft of Mr. Monroe's letter it had first been written that the affirmative answers of his cabinet to his two interrogatories were "unanimous," which word had been crossed out and "explicit❞ substituted.

With some these two circumstances weighed nothing against the testimony of two witnesses, and the current corroborating incidents of tradition. In the lapse of twenty-seven years, and in the changes to which our cabinet officers and the clerks of departments are subjected, it was easy to believe that the papers had been mislaid or lost-far easier than to believe that Mr. Adams could have been mistaken in the entry made in his diary at the time. And as to the substitution of "explicit" for "unanimous," that was known to be necessary in order to avoid the violation of the rule which forbid the

opposing it; that he admitted it again in 1838, when he submitted his own resolutions, and voted for those of Mr. Clay. It so happened that no one recollected these proceedings of '37-'38 at the time of the Oregon debate of '47-'48. The writer of this View, though possessing a memory credited as tenacious, did not recollect them, nor remember them at all, until found among the materials collected for this history-a circumstance which he attributes to his repugnance to the whole debate, and taking no part in the proceedings except to vote.

The cabinet consultation of 1820 was not mentioned by Mr. Calhoun in his avowal of 1838, nor is it necessary to the object of this View to pursue his connection with that private executive counselling. The only material inquiry is as to his approval of the Missouri compromise at the time it was adopted; and that is fully established by himself.

It would be a labor unworthy of history to look up the conduct of any public man, and trace him through shifting scenes, with a mere view to personal effect-with a mere view to personal disparagement, by showing him contradictory and inconsistent at some period of his course. Such a labor would be idle, unprofitable, and derogatory; but, when a change takes place in a public man's opinions which leads to a change of conduct, and into a new line of action disastrous to the country, it becomes the duty of history to note the fact, and to expose the contradiction-not for personal disparage

ment-but to counteract the force of the new to break up the Union. Thirty-four years of and dangerous opinion.

In this sense it becomes an obligatory task to show the change, or rather changes, in Mr. Calhoun's opinions on the constitutional power of Congress over the existence of slavery in the national territories; and these changes have been great-too great to admit of followers if they had been known. First, fully admitting the power, and justifying its exercise in the largest and highest possible case. Next, admitting the power, but deprecating its exercise in certain limited, specified, qualified cases. Then, denying it in a limited and specified case. Finally, denying the power any where, and every where, either in Congress, or in the territorial legislature as its delegate, or in the people as sovereign. The last of these mutations, or rather the one before the last (for there are but few who can go the whole length of the three propositions in the Oregon speech), has been adopted by a large political party and acted upon; and with deplorable effect to the country. Holding the Missouri compromise to have been unconstitutional, they have abrogated it as a nullity; and in so doing have done more to disturb the harmony of this Union, to unsettle its foundations, to shake its stability, and to prapare the two halves of the Union for parting, than any act, or all acts put together, since the commencement of the federal government. This lamentable act could not have been done, -could not have found a party to do it,-if Mr. Calhoun had not changed his opinion on the constitutionality of the Missouri compromise line; or if he could have recollected in 1848 that he approved that line in 1820; and further remembered, that he saw nothing unconstitutional in it as late as 1838. The change being now shown, and the imperfection of his memory made manifest by his own testimony, it becomes certain that the new doctrine was an after-thought, disowned by its antecedents-a figment of the brain lately hatched-and which its author would have been estopped from promulgating if these antecedents had been recollected. History now pleads them as an estoppel against his followers.

quiet and harmony under that settlement bear witness to the truth of these words, spoken in the fulness of patriotic gratitude at seeing his country escape from a great danger. The year 1854 has seen the abrogation of that compromise; and with its abrogation the revival of the agitation, and with a force and fury never known before: and now may be seen in fact what was hypothetically foreseen by Mr. Calhoun in 1838, when, as the fruit of this agitation, he saw the destruction of all sympathy between the two sections of the Union-obliteration from the memory of all proud recollections of former common danger and glory-hatred in the hearts of the North and the South, more deadly than ever existed between two neighboring nations. May we not have to witness the remainder of his prophetic vision-"TWO PEOPLE MADE OF ONE!"

P. S. After this chapter had been written, the author received authentic information that, during the time that John M. Clayton, Esq. of Delaware, was Secretary of State under President Taylor (1849-50), evidence had been found in the Department of State, of the fact, that the opinion of Mr. Calhoun and of the rest of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, had been filed there. In consequence a note of inquiry was addressed to Mr. Clayton, who answered (under date of July 19th, 1855) as follows:

"In reply to your inquiry I have to state that I have no recollection of having ever met with Mr. Calhoun's answer to Mr. Monroe's cabinet queries, as to the constitutionality of the Missouri compromise. It had not been found while I was in the department of state, as I was then informed: but the archives of the department disclose the fact, that Mr. Calhoun, and other members of the cabinet, did answer Mr. Monroe's questions. It appears by an index that these answers were filed among the archives of that department. I was told they had been abstracted from the records, and could not be found; but I did not make a search for them myself. I have never doubted that Mr. Calhoun at least acquiesced in the decision of the cabinet of that day. Since I left the Department of

. Mr. Monroe, in his letter to General Jackson, State I have heard it rumored that Mr. Calimmediately after the establishment of the Mis-houn's answer to Mr. Monroe's queries had souri compromise, said that that compromise been found; but I know not upon what ausettled the slavery agitation which threatened thority the statement was made."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

creative imagination to endow him with the form which naval heroism might require. His person was of the middle height, stout, square, solid, compact; well-proportioned; and combining in the perfect degree the idea of strength and en

DEATH OF COMMODORE RODGERS, AND NOTICE durance with the reality of manly comeliness

OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER.

the statue of Mars, in the rough state, before the conscious chisel had lent the last polish. His face, stern in the outline, was relieved by a gentle and benign expression-grave with the overshadowing of an ample and capacious forehead and eyebrows. Courage need not be named among the qualities of Americans; the question would be to find one without it. His skill, enterprise, promptitude and talent for command, were shown in the war of 1812 with Great Britain; in the quasi war of 1799 with the French Republic-quasi only as it concerned political relations, real as it concerned desperate and brilliant combats at sea; and in the Medi

My idea of the perfect naval commander had been formed from history, and from the study of such characters as the Von Tromps and De Ruyters of Holland, the Blakes of England, and the De Tourvilles of France-men modest and virtuous, frank and sincere, brave and patriotic, gentle in peace, terrible in war; formed for high command by nature; and raising themselves to their proper sphere by their own exertions from low beginnings. When I first saw Commodore RODGERS, which was after I had reached senatorial age and station, he recalled to me the idea of those model admirals; and subsequent ac-terranean wars with the Barbary States, when quaintance confirmed the impression then made. He was to me the complete impersonation of my idea of the perfect naval commander-person, mind, and manners; with the qualities for command grafted on the groundwork of a good citizen and good father of a family; and all lodged in a frame to bespeak the seaman and the officer.

His very figure and face were those of the naval hero-such as we conceive from naval songs and ballads; and, from the course of life which the sea officer leads-exposed to the double peril of waves and war, and contending with the storms of the elements as well as with the storm of battle. We associate the idea of bodily power with such a life; and when we find them united-the heroic qualities in a frame of powerful muscular development-we experience a gratified feeling of completeness, which fulfils a natural expectation, and leaves nothing to be desired. And when the same great qualities are found, as they often are, in the man of slight and slender frame, it requires some effort of reason to conquer a feeling of surprise at a combination which is a contrast, and which presents so much power in a frame so little promising it; and hence all poets and orators, all painters and sculptors, all the dealers in imaginary perfections, give a corresponding figure of strength and force to the heroes they create. Commodore Rodgers needed no help from the

those States were formidable in that sea and held Europe under tribute; and which tribute from the United States was relinquished by Tripoli and Tunis at the end of the war with these States-Commodore Rodgers commanding at the time as successor to Barron and Preble. It was at the end of this war, 1804, so valiantly conducted and so triumphantly concluded, that the reigning Pope, Pius the Seventh, publicly declared that America had done more for Christendom against the Barbary States, than all the powers of Europe combined.

He was first lieutenant on the Constellation when that frigate, under Truxton, vanquished and captured the French frigate Insurgent; and great as his merit was in the action, where he showed himself to be the proper second to an able commander, it was greater in what took place after it; and in which steadiness, firmness, humanity, vigilance, endurance, and seamanship, were carried to their highest pitch; and in all which his honors were shared by the then stripling midshipman, afterwards the brilliant Commodore Porter.

The Insurgent having struck, and part of her crew been transferred to the Constellation, Lieut. Rodgers and Midshipman Porter were on board the prize, superintending the trans fer, when a tempest arose-the ships partedand dark night came on. There were still one hundred and seventy-three French prisoners on

board. The two young officers had but eleven men-thirteen in all-to guard thirteen times their number; and work a crippled frigate at the same time, and get her into port. And nobly did they do it. For three days and nights did these thirteen (though fresh from a bloody conflict which strained every faculty and brought demands for rest), without sleep or repose, armed to the teeth, watching with eye and ear, stand to the arduous duty-sailing their ship, restraining their prisoners, solacing the wounded ready to kill, and hurting no one. They did not sail at random, or for the nearest port; but, faithful to the orders of their commander, given under different circumstances, steered for St. Kitts, in the West Indies-arrived there safely --and were received with triumph and admiration.

had bearded the Barbary Powers in their dens, after chasing their piratical vessels from the seas: but a war with Great Britain, with her one thousand and sixty vessels of war on her naval list, and above seven hundred of these for service, her fleets swelled with the ships of all nations, exalted with the idea of invincibility, and one hundred and twenty guns on the decks of her first-class men-of-war-any naval contest with such a power, with seventeen vessels for the sea, ranging from twelve to forty-four guns (which was the totality which the American naval register could then show), seemed an insanity. And insanity it would have been with even twenty times as many vessels, and double their number of guns, if naval battles with rival fleets had been intended. Fortunately we had naval officers at that time who understood the virtue of cruising, and believed they could do what Paul Jones and others had done during the war of the Revolution.

Political men believed nothing could be done

Such an exploit equalled any fame that could be gained in battle; for it brought into requisition all the qualities for command which high command requires; and foreshadowed the future eminence of these two young officers. | at sea but to lose the few vessels which we had; What firmness, steadiness, vigilance, endurance, and courage-far above that which the battlefield requires! and one of these young officers, a slight and slender lad, as frail to the look as the other was powerful; and yet each acting his part with the same heroic steadiness and perseverance, coolness and humanity! They had no irons to secure a single man. The one hundred and seventy-three French were loose in the lower hold, a sentinel only at each gangway; and vigilance, and readiness to use their arms, the only resource of the little crew. If history has a parallel to this deed I have not seen it; and to value it in all its extent, it must be remembered that these prisoners were Frenchmen-their inherent courage exalted by the frenzy of the revolution-themselves fresh from a murderous conflict-the decks of the ship still red and slippery with the blood of their comrades; and they with a right, both legal and moral, to recover their liberty if they could. These three days and nights, still more than the victory which preceded them, earned for Rodgers the captaincy, and for Porter the lieutenancy, with which they were soon respectively honored.

American cruisers had gained credit in the war of the Revolution, and in the quasi war with the French Republic; and American squadrons VOL. II.-10

that even cruising was out of the question. Of our seventeen vessels, the whole were in port but one; and it was determined to keep them there, and the one at sea with them, if it had the luck to get in. I am under no obligation to make the admission, but I am free to acknowledge, that I was one of those who supposed that there was no salvation for our seventeen men-of-war but to run them as far up the creek as possible, place them under the guns of batteries, and collect camps of militia about them, to keep off the British. This was the policy at the day of the declaration of the war; and I have the less concern to admit myself to have been participator in the delusion, because I claim the merit of having profited from experience-happy if I could transmit the lesson to posterity. Two officers came to WashingtonBainbridge and Stewart. They spoke with Mr. Madison, and urged the feasibility of cruising. One-half of the whole number of the British men-of-war were under the class of frigates, consequently no more than matches for some of our seventeen; the whole of her merchant marine (many thousands) were subject to capture. Here was a rich field for cruising; and the two officers, for themselves and brothers, boldly proposed to enter it.

Mr. Madison had seen the efficiency of cruis