will be the price; the imagination can fix no limit to the cheapness to be thus obtained.

"3. That the higher the price of Northern manufactures, the better for us, as it will make us rich.

"4. That the lower the price of cotton, and other Southern products, the better for those who raise them, as it will force them to be economical, and economy is one of the chief of the virtues."

The burlesque concludes by a chemical analysis of a Yankee's soul:

"The devil is a wonderfully skillful chemist, and knows how to analyze all substances, whether material or spiritual. In a few minutes he erected a furnace, seized one of the Yankees, and disengaged from the body that which in these animals supplies the place of a soul. It stood up before us, a thing utterly strange and indescribable. He put it into a large crucible, reduced it to a fluid mass, and then separated the component parts.

235

1000

Essence of onions, New England rum, molasses, and cod-fish,

A retort appeared at the North, which was more than equal in humor and point to the "Memoirs of a Nullifier." It was entitled, "A Yankee among the Nullifiers." The following amusing passage is full of the feeling of the hour:

"As I was one evening in company with sundry Nullifiers, one of them related the following:

"I am very particular,' said he, 'never to use an article of American manufacture on any consideration whatever. It costs me a great deal more, to be sure, to obtain those of foreign production. But I am determined not to encourage the advocates of protection; and would sooner go fifty miles, and pay a hundred per cent. more than a thing is worth, if it be only imported, than have a similar article of American manufacture brought to my very door and sold at a fair price.

"But in spite of all my care, I sometimes get confoundedly taken in.

Why, it was only last week that I discovered a monstrous cheat that had been put upon me. Falling into conversation with a Yankee, I launched out as usual against the Tariff, and swore that I would go bareheaded and barebacked till the end of time, sooner than I would wear a coat made of American cloth, or a hat manufactured in an American shop.

"With that the fellow poked out his hand and desired, if it was no offense, to examine the quality of my coat. "You may examine it as much as you please," said I; "but you'll find it's none of your Yankee manufacture?"

"""There's where your mistaken, Mister," said he. "I helped make that cloth myself at the Pontoosuc Factory, in old Barkshire, Massachusetts."

"""The devil you did!" said I. "Why, I purchased this cloth of a merchant who assured me positively that it was of British manufacture. But what makes you think it is American cloth, and especially that it was made at the Pon, what do you call it, Factory ?"

"""Why, I know by the feel of it. Any fool might know that." "He then made a like request-provided always it was no offenseto examine my hat. "You are devilish afraid of giving offense," said I, at the same time handing him my hat; "but at all events you'll not find that of American manufacture. It's real London made. I paid ten dollars for it to the importer."

""The more fool you, then," said he; "why, I made that hat with my own hands, in the town of Danbury, Connecticut; and I can buy as many jest like it as you can shake a stick at, for four dollars apiece."

"""Confound you, for a lying Yankee !" said I, beginning to get angry at the fellow's impertinence-" do you pretend to be a hatter and cloth manufacturer too? But here's sufficient evidence, inside of the hat, to convict you of an untruth; here's the name of the manufacturer, Bondstreet, London."

""Ha! ha! ha!" said he, laughing in my face-"I printed that label in Hartford, Connecticut."

""You Yankee scoundrel!" said I, "what hav'nt you done?"

"""I never did so foolish a thing," replied he," as to pay twice as much for British manufactures as I have to give for American ones; and after all, find the goods had been made in the workshops of our own country."

"This capped the climax of the fellow's impertinence; and I kicked him out doors for his pains.'

Here, then, was material upon which the great nullifier could work-the discontent of the South with the protective system, and the popular antipathy between the two sections of the Union. It proved an explosive material in his hands.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

NULLIFICATION

AS AN EVENT.

CALHOUN began it. Calhoun continued it. Calhoun stopped it.

So much is known. But the means are not accessible, and are not likely to be, of forming a certain judgment respecting the character of this celebrated person. We can not positively determine whether he was a selfish, or merely a mistaken man; or, in other words, whether it was the love of the presidency, or of justice and South Carolina, that impelled him.

The old Jackson men of the inner set still speak of Mr. Calhoun in terms which show that they consider him at once the most wicked and the most despicable of American statesmen. He was a coward, conspirator, hypocrite, traitor, and fool, say they. He strove, schemed, dreamed, lived, only for the presidency; and when he despaired of reaching that office by honorable means, he sought to rise upon the ruins of his country-thinking it better to reign in South Carolina than to serve in the United States. General Jackson lived and died in this opinion. In his last sickness he declared that, in reflecting upon his administration, he chiefly regretted that he had not had John C. Calhoun executed for treason. "My country," said the General, "would have sustained me in the act, and his fate would have been a warning to traitors in all time to come."

It is painful to be compelled to think ill of a character beloved by the people of one State, admired by the people of many States, generally respected in all the States. Bulwer and others have maintained that we can not learn a man's character from his writings. Perhaps not, when his writings are imaginative and emotional, because such effusions do not tell the secret of secrets-whether the good feelings of the author have power to control his conduct. A man of the

right stamp lives better than he writes: a man of the wrong stamp writes better than he lives. The writings of Mr. Calhoun, voluminous, argumentative, difficult to read, seem to reveal to us an honest, earnest nature. We should naturally infer from them that, soured in some degree by his disappointment with regard to the presidency, he had fallen under the domination of one idea, which he spent his last years in promulgating, and of which he seemed to die. We also learn from those who associated familiarly with him that he was personally the most amiable, gracious, and even fascinating of men. The pages of the Senate-chamber liked to serve him. The reporters of the Washington press were fond of him. His neighbors in South Carolina loved him. It was only his equals and rivals, Clay, Jackson, Crawford, and the rest, who hated him; and they did hate him most cordially. And I am bound to state that, after long holding out against their view of his character, a close survey of his political career has compelled me to doubt both his patriotism and his sincerity. I can not reconcile some of his important actions with the usual theory that he was a pure, but mistaken man. I can not resist the conclusion that it was the mania for the presidency (which has led so many promising spirits to their damnation) that inspired all his later efforts. It does really seem that from the hour when public men feel themselves to be on the road to the presidential mansion-that whited sepulchre of all that is best in human nature-they all, in some degree, cease to be worthy of themselves. They take on board, as it were, and stow away in the hold of their souls a huge magnet, which pulls the needle of conscience all awry. If only those candidates for the presidency who have passed that tremendous ordeal without just reproach throw stones at Mr. Calhoun's memory, his good name is safe.

But let us come to the facts. The war of 1812 left the country burthened with a debt of one hundred and thirty millions of dollars, and blessed with a great number of small manufactories. The debt and the manufactories were both

То

results of the war. By cutting off the supply of foreign manufactured articles, the war had produced upon the home manufacturing interest the effect of a prohibitory tariff. pay the interest of this great debt and occasional installments of the principal, it was necessary for the government to raise a far larger revenue than had ever before been collected in the United States. The new manufacturing interest asked that the duties should be so regulated as to afford some part of that complete protection which the war had given it. The peace, that had been welcomed with such wild delight in 1815, had prostrated entire branches of manufacture to which the war had given a sudden development.

Among those who advocated the claims of the manufacturers in the session of 1815-'16, and strove to have the protective principle permanently incorporated into the revenue legislation of Congress, the most active, the most zealous, was John C. Calhoun, member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina. He spoke often on the subject, and he spoke unequivocally. Mr. Clay, who was then the friend, ally, and messmate of Mr. Calhoun, admitted that the Carolinian had surpassed himself in the earnestness with which he labored in the cause of protection.

One of his arguments was drawn from the condition of Poland at the time. "The country in Europe," said he, having the most skillful workmen, is broken up. It is to us, if wisely used, more valuable than the repeal of the Edict of Nantes was to England. She had the prudence to profit by it-let us not discover less political sagacity. Afford to ingenuity and industry immediate and AMPLE PROTECTION, and they will not fail to give a preference to this free and happy country."

The protectionists, led by Messrs. Clay and Calhoun, triumphed in 1816. In the tariff bill of 1820, the principle was carried farther, and still farther in those of 1824 and 1828. Under the protective system, manufactures flourished, and the public debt was greatly diminished. It attracted skillful

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