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 Speeches and State Papers (6 vols.) edited by Richard K. Crallé.

[Illustration: Old Presbyterian Church at which Calhoun worshiped
 JNO C CALHOUN
 The Calhoun Homestead at Fort Hill
 Calhouns Grave in St. Phillips Churchyard.]

Calhoun has been called the philosopher of statesmen, and his style
accords with this description. "His eloquence was part of his
intellectual character. It was plain, strong, terse, condensed,
concise; sometimes impassioned, still always severe. Rejecting
ornament, not often seeking far for illustration, his power consisted
in the plainness of his propositions, in the closeness of his logic,
and in the earnestness and energy of his manner."--Daniel Webster.

WAR AND PEACE.

War can make us great; but let it never be forgotten that peace only
can make us both great and free.

SYSTEM OF OUR GOVERNMENT.

(_Speech on State Rights and Union, 1834._)

I know of no system, ancient or modern, to be compared with it; and
can compare it to nothing but that sublime and beautiful system of
which our globe constitutes a part, and to which it bears, in many
particulars, so striking a resemblance.

DEFENCE OF NULLIFICATION.

(_From a Speech against the Force Bill, after the State of South
Carolina had passed the Ordinance of Nullification, 1833._)

A deep constitutional question lies at the bottom of the controversy.
The real question at issue is, Has the government a right to impose
burdens on the capital and industry of one portion of the country, not
with a view to revenue, but to benefit another? and I must be
permitted to say that after a long and deep agitation of this
controversy, it is with surprise that I perceive so strong a
disposition to misrepresent its real character. To correct the
impression which those misrepresentations are calculated to make, I
will dwell on the point under consideration a few moments longer.

The Federal Government has, by an express provision of the
Constitution, the right to lay duties on imports. The state never
denied or resisted this right, nor even thought of so doing. The
government has, however, not been contented with exercising this power
as she had a right to do, but has gone a step beyond it, by laying
imposts, not for revenue, but for protection. This the state considers
as an unconstitutional exercise of power, highly injurious and
oppressive to her and the other staple states, and has accordingly,
met it with the most determined resistance. I do not intend to enter,
at this time, into the argument as to the unconstitutionality of the
protective system. It is not necessary. It is sufficient that the
power is nowhere granted; and that, from the journals of the
Convention which formed the Constitution, it would seem that it was
refused. In support of the journals, I might cite the statement of
Luther Martin, which has already been referred to, to show that the
Convention, so far from conferring the power on the Federal
Government, left to the state the right to impose duties on imports,
with the express view of enabling the several states to protect their
own manufactures. Notwithstanding this, Congress has assumed, without
any warrant from the Constitution, the right of exercising this most
important power, and has so exercised it as to impose a ruinous burden
on the labor and capital of the state of South Carolina, by which her
resources are exhausted, the enjoyments of her citizens curtailed, the
means of education contracted, and all her interests essentially and
injuriously affected.

We have been sneeringly told that she is a small state; that her
population does not exceed half a million of souls; and that more than
one half are not of the European race. The facts are so. I know she
never can be a great state, and that the only distinction to which she
can aspire must be based on the moral and intellectual acquirements of
her sons. To the development of these much of her attention has been
directed; but this restrictive system, which has so unjustly exacted
the proceeds of her labor, to be bestowed on other sections, has so
impaired the resources of the state, that, if not speedily arrested,
it will dry up the means of education, and with it deprive her of the
only source through which she can aspire to distinction. . . . .

The people of the state believe that the Union is a union of states,
and not of individuals; that it was formed by the states, and that the
citizens of the several states were bound to it through the acts of
their several states; that each state ratified the Constitution for
itself; and that it was only by such ratification of a state that any
obligation was imposed upon the citizens; thus believing, it is the
opinion of the people of Carolina, that it belongs to the state which
has imposed the obligation to declare, in the last resort, the extent
of this obligation, so far as her citizens are concerned; and this
upon the plain principles which exist in all analogous cases of
compact between sovereign bodies. On this principle, the people of the
state, acting in their sovereign capacity in convention, precisely as
they adopted their own and the federal Constitution, have declared by
the ordinance, that the acts of Congress which imposed duties under
the authority to lay imposts, are acts, not for revenue, as intended
by the Constitution, but for protection, and therefore null and void.

 [Mr. Calhoun's biographer, Mr. Jenkins, adds,
 "Nullification, it has been said, was 'a little
 hurricane while it lasted;' but it cooled the air, and
 'left a beneficial effect on the atmosphere.' Its
 influence was decidedly healthful."]

THE WISE CHOICE.

(_From a speech in 1816._)

This country is now in a situation similar to that which one of the
most beautiful writers of antiquity ascribes to Hercules in his youth.
He represents the hero as retiring into the wilderness to deliberate
on the course of life which he ought to choose. Two goddesses approach
him; one recommending a life of ease and pleasure; the other, of labor
and virtue. The hero adopts the counsel of the latter, and his fame
and glory are known to the world. May this country, the youthful
Hercules, possessing his form and muscles, be animated by similar
sentiments, and follow his example!

OFFICIAL PATRONAGE.

(_Speech in the Senate, 1835._)

Their object is to get and hold office; and their leading political
maxim . . . is that, "to the victors belong the spoils of victory!"[8]
. . . Can any one, who will duly reflect on these things, venture to
say that all is sound, and that our Government is not undergoing a
great and fatal change? Let us not deceive ourselves, the very essence
of a free government consists in considering _offices as public
trusts_, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit
of an individual or a party; and that system of political morals which
regards offices in a different light, as _public prizes_ to be won by
combatants most skilled in all the arts and corruption of political
tac

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