MR CALHOUN. 327 



in Congress and on the streets, and the speeches of the 

 other leaders, followed in quick succession. 



Among these leaders, now gone, I may speak of Mr 

 Calhoun. Within a week or two of his death, when 

 supposed to be convalescent, I had the honour of an 

 interview with this distinguished statesman. Of Irish 

 descent through a Green Island father Scoto-Irish by 

 blood, as his name implies he inherited the eloquence 

 and energy of his father s country, with the long-headed- 

 ness of that of the Scottish Colquhouns. He was an 

 honest and most sincere man, though so devoted an advo 

 cate and defender of southern rights and domestic institu 

 tions, as he called them. He was, as all knew, a man of 

 high ambition ; but his hopes of the loftiest official dignity 

 of his country were sacrificed more than once to the prin 

 ciples he had unflinchingly maintained. With all my 

 predilections in favour of freedom, I could not look upon 

 Mr Calhoun, for nearly forty years one of the most zealous 

 upholders of the slave interest, as I saw him in his sick 

 chamber, without feelings of respect and regret. The 

 broad forehead, massy head, and still bright eye, all 

 brought out most distinctly by the shrunk and withered 

 face beneath, impressed me with a sense of the intellectual 

 power he had so often wielded in defence of his own and 

 his party s views. Though he rallied sufficiently after 

 wards to deliver his last to him too exciting speech in 

 the Senate, yet I felt in his presence that I was con 

 versing with a dying man ; and I quitted his apartment 

 with the awe which comes over us when we contemplate 

 great powers on the eve of being called upon to render 

 a great account. 



During my brief stay I had also the honour of a 

 private audience with the late President Taylor. The 

 attendant circumstances were very different from those 

 which usually accompany audiences with the chief magis 

 trate of great countries in Europe. A single servant in 



