is an honor to Mr. Calhoun to have been the only man in the Cabinet to call for an inquiry into proceedings which disgraced the United States and came near involving the country in war.  We have always felt it to be a blot upon the memory of John Quincy Adams, that he did not join Mr. Calhoun in demanding the trial of General Jackson; and we have not been able to attribute his conduct to anything but the supposed necessities of his position as a candidate for the succession.

Readers versed in political history need not be reminded that nearly every individual in the Cabinet of Mr. Monroe had hopes of succeeding him.  Mr. Adams had, of course; for he was the premier.  Mr. Crawford, of course; for it had been “arranged” at the last caucus that he was to follow Mr. Monroe, to whose claims he had deferred on that express condition.  Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and De Witt Clinton of New York, had expectations.  All these gentlemen had “claims” which both their party and the public could recognize.  Mr. Calhoun, too, who was forty-two years of age in Mr. Monroe’s last year of service, boldly entered the lists; relying upon the united support of the South and the support of the manufacturing States of the North, led by Pennsylvania.  That against such competitors he had any ground at all to hope for success, shows how rapid and how real had been his progress toward a first-rate national position.  If our readers will turn to the letters of Webster, Story, Wirt, Adams, Jackson, and others of that circle of distinguished men, they will see many evidences of the extravagant estimation in which he was held in 1824.  They appear to have all seen in him the material for a President, though not yet quite mature for the position.  They all deemed him a man of unsullied honor, of devoted patriotism, of perfect sincerity, and of immense ability,—­so assiduously had he played the part of the good boy.

How the great popularity of General Jackson was adroitly used by two or three invisible wire-pullers to defeat the aspirations of these too eager candidates, and how from the general wreck of their hopes Mr. Calhoun had the dexterity to emerge Vice-President of the United States, has been related with the amplest detail, and need not be repeated here.  Mr. Calhoun’s position seemed then to combine all the advantages which a politician of forty-three could desire or imagine.  By withdrawing his name from the list of candidates in such a way as to lead General Jackson to suppose that he had done so in his favor, he seemed to place the General under obligations to him.  By secretly manifesting a preference for Mr. Adams (which he really felt) when the election devolved upon the House of Representatives, he had gained friends among the adherents of the successful candidate.  His withdrawal was accepted by the public as an evidence of modesty becoming the youngest candidate.  Finally he was actually Vice-President, as John Adams had