the advisers whom he would invite to assist him would compensate for those defects.  Then Mr. Calhoun proceeds to state, that the contest turned chiefly upon the question of protection or free trade; and the strife was, which of the two parties should go farthest in the advocacy of protection.  The result was, he says, that the tariff bill of 1828 was passed,—­“that disastrous measure which has brought so many calamities upon us, and put in peril the liberty and union of the country,” and “poured millions into the treasury beyond the most extravagant wants of the country.”

The passage of this tariff bill was accomplished by the tact of Martin Van Buren, aided by Major Eaton, Senator from Tennessee.  Mr. Van Buren was the predestined chief of General Jackson’s Cabinet, and Major Eaton was the confidant, agent, and travelling manager of the Jacksonian wire-pullers, besides being the General’s own intimate friend.  The events of that session notified Mr. Calhoun that, however manageable General Jackson might be, he was not likely to fall into the custody of the Vice-President.  General Jackson’s election being considered certain, the question was alone interesting, who should possess him for the purposes of the succession.  The prospect, as surveyed that winter from the Vice-President’s chair, was not assuring to the occupant of that lofty seat.  If General Jackson could not be used as a fulcrum for the further elevation of Mr. Calhoun, would it not be advisable to begin to cast about for another?

The tariff bill of 1828 was passed before the Presidential canvass had set in with its last severity.  There was time for Mr. Calhoun to withdraw from the support of the man whose nearest friends had carried it through the Senate under his eyes.  He did not do so.  He went home, after the adjournment of Congress, to labor with all his might for the election of a protectionist, and to employ his leisure hours in the composition of that once famous paper called the “South Carolina Exposition,” in which protection was declared to be an evil so intolerable as to justify the nullification of an act founded upon it.  This Exposition was the beginning of our woe,—­the baleful egg from which were hatched nullification, treason, civil war, and the desolation of the Southern States.  Here is Mr. Calhoun’s own account of the manner in which what he correctly styles “the double operation” was “pushed on” in the summer of 1828:—­

“This disastrous event [the passage of the tariff bill of 1828] opened our eyes (I mean myself and those immediately connected with me) as to the full extent of the danger and oppression of the protective system, and the hazard of failing to effect the reform intended through the election of General Jackson.  With these disclosures, it became necessary to seek some other ultimate, but more certain measure of protection.  We turned to the Constitution to find this remedy.  We directed a more diligent and careful scrutiny