Under despotic governments, like those of Louis XIV. and Andrew Jackson, no calculation can be made as to the future of any public man, because his future depends upon the caprice of the despot, which cannot be foretold.  Six short weeks—­nay, not so much, not six—­sufficed to estrange the mind of the President from Calhoun, and implant within him a passion to promote the interests of Van Buren.  Our readers, we presume, all know how this was brought to pass.  It was simply that Mr. Calhoun would not, and Mr. Van Buren would call upon Mrs. Eaton.  All the other influences that were brought to bear upon the President’s singular mind were nothing in comparison with this.  Daniel Webster uttered only the truth when he wrote, at the time, to his friend Dutton, that the “Aaron’s serpent among the President’s desires was a settled purpose of making out the lady, of whom so much has been said, a person of reputation”; and that this ridiculous affair would “probably determine who should be the successor to the present chief magistrate.”  It had precisely that effect.  We have shown elsewhere the successive manoeuvres by which this was effected, and how vigorously but unskillfully Calhoun struggled to avert his fate.  We cannot and need not repeat the story; nor can we go over again the history of the Nullification imbroglio, which began with the South Carolina Exposition in 1828, and ended very soon after Calhoun had received a private notification that the instant news reached Washington of an overt act of treason in South Carolina, the author and fomenter of that treason would be arrested and held for trial as a traitor.

One fact alone suffices to prove that, in bringing on the Nullification troubles, Calhoun’s motive was factious.  When General Jackson saw the coming storm, he did two things.  First, he prepared to maintain the authority of the United States by force.  Secondly, he used all his influence with Congress to have the cause of Southern discontent removed.  General Jackson felt that the argument of the anti-tariff men, in view of the speedy extinction of the national debt, was unanswerable.  He believed it was absurd to go on raising ten or twelve millions a year more than the government could spend, merely for the sake of protecting Northern manufactures.  Accordingly, a bill was introduced which aimed to do just what the nullifiers had been clamoring for, that is, to reduce the revenue to the amount required by the government.  If Mr. Calhoun had supported this measure, he could have carried it.  He gave it no support; but exerted all his influence in favor of the Clay Compromise, which was expressly intended to save as much of the protective system as could be saved, and which reduced duties gradually, instead of suddenly.  Rather than permit the abhorred administration to have the glory of pacificating the country, this lofty Roman stooped to a coalition with his personal enemy, Henry Clay, the champion and the soul of the protectionist party.