“We have now reached the consummation of democratic blessedness.  We have a country governed by blockheads and knaves; the ties of marriage, with all its felicities, are severed and destroyed; our wives and daughters are thrown into the stews; our children are cast into the world from the breast forgotten; filial piety is extinguished; and our surnames, the only mark of distinction among families, are abolished.  Can the imagination paint anything more dreadful this side hell?”

These remarkable statements, so far from surprising the virtuous people of New Haven, were accepted by them, it appears, as facts, and published with general approval.  From what we know of President Dwight, we may conclude that he would regard his brother’s oration as a pardonable flight of hyperbole, based on truth.  He was a Federalist of the deepest dye.

Transferred to a scene where such opinions prevailed, it cost the young republican no great exertion either of his intellect or his firmness or his family pride to hold his ground.  Of all known men, he had the most complete confidence in the infallibility of his own mind.  He used to relate, that in the Senior year, when he was one of very few in a class of seventy who maintained republican opinions, President Dwight asked him, “What is the legitimate source of power?” “The people,” answered the student.  Dr. Dwight combated this opinion; Calhoun replied; and the whole hour of recitation was consumed in the debate.  Dr. Dwight was so much struck with the ability displayed by the student, that he remarked to a friend that Calhoun had talent enough to be President of the United States, and that we should see him President in due time.  In those innocent days, an observation of that nature was made of every young fellow who showed a little spirit and a turn for debate.  Fathers did not then say to their promising offspring, Beware, my son, of self-seeking and shallow speaking, lest you should be consigned to the White House, and be devoured by office-seekers.  People then regarded the Presidency as a kind of reward of merit, the first step toward which was to get “up head” in the spelling-class.  There is reason to believe that young Calhoun took the prediction of the Doctor very seriously.  He took everything seriously.  He never made a joke in his life, and was totally destitute of the sense of humor.  It is doubtful if he was ever capable of unbending so far as to play a game of football.

The ardent political discussions then in vogue had one effect which the late Mr. Buckle would have pronounced most salutary; they prevented Dr. Dwight’s severe theology from taking hold of the minds of many students.  Calhoun wholly escaped it.  In his speeches we find, of course, the stock allusions of a religious nature with which all politicians essay to flatter their constituents; but he was never interested in matters theological.  A century earlier, he might have been the Jonathan Edwards of the South, if there had been a South then.  His was just the mind to have revelled in theological subtilties, and to have calmly, closely, unrelentingly argued nearly the whole human race into endless and hopeless perdition.  His was just the nature to have contemplated his argument with complacency, and its consequences without emotion.