No words of ours could convey any adequate idea of the rage which this event excited in the people of the United States.  For a time, the Federalists themselves were ready for war.  There were meetings everywhere to denounce it, and especially in the Southern States, always more disposed than the Northern to begin the shedding of blood, and already the main reliance of the Republican party.  Remote and rustic Abbeville, a very Republican district, was not silent on this occasion; and who so proper to draw and support the denunciatory resolutions as young Calhoun, the son of valiant Patrick, fresh from college, though now in his twenty-sixth year?  The student performed this duty, as requested, and spoke so well that his neighbors at once concluded that he was the very man, lawyer as he was, to represent them in the Legislature, where for nearly thirty years his father had served them.  At the next election, in a district noted for its aversion to lawyers, wherein no lawyer had ever been chosen to the Legislature, though many had been candidates, he was elected at the head of his ticket.  His triumph was doubtless owing in a great degree to the paramount influence of his family.  Still, even we, who knew him only in his gaunt and sad decline, can easily imagine that at twenty-six he must have been an engaging, attractive man.  Like most of his race, he was rather slender, but very erect, with a good deal of dignity and some grace in his carriage and demeanor.  His eyes were always remarkably fine and brilliant.  He had a well-developed and strongly set nose, cheek-bones high, and cheeks rather sunken.  His mouth was large, and could never have been a comely feature.  His early portraits show his hair erect on his forehead, as we all remember it, unlike Jackson, whose hair at forty still fell low over his forehead.  His voice could never have been melodious, but it was always powerful.  At every period of his life, his manners, when in company with his inferiors in age or standing, were extremely agreeable, even fascinating.  We have heard a well-known editor, who began life as a “page” in the Senate-chamber, say that there was no Senator whom the pages took such delight in serving as Mr. Calhoun.  “Why?”—­“Because he was so democratic.”—­“How democratic?”—­“He was as polite to a page as to the President of the Senate, and as considerate of his feelings.”  We have heard another member of the press, whose first employment was to report the speeches of Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, bear similar testimony to the frank, engaging courtesy of his intercourse with the corps of reporters.  It is fair, therefore, to conclude that his early popularity at home was due as much to his character and manners as to his father’s name and the influence of his relatives.