it, and kindly presented a copy to the author.  We do not believe that, in all the debates of the American Congress, there is another instance of flat falsehood as bad as this.  It happens that the speech of 1816 and that of 1833 are both published in the same volume of the Works of Mr. Calhoun (Vol.  II. pp. 163 and 197).  We advise our readers who have the time and opportunity to read both, if they wish to see how a false position necessitates a false tongue.  Those who take our advice will also discover why it was that Mr. Calhoun dared to utter such an impudent falsehood:  his speeches are such appallingly dull reading, that there was very little risk of a busy people’s comparing the interpretation with the text.

It was John C. Calhoun who, later in the same session, introduced the bill for setting apart the dividends and bonus of the United States Bank as a permanent fund for internal improvements.  His speech on this bill, besides going all lengths in favor of the internal improvement system, presents some amusing contrasts with his later speeches on the same subject.  His hearers of 1835 to 1850 must have smiled on reading in the speech of 1817 such sentences as these:—­

“I am no advocate for refined arguments on the Constitution.  The instrument was not intended as a thesis for the logician to exercise his ingenuity on.  It ought to be construed with plain good-sense.”  “If we are restricted in the use of our money to the enumerated powers, on what principle can the purchase of Louisiana be justified?” “The uniform sense of Congress and the country furnishes better evidence of the true interpretation of the Constitution than the most refined and subtle arguments.”

Mark this, too:—­

“In a country so extensive and so various in its interests, what is necessary for the common interest may apparently be opposed to the interest of particular sections. It must be submitted to as the condition of our greatness.”

Well might he say, in the same speech:—­

“We may reasonably raise our eyes to a most splendid future, if we only act in a manner worthy of our advantages.  If, however, neglecting them, we permit a low, sordid, selfish, sectional spirit to take possession of this House, this happy scene will vanish.  We will divide; and, in its consequences, will follow misery and despotism.”

With this speech before him and before the country, Mr. Calhoun had not the candor to avow, in later years, a complete change of opinion.  He could only go so far as to say, when opposing the purchase of the Madison Papers in 1837, that, “at his entrance upon public life, he had inclined to that interpretation of the Constitution which favored a latitude of powers.”  Inclined!  He was a most enthusiastic and thorough-going champion of that interpretation.  His scheme of internal improvements embraced a network of post-roads