The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-09-23
WEBALl STATESMAN
AUSTIN.
THURSDAY ...eSEPTEN8ER %. 1875
nfh.un aud ItEs Contemporaries 'rhe
n metGo STATE IN It's Earlier Year.

..
A famous letter writer has said that South
carolina WAS aud il the most intfliec uHily
developed white population If the South.
The people Of the coast were generally
French. Calvinisss, English and Scotch
planters. merchants and professional men,
and their refined and organizing sway was
compelled, after the revolution, to yield
very materially TO the sterner stuH OF the
upland people, most OF whom were Irish
and Scotch-Irish. OF these was John G.
Calhoun, a man of Pennsylvania Irish ex-
traction and Of a Virginia mother. He
was born Just at the close of the revolu
tiouarv war and was educated in the North
at Yale College, and at the Litchfield law
school. HIS father was merchant planter
and stakeholder. The early life of Calhoun
was studious, ambitious and cheerful. His
family was strong in the Aobeville district
and he went TO Congress at the age of TWEEN
ty-eight, after serving in the Legislature
and on the board OF trustees of the memoir
able South Carolina College, the real alma
mater of the State. In 1911 he married
Floride Calhoun by whom he inherited
plantation and negroes in remote northern
corner Of South Carolina, under the noun
tains. There he spent the years of his pri-
vacy, his home-life marked by nothing but
gravity and study. For twenty years, or,
between 1908 IN the Legislature, and 1928
when. he left the ice-Presidency, Calhoun
was d useful executive officer and a cheer
full man. His executive abilities are be-
lieved by many of his admirers TO have sur
passed his dialectic powers. 1t was while
Nice-President that he incurred the hostil-
ity OF President jackson who forced him
out of the line of succession to the Presi-
dency, and the contest which ensued In
tensified his high Celtic temperament and
made the last thirty years of his life con-
Trajectory of the record of the first twenty.
l will prove this by the funeral Grafton de-
livered over him by the late Senator Ham
mond, one of his staunchest supporters.
Hammond said
ut may he questioned whether at the
time he entered Congress, Mr.. Calhoun's OPP
position was at all enlighteded by those
great principles of free trade then so little
known, which it was the glory of his later
life TO develop and sustain under such try
ing circumstances. Neither then,
nor when the import duties were readjusted
at the close OF the war, did he appear to
have perceived the dangers which lurked
under protection. For in the debate of
1914, while Mr.. Webster declared he was
an enemy to rearing manufactures, or any
other interest, in a hot bed, and never
wished to see a Sheffield or a Birmingham
in this country, MIR. Calhoun hoped that,
at all times and under every policy, they
would be protected with due care And
again in 1916, he advocated, without any
note of caution, the bill introduced by an
another distinguished Carolinian. VIM.
Lowndes, which distinctly recognized the
protective principle, and introduced per-
haps its most oppressive feature. He
was tlq responsible author of the bank of
1916, whose powerful efforts to prolong its
own existence so fearfully agitated the |
whole Union twenty years later.
Mr.. Calhoun brought forward and carried |
in 1916 bill appropriatlng the bonus and
dividends of the United States bank to inter- |
nal improvements. This bill was vetoed as
unconstitutional by Mr.. Madison, to the.
surprise of it's author. In 1918, Mr.. CAL |
houn, as Secretary of War, made report |
on roads and canals, embracing views and |
recommending measures fully as extensive |
as those of Mr.. Gallatin, and he believed |
the power of the government to lay taxes
and appropriate the proceeds was limited
only by the injunction that they should be |
applied to the common defense and general |
welfare. - His views in many most |
important particulars were essentially erro- |
neous, and he assisted powerfully in giving |
currency to opinions and building up sys- |
TENS that have proved seriously injurious to |
the South. 1t has been customary to apol- |
ogize for the errors by sayingthey were the
errors of youth. But Mr.. Calhoun had no
youth, to our knowledge"
So spoke Senator Hammond, the leader
of the state in secession times.
Mr.. Calhoun, in fact, was, ipart OF his
life, Madisonan Federalist He was not |
the protector of the policy of free trade, |
which was born in the college of South |
Carolina, from the writings and lectures of
Thomas Cooper and Robert Henry, profess.
ors, the first of whom was an Engishmen,
the son-in-law of DIR. PIiestly, at whom Ed
mund Burke leveled his thunders, and the
other was graduate of Edinburgh Univer-
sity. The doctrine of feee trade as it per-
meated that college was imbibed in common
by Unionists and Nulifiers 1t was the be-
lief of radical anti-states' rights men like
Hugh S. Legare and Joel Poinsett, rs well |
as radical 'secessionists like McDufie and
Hammond. Mr.. Calhoun subscribed to 1t
and wrote in 1928 an Exposition and Pro-
test on the tariff, but he did not stick to /
free trade as the great issue of the South.
There was Louisiana demanding protection
for sugar. So he turned his attention to
slavery, the common danger of all the
South.
The greSt debate between Massachusetts,, |
rs represented by Webster, and South |
Carolina, as represented by Robert "
Hayne, occurred some time before the time
Of notification, and was not suggested by |
any reference to that topic. Hayne was
succeeded in the Senate by Calhoun, who |
was his senior by nine years, and Hayne re- I
signed for that purpose. He had been the /
- Il
OF Congress. At this time one of the grad
yates OF Columbia College, George Nc
Duffie was the typical South Carolinian in |
Congress. Hayne succeeded the Governor
Of the State, Hamilton. in that high office, |
immediately the Notification CouSen.
vention, which met October 90, 1882.
Although in the Senate, away from the
sGsne, MIR. Calhoun was the genius OF that |
convention, and the great maiorities for II |
were cast IN his and the adjacent districts. |
The Edgefield district voted 1857 for p. NJ. |
Butler. 60 GAO for the Uniouist. The Able |
vile district, 1885 10 sol; the New berry |
district, 1857 to 137; while on the coast |
the vote was close. Columbia City elected
Preston by 7ss votes TO $50 for Col. Tay. |
lor.
The following was The perS0nel of the !
convention: B. T. Perry, Geo. MeDuffie, |
John Chestnut, r. j. Manning r. w. Barn |
well, VIM. Harper, Pierce NJ. Butler, James !
Adams, b. Z, Bee, J. McGrath, r. Y. Hay |
ne, c. G. PinckLey, James Anderson, w. !
G. Pinckney, and H. ]. Turnbull
Gov. Hamilton took the chair, escorted /
by r. Y. Hayne, George NIcDuflie and II !
W. Barnwell. Isaac w. Hayne was made /
secretary. the latter tutor Of mathematics |
In the college, as Harper was it's oldest |
alumnus. II is well known what followed. i
TIE tariff recently passed was nullifis :. l
jackson Issued his proclamation against |
the State Gov. Hayne responded in a |
counter proclamation, The pullifers did
not proceed to force. but from that time
forward the Notification party, by the use
OF the state bank, the state college aud all
accessories Of office, encouraged the idea Of |
ultimate aiennfor