The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-02-04
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Letters to The Editor.
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Calhoun's Letters.


 Editor The Advertiser:
 had read that most valuable publica- tion by the Government, the Correspond ence of Calhoun, and the comment Of the Honorable Willis Brewer, in your Sunday edition of February 2nd. inst, became, therefore interesting to me in extreme.
 But I differ entirely with MT. Brewer in some essential views of the letters. He declares no trace of Calhoun's seven years education at Waders famous clas- sical school, Yale College or Litchfieid Law School Is to be found in this volume of his correspondence, because, forsooth. no word of mention is made there of Epaminondas, Phidias. Salhust, Euripides and the others, the naming Of whom i'm plies epistolary taste and sense or duty to an absent wife, young daughter, a distant son, engaged in cotton planting in the Marengo canebrake, and certain politicians of South Caro- lima On the contrary, I found the edu- cated man in the evidences of plain speech, refined affection. direct thought. capacity to begin with the beginning and end with the ending of such letters as Calhoun wrote. I hope, indeed, the young men, and the young women, of Alabama will read, with their own mental percep- ton, this very remarkable volume Of private and strictly personal letters from one of the remarkable men of all ages.
 Mir, Brewer finds the family letters of Calhoun abounding in the fires of an In satiable ambition to be President of the United Stats. l am bound to believe that a healthy mind must see in the letter writer, separated almost continuously from the dome stic life he so craVed, the mere mention to his family, in his flow of familiar written words, an outpouring of his abiding confidence in their interest in himself and their constant affection for him which trustfulness he frankly and artlessly expressed. Every mention of his prospects for the Presidency in these letters of Calhoun Is an outpouring of personal mind to his wife. son or daughter, or in mere reply to close friends in South Carolina, who had introduced the subject Every letter is proof within itself of the simplicity of the faith of the man in the person addressed. He wrote of the Presidency and the Secretaryship of State to his family in the same cam did. open language of confidence. He knew, as all the world knew. that he was a man greater than the office Take, for example, hesSecretaryship of War. which he held, and hear what Gen. w. T. Sher man said of him there: The ablest man who ever held the office"
 The intelligent public need not here be reminded that the historic reason for the transfer of the Presidential succession by General Jackson from Calhoun, his orig inal choice. to Van Buren was because of Calhouns approval of the refusal of Mrs Calhoun to admit Mrs. Eaton to So- ciety in Washington. Nor only did this event rule out Calhoun, but 1t dissolved Jackson's cabinet. to the extent that the wives of cabinet officers followed Mrs. Calhoun's example in regard to Mrs. Eaton. The omissions by the Gov ernment editor in this volume are quite remarkable for example. the famous let ter of Calhoun to William K. King, to be read to King Lewis Philippe on Southern institutions-a most remarkable letter, with equally remarkable effects.
 MT. Brewer is not quite frank when he tells us that Calhoun's letters do not i'm dicate in a single line that he had any religious belief. True. but these letters which Calhoun wrote were written to persons who knew him intimately, and they show that he was man controlled absolutely by the first and great com n, n,andment. and the second that is like unto it. Having studied seven years, in his early life. under a Presbyterian preacher and in New England schools. he may have acquired a habit of avold- ance. Turning to Volume l. Page 6, Cal nouns Works, the interested reader will find this sentence: "To the Infinite Be ing, the CT ,ator of all, belongs exclusive