The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1909-09-02
I}y

his reasoning faculty was thus Gull
tivated. When later his class at
Yale was called on to discuss orally
a proposition presented by the presi-
dent, as Calhoun closed his deliver
ance the president exclaimed: 'That
young man has talent enough to carry
him into the Presidency of the Uni
ted States" Calhoun was i'll when
the examination of students for
graduation was held and did not
graduate. A man who became an
old-field school teacher took first
honor.
Mr. Calhoun was Secretary of War
when Congress set aside several Sec
lions of public lands in the western
part of Alabama to be sold at low
price to the exiled Bonapartists, who
had then landed at Philadelphia.
They we're several hundred, among
them Marshal Grouchy, General Da
vide, Col. Raoul and others.
The lands were of exceptional fer
tility. In his official capacity, Mr..
Calhoun became aware of this fact
and remembered it. So when this ell
dest son, Andrew Pickens, married
a daughter of General Duff Green
and expressed a desire to become
cotton planter, about the year 1885,
the father recommended the Ala
bama lands to him. An investment
in several thousand acres was made.
Andrew Calhoun brought his young
wife from Washington City to live
on it. He built a double log cabin
for her, furnished it handsomely, and
lived there like prince. Many
slaves from the Fort Hill" farm
were brought to the Alabama cotton
plantation.
[ have already wearied you, but I
will venture a little more. Mr.. CAL
houn came to the Marengo County,
Alabama, plantation twice; once in
1914 and next in 1896 when on his
way via the Western rivers, to pre-
side over the Memphis convention, to
agitate the question of government
improvement Of rivers and aid to
railroads. In his speech at Memphis
he advocated aid to a railroad to con-
meet Memphis with Charleston, S. c..
He said the road must pass by
little place place in Georgia called
Marthasville, and that city of great
importance would rise up there-noW
Atlanta!
The rich pioneer young planters of
Marengo county received the states
man with open arms. For many
years his dinner talk was repeated
The lands there are rolling, wooded
prairie, then covered with dense cane
growth. There were no creeks, no
springs, no wells. Cisterns must be
eXcavated from the underlying soft
limestone rocks. At dinner, a large
company present, Mr.. Calhoun re-
marked, "YOu gentlemen have the
best watered farming country in
America" How so?" The reply
came, ''Your supply may be equal to
the demand, and the location is en-
tirely at your discretion; you may
have cisterns of any desired capacity,
at all convenient Places 1t was a
plain case, the country was we'll
"watered," but news had long before
gone abroad that the Bonapartists
had abandoned their allotments, in
part, because there was no water.
Mr.. Calhoun's foresight relating to
the rule of the majority sections of
the Union, if accomplished, was early
developed, and was so marvelously
accurate that I must trespass on your
time to give two examples. CLOSING
speech in opposition to the pending
Force Bill" in the Senate. The bill
of March,, 1892, which gave Presi-
dent Jackson arbitrary power to sci
aside the civil government of South
I