nd defended slavery as neither morally nor politically
wrong. His foes generally conceded his honesty, and respected his ability;
while his friends regarded him as little less than an oracle.

In private life Mr. Calhoun was highly esteemed and respected. His home
was at "Fort Hill," in the northwestern district of South Carolina; and
here he spent all the time he could spare from his public duties, in the
enjoyments of domestic life and in cultivating his plantation. In his home
he was remarkable for kindness, cheerfulness, and sociability.
###

To comprehend more fully the force and bearing of public opinion, and to
form a just estimate of the changes to which, aided by the press, it will
probably lead, politically and socially, it will be necessary to consider
it in connection with the causes that have given it an influence so great
as to entitle it to be regarded as a new political element. They will,
upon investigation, be found in the many discoveries and inventions made
in the last few centuries.

All these have led to important results. Through the invention of the
mariner's compass, the globe has been circumnavigated and explored; and
all who inhabit it, with but few exceptions, are brought within the sphere
of an all-pervading commerce, which is daily diffusing over its surface
the light and blessings of civilization.

Through that of the art of printing, the fruits of observation and
reflection, of discoveries and inventions, with all the accumulated stores
of previously acquired knowledge, are preserved and widely diffused. The
application of gunpowder to the art of war has forever settled the long
conflict for ascendency between civilization and barbarism, in favor of
the former, and thereby guaranteed that, whatever knowledge is now
accumulated, or may hereafter be added, shall never again be lost.

The numerous discoveries and inventions, chemical and mechanical, and the
application of steam to machinery, have increased many fold the productive
powers of labor and capital, and have thereby greatly increased the number
who may devote themselves to study and improvement, and the amount of
means necessary for commercial exchanges, especially between the more and
the less advanced and civilized portions of the globe, to the great
advantage of both, but particularly of the latter.

The application of steam to the purposes of travel and transportation, by
land and water, has vastly increased the facility