was
born. The buzz of popular applause may not cheer him on his
way, but he will inevitably arrive at a high and happy
elevation in the view of his country and the world."

Such scenes as this enhance the prestige of a rising man. Members weak
at home envied at once and admired a man who was strong enough to
bring over his constituents to his opinion. He was fortunate, too, in
this, that a triumph so striking occurred just before he left the
House for another sphere of public life. He had what the actors call a
splendid exit.

The inauguration of Mr. Monroe on the 4th of March, 1817, ushered in
the era of good feeling, and gave to Henry Clay the first of his long
series of disappointments. As Secretaries of State had usually
succeeded their chiefs in the Presidency, the appointment of Mr. Adams
to that office by Mr. Monroe was regarded almost in the light of a
nomination to the succession. To add to Mr. Clay's mortification, be
was tendered the post of Secretary of War, which he had declined a
year before, and now again declined. The President next selected
General Jackson, then in the undimmed lustre of his military renown,
and still holding his Major-General's commission. He received,
however, a private notification that General Jackson would not accept
a place in the Cabinet. The President then offered the post to the
aged Governor Isaac Shelby of Kentucky, who had the good sense to
decline it. There appear to have been negotiations with other
individuals, but at length, in October, 1817, the place was offered to
Mr. Calhoun, who, after much hesitation, accepted it, and entered upon
the discharge of its duties in December. His friends, we are told,
unanimously disapproved his going into office, as they believed him
formed to shine in debate rather than in the transaction of business.

Fortune favored him again. Entering the office after a long vacancy,
and when it was filled with the unfinished business of the war,--fifty
million dollars of deferred claims, for one item,--he had the same
easy opportunity for distinction which a steward has who takes charge
of an estate just out of chancery, and under a new proprietor who has
plenty of money. The sweeping up of the dead leaves, the gathering of
the fallen branches, and the weeding out of the paths, changes the
aspect of the place, and gives the passer-by a prodigious idea of the
efficiency of the new broom. The country was alive, too, to the
necessi