in view of it the culmination of the "irrepressible
conflict" was delayed nearly thirty years. Calhoun himself maintained
that the Compromise Tariff of 1833 was due to the resistance which his
State had made, but he also felt that the Force Bill with which Congress
had backed up the President was a standing menace, and, as usual with
him, he looked forward to impending dangers. The Compromise Tariff,
which reduced duties to twenty per cent in the main, and made provision
for still further reduction, found great opponents in the Senate, and
was regarded by Webster as anything but a protection bill; nor was
Calhoun altogether satisfied with it. It was received with favor by the
country generally, however, and South Carolina repealed her
nullification ordinance.

That subject being disposed of for the present, the attention of
Congress and the country was now turned to the President's war on the
United States Bank. As this most important matter has already been
treated in the lecture on Jackson, I have only to show the course Mr.
Calhoun took in reference to it. He was now fifty-three years old, in
the prime of his life and the full vigor of his powers. In the Senate he
had but two peers, Clay and Webster, and was not in sympathy with either
of them, though not in decided hostility as he was toward Jackson. He
was now neither Whig nor Democrat, but a South Carolinian, having in
view the welfare of the South alone, of whose interests he was the
recognized guardian. It was only when questions arose which did not
directly bear on Southern interests that he was the candid and patriotic
statesman, sometimes voting with one party and sometimes with another.
He was opposed to the removal of deposits from the United States Bank,
and yet was opposed to a renewal of its charter. His leading idea in
reference to the matter was, the necessity of divorcing the government
altogether from the banking system, as a dangerous money-power which
might be perverted to political purposes. In pointing out the dangers,
he spoke with great power and astuteness, for he was always on the
look-out for breakers. He therefore argued against the removal of
deposits as an unwarrantable assumption of power on the part of the
President, which could not be constitutionally exercised; here he
agreed with his great rivals, while he was more moderate than they in
his language. He made war on measures rather than on men personally,
regarding the latter as of te