the whole, beneficent. Keen-sighted, far-sighted, and
inflexible, Mr. Calhoun clearly saw the logical foundations and logical
results of the institution of Slavery; and though at first called an
abstractionist and a fanatic by the looser thinkers of his own region,
his inexorable argumentation, conquering by degrees politicians who
could reason, made itself felt at last among politicians who could not
reason; and the conclusions of his logic were adopted by thousands whose
brains would have broken in the attempt to follow its processes. One of
those rare deductive reasoners whose audacity marches abreast their
genius, he would have been willing to fight to the last gasp for a
conclusion which he had laboriously reached by rigid deduction through
a score of intermediate steps, from premises in themselves repugnant to
the primal instincts both of reason and humanity. Always ready to meet
anybody in argument, he detested all reasoners who attempted to show the
fallacy of his argument by pointing out the dangerous results to which
it led. In this he sometimes brought to mind that inflexible professor
of the deductive method who was timidly informed that his principles, if
carried out, would split the world to pieces. "Let it split," was his
careless answer; "there are enough more planets." By pure intellectual
grit, he thus effected a revolution in the ideas and sentiments of the
South, and through the South made his mind act on the policy of the
nation. The present war has its root in the principles he advocated.
Never flinching from any logical consequence of his principles, Mr.
Calhoun did not rest until through him religion, morality,
statesmanship, the Constitution of the United States, the constitution
of man, were all bound in black. Chattel slavery, the most nonsensical
as well as detestable of oppressions, was, to him, the most beneficent
contrivance of human wisdom. He called it an institution: Mr. Emerson
has more happily styled it a destitution. At last the chains of his iron
logic were heard clanking on the whole Southern intellect. Reasoning the
most masterly was employed to annihilate the first principles of reason;
the understanding of man was insanely placed in direct antagonism to his
moral instincts; and finally the astounding conclusion was reached, that
the Creator of mankind has his pet races,--that God himself scouts his
colored children, and nicknames them "Niggers."

It is delicious to watch the exul