"My honorable friend from Kentucky (Mr. Clay) has spoken in just terms of his colloquial talents. They certainly were singular and eminent. There was a charm in his conversation not often equaled. He delighted especially in conversation and intercourse with young men. I suppose that there has been no man among us who had more winning manners, in such an intercourse and such conversation, with men comparatively young, than Mr. Calhoun. I believe one great power of his character, in general, was his conversational talent. I believe it is that, as well as a consciousness of his high integrity, and the greatest reverence for his talents and ability, that has made him so endeared an object to the people of the state to which he belonged.

"Mr. President, he had the basis, the indispensable basis, of all high character, and that was unspotted integrity and unimpeached honor. If he had aspirations, they were high, and honorable, and noble. There was nothing groveling, or low, or meanly selfish, that came near the head or the heart of Mr. Calhoun. Firm in his purpose, perfectly patriotic and honest, as I am sure he was, in the principles that he espoused and in the measures that he defended, aside from that large regard for the species of distinction that conducted him to eminent stations for the benefit of the republic, I do not believe he had a selfish motive or selfish feeling. However he may have differed from others of us in his political opinions or his political principles, those principles and those opinions will now descend to posterity under the sanction of a great name. He has lived long enough, he has done enough, and he has done it so well, so successfully, so honorably, as to

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connect himself for all time with the records of his country. He is now an historical character. Those of us who have known him here will find that he has left upon our minds and our hearts a strong and lasting impression of his person, his character, and his public performances, which, while we live, will never be obliterated. We shall hereafter, I am sure, indulge in it as a grateful recollection, that we have lived in his age, that we have been his contemporaries, that we have seen him, and heard him, and known him. We shall delight to speak of him to those who are rising up to fill our places. And when the time shall come that we ourselves must go, one after another, to our graves, we shall carry with us a deep sense of his genius and character, his honor and integrity, his amiable deportment in private life, and the purity of his exalted patriotism."

CHAPTER II.

Early colonial Settlements in North America.-Character of the People very nearly identical. — Similitude of Customs, Language, Religion, Laws, and Mode of Life.-No Conflict of Sentiment then between the Colonists of the North and South in regard to African Slavery.-Testimony of Mr. Greeley on this Point.-Kindly social and commercial Intercourse between the Colonists North and South. Their united Defense of the infant American Settlements against Indian Violence and the hostile French.-Early Suggestion of a confederate Union between all the British Colonies in North America.-Strange Interpretation of a Portion of the Language of the Declaration of Independence. -Mr, Jefferson's important Statement as to the Action of the Confederate Congress in regard to Slavery at the Time the Declaration was adopted.—Mr Webster's important Recital of historic Facts connected with this Subject in his 7th of March Speech.

THOSE who are best acquainted with the early history of our forefathers upon the American Continent will be most inclined to concur in the opinion that, though the various colonial settlements effected by them were made under circumstances which upon a superficial view might be regarded as materially different, and though the course of historic events in these settlements was not uniformly similar, yet that, in regard to all those influences which were to impart a distinctive character to infant communities, there were no such radical diversities as, to a philosophic mind, would have been held worthy, in the least degree, of grave and thoughtful consideration. In all the colonies the same language predominated. In all of them the same religion prevailed, and in most of them the same

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form of that religion. The same literature was in all of them the source of intellectual cultivation and of refinement in manners. In all of them it was necessary to employ the same means of warding off the violence of the savage tribes who encompassed them; of felling and displacing the great trees which overshadowed the surface of the wilderness in which their primeval huts were established, and of reducing the virgin soil to a state fitted for profitable culture. The growth of the various colonies, whether by natural increase or by immigration from abroad, was for many years nearly the same. The social usages and customs which sprang up in the different settlements were, from the operation of similar causes, very nearly identical. Even in their relations with the mother country the same resemblances were apparent; in all of them the imperial power of the British government was, in somewhat varying forms, very distinctly acknowledged, and enforced, also, with a marked uniformity. At different periods while the colonial condition continued, the same collisions with the authority of the parent country occurred, and with substantially similar results. Even in relation to a matter which some assert to have supplied grounds for an essential discrimina tion among the residents of the different colonies-to wit, the introduction of slaves from Africa, it will be found, on examination, that many of those who have most freely written and spoken upon this subject have been guided far more by fanciful conjectures, put in action by an eager desire of sectional ascendency, than by a proper and becoming regard for the deductions of sober historic truth. Without dwelling on a subject the prominent topics con

nected with which have been already thoroughly exhausted by innumerable disputants, most of whom are too furious to be fair, and too much interested to be honest, I shall content myself with quoting a pregnant paragraph from a work of great respectability, which has recently issued from the press, and with the author of which I shall be always glad to agree when I shall be able to do so without disparagement to my own conscientious convictions. Mr. Greeley, in "The American Conflict," expresses himself thus: "The austere morality and democratic spirit of the Puritans ought to have kept their skirts clear from the stain of human bondage. But, beneath all their fierce antagonism, there was a certain kinship between the disciples of Calvin and those of Loyola. Each were ready to suffer and die for God's truth as they understood it, and neither cherished any appreciable sympathy or consideration for those they esteemed God's enemies, in which category the savages of America and the heathen negroes of Africa were so unlucky as to be found. The Puritan pioneers of New England were early involved in desperate life or death struggles with their aboriginal neighbors, in whom they failed to discover those poetic and fascinating traits which irradiate them in the novels of Cooper and the poems of Longfellow. Their experience of Indian ferocity and treachery, acting upon their theologic convictions, led them early and readily to the belief that these savages, and; by logical inference, all savages, were children of the devil, to be subjugated, if not extirpated, as the Philistine inhabitants of Canaan had been by the Israelites under Joshua. Indian slavery, sometimes forbidden by law, but usually tolerated,