had brooded over a single subject, and how it had subjugated all history and all law to its single purpose.  But we cannot follow Mr. Calhoun through the tortuous mazes of his second essay; nor, if we could, should we be able to draw readers after us.  We can only say this:  Let it be granted that there are two ways in which the Constitution can be fairly interpreted;—­one, the Websterian method; the other, that of Mr. Calhoun.  On one of these interpretations the Constitution will work, and on the other it will not.  We prefer the interpretation that is practicable, and leave the other party to the enjoyment of their argument.  Nations cannot be governed upon principles so recondite and refined, that not one citizen in a hundred will so much as follow a mere statement of them.  The fundamental law must be as plain as the ten commandments,—­as plain as the four celebrated propositions in which Mr. Webster put the substance of his speeches in reply to Mr. Calhoun’s ingenious defence of his conduct in 1833.

The author concludes his essay by a prophetic glance at the future.  He remarks, that with regard to the future of the United States, as then governed, only one thing could be predicted with absolute certainty, and that was, that the Republic could not last.  It might lapse into a monarchy, or it might be dismembered,—­no man could say which; but that one of these things would happen was entirely certain.  The rotation-in-office system, as introduced by General Jackson, and sanctioned by his subservient Congress, had rendered the Presidential office a prize so tempting, in which so large a number of men had an interest, that the contest would gradually cease to be elective, and would finally lose the elective form. The incumbent would appoint his successor; and “thus the absolute form of a popular, would end in the absolute form of a monarchical government,” and there would be no possibility of even rendering the monarchy limited or constitutional.  Mr. Calhoun does not mention here the name of General Jackson or of Martin Van Buren, but American readers know very well what he was thinking of when he wrote the passage.

Disunion, according to Mr. Calhoun, was another of our perils.  In view of recent events, our readers may be interested in reading his remarks on this subject, written in 1849, among the last words he ever deliberately put upon paper:—­

“The conditions impelling the government toward disunion are very powerful.  They consist chiefly of two;—­the one arising from the great extent of the country; the other, from its division into separate States, having local institutions and interests.  The former, under the operation of the numerical majority, has necessarily given to the two great parties, in their contest for the honors and emoluments of the government, a geographical character, for reasons which have been fully stated.  This contest must finally settle down into a struggle