Does any man suppose, if Mr. Calhoun had succeeded to the Presidency, that he would have commenced or continued this agitation?  For one, I do not.  The measure of his ambition would have been full:  his fame would have been a chapter in the history of his country—­his talents employed in the administration of the Government, the honor and boast of her people, and her preservation and prosperity the enduring monument of his fame and glory.  But, wronged as he believed, disappointed as he knew, he put forth all his strength, and, Samson-like, pulled down the pillars of her support; and, disunited, crushed, and miserable, she is a melancholy spectacle to the patriot, and in her desolation a monument of disappointed ambition.

That Mr. Calhoun anticipated any such results, I do not believe.  To suppose he desired them, and to the end of his life labored to produce them, would be to suppose him little less than a fiend.  Blinded by his prejudices and the hatred natural toward those who had accomplished his political ruin, he could not calmly and dispassionately weigh the influence of his acts upon the future of his country.

Mr. Crawford was now rapidly declining, his nervous system was completely undermined, and he felt the approach of death calmly and without fear.  Still, he continued to give his attention to business, and was sufficiently strong to go abroad to calls of duty.  In one of these journeys he stopped to spend the night in the house of a friend, and was found dead in his bed in the morning, after a quiet and social evening with his friend and family.

William Holt Crawford was a native of Virginia:  his family were Scotch, and came early to the United States, and have been remarkable for their talents and energy.  Since the Revolution, there has scarcely been a time that some one of the family has not been prominently before the public as a representative man.  Mr. Crawford was an eminent type of his race, sternly honest, of ardent temperament, full of dignity, generous, frank, and brave.  Plain and simple in his habits, disdaining everything like ostentation, or foolish display—­strictly moral, firm in his friendship, and unrelenting in his hatred, his sagacity and sincerity forbade the forming of the one or the other without abundant cause.  He was never known to desert a friend or shrink from a foe.  In form and person he was very imposing; six feet two inches in height; his head was large, forehead high and broad; his eyes were blue and brilliant, and, when excited, very piercing.  His complexion was fair, and, in early life, ruddy; he was, when young, exceedingly temperate in his habits, but as he advanced in years he indulged too freely in the luxuries of the table, and his physicians attributed mainly to this cause his attack of paralysis, which ultimately destroyed him.  His mind had been very much excited during the Presidential canvass; the attacks of his enemies were fierce and merciless, and very irritating